by Virlyce
“Then why did you request for materials that suspiciously seem like sacrificial tools!?” Erin asked, eyes bulging. “The holy dragons are going to hunt you down! There won’t be anything left of you once they catch you.”
“Didn’t I already tell you it was a joke?” Lindyss asked, raising an eyebrow. “Goat’s blood, manacles, and a brush can be used for many different purposes other than human sacrifice. Jeez.”
“And the sacrificial knife made out of a virgin cow’s skull?” Erin asked.
“That’s for stabbing nosy fairies,” Lindyss said with a smile. The ground bulged before Erin could respond. A cup of hot water shot out of the floor, landing on the table. A jar of blood, a larger than average brush, and a yellowing knife followed moments after. Lindyss grabbed the items and shoved them into her pocket, causing them to disappear without a trace. “And the manacles?”
“E didn’t have any,” the earth elemental said. “I have to go to the dungeons, but the library’s on the way, so I dropped those off first.”
“Wait. He had a knife made of a virgin cow’s skull, but he didn’t have manacles?” Erin asked. But the earth elemental had already left before she finished her question.
Lindyss shrugged. “Sometimes, things are just the way things are,” she said. “He had a knife, but he didn’t have manacles. That’s just how things are.”
“There’s definitely something wrong with your head,” Erin muttered. “That’s just how it is.”
Lindyss ignored her, staring at the protrusion in the ground that the earth elemental had left behind. “Maybe I should replace my skeletons with earth elementals. They’re just as efficient and obedient, but they have less sass.” She rubbed her chin before shaking her head. She had a feeling another weird religion would appear if she used the earth elementals in the same way she used her skeletons. “Ah, forget it—skeletons are great. I can trust them to watch over the kingdom while I’m on vacation.”
“Skeletons…?” Erin asked.
“A joke,” Lindyss said and waved her hand. “Don’t worry too much about it.”
“If you keep joking around like this, I’ll never be able to figure out when you’re being serious,” Erin said while pouting.
“I see no issue with that,” Lindyss said. “And why are you still here? You complain so much, but you stick to me like glue. Don’t you have better things to do like, say, not bothering me? That’s an excellent suggestion given by yours truly; you should put it on the top of your to-do list.”
Erin shook her fist at Lindyss. “Why are you so grumpy and unpleasant all the time?” she asked. “I bet this is why you haven’t gotten married yet despite being so ancient. What’s so bad about a fairy trying to make friends, huh?”
“I’m pretty sure you know my stance on fairies,” Lindyss said. “Do I have to try to kill you again to make you leave me alone? Or is that it? Everyone’s terrified of you, and no one except for me had ever tried to kill you, so you started seeing me as an equal.”
Erin pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest.
Lindyss blinked as her mouth fell open. “Wait, you’re not serious,” she said. “That’s really it!?”
Erin snorted. “So what if it is, huh!? You got a problem with that?”
“Yes, I have a problem with fairies in general,” Lindyss said with a nod. “So what do I have to do to make you leave me alone? Give you hugs and kisses and bake cute cookies?”
Erin rolled her eyes. “Or you can just give up and accept—”
A loud voice echoed through the whole library, drowning out Erin’s words. “Auntie! Are you here?”
“Don’t shout in a library,” Lindyss said. A few moments later, Vur appeared from behind a bookshelf. “Welcome back. Did you get what I asked for?”
Vur nodded and handed Lindyss a bag filled with phoenix feathers. “But why do you need them? If you want to revive someone, I can do it for you.”
“Your resurrection skill has limitations; you shouldn’t always depend on it,” Lindyss said. “And I’m not planning on bringing anyone back. These can help me absorb souls if Grimmy decides to stick some more in me.”
Vur tilted his head. “Oh. Makes sense.”
Erin’s gaze shifted from Vur to Lindyss. “That was a joke, right? You don’t actually absorb souls, yeah?”
“Yeah, sure, just a joke,” Lindyss said in the same tone as before. She shoved the bag into her pocket, causing it to disappear, before nodding at Vur. “Now about your mana regeneration problem, I found a few feasible solutions. The first method will be extremely easy for you, but it’ll have to wait until you go back to our continent: Drink tea made out of fairy birthflower leaves.” She held up a finger before Vur could speak. “I’ve seen your garden; there’s plenty of fallen leaves on the ground already. You don’t have to worry about harming any of the flowers.”
“You really had a method to make tea out of fairy birthflowers!?” Erin shouted.
Stella crawled out of Vur’s chest and hovered in the air while staring at Lindyss with a blank expression. She turned around and frowned at Vur while furrowing her brow. “I don’t like it,” she said before shaking her head. She clutched her shoulders and bit her lower lip. “It makes me feel … bad.”
“Well, that’s not a surprise considering what the demons did to your children’s birthflowers,” Lindyss said. “But there’s a difference between gathering fallen leaves and harvesting flowers.”
“The demons did what?” Stella asked, tilting her head to the side.
Lindyss coughed. “Nothing,” she said while averting her gaze. “Anyway, moving on to method number two. You’ve already gained as much as you could from the fountain of youth, but there’s an animal indigenous to this continent which may change that. If you mix its feathers with the fountain’s water and a few other materials, it’ll create a special tonic that you can drink.”
“Huh? How come I never heard about that?” a feminine voice asked. A naked woman with silver hair and green eyes appeared behind Vur, carrying a stack of books which was taller than her. “Which bird is it?”
Lindyss stared at the naked woman, who dropped the books onto the table and sat next to Vur. Lindyss blinked twice and rubbed her eyes. The woman was still there when she looked up. Lindyss glared at Vur. “Who is this?”
“It’s Lulu,” Lulu said. “The holy dragon? Hello? We went on a road trip with each other for two weeks, remember?”
“Tafel’s going to throw a fit,” Lindyss said as she leaned back in her seat and pinched the bridge of her nose with her right hand. “Alright, you polymorphed into a human; I get that—the library’s too small for a dragon.” She raised her head and glared at Lulu. “But why are you naked?”
“Dragons don’t wear clothes,” Lulu said with a snort. “Why are you worrying about such trivial details? What was that about the indigenous bird? I’m curious. There aren’t many things that can increase mana regeneration permanently—I can’t believe I missed one.”
“The birds are called penguins,” Lindyss said. “I believe they’re found close to your home in the north.”
“The penguins?” Lulu asked, her eyes widening. “They’re actually useful for something!?”
Lindyss nodded. “There was a small passage about them in one of the dwarven books. Maybe the dwarves brought over some of the Fountain of Youth’s water when they left the central continent. I imagine there wasn’t too much information about it because the Fountain of Youth is far, far away from here.”
“Pardon me,” Diamant said before Lulu could say anything. “I don’t mean to eavesdrop, but I’m attached to Vur’s body and can’t help it. But did you say Vur came into contact with the Fountain of Youth and absorbed everything he could from it?”
“Up to the point where it won’t affect his mana regeneration or mana pool size, yes,” Lindyss said with a nod. “He’ll still be able to prevent his aging.”
The brown runes on Vur’s arm flashed as Diamant
sighed. “I was swindled. When I made that contract with you, I was under the impression you’d die within a hundred years,” he said as a rock with eyes fell out of Vur’s arm. It stared at him with a jagged frown on its surface. “Now you’re telling me you’re going to live forever?”
Vur blinked. “Doesn’t everyone live forever?” he asked and tilted his head. “Unless they’re killed, but even then, they can still be revived.”
“No,” Diamant said. “You can’t revive someone who dies of old age.”
“I didn’t know people could die of old age,” Vur said and looked at Lindyss. “Is that true? It can’t be, right? If nothing kills them, how do they die?”
“You’ve read tons of books,” Lindyss said and raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never read about someone dying of old age?”
“But those are stories,” Vur said. “Stories aren’t true.”
“What kind of sheltered bubble have you lived in that you can’t believe people die of old age?” Diamant asked.
Vur looked at Lindyss. “Will you die of old age?”
Lindyss snorted. “Hell no. I’m better than that.”
Vur looked at Lulu. “Will you die of old age?”
Lulu laughed. “Someone somewhere might’ve told you there are no stupid questions. Well, they lied. Asking a dragon if they’ll die of old age is the definition of stupid question.”
“Right?” Vur asked and nodded. “I knew it.” He glared at Diamant and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you going to die of old age?”
“I’m going to die of frustration,” Diamant said, his body darkening as his eye twitched. “No, elementals do not die of old age, but humans do. Even imprinted humans do. It’s natural to assume you would as well, which is why I formed a contract with you without a struggle. If I knew you were going to live forever, I would’ve chosen to die and reincarnate a hundred years later as a pebble. But now, I can’t even do that anymore. Even if I come back as a pebble, you’ll still be my contractor.”
“And that’s why you don’t make any assumptions about people,” Lindyss said with a smile. “It sounds like you’ve learned a valuable, lifelong lesson.”
“Is that what someone who assumes all fairies are evil should say?” Erin asked with a pout.
“That’s not an assumption,” Lindyss said. “It’s an objective fact. All fairies are evil. Their purpose in life is literally to annoy people. Tell me, how would the world change if fairies didn’t exist? It’d be a better place, that’s how.” She nodded. “Thus, I can conclude all fairies are evil.”
Stella wrinkled her nose. “I’m not evil!”
“Yeah, you just tried to destroy the world,” Lindyss said and rolled her eyes. “That’s not evil at all.”
“I did?” Stella asked Vur.
Vur shrugged. “Like I said, stuff happens.”
Stella lowered and scratched her head. “Oh.”
Vur nodded at the fairy before turning his gaze onto Lindyss. “Are there any more methods?”
“Yeah, I saved the easiest for last,” Lindyss said. “Absorb some human souls.”
“You said that was a joke!” Erin shouted.
Lindyss ignored the fairy’s outburst. “I bet you’d be able to solve your mana regeneration issue completely if you absorbed that golden god which ran away somewhere.”
Vur frowned. “But aren’t those the souls of good people? That’d be wrong.”
Lindyss shrugged. “You can always find its counterpart,” she said. “There should be a wriggling mass of impure souls running around since its seal was broken a while ago.”
***
Abel frowned as he gnawed on a piece of dried fish meat. Beside him, sitting on a floating bloated leviathan corpse, the other four members of the Fangs of Capitis were chewing on food as well, their expressions equally grim. “How long have we been floating around for?” Abel asked as he spat a bone into his hand before tossing it into the ocean. “You still haven’t made contact with Mistle?”
One of the Fangs, Charlotte, shook her head. “You know how fickle she is. That’s why I chose white mage as a subclass.”
“We’ve been drifting in the ocean for a month, maybe two,” one of the Fangs said. There was a leather whip wrapped around his armored waist, but instead of being brown like it was during the match against Tafel and Alice, it had been bleached white by the sun. “Thank the holy dragons we were teleported with our armor. Can you imagine how burnt we would be if we weren’t?”
“Always looking on the bright side of things, aren’t you?” Abel asked, raising an eyebrow. He finished up the piece of meat in his hand before putting on his helmet. His armored head faced Charlotte. “What’s the point of contracting with an elemental if she doesn’t even appear for months at a time?”
“Hey,” Charlotte said with a frown. She finished her food as well, donning her helmet in a similar manner as Abel. “She’s an ocean elemental—the strongest water elemental out there. There’s no way she would’ve made a contract with me if I had her chained to my side. Elementals have more pride than that.”
“Isn’t that just dandy?” Abel snorted. “Look at where we are—the middle of the ocean! How are we supposed to find our way back to land without your elemental’s help? We might be drifting towards the abandoned northern continent for all we know. Goddam useless elementalist, what good are you?”
“Yelling at me won’t help,” Charlotte said, turning her head away. The other members of the Fangs averted their gazes as well. A second later, she raised her hand and pointed. “Hey, am I hallucinating or does that thing actually exist?”
Abel’s gaze followed her finger, landing on a black dot on the horizon. “Something’s there,” he said and stood up, walking to the edge of the leviathan corpse. “A raft? It looks like there’s two people on it.”
“More drifters?” the Fang with a rifle in his lap asked. “Great. We can be lost together.”
“How do you know they’re lost?” the Fang with two axes strapped to his back asked.
The Fang with the rifle shrugged. “Look at them,” he said. “Oh, right. Your eyesight’s not as good as mine. Well, they have no oars, no sail, nothing except for the poorly lashed together logs underneath their bodies. One of them looks dead, and the other looks like a dark elemental. I’ve never seen such a humanoid elemental before.”
Charlotte brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs while chanting under her breath. Abel drew his sword while the other Fangs readied their weapons as well. The leviathan corpse and the raft drifted closer and closer until they were within shouting distance.
The figure that was mistaken for a dark elemental nudged the corpselike figure lying on the raft. “Gale! Gale! Wake up!”
“I’m awake, Breeze,” Gale said as he opened his eyes. They were sunken, and hints of yellow tainted the whites of his eyes. His skin was tanned, dried, and cracked while the hair on his head and face had become brittle and pale. His bones were clearly outlined against his skin like a mummy. He tried to wet his lips with his tongue as he sat up, but nothing happened. “Water?”
Breeze shook his head. “It hasn’t rained in a while. There’s no fresh water,” he said and pointed at the leviathan. “But look at that! It’s dead, but it’s floating! Even the fish in the ocean are turning into zombies. Is there anywhere we can go?”
“Are those … people?” Gale asked and shielded his eyes with his hand. His movements were slow as if he were being controlled by a novice puppeteer. “They’re all armored.”
Breeze sucked in his breath. “Living armor,” he said. “The tier of undead are a lot worse than I thought. If even living armors are crossing the ocean…”
“Hey!” Abel shouted and waved his arms. “Hey! Are you lost?”
“Can living armors speak?” Gale asked. His lower lip cracked, and a bead of blood oozed out. He grimaced and wiped it away with the back of his hand. “They might be people. Real, live people.”
“We’re loster than the lostest blind quadriplegic tasked with wandering through a maze that has no exit,” Breeze shouted while cupping his hands over his mouth. He turned towards Gale. “Living armors only understand real words. If you make some up, they won’t be able to respond.”
“You’re very creative with your words,” Abel shouted back. “Do you know the general direction of land?”
Breeze glared at Abel. The raft and the leviathan had drifted within speaking distance of each other. “If I knew, would I be out here? You’re not a living armor?”
Abel removed his helmet. “I’m a human, you dingus,” he said. “If you’re lost, then scram. Your contractor looks like he’s going to die if a strong wind hits him.”
“You don’t want to invite them on board?” Charlotte asked. “That man looks like he won’t survive for another day without help.”
“He already looks dead,” the axe-wielding Fang said before putting his weapons away. “We have plenty of meat and blood. Good karma should always be sown if possible.”
“Are you kidding me?” Abel asked, his face contorting into a snarl. “What if we run out of food and drink because of him? We have no idea when we’ll reach land. We don’t know if we’ll catch another shark to eat. There’s no need to pick up extra baggage.”
Gale sighed and lay down, staring up at the blue sky. “It seems like they’re lost too, Breeze.”
“The undead apocalypse really did a number on people, huh?” Breeze asked and clicked his tongue. “I can tell they’re pretty strong, but even they had to flee from land. But at least we know there are survivors now.” His voice lowered. “Should I possess one of them?”
“I think they’ve turned slightly insane from drifting for too long,” the Fang with the rifle said. “Hell, I think I’m going insane as well.”
“Guys!” Charlotte shouted. “Mistle’s here! We’re finally saved!”
A blob of water rose up from the ocean, taking the shape of a featureless fish. The fish floated in the air and swiveled around, inspecting its surroundings. “You’re in a real doozy of a situation, aren’t you?” it asked in a melodic voice. “How did you manage something like this?”
