Chapter 103 – Racing Twelve Times (1/2)
Just in case, I checked all the hairs, but the results only made things worse.
The hairs didn't match up. There were at least three different people's hairs here, and I couldn't tell which ones belong to Alicia.
Out of curiosity, I looked around and confirmed that there were even more hairs of various colours and lengths tucked away in hard to clean corners. There was even some white ones that were much shorter than my own hair, though I couldn't discount the possibility that they really were my own and simply were cut short somehow. I didn't have the energy to confirm it either way.
It was unfortunate, but I was out of the easy way to get Alicia's genes. Or any way to get her genes.
While I doubted that she would have cared much about it, I personally wanted her to retain as much of her own genes as she could. At the very least as a memento of her previous life.
All I had was a sheet of paper that didn't even have anything about my previous life written on it. To make matters worse, the ones after my life seemed to be able to track it, so even taking it out of my bag wasn't possible.
I couldn't really say that I had much worth remembering regarding my previous life, but the fact that I didn't have any physical mementos at all was a bit sad. It made me cling to that torn sheet of paper even more despite the danger it brought. And that was despite the fact that it was only a memento of my death and reincarnation, not my previous life.
Even if she didn't feel it was necessary, it was better for Alicia to have some sort of physical memento of the events that brought us together.
I wanted her to have such a memento.
Her life might have been difficult before we met. No, maybe even after we started living together, but all my memories with her were precious.
But maybe, I was just afraid.
Afraid that if she didn't have a physical connection to her past, that she would chose to discard it entirely and start anew.
As I had.
But I lacked fond memories of my past life. It was nothing but greys and blacks. What little colour I had managed to eke out was completely overshadowed by my death, negating anything and everything I had hoped to have earned. To have gained.
It was probably just me being overly pessimistic, but I couldn't help but hesitate when it came to confirming Alicia's wishes.
Or rather, it was pretty cheap of me to withhold getting her opinion on the matter. It would have to happen someday, but not asking her now at the beginning was dirty.
Because I already knew what her answer was going to be. She would accept whatever she thought would be easiest on me and take whatever burden all on her own little body. If I had nothing prepared for her, she'd ask for whatever was conveniently available. If I had already prepared the closest thing to her original body as I could, she'd accept that as little additional work needed to be done anymore.
Sigh
For now, I could only put that line of thought aside. Differentiating Alicia's genes from everyone else's in this dungeon was next to impossible and I wanted to her to get her new body as soon as possible. The longer I waited, the more risk came to her. If something happened to me, she'd be lost as well.
Instead, I went to the master skill list, made a copy of the [Breeding] skill, and went to examining it.
I spent the next week alternating between visiting everyone outside and spending my time in the dungeon.
Outside I mostly screwed around with the fluffballs and the fairies, though I also asked a ton of questions to both Orphne and Aurae. The massive gaps I had in common knowledge were quickly filled thanks to them.
In the middle of one of the first lessons, I half-heartedly mentioned that if they wore a teacher's outfit, they'd complete the image. As I should have figured beforehand, I ended up being hassled about what that was, and I gave a simplified explanation of what such an outfit looked like.
The next day, both Orphne and Aurae were sporting tight dress shirts, miniskirts, dress shoes with low heels, spectacles, and even a pointing stick to complete the look. Together with their smug faces as they taught me the basics made me realize just how well they made the sexy teacher look work without actually looking very sexy.
That said, the colour scheme was a bit wrong as Orphne went for a light green top and brown skirt while Aurae wore a bright pink top and navy blue skirt.
Though somewhat successful, I did my best to avoid looking up their skirts whenever they flew above me.
Despite all that, the lessons were quite helpful, even if the two got distracted quite often or went on weird tangents almost constantly. What the information they did give me was quite useful.
”In the beginning, there were the six races of light created by the gods to live in their world. The humans, dwarves, beastkin, elves,spirits, and us fairies.”
”Yup! Especially the spirits and us!”
”The dwarves short but stout people who come from the caves in the northern mountains of Hyperborea...”
”It's too cold outside, and too hot inside. And stinky. And loud. But they have tasty mushrooms! But Elder Vodnik eats too many of them.”
(That's where that elder got that weird addition from?!)
”And they mine the mountains to expand their cities and many of them are artisans.”
”They're sparkly and pretty, but not as pretty as what we make!”
”The humans look a lot like vampires like you and are from the plains of Elysia...”
”It's smelly and dirty in their cities. And not nearly enough flowers or trees!”
(Was it that smelly? Though the flowers and trees bit was true. I didn't even see a park in any of the cities.)
”They like their big cities with huge walls and make a lot of children.”
”Like really a lot! Most of them have more than one kid a decade! It's unbelievable! Also do you know why they make so many walls? Isn't that annoying?”
”The beastkins look similar to humans but have the ears and tails of various animals, and are from the jungles of Themiscyra...”
”It's so hot and wet there! Oh! But the flowers are nice.”
(That was the first decent thing she said about any of their homes.)
”They like to compete and are pretty strong. Also they have a lot of kids. Even more than the humans.”
”Lots and lots of kids! How do they even remember which ones are theirs when they have so many?”
”The elves have long ears like vampires and are from the forests of Arcadia like us fairies...”
”...”
(Huh?)
”They're...ugh.”
”...”
”Wait wait wait! Do you guys hate the elves that much?”
This treatment of them seemed a bit excessive, though I didn't know just how broad their issues with the elves were.
”Not all of them are bad...”
”Some are nice...”
”But...”
”But...”
”The spirits?”
”Yea. So many of them don't care for the spirits properly. Not all of them, but too many.”
”Yea yea! So many bad elves! And they're noisy too! And yell at us too much! And don't like fun! And don't make good food! And they treat the spirits badly! And yell at us! And their food is terrible!”
”I see...”
There was some weird emphasis along the way, but I let it slide. It really felt like the problems between fairies and elves were pretty deeply rooted.
”Moving on, next is us fairies. We also came from Arcadia like the elves.”
”Yea! Arcadia's great! Lots of trees! Lots of flowers! Lots of spirits! Ah! But we brought the spirits here, and the trees here are so big! The flowers are nice too! Your home's great!”
”Thanks.”
It was nice to have my backyard complimented like that, even if I had virtually nothing to do with it beyond proximity.
”Lastly are the spirits. Well, they came from all over the light lands.”
”Yup! They can be born anywhere! Though more of them are born where the mana's strong, like here!”
Just like I had, these little fluffballs were creatures that were born spontaneously out of virtually nowhere. All they need was just a bit of mana concentrated in one spot and a new fluffball was brought into the world.
(I kinda want to witness it for myself.)
It would be nice if I got lucky.
”After the light races were brought to the world, there's conflicting stories, but the dark races soon came after. Either some evil god created them to spread discord across the world, or the light races fought amongst themselves too much and the dark feelings created the dark races.”
(While the backstory for the light races were pretty vague, both theories for the dark races were even more so.)
”There's the demons, titans, dragonkin, dark elves, imps, and vampires.”
”Eeeevil! They're all eeevil! Except you! You're a vampire but you're nicer than anyone we know!”
”Thanks?”
”The titans are large dark people who come from the northern hills of Jotunheim.”
”They're huge! Like this huge! Really!”
Orphne stretched her arms out in an attempt to emphasize how big the titans were. Except she did it horizontally rather than vertically.
(Are they also really wide, or is she just screwing it up?)
”The demons are horned dark people and come from the western wastelands of Valaskialf.”
”They look weird! They have red skin! Red!”
(Those sound just like stereotypical demons. Were their creators even trying?)
”The dragonkin, well, you've already met one. They come from the volcanoes of Muspelheim.”
”Not fun! Not fun at all!”
(...Well, Magni couldn't stand these fairies either, so it's no real surprise Orphne felt that way about his kind.)
”The dark elves look like normal elves but have black skin and live in the haunted forest of Svartalfheim.”
”They're just as bad as real elves! No fun! No fun at all!”
(Or rather, they're entirely the evil counterpart of the light race elves? Or maybe an offshoot?)
”Near the dark elves, are the the imps. They look like human babies, but have little horns and wings on their backs and fly like us fairies. They're from the swamps of Idavoll.”
”Cheap knockoffs! We should sue them!”
(Wait?! Fairies are copyrighted?!)
”And lastly there's the vampires like yourself. They can be born anywhere in the dark lands, since they are born from the land's mana just like the spirits.”
”Like spirits! But big and mean! Except you! You're really nice!”
”Thanks...no wait, we're like spirits? What do you mean?”
”It's just like what Orphne said. Vampires are just like spirits, but of the dark races. All the dark races are like that.”
”All of them? Then, each dark race is a dark version of the light races?”
”Exactly. All of them are.”
(That explains a few things.)
It wasn't so obvious as Aurae explained them, but thinking back, it was easy to make comparisons between the races. Dragonkin were basically scaly beastkin, the dark elves were just dark...elves, and imps sounded like deformed fairies. That was already half the races. If I knew more about the others, I could figure probably point to more similarities.
My eyes went to Orphne who somehow got bored already and was flying circles around Aurae who tried to followe her movements with her eyes.
(Ah, she got dizzy and fell over!)
If the dark races were manifestations of the darkness within the light races in the past, it was easy to see why they were equivalents.
That said...
(These fairies? Having darkness?)
It was hard to imagine. But considering how poorly they look at the elves, there must have been some darkness somewhere despite how little they showed in their everyday lives.
(But what's even more difficult to imagine is...)
My eyes rose up and was filled with a literal swarm of fluffballs flittering around overhead. Their numbers had increased in numbers exponentially. It really seemed like an entire nation's worth of fluffballs were coming to take up shop around here.
But the fluffballs were innocent creatures. I couldn't imagine any living creature, especially an intelligent one like the, being even capable of harbouring any darkness within them at all.
(...)
Not the fluffballs, but Claret. Despite how happy she often was, she had a lot of darkness hidden inside. I had seen it come out more than enough times to have no doubt about it.
(So is that possible then?)
”Hey, are there a lot of greater spirits in this world?”
”No, not really.”
Orphne stopped pointing and laughing at Aurae who was slowly spinning on the spot upside down. Her skirt had inverted and with her legs sprawled out she was completely showing.
(So she wears pink huh?)
”I think there's only a few dozen in the entire world. It's really rare for a spirit to awaken.”
”I see.”
If their numbers were that low, then it was hard to imagine them being solely responsible for the creation of us vampires. If that was the case, then the evil god theory sounded a lot more credible. Such a being would have reason to make equivalents of every race after all.
”Huh? Wait a sec.”
”Yes?”
”I can kinda see all the other races, but how are vampires the dark equivalent of spirits? We're nothing alike.”