Time passed slowly.
Ice came to the conclusion that counselling might not be the worst idea after all. He didn’t think he was having issues in this aspect, which made him somewhat averse to it contrary to when he had dealt with his social anxiety, but who knew? He wasn’t a professional. His logical mind told him he was getting a bit too invested in the game.
Little Droplet’s mood had returned to normal. Their face was bright, eyes shining, as they talked to Blackstone about the entertainment industry . Blackstone was carving in the meantime, with Spiderlily observing the movements peacefully.
Bloody was singing along to the song the driver was singing. It was one of the very common folk songs, which meant that many players knew parts of it.
The wolfman’s singing voice wasn’t pleasing from a common standpoint. He didn’t hit all notes, for sure, but at the moment, he was a wolf.
Half howling, his voice transformed into something like an accompanying instrument to the driver’s much better skills. All in all, it made for a pleasant background music. Ice knew the song as well, but he wasn’t going to sing in front of people.
Hey, hey, hey-oh
Rabbits running to and fro,
ears up high and head down low.
Today I’ve got no prey to show,
wife at home had told me so!
Hey, hey, hey-oh
Fawns are hiding in the snow,
little antlers yet to grow.
Today I’ve got no prey to show,
wife at home had told me so!
Hey, hey, hey-oh
The days of hunt were long ago,
my feet, they drag, are just too slow,
my wife at home had told me so,
my wife at home had told me so!
The melody was catchy, the text easy. In its full version, there were several lines bemoaning the rich wildlife that the hunter couldn’t catch. It was followed up by the hunter lamenting that his old age made him unable to hunt. The last lines were about the hunter’s son, who went out to hunt and returned with a good harvest. It ended up with the hunter quietly praising his son for being a good huntsman, who then replied, his mother had always told him he would be.
It was a fun song, in a way. Aging was natural, but the huntsmen took it well. If the prey was quicker than you were, you had to give your bow and traps to the next generation to handle.
It wasn’t exactly a fitting song for a wolf, whose old age would spell imminent death, but the two had their fun blaring the song.
Ice thought about the song for a moment before crawling out to sit next to the driver. The man smiled amicably, stopping his song. “Something the matter?”
“You travel a lot, don’t you? I wanted to ask, do you happen to know any stories about dragons, perhaps?”
“Sure do.” The older man clicked his tongue, causing one of the horses that was going slower to regain its pace. “But you’ll have to excuse me for not sharing.”
“Eh? May I ask why?”
The old man’s eyes had a strange glint. “Foreigner, in your place… What would you call a being with immeasurable strength? One that can change reality as it is with a step of its foot, that can call down thunder and lightning, and yet whose grace will give us all peace?”
Ice considered the question. “A… god?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The man tapped a finger against his lips, grinning. “Telling stories of a god for fun is blasphemy, you know.”
Bloody’s voice could be heard from within the carriage. “…At this point I’m not sure if the devs aren’t trying to kill us after all. Ice, say, was this my or your luck at play?”
Lbk kfgf atfs reqqbrfv ab jrx jybea j ubv?
How were they supposed to ask about a god???
Zbgfbnfg, pera ktb kjr atf mjraif bkcfg ab yf jyif ab qjmlos j ubv?!
Jfgajlcis, atlr kjr j qlfmf bo ibgf atfs’v yf tjqqs ab fzqibgf, yea kjrc’a atf vloolmeias ifnfi j ajv yla abb tlut? Ktfs atbeuta atlcur wluta ub yjvis lo Kljwja ifoa, yea lo Kljwja’r rajaer kjr atja bo j ubv, atfc…
The game being completely broken didn’t sound impossible anymore. If the NPCs believed that the Foreigners had bothered their god, they’d hate them.
Inside the carriage, Bloody frowned. He lowered his voice. “Have any of you read up on the origin history of Solstice?”
Haven had books, of course. It had libraries. But reading worked as reading did, so most people weren’t interested. However, Spiderlily ended up nodding. “I have.”
“Awesome. What can you tell us?”
Spiderlily explained. At some point her voice grew hoarse, unused to speaking so much.
Solstice was its own continent. Similar to, say, Australia in reality, it was one big country. A long time ago, there had been one huge continent, but earthquakes had caused it to break apart.
The four groups – beastmen, elves, dwarves and humans – had gathered to form a pact. They’d all live together, not intervening with each other. Because they all had different wants and needs, it worked out without an issue.
With the increasing development, people began to think about the other continents again. Until now, the sea routes to the other places were yet to be recovered – the ocean was like its own living being, refusing to be travelled on. That was why the Foreigners, who came by boat, shocked the NPCs so much.
The boatsmen and the boat that brought the players was like a mysterious unknown entity. It would come with the fog and vanish with it.
It was the elven church that suggested to not be immediately hostile to their strange visitors. That was the beginning of the game, its first day.
As for the church, Spiderlily commented, there was no sign at all to what they treated as their ultimate creator. Neither the churches nor books mentioned anything about its deity. The only noticeable point… was that humans, dwarves and beastmen would enter the churches as well.
As if they all carried the same belief.
Out of respect for the driver, they spoke quietly so that it wouldn’t be heard outside. Ice could be informed later.
The mage kept on trying to think of ways to work around the problem. “Are there any taboos we should watch out for? We don’t want to offend anyone with our careless asking.”
“We all know you Foreigners are blunt. We don’t mind that. Listen, sonny, there’s a very easy way to go on about this. You ask me. If I’m fine with your question, I’ll make it clear. But if I make it obvious it’s not a topic to talk about instead, stop asking. Then I won’t be angry.”
It was the same concept as if there was a child asking. In general, questions weren’t rude – often you’d not know if what you asked was offensive. You did have to let off when told to do so, though.
“That makes sense. Thank you for the hint.”
Thankfully their main task was helping the castle’s owner, the king, rather than Tiamat directly. They could keep their interactions to a minimum and instead ensure that the king would be in contact with her.
As far as they could tell, Tiamat wasn’t going to cause any trouble as long as the king got better.
Satisfied, the driver made a small grunt. He soon began to hum his songs again.
From behind them, Bloody poked his head out between the fabric. “You should sing along, Ice!”
“Me?” Ice almost shook his head in panic. “No, I can’t sing.”
“You’re a mage. Your spells are half sung. I’ve never heard you miss a note!” Bloody’s praise was honest. “If not, you could sing a spell? Something pretty?”
The Ice Emperor wasn’t sure what exactly a pretty spell was. Maybe something sparkly.
The driver perked up, pausing his song and expectantly glancing over. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”
The elven mage fidgeted in his seat. He wasn’t used to singing, but spells were fine. Combing through his memory, he found a spell for falling icicles… If he adjusted that a bit, he could turn it into snowflakes. He didn’t know how much mana it would devour though, as he didn’t begin calculating that.
Ice cleared his throat, went over the spell again, and started chanting.
An almost soothing voice enveloped them all, three sentences of softly spoken words in a loop. Tiny snowflakes formed around the carriage, falling down and melting quickly away. A snowfall in the middle of the sun’s warmth.
The rest of the group closed their eyes, listening to the chant. There was something religious about it, almost.
After the third repetition, Little Droplet opened their mouth.
Nothing would happen – the spell wasn’t their element, but that did not keep them from singing along. A higher voice than Ice’s low one, gently supporting the chant.
“So nice”, Bloody sighed. “It’s like some kinda hymn. I like the magic language a lot, it sounds cool.”
“But what is he chanting there at all? I’ve never checked what the words mean.” Blackstone reached out a small hand to catch a snowflake.
With his mana visibly draining, Ice had to stop the chant. He answered the dwarf’s question from outside. “It’s… not quite a sentence. At least not in the normal way. They’re words strung together – you have a certain order for how things are, but the rest is interchangeable. What I did was link the words for water, frozen, soft and small to ask for snow, then fall and gentle for what’s supposed to happen, followed by numerous, area, small, here-”
“What happens if you skip some of that? For example, if you don’t name a size?”
The mage winced. Ah, memories of his time testing… “Well, if you’re unlucky, a random passerby in the next street suddenly gets hit by a block of ice.”
“So the result is random?”
“Yes. Oh, in addition to the words themselves, intent has a certain result, too. It’s much easier getting a spell to be gentle if I chant it softly. I don’t know who made up the language and programmed it but it’s amazing.”
The mage language was incredibly logical. There was no too much in terms of info, the more detailed you were, the more likely for the spell to do what you wanted it to do. With the basic, already created spells, you’d always get the same result because they were detailed enough.
The reason why people struggled making up their own spells was that not every word worked well together. Ice personally thought that it all made sense, but he was aware most people didn’t agree.
You couldn’t expect to fully understand a language if you didn’t take the time to learn it.
Blackstone ended up asking some more questions that Little Droplet and Ice answered. Shortly afterwards, they stopped to eat dinner made by the dwarf.
…He didn’t know if the real Blackstone also cooked that well, but he was starting to get used to it. It did tempt him to pay more money for better dishes in reality.
They decided to get online in shifts, which would ensure that nothing odd happened during the ride.
Ice offered to take a shift alone – so that Spiderlily and Blackstone could team up as well as Bloody and Little Droplet, making it one fighter each. The others hesitated, but Bloodless Sunset accepted it. The mage didn’t mind sitting alone.
As everyone went offline, Ice sat next to the driver, listening to the man’s humming and simply staring up at the starry night sky, enjoying the breeze.
His thoughts drifted off naturally. The carriage couldn’t possibly be comfortable given the condition of the road, but the bumping had a somewhat hypnotic effect. The silence felt nice after all the chattering.
***
Blackstone whistled at the sight of the Lythian Forest. Other players were nearby, going in and out the path, or fighting a couple of nearby monsters.
If you wanted to be precise about it, the Lythian Forest wasn’t a forest. A forest implied numerous trees. The Lythian Forest, however… Was a single root growing out countless sprouts. It was a single, connected plant.
In the lore players had uncovered so far, the roots were said to grow out of a single core. There were speculations about the details; an Yggdrasil-type setting, or the corpse of a god, for example.
Either way, it was a sight to behold. Most sprouts had grown into tall trees, their branches sometimes intertwining, the green of the leaves having a violet hue. The fruits that grew everywhere glowed like natural lamps, allowing light to exist within the canopy of branches.
Within the forest, fireflies were one of the native species. They’d fly around at night, additionally lighting up the air, while some of the grasses on the floor were bioluminescent too.
The nickname of the Lythian Forest, the Glowing Forest, was there for a reason.
Over time, the elves had used the branches natural desire to intertwine and had woven whole images into the sky, or carved the trees with patterns. The forest was one big, beautiful artwork.
Most of the buildings were kept in a similar fashion. Stained glass and carvings decorated the houses, while the central building – a library – was built in a way that the falling light would be reflected into dancing patterns on the ground. Its high rooftop reached up to the canopy of branches.
Somewhere behind the library you could see the bubbling end of the river, now mostly hidden underground except for a thin path that ended in a clear spring. Crystals of green shades grew out of it and, if you looked closely, you could sometimes see a hand reach out of the water, holding onto them.
Despite it being an artistic city, the amount of guards wasn’t small at all. Every NPC carried visible weapons, while guards kept on patrolling with wary gazes. Fights weren’t allowed.
“Where’s the best place to gain information?”, Bloody muttered to himself, looking around.
This outer area was mostly filled with stores and restaurants. This was the commercial district, so to speak. The library was the border of where things would get harder to reach, but where they might have more luck.
“The librarian”, Spiderlily answered, even though she wasn’t doing the quest. “The librarian has read every book in the library. He might know.”
“What? How do you know about that?”
Spiderlily’s eyes flickered. “…The librarian of the capital sometimes swoons over him.”
It seemed that Spiderlily was a bookworm. Or, at least someone who liked books enough to get personally acquainted with the librarian of the capital.
“Okay, then let’s try finding out if he’s around.”
Little Theater
Ice: “I can’t sing…”
Bloody: “You can! Your singing is beautiful!”
Ice: “??? I’ve never sung before”
Bloody: “I just like whatever you do by default”
Aww~ that “forest” sounds so beautiful, I want to see it too ;__;
That little theater… Bloody again hahahaha.
Thx for the ch (ㅅ˘ㅂ˘)
howling Bloody singing along, cute! (I think I have a pernament Bloody-is-cute filter haha)
whispers It’s the ears.
🥺🥺🥺🥺 you may be right (≧▽≦)
thanks for the chapter <3
Thanks for the chapter ♥️♥️
Thank you for the chapter 💕