A Vulpine Spanner in the Works
Chapter 17: Graveyard + Bodies = Free Real Estate
[Clementine]
This was supposed to be simple. I'd go in, play around with the weak adventurers for a bit before ending them, capture the boy, and then Khajjie would kill the entire city with undead.
Everything was going right!
I was just about to end the big adventurer after I had gouged his eyes out, and then some blonde bimbo shows up out of nowhere and I find myself slammed into a wall!
None of it makes sense. I know for a fact that there are only about ten people in the Re-Estize who could fight me on even footing, and that bitch was not one of them! I hadn't even heard of her until tonight, yet she beat me without even trying. She wasn't even looking at me when she did it, instead focusing on Khajjie before she killed him.
And that invisible magic she did? I couldn't even fight against it. It just held me down like and adult would hold down a fucking toddler! And then, she took the time to smash my face into the ground enough times that my nose was thoroughly broken while most of my teeth were missing.
All I can feel right now is immense pain, and I can't even do anything to stop it. She just froze me with some magic that I can't break free of. I was forced to watch with so much humiliation as she started divvying out all of my gear and loot!
I wanted to scream, smash my hands into their faces, choke the life out of that little mage that this bimbo cared about and watch the blood vessels burst in her eyes as she gasped her last breath!
Instead, I could only lay there. I couldn't even move my eyes to look away from bitch who did this to me, and that was absolutely infuriating.
After that, she sent me away with more of her gods damned magic and I was now stuck looking at a smooth stone wall. I remained like this for some time. Some arduous time that caused my mind to focus on anything else to stimulate it. And that led to me body being wrapped in waves of pain coming from my head.
The only thing that managed to take my mind off of the only feeling my body could experience was the sound of some vapid bitch crying from some other area in this building.
What felt to be a few more minutes of this mixture of pain interrupted by this random bitch continuing to cry to herself was thankfully ended as I heard the heels of some shoes echo throughout this building.
From the way the sounds echoed, I was probably in a building with small corridors
That was when I heard the constant sniveling of the annoying bitch end as I heard the noise of rapid footfalls that came from bare feet smacking on stone.
"P-Please, Mistress, I'll do anything to make the voices s-stop. I-I can give you more names! Just please, let them st-stop!" She sobbed at the end of her begging.
"Can you give back the time you stole from the people you enslaved? Are you able to bring back those you had killed?" The voice of the bimbo sorceress asked. The silence that followed was damning as the bimbo spoke again, "No? Then endure your punishment like you made others endure your cruelty."
She then began walking once more. Each of her steps managed to echo louder and louder until her heeled boots finally stepped into my sight.
"Now, we finally get to have a little chat…" She said before what seemed to be a chair materialized in front of me and she took a seat with her legs crossed.
"Let's get the obvious out of the way. You are going to be here for a long time. Besides just being a rampant murderer, you also did another unforgivable thing. You touched my people." The bimbo said in that condescending tone of hers.
Her people were nothing more than ants that were only worth toying with! When I got out of here, I'd go after her little friends and show them new levels of torment! I'd have them begging for death and cursing the day they ever met this sorceress bitch!
"In a very morbid way, I have to thank you for giving me the idea on how to punish you. You did use it to quite disturbing effect on my Lukrut. Paralyzing a person and forcing them to listen as their friends are slaughtered behind them, unable to do a thing about it is quite cruel. Letting them stew on thinking about how you'd kill them would be just torturous."
And I'd do it again if I had the chance to, bitch!
"But as a prolific murderer, I realize that the one thing you love above all is the rush you get from killing. The thrill of watching the fear in your victims' eyes as you slowly mutilate them. That brings us all to your punishment. You want to experience things, and I want to make sure that you can't." She got up from her chair which disappeared into mist afterwards. Then the bimbo walked out of my sight once more.
"Ever hear of the term 'watching paint dry'? Because in comparison, it would be so much more exciting than this. That wall you see in front of you is going to be your best friend from now on. You'll get to watch it, day and night, unable to move, blink, or look away because the [Paralyze] spell I cast on you is permanent."
The moment she said that, I wanted to vomit, to scream, to do anything else than listen to this bimbo cunt witch's words. And yet, she just kept fucking going as I was forced to continue staring at that FUCKING WALL!
"You won't need to eat or sleep; you'll just need to keep watching your best friend as they will be your only mental stimulation. After I'm done looking through your head, I'll leave this cell of yours and enchant it to make sure that no sound will be able to interrupt all the wonderful thoughts you'll have of your new best friend. When I decide to check on you again, we'll have to find out how well your mind has held up by then."
No. No. No. NO!
That was when my brain was filled with an immense pain that I could do nothing about it except continue to watch that gray, featureless wall.
Eventually, whatever that bimbo sorceress did had finished, and I heard the clicking of her heels as she walked away from me.
"I got everything I needed, you sick fuck. Enjoy solitary with your new friend." A door then shut, and all sound went with it.
And I was left alone once more, watching that wall.
[Kashia]
I couldn't help but feel a lot of satisfaction as I left that murderous bitch in her cell to rot. She did try killing Peter, Dyne, my Lukrut, and would've gone after my Ninya once she had finished with the others.
As I exited the hallway of cells, I began rubbing my head. I wondered why I was feeling so possessive of those two. Ninya was possibly understandable because she is my apprentice/daughter. But Lukrut is my friend/mate. I couldn't help but bang my hand on my head to try and clear out these annoying animalistic thoughts.
We must protect our FAMILY!
I tripped when I heard this primal roar in my mind and would've hit the ground if not for my tails catching me…after my illusion had broken without my direct input.
Something is very wrong. Why am I losing control like this? What is happening?
That was when I caught a glance at my reflection in the mirror. Why were my eyes glowing gold right now? I then caught them reverting back to their normal orange before they switched to gold once again.
This is wrong.
This is fine. This is what you want. Embrace it.
Those words were so easy to get lulled by. I watched in that reflection as my eyes fully glowed golden and a sultry smile filled my face. I almost felt myself just give up control to these instinctual urges until I managed to will my hand into a fist and smashed it into the wall, filling it with a web of cracks.
I looked back into the reflection and saw my eyes were back to orange. I could hear my heartbeat pounding in my ears as I thought about what just happened.
You can't resist forever. Soon, you won't be able to. The time is almost here.
My thoughts were left alone once more, but I could feel those instinctual urges waiting at the back of my mind. And it scared the shit out of me. I also couldn't help but think about what that voice said. Why wouldn't I be able to hold back these bestial urges of mine? What time could cause me to lose cont-
Quickly recalling some biology facts I knew about foxes, human female anatomy, as well as a few other animal species that were now extinct on Earth, my eyes widened in horror. No. I was not thinking about that! Besides, I've only been here for about two weeks! Unless something about this body works a lot differently than what I'd think was normal, which it probably did. It also didn't help that I was a daughter of a fertility goddess while also being under the blessing of another fertility goddess.
Okay, new plan. Take cold baths for the next few weeks. I was the mind in control of this body, and I was not going to lose out to my baser instincts! I was too damn busy for that to happen. For now, I just need to repress and ignore this issue. This would not be a problem; I can handle this.
Getting up from where I was sitting, I took a deep breath before reapplying my illusion and went over what I had pulled from Clementine's memories. The organization that she, and the necromancer I killed, worked for was called Zurrernorn. A death cult that would attack cities and nations with armies of their conjured undead.
Clementine had been attempting to kickstart this murder party that the necromancer had been preparing a lot earlier than planned with Nfirea as a catalyst. The necromancer, known as Khajiit, was the one actually in charge of this branch of their cult in E-Rantel. And through her memories, I knew exactly where those death-obsessed idiots were currently making their base in the city.
I immediately cast [Remote Viewing] on the location that I had seen from Clementine's memories and couldn't help but giggle at what I was seeing.
Within a cave hidden under a crypt, I saw a dozen or so men in robes who stood around a platform with an arcane symbol carved into it that glowed with an ominous purple light. I was happy to know, from Clementine's memories, that all the current members of the E-Rantel Zurrernorn branch were here like fish in a barrel. All of them were pouring mana into this symbol which I knew was a collective conduit meant to allow mages to more easily combine their mana together while also stabilizing the input of energy.
From what I could tell, they were trying to cast a massive necromantic summoning ritual that would both raise all the corpses in the cemetery while also summoning greater undead beings with the excess mana. They were so far from the required mana for this ritual that it would've taken a few more months before these would-be necromancers could've casted it.
It probably would've been pretty funny if I asked Momonga to come with me and show them what a real necromancer could do. Sadly, I doubt he'd be that willing to humor me by scaring the shit out of some idiots. Oh well, guess I'll finish this in the more mundane manner, if only so that Nfirea wouldn't have to remain in hiding for much longer.
Through this vision, I saw that there were only two exits from this cave. One exit was near the zone of the ritual up a flight of stairs while the other was about 20 yards or so on the other side of the room that was at the top of two flights of stairs.
My best bet would be to arrive at the nearest exit to these idiots, cast [Law of Planar Movement] to lock down teleportation along withsomething like [Earth Fangs] to block up the other exit and then kill all the people in the room with an AoE spell before they could react.
I'd have to perform all three spells at once just to make sure that they didn't have some random bullshit that I couldn't predict. But I should be able to finish this within the span of five seconds if I did it right.
A moment later, I ended [Remote Viewing] and prepared [Law of Planar Movement] and [Earth Fangs] with two of my tails while I readied [Foxfire Annihilation] in my hand. Then, I teleported to the top of the stairs at the nearest exit.
5
I cast the two spells with my tails and watched multiple spikes of rock wall up the other exit while my other spell hung like a miasma in the air.
None had reacted to the noise or movement, yet.
4
I unleashed [Foxfire Annihilation] and watched as a massive blue wave of flame launched out from my hands. Only one cultist had managed to turn his head enough to see anything occur.
3
The wave covered the first half of the ritual spot, vaporizing six of the cultists that were still pouring mana into the ritual.
2
The rest of the cultists had all begun to show signs of shock and movement before being swallowed in the wave. None were able to react in time to the attack.
1
The rest of the room became engulfed in flame, reaching into any crevice that I hadn't noticed before and vaporizing anything that might still be there. I then cut off my mana from the spell and watched the flames die down until the only thing left remaining was melted rock. Not even the ritual spot managed to survive as both the rock, along with the mana being charged into it, had both been consumed by the flames. All that remained was a molten slab.
I couldn't help but smirk at my thorough work in removing these cultists. Too bad there weren't any witnesses to see me save their city in five seconds. Probably could've gotten me some fame and goodwill from E-Rantel.
Sadly, I wanted to make sure that this was taken care of now so that Nfirea wouldn't have to remain in hiding and Lizzie would no longer need to be placed under protection. Good thing that Ms. Statue had so much information that I could pull with [Read Mind] even if all of it was very unpleasant to see. She really was one sick fuck.
The others were probably already sleeping or getting ready for bed, so I'd just leave them be until I arrived back in the city tomorrow with the expedition group. I hope that the expedition group didn't notice my disappearance because I had no way of explaining that.
Just to be safe though, I cast [Greater Invisibility] on myself, then teleported back to my tent. Thankfully, it seemed that my excursion hadn't been spotted so I dispelled the invisibility and made my way over to the fire where the other adventurers in the expedition were sitting at.
Hanging above the fire was a pot of beef stew that was left to remain warm. "Got any more of that stew left for me?" I asked as I stepped into the light of the campfire.
"There's still plenty, Kashia." Carnan said as he picked up a simple wooden bowl and filled it with the stew before handing it and a wooden spoon to me.
I took it with a nod of gratitude and then grabbed a seat on one of the logs that had been dragged over to be used as a simple bench. Carnan took a seat next to me and raised his bowl up with a grin before digging in to eat.
"You've been gone for a while." Loa remarked simply, her hood finally pulled down to reveal purple hair and eyes. My first thought was why I still couldn't understand how humans could have such unnatural coloring. "We assumed that you had gone to sleep early."
"Nah. Just went strolling around the area for a while before I came back. Wanted to make sure everything was secure." I answered before putting a spoonful of stew in my mouth.
"Quite diligent of you, Kashia." Cassius said while eyeing me. Yeah, a lot more diligent than you, scumbag.
"Still," I said after swallowing my food, "did I miss anything important?"
"Not exactly, unless you consider our clients getting into a bit of a schism over the magical fox goddess to be important." Andra glumly stated. "I don't get what's so special about some magic caster with big tits? I mean, we have Kashia here and these mages aren't going cross-eyed over her like they are for this Fox Princess."
"I think that's probably because the mages don't see me as a magical goddess that can perform the mage equivalent of miracles in their eyes." I answered simply while trying to hold back my laughter.
"She does have a point, sis. Besides, this would be the first time in centuries that a deity has physically interacted with regular mortals. Any regular person would be interested, even more so with the magic-obsessed Magician's Guild." Ander countered while poking his spoon at Andra.
"What did you mean by schism, though?" I asked with some interest.
"Well, from the talk that I've been hearing muttered around the camp, some of these mages think that they should start worshipping the Fox Princess due to her being this new goddess of magic." Andra answered. I did everything I could to not spit out my food right there.
I was not prepared to hear the beginnings of a cult growing whose sole goal of worship was me. I kind of want to start smashing my face into a wall at this point.
"And the others?" I asked while hiding my growing exasperation.
"They are opposed to this idea, with Mercia being the most vocal about it. Lady has a bit of a stick up her ass about people wanting to worship a new 'false' goddess and instead thinks that this should be reported to the church. I personally think that this is just an issue among themselves and that if they want to start killing each other over religion, they can do so after we're paid."
Good luck trying to send an inquisition to investigate.
"Theo and Mercia have been holed up in a tent together going at it on one another for the past hour or so. 'Two dragons can't share the same mountain' and it appears that those two mages are living examples of that phrase being put into action. Neither is willing to concede to the other's idea." Carnan answered with a dry chuckle.
"I just want this job to be done with." Loa remarked, "It's getting too religious for my taste."
"You're not seeing the bigger picture, Loa. Our group is the first to ever encounter a deity in centuries. Gods are fickle beings, but this goddess decided to reveal herself personally to our group. That leads me to think that it's very easy to manipulate such an event to our advantage." Cassius said with eyes filled with a mixture of scheming and greed.
"Advantage to get what? Fame?" Carnan asked.
"Among other things."
"What could you be scheming now, Cassius?" Loa asked with narrowed eyes filled with suspicion.
"The only other things you could get from this is the chance to join a religion about this goddess and try to get a blessing from her. And let's be honest, you are the furthest thing from being a devout worshipper of any religion from what I know about you. That, or you try to get her attention and end up flicking her bean." Andra guessed with a tone heavily laced in sarcasm.
I was very interested to see where this cowardly little shit was going with this.
"There's enough tales of the demigods and their lineages from the Slane Theocracy to know that deities aren't immune to human charm. I might as well take my chance before all the nobles of E-Rantel try to. If I succeed, well, I'll have more power than any country at my fingertips."
Andra and I broke out into howling laughter at Cassius' declaration of intent.
She laughed at how ridiculous his plan was. I laughed because of how I knew his plan would never succeed. As if I'd ever deign to be charmed by him.
Andra was able to hold back her laughter to speak enough, "Really? You think that your prick would be enough to lure a goddess? Is that what all those girls you charmed told you?!" She then lost control and continued laughing with me.
"I have to agree with the ladies on their opinions about your plan. You are likely to suffer greatly if this goddess finds out about your scheme. Besides, the fact that we got out alive and mostly unscathed when dealing with an entity way beyond our ability is a reward in and of itself." Carnan reasoned as he pulled his gourd out and took a swig.
"Trust me when I say that I very much have a foolproof plan. Even besides just the fame, money, and power; There is another reason for why I plan to do this." Cassius answered as he took a bite of his meal. His expression hadn't changed since the beginning of this conversation.
"Did you end up falling in love with the goddess? Are you planning to make her swoon into your arms with your romantic confession?" Andra asked while mocking a swooning motion into my shoulder.
"Oh, Cassius! Please, sweep me off my feet with tales of your amazing deeds! How could I ever resist you?" I mocked in a heavier sultry voice as I swooned into Andra, causing the pair of us to laugh even harder.
I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he gave me a thoughtful look as his eyes narrowed.
"We'll see what happens. When it comes down to it, I'm thinking ahead about my future. What are all of you doing? Carnan, you spend all your excess time drowning in alcohol. Loa, you are such a coward that you can't even try to increase your rank in the guild in fear of failing the test. Ander and Andra, the pair of you are codependent idiots who can barely take your jobs seriously.
And Kashia, you debase yourself by remaining in the barely competent Swords of Darkness group when you are so much stronger than them. All of you waste your chances at greater power and fortune to instead remain stagnant. Don't mock me when I am trying to take chances to better my place in life while all of you remain content in your mediocrity."
Cassius dropped his bowl on the ground and stood up before walking off towards his tent. I was quite happy that he did so as I couldn't help but feel a little murderous after his attempted verbal lashing.
"Arrogant little shit, isn't he?" Andra asked as she stopped leaning on my shoulder and watched the asshole walk away.
"He isn't exactly wrong, but he also isn't fully correct." Carnan said while looking at the gourd in his hand. "I have my fair share of problems, just like any person might. But I prefer where I'm at because I live a life which I am content with."
"My brother and I learned a long time ago to treat life joyously. Never know when that could change, but life is too short to treat everything with utter seriousness." Andra stated with a roll of her eyes.
"Life is a whole lot more fun when you do so. Even if it sometimes backfires, right, sis?" Ander asked with a smirk while pointing to her hair. Andra simply punched her brother in the arm before flipping him the bird. "You just hate that I'm right." Ander cackled as Andra handed me her bowl before she turned and tackled him over the log he was sitting on before both siblings got into a scuffle that I found amusing.
"I know he's wrong." I remarked to Carnan. "I'm not debasing myself or wasting my time with my team. Even while being stronger than them, I enjoy watching them grow and try to bridge the gap between us. Besides, I get to have so much fun teasing my cute little apprentice."
"It seems that we are all satisfied with our lots in life, contrary to what Cassius says. What about you, Loa-" Carnan's question trailed off as all of us noticed that the shy ranger had left us when we hadn't noticed. "Guess she didn't wish to socialize any longer. Probably went off to bed, something that I believe we should do soon enough. Theo is a bit of an early riser so it's better to get as much sleep as we can."
Scooping out the last of the stew from my bowl, I quickly ate it before setting both of the bowls I was holding down next to me. "Well, I do feel a bit tired from today. I'll see you guys tomorrow." I gave a glance over to where Ander and Andra were still scuffling with one another before adding, "Try not to kill each other."
Then I got up from my seat and began walking to my tent. The twins managed to pause their fight and took a moment to look at me before saying, "Night, Kashia." Then they went back to punching one another once more. I couldn't help but chuckle before I headed in for the night.
Hopefully, tomorrow wouldn't be as emotional as today was. I doubt my heart could survive it.
Day 12:
The next morning was as Carnan predicted. Theo had woken us all up early and had us packing up camp and on the road once again within the hour.
What made today convenient in comparison to the past two days was the fact that we could use the horse-drawn wagons again since we didn't have to deal with the unpredictable terrain of the forest. At the rate that we were going, our group would arrive in E-Rantel by mid-afternoon.
But with the wagons, I did notice a very deliberate set of groupings that gave me a good idea on this ideological schism that was happening with the mages. The lead wagon was where I sat with Theo sitting across from me. The rest of the mages who were sitting further down the wagon from us were on the Fox Princess worship bandwagon, in this case, quite literally.
Behind us was the wagon with our supplies, and especially, a well-locked box which contained the glass flask filled with my blood. Four mages, along with Carnan, Ander, and Andra were placed with this wagon. The mages that surrounded the locked box like it was the Ark of the Covenant gazed upon said box with looks akin to reverence.
It was strange how I felt this strange warm fuzziness whenever I focused on any of the people in my cart or the four mages in the cart behind us. I got this reaction from no one else, so I'd have to keep my eye on this.
Past the supply cart was Mercia, the mages that didn't believe in Fox Princess worship, and by the gods was that just cringe-inducing to think, and finally, Cassius and Loa.
I could only imagine what hell this schism might bring to the Magician's Guild when we got back to E-Rantel. Hopefully, the city would be safe, but this was just another potential issue that I'd need to keep my attention on, especially because it directly involved me.
"You know, Lady Kashia," Theo said silently as he leaned forwards to talk to me, "I've been in talks with a few of my subordinates about spreading word of the Fox Princess to the rest of the Magician's Guild."
I was internally screaming at his idea because of how uncomfortable it made me. Normally, I would've said 'absolutely not' to this idea. The reason that I wasn't doing so at the moment was due to the fact that he seemed gung-ho about worship, which also meant that he'd likely become horrifically depressed at my rejection.
While I could trust him to not start this religion around me just because he'd care more about learning magic from me than to try and go against my wishes, the same could not be said about the other mages here who'd probably ignore his order to not start a religion and instead form some secret cult.
We wouldn't want to disappoint those that worship us, would we?
Either way, I was screwed over by my copy's shenanigans and had to take the reins on this now before I lost control of it in the future. That's what led me to my careful response.
"Sounds like an interesting plan. Hopefully, all goes to plan for you and you manage to keep control over it." I said, giving him my blessing on his plan while also warning him.
It was better if the person trying to lead this religious bullshit was already under my control than some random asshole who might start virgin sacrifices in my name or something similar. I just really hope this doesn't backfire like a lot of my plans currently have since I didn't need more complications right now.
Theo gave me a confident smile and slightly bowed his head, "I could never dream of having the message of the Fox Princess be misunderstood. While most mages who devote themselves to the study of magic in the guild are not religious, part of the reason stems from there being no deity applicable to their path in life. Never before have we had a deity whose aspect was magic, one that the Magician's Guild could rally behind. With this, that might change."
I'm going to need to read up on the religions of this world a bit more, aren't I?
"And what would be your plan after that?"
"I'll take the reliquary holding the flask of the Fox Princess' holy blood to the head guild branch in Re-Estize and make my case. After that, I hope to use the holy blood to convince more mages of Her existence and power." Theo said while meeting my gaze with eyes filled with devotion and a hint of mania.
I couldn't help but note how he was already referring to that locked box with the heavily implied religious word of 'reliquary' along with referring to my blood as 'holy'. I mean, it kind of is, considering my demigoddess status along with my [Ichor of the Divine] passive, but still…
What I really couldn't figure out was what had changed about Theo in the past day that made him so devout? I mean, before he learned of my true nature, he was a little unhinged but relatively stable, excepting his self-admitted obsession with magic. Then, after he learned of me, and I gave him that tome, he appeared to be respectful after he left my room, but still normalish.
Now, the guy looked like a complete fanatic and I could not pin down what changed to cause such a shift in personality, unless that was always his personality and he was just really good at hiding it.
While talking, my ears began picking up hints of the conversation the other mages on our wagon were having as they looked at us.
"Is the guildmaster bringing another follower into the fold?" A pale young man asked with a mop of silver hair.
"Yes, I believe so. It also seems like she might be agreeing." A brunette woman answered.
"Perhaps the guildmaster might even reveal the revelation he received to her. I know when he showed us, it removed all my doubts. A goddess of magic finally looks upon us." A third, hooded, woman added.
What revelation?
I was almost tempted to ask Theo, but I felt it better to just keep my mouth shut. I didn't feel like interrogating the man any further about this religion he was working on when I already felt a massive amount of embarrassment from hearing about this worship.
"I pray to the Fox Princess, Goddess of Magic, that we can spread Her glory to the rest of the guild." The silver-haired young man said with clasped hands. I felt a pleasant warmth in my body as I heard these words and I tried to ignore it.
"Let Her give us strength to complete this task and knowledge to accomplish Her will." The brunette added, filling me with more of that pleasurable warmth. I couldn't tell if this was some strange feeling of narcissism or something else, but I didn't exactly want it to stop.
Great, people were already starting to pray in my name and I think I was starting to get off on it or something.
Then, a horrible thought came to my mind. All these people that were beginning to worship me had one picture of me in their mind. My copy dressed like a total slut while I could do nothing to truly refute it without outing myself.
That bitch.
She completely screwed me over. Even worse is I had no way to get her back for that as she'd just turn it back on me.
I tried to spend the next few hours of our return trip to E-Rantel trying to figure out ways to get around the humiliation my copy set up for me, but that effort was being rendered almost impossible because these magical nerds kept on praying to me. And every time they did, that pleasurable warmth came over me and I got distracted.
Very distracted.
This was definitely not some weird narcissism because they didn't even have to say their prayers aloud for me to know that they were praying to me. This was just my body purely reacting to worship. My one hope is that I'd get used to this quickly since I could just feel that instinctual side of me chomping at the bit whenever one of these zealots would blast me with their worship and unknowingly continue pushing me over the edge.
"Lady Kashia, are you feeling unwell?" Theo whispered to me with some concern. "I don't know if it's my place to say this, but you seem bothered by something and your eyes seem to be turning gold."
I became both surprised and concerned at this development, especially because I could feel the instinctual side rising up which I just couldn't push down at this point. To compensate, I cast an illusion over my eyes to turn them back to their normal color.
"Better?"
"Of course." Theo answered in deference. Something seemed to come over me as I gave him a large smile and I just couldn't seem to control what I said.
"Good. It wouldn't do for me to not look my best as we return. I have some special matters to take care of when I arrive at the city." I ended up crossing my legs and resting my arms on the edge of the cart. "By the way, Theo, will I need to do anything further at the Magician's Guild when we get back, or can I leave?"
"We plan to pay you and the others once we arrive at the guild. After that, you may do whatever you wish." Theo answered to my delight. What added to this rush of euphoria I was experiencing was the moment another one of my precious little followers said another prayer in my name.
This just felt so good, and made me that much more excited about what I wanted to do when I finally got back. I was going to have so much fun tonight.
Wait, why was I going to have so much fun tonight? What the hell was I just thinking? Just keep it together, Kashia. This is probably because I'm too close to a bunch of worshippers and I'm not used to it.
Just need to finish this job, get the hell away from these mages as quickly as possible, and meet up with the others.
For another hour, I spent my time trying to just remain in control by entering a bit of a meditative state. Initially, I tried recalling the concepts methods of casting certain spells of mine, but that ended up becoming almost impossible since I couldn't maintain the focus needed for it. So, I began counting.
Every time I felt my control slipping, I had to restart the count at zero. I feel like the frustration at having my count interrupted managed to help because I was somehow able to spitefully make it up to a record of 1009 before we finally arrived at the city.
Relief seemed to wash over me as the moment we got close enough, I felt my instinctual side recede in disgust from the stench of the city which allowed me to hold it at bay. From there, I felt it was going to be smooth sailing until a guard stopped our wagon train.
This got Theo's attention as he got off the wagon and marched over to the guards who were nervously looking at the second wagon. The mages of the guild on said wagon looked at the guards along with a single mage who accompanied them with suspicion.
"What is going on here? Why are we being stopped?" Theo demanded.
The single mage with the guars turned and looked at Theo before becoming nervous. "Mr. Rakheshir, it is a s-surprise to see you here." The man said, his gray robes looking overly large on his frame as he sunk into himself under the gaze of the annoyed guildmaster.
"Of course I would be here. We just came back from an important guild expedition. Now, tell me why we have been stopped?" Theo said with a growing anger.
"We stopped you due to finding the presence of an immensely powerful magical item on this wagon, sir." The man then pointed to the box that the guild mages stood protectively around. "It is normal regulation that such items be reported and catalogued upon entering the city, sir…" He said while trying to look away from Theo's unimpressed glare.
I felt thankful that one of the rings I wore actually did its job of hiding my magical presence and stats. I'd probably be screwed otherwise if just a flask of my blood was triggering this guy's detector.
"Whatever item is being detected by you is classified property of the Magician's Guild." Theo said with no room for argument.
"But, sir. The regulations of the city say-" The mage began before being interrupted.
"Under my authority as a guildmaster of E-Rantel, and as an affiliated organization of this kingdom, you have no authority to know what we carry unless you are the king, his council, the Grand Guildmaster of the Magician's Guild, or the gods. Now, let us through."
The mage seemed to just deflate at this before stepping back from Theo. "Y-You are free to enter. Welcome ba-back to the city, Guildmaster."
"Good choice." Theo remarked before walking back to our wagon and getting back on before taking a seat across from me once more.
With that obstacle cleared, our wagon train continued its path through the city once more until we finally made it back to the Magician's Guild. The moment the wheels of our wagons stopped, the mages in the middle wagon immediately took the locked box off the wagon and all four of them headed straight into the building.
It was after this that the rest of us finally disembarked. Us adventurers followed after Theo as he led us into the building while everyone else left us to perform their duties.
Once inside, we were taken to a meeting room where Theo was joined by a woman with blue hair tied in a bun. In her arms were six pouches that she sat upon the table in the middle of the room.
Theo then turned to look at all of us and said, "All of you performed your jobs adequately in the face of the overwhelming and unexpected events we dealt with. As such, I will be sure to give your guildmaster good praise of your actions."
While it wasn't a pay bonus, all of us understood that being given good reviews from Theo to Pluton, one guildmaster to another, could lead to rewards from the Adventurer's Guild.
"In addition, before any of you leave, I hope that all of you know to say nothing that could in anyway discredit the Magician's Guild. Otherwise, it could lead to potential…issues. You may collect your rewards and go. I may even request for all of you specifically for the next excursion into Tob, but that will be for a time in the future. Good day."
Theo held my gaze for a bit before leaving the room. It was quite obvious to notice that he said nothing about keeping quiet about encountering a goddess at the Great Lake of Tob. I suspected that he wanted us, well mainly the others, to spread information about the Fox Princess to the rest of the guild.
That was an extremely fast and cheap method to spread knowledge considering how adventurers travel all over the kingdom for the jobs they take. One adventurer spreads the rumors of a goddess to another adventurer, who spreads it to a client on a job, possibly the patrons of a tavern after the job is done. They spread that news to friends, family, neighbors.
By the end of six months, likely the entire kingdom would know about this goddess walking among mortals who resided next to a massive stone tree inside a giant golden palace. Anyone who investigated these rumors would be immediately find them proven true by spotting the giant stone tree in the distance.
That would then lead into more people coming to the lake, some likely to become devout believers of whatever faith Theo was spinning up about a big-titted fox goddess of magic. And then, I'd likely have to deal with nobles, religious organizations, and more who would take notice.
All of this has already spread beyond my control at this point.
Pulling myself out of this downward spiral that would be my future life, I decided to follow the actions of everyone else as us went to pick up our reward before being escorted out of the building by the blue-haired woman.
"With a hefty reward like this for doing a few days of traveling, I really hope he decides to rehire us." Andra remarked with a grin.
"I wouldn't be opposed to working with most of you again." Carnan replied. "Though, after all this traveling, it will be nice to take it easy for a few days. Would any of you care to join me at a tavern to celebrate the completion of this job?"
"I would, just as soon as I can hit up an armor shop to replace what I have. I'm not exactly a fan of the motley colors." Ander answered.
"Same." Andra added, "Mind giving us an hour to join you?"
"With pleasure." He then turned to the rest of us with a friendly smile, "What about the rest of you?"
Loa, with her hood up once again, took a moment before finally answering, "Sure."
"I'm busy as I need to make some preparations." Cassius answered before walking away from us swiftly. All I could wonder is what he might be preparing for?
But I didn't have much time to ponder as everyone's attention was now on me. "I'd love to, but I'm busy as I have to meet up with my team. Maybe next time."
"A shame, but understandable. Hopefully, we'll be able to work together on another job again since I found our team to be quite agreeable, minus one or two issues." The monk said while holding his hand out to me with an inviting smile. I took his hand and gave him a grin in return.
"Right back at you, Carnan. Next time we meet, I'd like to see if you've gotten any new proverbs to throw at me." I replied in turn.
"I aim to please." He answered before we broke our shake and I gave a wave to everyone before walking off. It would be nice to see those guys again at the guild. But for now, I had a few things to take care of.
Ducking into an alleyway, I teleported myself into my room at the Hero's Respite before walking to the door of my sanctuary and pulling it open, stepping inside, and then closing the door behind me. To my surprise, the first thing I noticed was Nfirea kneeling over a few of the plants in the garden while Meepo Breepo was perched onto his shoulder. Both were deep in conversation that I could easily pick up.
"-and blue flower with spikes is called Jotun's Tooth. Frost Giants use it to get big-strong. It has properties to reinforce muscles, magic resistance, and cold resistance. Meepo mixes it with Sun Dragon Lillies and Freyja's Tulip. Why you think that is?" Meepo questioned while looking at Nfirea.
"If what I remember is correct, Mr. Meepo, Sun Dragon Lillies have the property of heat resistance while Freyja's Tulip regenerates injuries upon consumption. The potion you're trying to make would give the user a strength enhancement while also providing resistances to magic, cold, and heat along with a passive regenerative ability." Nfirea reasoned. Meepo hopped on the young pharmacist's shoulder in excitement.
"Yes! Yes! Very good!" Meepo congratulated.
"But, Mr. Meepo, wouldn't the bases of all of these ingredients cancel out one or more of the effects upon mixing them? If that wasn't the case, alchemists and pharmacists across the world would have done so with the ingredients we have. What is managing to stabilize the potion?" Nfirea questioned with interest.
"Well, Meepo knows that these ingredients are special-rare. To get Jotun's Tooth, you go to frozen wastes of Jotunheim and get past frost giants that guard plants. Sun Dragon Lillies grow in Alfheim where elves shoot you with magical glowy light from hands and then fight big dragons that shoot the sun at you."
I remember collecting that ingredient and wanting to kill myself after dealing with the 30th sun dragon spawning while a bunch of angry elf mobs tried frying me with these beam spells that they'd fire nonstop. They were nicknamed the Microwave Elves for a reason as any Player would experience the equivalent of being in a microwave if enough of the elves aggroed onto them.
"Freyja's Tulips are found in Vanaheim at the goddess Freyja's big temple-house. Mistress is one of the few people who can collect it because Freyja blessed her and lets her into special garden in temple-house. Aside from ingredients, Meepo just amazing alchemist and craftsman that makes best items! That's why potions work. You get special-rare ingredients, then Meepo uses magic alchemy-crafting skills to make best potions!" The enthusiastic kobold finished with a massive grin.
"Wait, back up there when you said that Miss Blanc-I mean, Kashia," Nfirea quickly corrected his formal use of my name, much to my amusement, "is blessed by a goddess. Are you serious?" Nfirea asked, making me roll my eyes at how, even in my sanctuary, I still couldn't escape the talk of deities.
"True-True! Meepo's amazing Mistress is blessed by Freyja, Goddess of Baby-making, Attracting Mates, War, Gold, and Future-seeing! She is also blessed by Loki, God of Tricks!" Meepo answered without care, making me worriedly look at the ceiling of my sanctuary. I pray that Meepo isn't about to get himself, along with Nfirea, and myself by proxy, smited in retaliation.
Also, couldn't he have kept his mouth shut about the whole deities blessing me business? My one saving grace is that he hasn't mentioned my mothe-Inari just yet. I finally decided to make my presence known with a cough so that my kobold craftsman would stop revealing so much.
Meepo and Nfirea turned to look at me, and the kobold immediately hopped off Nfirea's shoulder and rushed towards me until he jumped into my chest screaming, "Mistress has returned!" I looked down at the kobold nuzzling me with some amusement before grabbing him by the back of his robe and holding him in front of my face as his tail wagged in excitement.
"I see that you've been getting along with Nfirea. I hope that you've been treating him nicely." I remarked with a smirk. Meepo rapidly nodded his head in response.
"Yes, Mistress. Meepo has just been showing Nfirea the garden and explaining the plants. Nfirea learns fast. I want to show him my amazing-special potions! Maybe have him make some. Maybe something new happens? Many ideas!" Meepo said like a child who wanted to show a new friend his toys.
I set him down before patting him on the head, causing the red kobold to shiver in delight. "Maybe in a little while. I'll need to talk with him and the others first. They are all still inside, right? And what about Tuare?"
"Others and stick-shooter human are all inside the cabin except for Dyne. He went out to grab food for the others and will be back soon." Meepo answered. "Tuare returned here last night after finishing work. Meepo made sure to watch over and protect the sister of Mistress' apprentice. Gave mild poisoning to those Meepo felt had done rude things to Tuare. They will live." He quickly added after seeing my frown.
"I see. Good job, Meepo." I said as the kobold did a little dance at the compliment before looking up to Nfirea. "Ready to meet the others? I've got some important updates about your situation."
"Certainly, Kashia! Do you have good news?" Nfirea asked with a hopeful tone.
"Yes, but it would be better if everyone got to hear it at once. I don't feel like repeating myself, after all." I answered. I was about to start walking to the cabin until I heard the door to my sanctuary open. I looked over my shoulder to see Dyne enter with a large tray in hand that had multiple plates which had eggs and chunks of beef on them.
"Ah, Kashia!" Dyne said with surprise, "I didn't expect that you'd be here by now, otherwise I would've gotten you a plate as well." Dyne closed the door behind himself and moved over to us and took off one plate to hand to Meepo who took it with a toothy grin.
The plate looked gigantic in his small hands, and the little kobold didn't even wait before consuming the food like a vacuum. I was actually a little impressed at how Meepo managed to even fit all that food inside his stomach, but I guess that would be a mystery better left unsolved.
Dyne had only just finished handing Nfirea his plate before Meepo held his empty plate up for the very surprised druid to take and set back on the tray. "That was barely even ten seconds." Dyne muttered to himself.
"Meepo thanks you for bringing the delicious food!" Meepo said with a wagging tail.
"C-Certainly." Dyne responded. Then he looked at me. "Let's get going to the the others. They're probably hungry and I've no doubt that you're here to tell us something important."
"Right you are, Dyne." I said before the four of us made our way to the cabin.
"By the way, Kashia. Something odd did happen sometime between last night when we got here and this morning. We may need your opinion on it since it seems magical in nature and we're not completely sure on what to do." My eyebrow did raise in question at Dyne's very loaded statement.
"What exactly happened, magically, that is so concerning?" I questioned with a bit of concern.
"You're going to have to see it to understand." Dyne answered, adding to my impatience as we approached the cabin. At the door, I pulled it open before letting Dyne, Nfirea, and Meepo inside first before following after.
Looking around, one of the first things I noticed was a pile of long brunette hair in the corner of the cabin. All I could think of was where the hell all of that had come from? Then, my eyes moved around until I saw Peter and Lukrut chatting on one side of the table, while on the other, Tuare was sitting next to Ninya combing my apprentice's/daughter's… long brunette hair.
Looking back to the pile of hair that likely would be around 20 feet of the stuff, if I had to guess, and then back to Ninya, I couldn't help but find her shy and nervous gaze at me to be absolutely adorable! Though, I still had to figure out what the hell caused her to grow all that hair in one night.
"I see that you're trying to look like one of the girls now, Ninya. I have to say that you like very cute." Ninya turned beet red and looked away from my gaze when I said this. I then walked over to her.
"I-It's not that I'm exactly trying, Kashia. I just woke up this morning with my hair like this and I haven't been able to change it." Ninya replied.
"Trust me," Lukrut added, "we tried to help Ninya out when she asked since we were just as surprised to see it as she was." Lukrut then looked at Ninya and asked, "Mind if I show her?"
"Go ahead." She replied and the blond archer got up from his seat at the table and moved over to Ninya while pulling out a dagger. Tuare stopped combing Ninya's hair and slightly pulled back and I watched him take a long lock of Ninya's hair and cut it.
Much to my amazement, Ninya's hair immediately grew back to the length from before and Lukrut tossed the bundle of hair in his hand to the growing pile of hair in the corner. I guess that explains why there is so much.
Lukrut then took a seat next to me while Tuare went back to combing Ninya's hair.
"That's certainly interesting. Any idea what might have caused it to occur?" I asked while casting a [Detect Enchantment] spell onto Ninya that didn't reveal anything of note. Very odd. This was definitely some sort of magic enchantment, but why wasn't I detecting anything? I tried [Detect Magic] and [Detect Curse] which also revealed nothing.
As a final Hail Mary, I cast [Detect Blessing] which actually got a response. One blessing was just that, a blessing. Well, it was specifically called [Blessing of Beauty]. It was just a simple blessing to enhance a person's appearance. What made this strange though was that normally, when I cast the spell, I would be told the name of the blessing, what the blessing did, and then the name of the deity that gave the blessing.
This time, the name of the deity was just [%*-?,]. That didn't make any sense and further investigation caused this mystery to grow even larger. Looking at the other blessing though, that was a complete unknown, especially because it wasn't just a simple blessing, it was a full-on trait. [Blessing of $#*&-+/] which told me absolutely nothing while its description was just a bunch of question marks. Oddly enough, the name of the deity was the same jumble of symbols as the first, [%*-?,].
I did my best to hide my worry from the others at this revelation. Some deity had taken interest in my Ninya and that could normally mean any number of things. With Ninya though, her relationship with me made interactions involving gods anything but normal. Something has taken interest in her and I needed to get to the bottom of it.
"I don't know, Kashia." Ninya answered. I gave her a simple smile in response and patted her on the head.
"Well, after checking you over, I think that you are going to be fine. It seems that you have a blessing of some deity that's giving you the new hair length." I said in an effort to reassure Ninya. I avoided bringing up my concerns since there wasn't much the others could do and I wasn't sure what may happen to Ninya if I tried to remove the blessings from her, if I even could that is.
"Hold on, Ninya got a blessing from a god?" Peter asked with amazement. Ninya just seemed to shrink in embarrassment at the attention she immediately received from everyone.
"That's just strange." Dyne remarked while handing out plates of food to everyone, "The only people I've heard have received blessings from the gods were the extremely devout and pious of each respective religion. To be honest, Ninya, I've never seen you as religious. What might have caused it?"
"Might you know, Kashia?" Everyone looked over to Nfirea as he said this. "Mr. Meepo did say that you were blessed by two different deities." Suddenly, all eyes shifted on me for answers.
"You're blessed by the gods? I already knew that you were amazing, but this is something else, my lovely divine sorceress." Lukrut commented, making my face feel suddenly warm.
"To answer all of your questions, Nfirea is correct. I am blessed by two deities. Additionally, I'm not exactly an extremely devout worshipper of either deity. I just managed to receive their favor by earning their respect from accomplishing some great deeds. I don't know how Ninya managed to gain the attention of a deity, but for now, we should just keep an eye on it and look into a plan if it becomes an issue later." I answered before pulling up a chair and sitting down.
"Could you tell us what gods you received blessings from and why they did so?" Ninya asked with an inquisitive expression. I wanted to not answer her question, but the looks of extreme interest from everyone combined with Ninya's adorable expression just made me sigh in submission.
"Fine, I'll tell you, but after this, we put the topic of gods to rest since I did come here for other reasons. Agreed?" Everyone answered my question with a nod.
I rapidly came up with a way to speak about my time in YGGDRASIL in a way that could fit what they would understand without also saying that I'm from a different universe.
"To give you all a little bit of backstory, my home is split into nine different… territories, each with their own gods. The first deity whose attention I received was Freyja, Goddess of Beauty, Fertility, War, Gold, and Future-Sight. I earned her favor after defending her temple from a powerful mage known as a [World Disaster]. They were beings that could devastate landscapes and countries with just a single spell. After defeating him, Freyja gave me her blessing as a reward."
While that was a summary of the event, what had actually happened was a little bit different. I was actually trying to acquire the [Chosen of Freyja] class because of three of the passives that came with it which were [Holy Resistance], [Unholy Resistance], and [Sex Appeal]. That last passive was the real crux of what made the class amazing.
While one may thing that being able to deal 30% more damage and take 30% less damage from only male gendered characters was a bit of a trade-off when factoring female gendered characters, I looked at it through a min-maxing perspective.
Most players of YGGDRASIL were male, about 70% of them in fact. Of the 70%, only 10% played characters that were female or non-gendered, just due to the way that DMMO-RPGs were hyper-realistic which made most players uncomfortable with playing opposite gendered characters.
Of the 30% of female players, 10-15% of them played male or non-gendered characters to avoid being treated differently by the male playerbase.
So, on average, I would have a 70-75% to be fighting against a male gendered character where my passive would take effect. Having a passive like that which was constantly usable and all-encompassing made for a pretty broken class. Especially because Players couldn't change their characters after making them or use new characters because of the game rules.
That lead to me doing a constant amount of tasks and quests from the Temple of Freyja in an effort to attain that class since it had a hidden progress bar that you couldn't try and game since the progress values of the tasks and quest were also randomized and hidden from the Players.
It was after doing one of the quests and returning to the temple that this one mage Player and his two friends tried to ambush and kill me over the rumor that I had a World Item on me (which I did). The fight was easy enough since all three of those guys were mages, so I just had to outlast them until they ran out of mana. Preventing them from teleporting away or alerting their friends was just a bonus for me.
Funniest shit was the one guy with the [World Disaster] class who hid behind his two friends the entire time taking potshots at me. After taking out his friends, he decided to fire off [Grand Catastrophe] at me while I stood in front of the temple.
A quick [Counterspell] and the guy had blown the rest of his mana on a useless spell while I had more than enough to finish him off. He probably assumed that his friends had managed to make me use up all my mana so that I couldn't retaliate. Joke's on him.
Either way, two things happened after I killed him. I got his [World Disaster] class for defeating him and I was given [Chosen of Freyja] for defeating the [World Disaster] and preventing his attack from hitting the temple.
"After I received Freyja's blessing, I received the favor of Loki, God of Tricksters a few years later. I was doing some dungeon diving in Jotunheim, the homeland of Loki, when I encountered a strange hermit wearing just a loincloth. He then shouted 'Let the test begin' before running at me with a spear. I thought it was pretty funny that this insane idiot had such a death wish to charge me like that, but I decided to end the fight as quickly as possible. Turns out that he was tougher than he appeared. I shot him with enough spells to take down a tribe of frost giants, yet he kept coming. It was only after I spotted an oddly place branch of mistletoe in the dungeon that I shot a spell at it, revealing the true form of Loki."
Loki was unique as a boss in YGGDRASIL. He was one of the few bosses that was considered a wandering boss which were bosses that lacked a boss arena and moved about the game.
In Loki's case, he could appear in any dungeon that was found in Jotunheim. When he did so, he'd be disguised under an illusion while some random type of NPC would turn hostile onto a Player and attack.
It would seem funny at first, encountering a random squirrel that wants to kill you until you quickly realize that you're aren't doing any damage to this NPC and they are still chasing you. And when you get hit, you'd be dealt a huge amount of damage.
You could only defeat this NPC by attacking whatever object in the area was actually Loki in disguise. This would start Phase 2 of the boss fight as you'd then need to defeat Loki who would attack you with multiple illusionary copies and you'd need to pick out the original.
"I then had to use all the abilities, tricks, and guile I had acquired at the time to fight for my life. There were many moments during this battle that I would've died if I had made one mistake. But, after an hour, I finally passed his test and impressed the God of Trickery. Then he gave me his blessing." I finished.
I very much left out the fact that I had to fight the slippery bastard about five separate times while retreating four of those times because he kept on appearing in dungeons that I delved into. I also left out the bit where I actually killed him. I had no idea on why my luck was so bad that I kept having to deal with him since his spawn rate in any dungeon was 3%.
Statistically, it just did not make sense. Now though, I'm suspicious that the god had something to do with it, even if it was just his game version.
Still, it was on the fourth time of the surprise boss fight that I had become paranoid of any dungeon in Jotunheim and came up with an entire strategy to kick his ass the next time I encountered him.
Said strategy was to make a shitload of enchanted rocks that had the spell [Contingency Plan: Foxfire Annihilation] preemptively cast upon them. With the spell [Contingency Plan], it was both amazing and also useless. It took an hour to cast the spell onto an object, which you could only do one at a time and the caster had to choose from a very specific list of effects that could trigger the spell. Want it to activate as a trap? You'd need to specify what single race could trigger it.
Need a healing spell ready to cast? You need your health percentage and what type of damage brought you to said percentage to activate. Very limited, but also extremely powerful if you knew what you were doing.
This is what led to my trap for Loki. I had all the spells set to be cast the moment that an entity with the race [God] came within a single foot of the rock.
So, when I finally fought him again, I threw out all of the enchanted rocks during Phase 1 of the fight, damaged the object he was hiding as, and then watched as his real body began triggering each of the enchanted rocks while his illusions came at me.
That was where the second stage of my plan came into play. I used [Replicant] to drag the attention of all the illusions while I dumped all my attacks on the real Loki who continually triggered my traps while using the spell [Blink] to avoid Loki, his illusions, and his attacks.
38 hours of my life were spent to make those rocks and I didn't regret a single moment as I killed Loki without taking any damage and felt the satisfaction of humiliating his ass. Then, I got the class [Chosen of Loki]. I was sure surprised by that since I didn't even know that class existed when I got it.
"You actually fought a god?" Nfirea voiced the question that the others were thinking. Technically, I've fought many gods, not that they need to know right now.
"More like I was tested by him. If we had really come to blows, he'd very much beat me if he were to actually fight seriously. My life-or-death fight against him was barely a warm-up for the guy." I really did believe that the real Loki could very easily kick my ass.
The fact that he could take all of my items and replace them with a random dress while also dispelling my illusion as a casual little joke just proved that fact. To compare it like a fight, it'd be as if a level 10 Player tried to fight a level 100 Player. Horrifically outmatched and a waste of both of our times.
"Still, fighting a god is not a thing that one takes lightly." Peter said.
"But that is all we'll be discussing about deities today. We have matters involving a certain pair of idiots that attacked you last night." Once I said that, everyone grabbed a seat at the table, while Meepo perched on Nfirea's shoulder once again to join us.
"What did you end up finding out?" Peter asked.
"A bit. Are any of you familiar with the group known as Zurrernorn?" Everyone but Meepo, Nfirea, and Tuare nodded.
"They're a terrorist group that attacks towns, cities, and kingdoms with armies of the undead that they summon. Most of what anyone hears about them is the subjugation missions performed to root them out or that a town was destroyed." Dyne explained for the others who didn't know.
"Are they the ones that attacked us?" Ninya asked.
"They were the ones that attacked. I picked the blonde psychopath's brain for information and found that the little cult was making their home in a crypt within the E-Rantel cemetery." I answered.
"Wait, if that group of necromancers were hiding out in the cemetery the entire time, wouldn't that explain the disappearances along with how aggressive the undead have been as of late?" Lukrut hummed out as he took a bite of his eggs.
"Probably. But that shouldn't be an issue any longer considering that I torched them all last night while they were performing a large-scale necromantic ritual. They were likely waiting for the old man and the psychopath to come back with Nfirea in tow. Luckily, they were all of the Zurrernorn cultists in E-Rantel, so you and Lizzie should be safe for the foreseeable future." I said while focusing on Nfirea at the end.
"T-That's amazing news!" Nfirea said with a smile. Then he focused his attention on everyone, "I don't have the words for how grateful I am to all of you for protecting me. I can't imagine what may have happened if none of you were there for me, so thank you." He finished with a deep bow of appreciation.
"You're gonna make us blush. Even if you hadn't already hired us, we still would've helped you since it's the right thing to do." Lukrut said while rubbing the back of his head with a bashful expression.
"Besides," Dyne added, "you are our friend. Both Lizzie and you have always been there for us adventurers when we needed it. It would be a shame to not help you in return."
"Even so, you still all have my gratitude. If you're willing to wait a bit longer, come to the pharmacy a little later today for your rewards. You as well, Kashia." I shook my head at Nfirea's offer.
"Hold onto your reward since I don't need it. My reward is that you're all still alive." I explained.
"If that is what you wish, then I won't argue, Kashia." Nfirea nodded in understanding before getting up from his seat. Meepo hopped off his shoulder and onto the table as he did this. "I'm going to get going now since there were a few chores I was planning on doing in the city until everything that happened last night. I'll see the rest of you guys at the pharmacy."
"Come back soon, Nfirea. Meepo liked talking about potion-crafting and would enjoy doing it again!" Meepo said with enthusiasm to his new friend. It was nice to see the little kobold bonding with someone that shared his passions.
"I did as well, Mr. Meepo. I'll try to visit again when I have the chance. If you don't have an issue with that, Kashia?"
"My door is open whenever you'd like to come by." I said with a smile to which the young alchemist nodded before leaving the cabin. With Nfirea gone, I focused back on the others and asked, "Aside from the obvious, how did the job go?"
Ninya was the first to answer, and I took notice that Tuare had finished brushing Ninya's hair and had now tied it up into a ponytail very reminiscent of my own. I found it absolutely adorable how she was starting to look like me and wished I had a camera to take a picture of the moment.
"We didn't have a single problem escorting Nfirea to Carne Village. It was pretty calm until we got to the village where a troop of goblins stopped us at the gate." I found that to be interesting. "It turns out that they had been magically summoned with a horn that Enri, the girl who leads the village now, was given by a man named Ainz who saved her village from being slaughtered."
I recall that Enri was the name of the girl that Nfirea had a crush on. Seems like she's moving up in the world. I'll have to ask the boy later if he managed to confess his feelings to Enri.
Relationship aside, Enri was given a magical horn to summon a troop of goblins by a man named Ainz. Guess Momonga felt fairly generous when he saved that village. Also, why was he calling himself Ainz now? The guy was going through names like it was going out of style.
"Following that, we spent the night after Nfirea got his alchemy ingredients and then left the next day. From there, no issues until we got to the city." Ninya finished and finally dug into her food.
"What about you? Must have been an exciting mission considering that the Magician's Guild had you and a few others escort them through the Great Forest of Tob." Lukrut asked with interest.
"Oh, you know, some weird stuff. You'll likely hear all about it at the guild tomorrow. I'd rather leave it as a surprise for you." I answered ambiguously since I did not want to talk about deities any further for today.
"Oh, come on! You can't just tease us with that kind of answer!" Lukrut complained with a laugh.
"Tease you, huh? I haven't even begun trying to tease you, Lukrut~." I said in a breathy whisper before I regained control of myself and realized how much I had leaned towards the archer and had given him a show.
After pulling myself back into my normal sitting position, I took notice that Lukrut was completely red in the face and just sitting there completely frozen.
"Kashia, did you really have to break Lukrut?" Peter joked.
"No, I didn't. But it was fun." I answered back.
"Of course it would be for you. Now, as much fun as this is, I think I'm going to head out since I want to stretch my legs for a bit and get some new clothes. Mine are a bit bloodstained and even after Meepo repaired our armor, I'd like to get cleaned off." Peter said while standing up from the table.
I only noticed now that Meepo had indeed repaired everyone's armor and clothes, including Lukrut's. Everyone except Ninya who was still wearing the unrepaired acid-eaten clothes from yesterday. Why was that?
Peter than dragged Lukrut by the neck of his coat and pulled him off his chair and with him. "Come, Lukrut. We can't leave you as a comatose mess." Both then left the cabin and my eyes couldn't but follow a very specific feature of Lukrut's as they left.
I blamed these damn hormones.
That was also the time that Dyne got up from the table and loaded any of the empty plates onto the tray he had brought. "Peter did make a sound idea since I need to wash up. I'll see you at Nfirea's later, Ninya." With that, Dyne joined the others in their exodus, leaving Tuare, Meepo, Ninya, and I remaining.
"So, Ninya. Why is it that you didn't take up Meepo's offer to repair your clothes?" I asked curiously.
"Umm, well, I don't want to impose, but…" Ninya spoke quite nervously.
"You can ask me anything you'd like." I assured her, already having a small idea that she wanted me, specifically, to repair her clothes.
"Could you make me a new outfit a little like yours?" My heart managed to stop for a moment at hearing how precious her request was. Something I absolutely did not expect her to ask.
"Of course, Ninya!" I immediately answered before scooping her into an enthusiastic hug. The maternal side in me was completely in love with the idea that she wanted to imitate me. "How could I ever refuse such a heartwarming request from my adorable little student!"
[Momonga/Ainz Ooal Gown]
As I decapitated another direwolf, I couldn't help but feel a faint sense of nostalgia of my early days in YGGDRASIL. The days when I had to work my way up from the lowest levels by taking simple quests, working together with my friends, and then moving on to the next adventure.
Looking back on such moments, they were all so small in the grand scale of things, but I found such moments to be precious. It was when my friends and I slowly grew stronger together, attracted more comrades through our efforts, and just had simple fun.
Unfortunately, not even nostalgia could rid me of the annoyance that I felt from taking quests completely below my level.
Ducking under another direwolf that decided to leap and my throat, I stabbed my large blade upwards into its underbelly and let its own momentum cut itself open on my blade before slashing another direwolf in half as it charged forwards. Behind me, I could hear Narberal cast a lightning spell that struck another wolf, eliciting a harsh whine that was quickly silenced.
Flicking the blood off my blades, I looked around the area and found no more of the direwolves to kill. So, I sheathed my blades and walked up to a wolf in front of me before yanking out a pair of fangs before pocketing them.
"Nabe, make sure to collect the fangs of these wolves as proof of completion." I stated to Narberal as I moved to the next wolf. Hopefully, after finishing a few more of these missions, Narberal and I would be promoted. I really don't know how much longer I can deal with these dull missions.
As I knelt in front of another direwolf corpse to rip out its fangs, I received a [Message] from Demiurge. What could he need to report to me about right now?
"Demiurge, what is it that you need to report?" I demanded in the strict tone that I've been getting used to the more I've used it.
"Lord Ainz, I wished to inform you about a few matters of import. For one, the kitsune known as Fox13itch was reported to have returned to E-Rantel just an hour ago. Following this, my spy lost track of her location and is currently trying to reestablish her location. I fear that she may have discovered my spy and is currently working on a plot against you."
Great, another day of Demiurge acting paranoid about Fox13-I mean, Kashia Blanc. Ever since he had discovered her existence, he has been quite adamant about dealing with her in one way or another. Albedo has also been quite… enthusiastic about Demiurge's plans. I really couldn't understand why they just wouldn't understand that she is currently an ally, or at least the closest thing we have to one, in this New World. If she became an enemy later on, we could deal with it, but wasting resources that could be directed elsewhere was not worth possibly gaining her ire.
Besides, I didn't want to lose the only person I found that was both an equal and also understood what I'm going through. I think I might want to speed up the date for our next conversation since I needed someone I could bounce my thoughts off of that wasn't either a sycophant or would misinterpret what I might say.
I tried to follow her advice of just interrogating my subordinates with [Geas] but I just couldn't do it. I still feel some sense of guilt for changing Albedo's backstory and making her obsessed with me. What if casting [Geas] upon one of my subordinates, the creations of my friends, might ruin them in a way worse than how I changed Albedo?
I'm just not sure. And I'm not willing to risk breaking one of my subordinates in a way that I cannot fix.
Right now, the best I can do is continue playing the role that the NPCs have foisted upon me and control their actions that way. I'll think of some other method to ensure my NPCs' loyalties.
"Demiurge, it is not in Kashia's personality to plot the downfall of someone without a reason. We have given her no reason to attack us and we would gain more from her while she is alive than if she was dead. Avoid angering her at all costs for I do not wish to lose her and would be quite disappointed if something were to happen to her." I ordered in a way that I believe Demiurge would both understand while still seeing me as the leader of Nazarick.
"I see, Lord Ainz. How could I be such a fool as to miss such pivotal piece of your Great Plan? I serve your orders as a faithful servant of Nazarick." Demiurge accepted which allowed me to relax. So far, Demiurge was probably one of the NPCs I could trust to follow my orders without issue.
"I am glad to see that we understand each other. Now, you mentioned that there were some other matters to discuss?"
"Yes, my Lord. I have been auditing our supplies for long-term consumption, one of which is the creation of new items of which quite a few are made from materials that we have a limited supply of. I have a few ideas on materials from this New World that can be substituted with Nazarick's limited materials." Demiurge began, making me appreciate his initiative on auditing our supplies without any order from myself. While I did know about our long-term supply issue, it was appreciated when someone else was able to look into such an issue with ideas on how to fix them.
"That is a commendable idea, Demiurge. Go ahead and look further into this and alert me on any discoveries you find."
"Thank you, my Lord. Your praises fill me with immense joy." Demiurge said in a pleased tone. "As for my final section of my report, some of my spies have identified and located a hidden village north-west of the city of E-Rantel which you have established your adventuring persona in. It seems to consist of multiple different races unlike every other settlement that my spies have currently found. If you wish it, I could attempt to annex such a place as it could allow for both a large amount of test subject as well as give us a staging area if you were to ever wish to invade E-Rantel for conquest."
Really, Demiurge? Experiments? I'm not exactly comfortable with live experiments on sentient beings when we have no reason to do so. I could only blame the backstory that Ulbert gave him for why he had these tendencies to be cruel. Better shut it down now so that I don't have to deal with it later.
"No, leave this village alone for now and continue to observe. Instead, focus more on discovering information about the Baharuth Empire. While I have Shalltear making her way through the Re-Estize, I still need to know more about the Empire since Nazarick is near the area where both they and the Re-Estize have their annual war. I'd like to know about the Baharuth's strength in case Nazarick needs to become involved." I responded. Hopefully, he'd acquire some useable information that I could trade with Kashia.
"As you command, my Lord. I will begin my work immediately. For the glory of Nazarick." Demiurge then ended his [Message] and left me a few things to think about.
"My Lord, I have finished collecting the fangs from the rest of the direwolves. What do you wish for us to do next?" Narberal asked.
"We shall return back to the Adventurer's Guild and complete this quest. From there, I wish complete another quest before the day ends." I answered. Narberal gave me a short bow of acceptance and then both of us started walking back to E-Rantel.
[Hours Later]
[The Copy]
"Boss, are you sure about this?" I asked while looking at my original with a raised brow. We were currently standing in the bathroom of her cabin at Haven-Lake. I was watching from the other side of the bathtub that the Boss had me make for her with extremely specific instructions. Even so, this still seemed a little extreme.
"Fuck yes." She answered after stripping off her clothes. Then, she jumped into the tub, causing water to splash around and causing a few chunks of ice to flow over the edge of the tub and onto the floor. "Holy shit, my tits are freezing!" She screeched yet continued to remain in the tub of ice water.
"I really think that there are other ways to deal with your issue besides performing the self-inflicted torture of a Navy Seal." I remarked while trying to hide my smirk at her unique idea.
"Y-You te-tell me af-after ha-having the ur-urge to j-jump yo-your te-teammate for mu-multiple hours!" She retorted through chattering teeth.
"Amazing that you have a resistance or immunity to so many different damage types, yet ice on your tits get you chattering like a squirrel."
"Fu-fuck you! I-I have ar-armor for th-that."
I simply rolled my eyes at her response before I began walking out of the bathroom. "Try not to stay in there too long. Wouldn't want to find out if it's possible for a demigoddess to suffer from hypothermia." I received a splash of ice water in response that ended up missing me.
At this point, she should just have sex already if she was going to bitch about doing everything to avoid it. Ah well, just some food for thought since she'd probably blow my recommendation off and try multiple other plans until eventually falling back to my advice.
At least it would be entertaining until then.