Book 4: Chapter 50 (1/2)

Stella climbed out of Vur’s snout and yawned. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and her hair was frizzled. She blinked and squinted when the sun shone in her eyes. Her hands reached down and patted Vur’s scales. “Vur, hey, Vur. I finished interrogating that deer.”

Vur tilted his head. Luckily, Stella’s body was still stuck in his snout; otherwise, she would’ve fell off. “Does she know where Tafel is?”

Stella blinked. “Um? I didn’t ask about Tafel,” she said and shook her head. “Instead, I asked her about a lot of important, well, maybe important things. Like, I asked her about what she could do, and how she could survive despite being eaten by you.”

“Oh.” Vur crossed his eyes to stare at Stella. “And?”

“Right, so, these spirit animals, they’re creatures made by the people,” Stella said. “The people build totems and worship them, and if there’s enough worshipping going on, a spirit animal is born. It’s like a ritual, but there aren’t a lot of items needed since there’s so much mana in the air or something. Anyway, after an animal is born, it lives forever and ever unless it gets eaten by a rival animal. Then the rival animal gets stronger! It’s really interesting.”

Vur blinked and tilted his head even further. “Is this important?”

“Learning is always important,” Stella said and wrinkled her nose. “But if you mean important for finding Tafel, it’s probably not.” Stella patted Vur’s scales when she saw he was losing interest. “Hey! It might not help us find Tafel, but Tafel will be super excited to find out about it. These animals can improve people’s strengths. You know how she’s always going on and on about being weak and wanting to get stronger to beat you.”

“To beat me?”

“Err, not you, but that someone she’s always talking about, you know.” Stella nodded. “These animals can split off parts of themselves to imbue humans with special abilities. A deer spirit can make people run faster. An owl spirit can make people silent. A bear spirit can give people strength.”

Vur pointed at the spirit rabbit by the spirit bear. “What’s the rabbit spirit do?”

Stella blinked and turned around, her torso twisting at her waist. “Hey, rabbit! What do you gift your humans?”

“No one prays to me,” the rabbit said, its ears drooping. “That’s why I’m so tiny.”

“But someone must’ve prayed to you for you to exist, right?” Stella asked, a wrinkle appearing on her forehead.

“Yes.” The rabbit sighed. “They prayed I’d make their enemies timid and weak.”

“Oh.” Stella’s expression relaxed. “That’s not a bad ability. Making your opponent weaker is the same as making yourself stronger.”

The rabbit rapidly shook its head. “I send parts of myself into their enemies. Then their enemies pray to a different animal spirit, and that animal spirit consumes the portion I sent inside.”