Vol 3 Chapter 3 (1/2)

An Empty Stomach, An Ausenco Fruit, Tree Climbing

The girl before me had a head of glossy, blond hair all the way down to her waist, her skin was supple and flawless. Under her long and curly eyelashes were a pair of large, pale, blue eyes. Her nose was small but strong and straight. Her mouth was small and her lips puckered together like a cherry; her jaw narrowed into a pointed little chin. She was a western beauty…

However… at this moment, the hands belonging to this beauty were crackling with small lightning bolts, and she was glaring at me angrily.

The reason behind it all? Freed had already explained it to me. I had overexerted the dragon power within me; and to top it off, in my wind state, I had worn out my muscles and thus exhausted both my body and my mind… As a result, I ended up pa.s.sing out on top of this girl’s chest…

“That… Could you calm down a bit, please?” I tried my best to maintain what one might consider a friendly smile.

Only that the girl’s facial expression did not show the slightest bit of change, and she merely repeated her warning in that same monotonous voice, “I am only going to repeat this once: give me a reasonable explanation, or else I will incinerate you into nothing but ashes with my lightning.”

Wah! Very scary! Her gaze was really terrifying… Why would she be like this? She was a humanoid spirit like Silent Water, but why was it that Silent Water’s personality was so easy to get along with? Was it because they are of different elemental types? But… their personalities were just too different…

‘Freed, help.’

‘Even if you ask me for help, I really can’t…think of any good explanation… Unless you want me to let you say, “Your chest was simply too supple and soft, so I accidentally fell asleep on top of you?” If you say that, I believe that you will be incinerated into ashes in an instant.’

‘If even you say that you couldn’t think of anything… then what can I possibly do?’

Could this really mean the end of the line for me this time? This couldn’t be right? Wild spirits or whatever are indeed very scary…

Wait a minute… She told me to give her a reasonable explanation, she didn’t tell me to give her a reason. In that case, would that mean that she had forgiven me; that all I needed was just an explanation and after all that was said and done, she would forgive me?

“About that… Actually, I just happened to pa.s.s by this area and ended up saving you… When I was rescuing you, I used up too much of my power and exhausted myself. As a result, I accidentally fell over, but I didn’t plan on falling onto… Ugh… I didn’t do it on purpose.” Just when I was about to say “your chest”, Freed reminded me that the girl’s expression had changed, and I got so scared that I stuttered…

“I wasn’t asking about that; what I was asking was when you were running away, why did you… grab… my… and… so forcefully at that…” The blond haired girl asked me something that I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of. In stark contrast to her serious and somber expression, was that a hint of crimson that I saw on her face?

When I understood that the girl wasn’t angry at me because I fainted on her chest, I gave a sigh of relief – so she wasn’t talking about that. Then, she was upset because I was grabbing onto something of hers? What exactly was that something? How come she didn’t spell it out?

‘Kid, don’t you dare ask that question. Actually, when you picked her up, you should have noticed that your hand had grabbed hold of something soft, right?’

‘Not really. At the time, I was just focusing on running away – where would I find the time to get a feel of something soft?’

‘… Then, you just need to tell her that you were focusing on running away, and didn’t notice anything. That should do it. Also, in order to distract her, you should ask her for her name, where she is from… how she ended up fighting that demon. That way, I believe the mood should gradually improve?’

“Err… At the time, I was just focusing on running away, so I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Why should I tell a weak human such as yourself? Tell me, how did you get here?”

My first question had failed, how was I supposed to ask the rest of the questions? Well, at least, I managed to change the topic.

“My name is Lin Xiang…”

“I didn’t ask for your name.”

“Sorry… um… actually, I accidentally fell through a dimensional crack?”

“So, that was what happened.” The girl gave me a slight nod of her head, then she started asking me questions again, “How did you rescue me from the grasp of Guntheru, that powerful boulder demon? Even though I was somewhat conscious at the time, I couldn’t quite make out how you broke its arm. At the time, I felt like there was a gust of wind that blew by us, then its arm fell off. After that, I think I heard a noise that sounded like something had smashed into a tree? Then, the tree fell down?” The girl continued to recount the events that had happened, then as though she had suddenly thought of something, she asked, “Could you be some sort of a Musketeer? That’s impossible. How could a mere human Musketeer have any abilities that would be more powerful than my ‘Wrath of Thunder’?”

The term, “Musketeer”, was new to me; I really hadn’t heard of it. She said something about a noise that sounded like something had smashed into a tree. That must have been the sound of me accidentally ramming into the tree because I was running too fast and couldn’t stop myself, right? Now that I thought about it, that tree really did get knocked over by me.

“I am not some sort of Musketeer; I am just a normal human. By the way, your lightning was really powerful, destroying everything within a hundred square meters.”

Though, it was completely ineffective against that superior cla.s.s earth type demon…

“Humph!” This girl’s face finally showed a different expression, and it was a prideful one.

After she discharged the lightning sparks enveloping her hands, she lifted one of her hands to smooth out her golden locks. Looking quite pleased with herself, she said to me, “Of course it was powerful! I am a member of the Reiworth clan. By the way, you still haven’t told me how you did it.”

“I… I am not too sure either…” If I were to tell her that I was a dragonkin, would she believe me?

The modern day dragons have their own territory within the Demon World. They don’t interact much with other creatures, and prefer to live in solitude and mind their own business. They would also attack any living creatures that enter their territory, even spirits are no exception. Because of this, like demons, spirits are also afraid of dragons to a certain degree.

“You are not sure?” Upon hearing this, she lifted one of her thin eyebrows at me.

“I really have no clue.” I made an innocent face.

“Alright, seeing that you helped me out earlier, I will believe you. Then, why don’t you explain to me how my injuries got fixed up? Also, what is with this business where my body is now so full of magical power?”

“…” I really couldn’t give an explanation for this. If I were to tell her that I had taken the liberty of holding her in my arms, and for over a minute at that, she would kill me for sure, right?

“Grrroooowl…”

Right at this moment, my stomach made a loud growling noise. It had saved me at the most opportune moment.

“I am starving – I want to go out and look for some food. Why don’t we talk later?”

“You need to eat food? Humans are such a pain.”

“Ah… not much I can do about it, I am a human after all…”

If you were to go to the Human World, you would be just as much of a pain to deal with too…

————————————

When I stepped out of the cave and looked around me, I saw that the sky had grown dark.

Is it night time already? No way, I have to head back, or Silent Water would get worried.

‘Relax, you stinking brat! It is just about noon in the Human World right now.”

‘Huh?! What?!’

Clearly, the sky is already dark, so why did Yalide say that it was only noon time in the Human World? Could it be that there is a time difference? The only problem is that the difference in time is just too large, no?

‘What happened was, when demons damaged the spatial membrane, they also damaged the structure of time in the Demon World. As a result, these days, two days in the Demon World equates to one day in the Human World. Do you get it now?’

‘Oh… so that was what happened. I learned something new again. No wonder demons are so powerful, their time to grow is twice that of humans. Well, back to the topic at hand – I am really hungry right now, is there anything that I can eat around here?’

‘Just a moment… Let me see… How do you feel about… “gra.s.s”?’ Yalide acted as though he was some waiter in a restaurant and recommended me this item called “gra.s.s”.

‘You b.a.s.t.a.r.d! What the heck do you take me for?’

‘But spirits only ever eat things that are aligned with their elemental attributes, like gra.s.s and stuff like that. So, besides gra.s.s, what else is there for you to eat? Are you telling me that you plan to catch a rabbit shaped spirit and roast it as food?’

That plan sounded pretty good; but the problem lies in the part where the rabbit would be a spirit…

‘Th…Then, how about fruits and the like, shouldn’t you have something like that here?’

‘Hmm? There might be. I do recall that there was this fruit that I liked, and I could eat two of that ausenco fruit in one bite in one sitting. It should grow near Bijur, right around this area… Let me use my telepathy to sense it… Hmmm? It’s really close by… 39 degrees east of north, one thousand five hundred meters ahead.’

‘Wow… I’m truly amazed by you – you can even use telepathy to detect fruit.’

I hadn’t noticed this before – so, Yalide actually has this kind of ability.

‘Why, but of course! The imprint of the Demon World map that I have in my head is no joke.’

‘Why didn’t you just call it like it is, that you actually found the location on the map? Why did you have to say that you used your telepathy to detect the fruit?’

That was careless of me… He had me fooled; I even thought that he was incredible for a moment there.

‘What do you mean by that? Are you saying that I didn’t have to pinpoint our current position?’

‘Alright, you win, but next time, don’t you…’ “Hey!” I was pushed by something, and my conversation with Yalide got interrupted.

“What are you doing standing there like an idiot? Why don’t you hurry up and get going?”

“I was a bit distracted just now. You came out after me… Do you want to come along?”

When I came out of the cave a moment ago, she was just sitting there, so I figured that she didn’t want to come with me.

“Who would want to go with you? It’s just that I saw a certain someone standing here, begging me to go with him.”