Wiedergeburt

by Brandon Varnell

  The first thing we put on was her blouse. It was a brown and white leather dress that stopped halfway up the thighs, featuring no sleeves and a high neckline. Kari slipped on her leather sleeves after that. Then I began putting on her armor. I helped her slide on the breastplate and cinched the leather straps until it fit snugly against her chest, then attached the shoulder pauldrons, which were fitted together with elbow caps and gauntlets.

  “This mythril stuff sure is something,” Kari said as I bade her to sit down on the bed. “That Dweorg craftsman said it’s studier than steel, but it feels even lighter than leather.”

  “It’s certainly impressive.” I grabbed one of her socks. “Left leg please.” Kari lifted her left leg, baring her foot to me. She wiggled her toes and grinned. I normally would have taken the invitation and sucked on her toes, but instead, I began sliding the sock up her foot as I continued talking. “I remember seeing the craftsmen who made my armor slam a war axe into it as hard as he could. His attack didn’t leave so much as a single crack or dent.”

  Kari released an envious sigh as I slid her boot over her now sock-clad foot and leg, and then proceeded to do the same to her other foot. “They really are amazing craftsmen. Even my weapon seems a thousand times stronger than it was before they reforged it.”

  “And they made me a weapon as well.” After both boots were on her feet, I grabbed the suspenders attached to the socks and hooked them to a garter around her hips, hidden by the blouse. “I’m pretty satisfied with the weapon too. How does this feel?”

  “Good,” Kari said as she stood up and moved her legs. The garters did not move much and kept her socks from falling. “It feels snug, but it’s not tight enough to be uncomfortable. Thanks, Eryk.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  With Kari and I both outfitted, I walked over to where my weapon was leaning against the wall. It was a large ruler that was a little taller than me, about thirty centimeters wide, and had a massive guard that was designed into the shape of a dragon’s mouth with the ruler blade extending from the mouth. The handle was a large cylinder with a spiked pommel. However, this was no ordinary weapon. Not only was the guard covered in runes, but the ruler also had eleven segments running along the blade, which gave it the aesthetic of a segmented dragon’s tail.

  I wrapped my fingers around the hilt and lifted it. Despite looking like it weighed several hundred kilos, it only weighed about the same as a standard broadsword, or maybe a claymore. That was because it was made from mythril.

  “This mythril is really light.” I gave the blade a few practice swings, listening to the whooshing sound as the ruler cut through the air with ease. “I only need one hand to swing it as easily as I would a broadsword.”

  “I’m told mythril is the lightest but most durable metal in all nine realms,” Kari informed me. “It’s supposedly even stronger than adamantite.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Hefting the blade over my shoulder, I turned to look at Kari as she gripped her newly reforged ranseur. Having seen her weapon millions of times, I could see the differences in the design. For starters, the tri-tip had been removed. Now one end featured two blades that appeared like horns. The other end, meanwhile, featured a jagged blade that looked almost like the tail of a dragon. The entire weapon was a little taller than I was, but from the way she twirled the weapon around with one hand, it didn’t appear much heavier than it had originally been.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  “Of course.” Kari smiled at me.

  We stepped out of our room together and met up with Erica and Tungsten. Like us, their weapons and armor had been reforged. The gleaming armor had a polished shine that it hadn’t previously possessed. However, unlike mine and Kari’s armor, which had originally been made of leather, theirs looked about the same. Their weapons, likewise, weren’t much different from before save the runes etched along the surface.

  It was hard to tell steel from mythril. The difference was not in their appearance, but in their strength. Mythril was the strongest known metal in existence, supposedly. I’d seen a mythril sword cut through steel armor as though it was made of parchment, so I was pretty sure the boasting of the metal wasn’t just simple bragging.

  “You two look sharp,” Erica said, a gleam in her eyes as she looked us up and down. I could see the approval reflected on her face. “You two looked like a pair of well-equipped explorers before. Now you look like experienced warriors.”

  “Well, we are still part of the Explorers Guild,” Kari said.

  “That’s right.” Erica placed her free hand against her mouth and giggled. “You two have been working with us for so long, I nearly forgot you two weren’t members of our guilds.”

  “That’s enough joking around,” Tungsten grunted. “Let’s go. Hreidmar is expecting us.”

  While Tungsten turned around and began walking, the three of us shared a quick smile before catching up. We made our way to the entrance. There, we found the entire community of Dweorgs standing around in the entrance hall, literally packed together so tightly the four of us had trouble squeezing through to the front.

  Hreidmar stood near the gate. His armor was the same gleaming gold as last time. It had seemed ceremonial to me at first, but I knew better now. Armor made by a Dweorg was beautiful enough to be ceremonial, certainly, but it was always made with battle in mind.

  “Our realm is doomed,” Hreidmar announced to his people. “Ever since the Sekbeist invaded our realm and ran our resources dry, it has been slowly dyin’. It’s only a matter of time now before it becomes inhospitable.”

  His words caused his fellow Dweorgs to mumble. I could sense the unease in their words, even if I couldn’t necessarily hear exactly what they were saying as they whispered to each other.

  “However!” thundered Hreidmar, silencing everyone. “Just because our realm is doomed doesn’t mean we have te be doomed with it. If this realm cannot let us live in it any longer, then it means we just need te find a new realm. Fortunately, four humans have come te us. They have agreed te help us travel to Miðgarðr, the realm of the humans. There, we will set down once again. There, our people will thrive once more!”

  He slammed his battle axe against the hard stone floor, the loud bang echoing all around us, reaching even the deepest parts of the entrance hall.

  “I’ll not force those who do not wish te come te follow me,” Hreidmar continued. “Those who do not wish te journey with me te Miðgarðr may remain here, but I hope all of ye will follow me. I’ve no desire te let my people die an inglorious death.” He paused, slammed the butt of his battle-axe against the ground again, and shouted, “Will ye follow me?!”

  His words were a tad crude, but they were inspiring nonetheless. A wellspring of emotions surged from the Dweorgs surrounding me. I could see it in their eyes, feel it in the shaking of their limbs, and hear it in their excited breathing. None of them planned on remaining behind, and they all made their intentions known with a single, resounding word.

  “AYE!!”

  “Then let us march!” Hreidmar shouted in response as he raised his battle-axe above his head. “Today! We will head te Hovebrann, deal a punishing blow te those damn Sekbeists, and then find a new home!”

  As the Dweorgs cheered, the gates that kept the city sealed from the outside world slowly opened with a creaking of gears. When this happened, everyone began to march outside. Myself, Kari, Erica, and Tungsten moved with everyone else. Today was the day the Dweorgs began to move, and it was also the first day to mark our last days in this world.

  We were finally heading home.

  There were a lot of shops that dealt with supplies needed for camping and survival outdoors. Some stores specialized in sleeping bags, while others sold tents and packs to carry supplies. Since carpenters and crafters often specialized in making only one or two items at most, it meant that to buy everything we needed, it was necessary to travel through a lot of stores.

  “I was thinking we should us
e a tent for this expedition,” Kari was saying as the four of us—myself, Kari, Fay, and Lin—stood in a shop that sold tents. “It’s supposed to be a ten or twelve-day journey, and we will be traveling alongside a lot of strangers, so having a tent for privacy is a must.”

  “I agree,” Fay added. “Not only are we going to be traveling alongside strangers, but quite a few of them will be men. Not only will I feel safer sleeping in a tent, but it will be more comfortable to have a tent that we can use to change clothes in.”

  “Is changing clothes in front of other people that big of a deal?” asked Lin, who despite now wearing clothes still didn’t seem to understand their importance.

  “Would you appreciate it if a man other than Eryk ogled you with impure intentions?” asked Kari.

  Lin tilted her head as she pondered that question, then glanced in my direction, her golden eyes shining with a mysterious light. She turned back to Kari and shook her head. “No, this princess would not appreciate another man staring at her like that.”

  “And that is why we need a tent to change in,” Kari said as she crossed her arms.

  “Oh! This princess gets it now!”

  I left the girls to their conversation as I looked at the tents this shop offered. Most of them were on the small side. I mean, I was sure they could fit two or three people inside normally, maybe even four if we all squeezed together, but they couldn’t accommodate for a Lamia. Most of the tents used a circular shape, which was easier to maintain, but there were also a few shaped like triangles and rectangles.

  When we had accepted Catalyna’s offer to join her on this expedition, I never imagined we’d be shopping for supplies again. Granted, I would have needed a new sleeping bag anyway since I lost mine during our last expedition. I suppose it just didn’t occur to me that we’d need a tent for privacy. I guess that was my bad for not thinking of such things.

  “What do you think, Eryk?” asked Fay.

  I turned to the girls. “Excuse me?”

  “What kind of tent should we get?” Fay asked again, crossing her arms and frowning at me. “Are you even paying attention to our conversation?”

  “I was, but I got lost in thought,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my head.

  “I guess even Eryk has some male moments,” Kari said with a giggle.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” I frowned at her.

  Placing her hands behind her back as she leaned over, Kari offered me a silly grin. “Nothing.”

  “Anyway.” I sighed as I began tugging on the bangs of my green hair. “I’m not sure the type of tent matters so long as it’s large enough to accommodate all four of us. That means it has to be big enough for three humans and a Lamia.”

  At this, everyone looked at Lin, or more specifically, her snake lower half. Lin, in turn, looked at her snake tail as well. After staring at her tail, which thumped against the floor as if it had a mind of its own, she turned to us, crossed her arms, and huffed.

  “It is not this princess’s fault if they do not have a tent large enough to accommodate her,” she exclaimed.

  Her words caused the three of us to laugh.

  We eventually hailed down the shop clerk, who I guessed was the daughter of the owner, and asked her which among these would adequately fit three humans and a Lamia. The young girl, a teenager of maybe fourteen or fifteen years, frowned as she looked at Lin for several long seconds, biting her thumb before her eyes lit up.

  “I think I have just the thing,” she said.

  The tent she showed us was certainly large, but it also seemed a tad impractical. It was a four-square-meter tent with a six-person capacity, shaped like a pentagon instead of a circle, square, or triangle, and was built using a combination of rope and segmented steel pipes that could be taken apart into multiple pieces to make it easier to carry while traveling. Made from the hide of a C-Rank Water Serpent, the tent was light blue in color and waterproof, which would be good if it rained, but…

  “It looks a little heavy,” I said.

  “It’s perfect,” Kari, Fay, and Lin exclaimed.

  “You three aren’t the ones who are going to be carrying it,” I told them in a voice so dry the Endless Desert would have been proud. However, when all they did was look at me with those sparkling eyes, I sighed and turned to the amused young girl. “How much is this tent?”

  “It’s 13,600 valis, sir,” she said with a smile.

  I didn’t have any issue with the price. She could have told me it was 56,000 and I still would have bought it. To be perfectly honest, I had too much money and no idea what to do with it right now. All my alchemy ingredients were given to me for free courtesy of the Alchemist Association, I didn’t have to pay the monthly rent on my house (though I did have to pay the Eieran Family a monthly fee because they owned the land my house was built on), and it didn’t cost more than about 600 valis to maintain my daily living expenses. I think I currently had something like 1,245,653 valis worth of jewels in my new vault.

  As an aside, about 400 of those 600 valis went toward satisfying Lin’s stomach.

  After I gave her the necessary valis, the girl smiled and called for her father, a slender man who didn’t look like much. A stiff breeze could have probably knocked him over. Even so, his clothes were well-maintained and brand new. He must have been a well-off craftsman.

  She gestured toward us, and then toward the tent. “These customers would like one of your pentagon tents.”

  “That so? I’m guessing they already paid.” When she confirmed that we had, he turned toward us, spent a second looking at Lin, and then blinked when he saw Kari. “Princess Kari.” He bowed at the waist. “I had not realized you were here. My apologies for not being more attentive.”

  “Ack! Wait. That’s Princess Kari?!” the girl exclaimed in shock before hurriedly bowing as well.

  “Oh, no. Please. There’s really no need to stand on ceremony with me.” Kari quickly tried to settle the pair down, but she needed to maintain her princess’s dignified bearing now that she had been outed. “I am merely here as a customer. You see, the four of us are in need of a tent for our next expedition, and I have heard good things about the ones sold at this shop. Just treat us as you would any other customer.”

  “I understand.” The man and his daughter straightened from their bow, though both still looked nervous. “Please wait here a moment while I grab your tent.”

  It took longer than I would have expected to get the tent, but when I saw how the man came out from the backroom, struggling to carry the two oblong bags the tent had been packed into, I realized it probably weighed upwards of fifty-four kilograms. I took the bags from him before he could hurt himself. Yup. It weighed about the same as my Dragon’s Tail Ruler. As I relieved the man of his burden, he thanked me and bowed to Kari again as he saw us out.

  “Everyone really treats you so differently,” I said with a sigh. “Even though you never go out of your way to announce yourself, they still begin walking on eggshells the moment they realize who you are.”

  “I know.” Kari closed her eyes as a bitter smile crossed her face. “I have grown used to it, but I can’t say I enjoy being treated like I am special just because of who my mother is.”

  “The troubles of living in the shadow of someone much larger than yourself does sound difficult,” Fay mumbled. “I am sorry for not being around to help you when we were younger.”

  “Don’t you start on that, please.” Kari bopped Fay on the head. “We’re friends again. That’s what matters.”

  Fay’s eyes softened. “Yes.”

  “This princess doesn’t really understand why you dislike being treated like you’re special, Big Sister.” As the Lamia admitted this, she scratched the back of her head. “Is it not natural for those whose status is lower than yourself to treat you as someone whose existence is peerless?”

  “Maybe, but I would rather people treat me like a normal girl,” Kari admitted.

  “Hmph.”

&nb
sp; Our shopping continued for several more hours. By the time the sun had begun to set, we had bought a large roll-up futon, which should theoretically be big enough for the four of us. I didn’t know what they were thinking when they bought the thing, but I wasn’t in charge of the shopping. My role in all this was carrying the supplies we bought. We also bought a bag that was large enough to fit the tent inside, and it had extra straps at the bottom to hold the futon. Naturally, this was all stuff I would be carrying when we journeyed into the Demon Beast Mountain Range alongside Catalyna and the others.

  With our shopping done, all four of us headed toward the Imperial Royal Palace, where we were staying at the behest of Kari and Empress Hilda.

  It took almost two hours just to reach the front gate. Because of Lin’s extra size and weight, we couldn’t take a carriage. Kari had spent the majority of her time teasing Lin about it. I could tell she enjoyed treating Lin like her younger sister.

  “You really do weigh a lot, huh?”

  “It’s not this princess’s fault! Her tail is six meters long!”

  “I think we’re going to need a custom wagon from now on if we want to travel through Nevaria. Something that can hold several tons should work nicely.”

  “Stop talking like this princess is at fault!”

  “Hee hee. Sorry. You know I’m just teasing you.”

  Kari began rubbing Lin’s head, which made the dark-skinned beauty lean into her. I wouldn’t say they looked like siblings. Their appearance was way too different for that. But they did seem to get along very well.

  Someone was waiting for us when we arrived at the front door. The old man with a handlebar mustache and a widow’s peak with refined, swept-back gray hair bowed before us and opened the door.

  “It is good to see that the four of you have returned safely,” he said.

  “Oh, Garret!” Kari greeted. “Does Mother wish to see us?”

  “That is indeed the case,” Garret said as the four of us entered. He closed the door behind us. “She has requested that all of you freshen up for dinner.”