“Where would a librarian be if not in the library?”, Little Droplet wondered. The guard – who was incredibly tall – peered down at the small figure and couldn’t help but soften up.
“He might be eating. He does that, once in a while”, the guard guessed. It was a funny way of saying that the librarian might be on a lunch break.
“Where does he usually go to eat?”
“One of the inns. I don’t know which one exactly.” The elf shook his head.
So they set off. The elf had only given them a vague description, so Bloody went from inn to inn to ask about it.
In the last one – they shouldn’t have let Bloody lead, should they? – they finally found someone who knew.
The owner of the inn giggled, pointing a slender finger to the side. “The librarian? You mean Ithiel? Oh, that darling’s over there as usual. Be nice to him, alright?”
Ithiel, as was his name, sat in a hindmost corner. There were half eaten dishes on the table, as well as a little notebook. The person leaning over the table was scribbling something with a lot of concentration on his face.
“Excuse me”, Bloody said as he stopped before the table. “A-”
He didn’t get much farther. Ithiel jolted up in surprise, hitting his knee against the table and immediately bending forward with a painful groan. He blinked, tears visible at the corners of his eyes.
“H-Huh? W-Who are you?”
Ithiel pulled his head between his shoulders. He wasn’t small, but pretty much average height, with overly pale skin that stood out from the rest of dark-skinned elves. There were a couple of freckles under his pale brown eyes, the long ashen-brown hair messily wrapped up into a bun. His robe – which was beautiful and intricate but much too large for him – hung askew on his shoulders.
“Ah.” Bloody choked up a bit, his brotherly feelings surging. He lowered his voice, trying to sound nicer. “You’re Ithiel, right? We’re a group of Foreigners travelling. We heard of your knowledge and wanted to ask if maybe you could help us out with a quest.”
Ithiel’s eyes widened. Then he smiled lopsidedly but happily, looking a bit embarrassed. “Me? No one has come to me for help before, but I’ll try my best!”
He tried to stand up again but only ended up hitting his leg once more. Ithiel hissed before laughing goofily at them.
Bloody turned his head away, hiding it in Ice’s shoulder. “I want to keep him…”
“Uhm, let me introduce myself formally! I am Ithiel, the librarian of the Lythian Forest. It’s nice to meet you!” The young elf – maybe his early twenties – bowed and held out a hand to Blackstone first and foremost. After everyone had shaken his hand, he giddily hopped off to say goodbye to the inn’s owner, completely forgetting about the rest of his meal.
“Did we disturb you, by the way? We didn’t mean to disrupt your meal.”
“Not at all!” Ithiel stumbled over his own foot, doing half a pirouette and managing to keep upright. He took out the notebook he had been scribbling in, opened it up and shoved it towards the players. “Do you know the temple? Of course you know the temple. All of your Foreigners do, somehow. So strange! I was writing down notes about it, the differences between your marriages and ours!”
The temple of marriage for players was an NPC temple that had begun accepting Foreigners for the procedure, as was the lore.
It couldn’t be helped that the players did it a different way though.
“The vow thing is interesting. I don’t quite get why you have a contract though, that’s very weird.” Ithiel’s brown eyes peeked over the notebook at Spiderlily, who was the first to come closer and read his notes. “I’m trying to write down all details, but your choice of clothes confuse me.”
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.
Qtlif atfgf kfgf gfjvs-wjvf mibatfr, la kjr nfgs kfii qbrrlyif ab jrx j ajlibg ab wjxf sbe j merabw wjvf rfa. Ktlr tjv gfreiafv lc njglber vloofgfca asqfr bo mfgfwbclji mibatfr klat lcoiefcmfr ogbw jii bnfg atf kbgiv.
Ktf ilygjgljc vlv j rkfgnf jkjs ogbw atflg bglulcji ubji, kjixlcu abkjgvr atf wjggljuf afwqif jr tf ajixfv. “Lbk vb sbe vfmlvf ktb kfjgr ktja?”
“Uh, just as we like”, Bloody answered.
“And the colours? White seems to be a classic, but why do the men often wear black? Why not full white too? Why do some of you wear red? I’ve seen red before. It doesn’t seem to be related to your race…” The elf’s cheeks flushed with excitement. Everything about him reminded Ice of a chick, hopping around and chirping.
“I guess we don’t make much sense from your perspective, huh…”
“Not at all! That’s why it’s fun!” Ithiel laughed.
Blinded by the fuzzy warmth emanating from the innocent researcher, no one could bear telling him that they would prefer getting back to the library already.
Instead, the temple came into sight. Many players were sticking around, informing themselves or talking about possible marriages. A lot of information must have been filtered out for the NPCs, as many talked about the game directly.
The temple was a bit odd with its almost greek structure. The only thing that lessened the visible difference to the buildings around it were the vines of ivy happily growing over every corner.
“We actually don’t use this to marry, by the way”, Ithiel commented. “Elven marriages don’t use a temple.”
“Is…” Spiderlily said something, then cleared her throat awkwardly when everyone looked at her. “…Is it possible for us to go through an elven marriage? Just, theoretically speaking?”
“That’s a good question. I don’t know, would the spirits react to you?”
An elven marriage involved both parties burying tree sapling next to each other. They would then pray to the spirits of the forest – well, forest-tree – to bless their partnership. Following that, the saplings would grow up to half a person’s height, branches intertwining and roots in the earth joining the roots of the forest-tree.
It was said that if the feelings between both sides weren’t honest, the saplings wouldn’t grow.
It was truly a sweet setting.
“Oh, oh! Do you wish to marry?” With a bit of delay, the librarian caught something behind the words.
Spiderlily shook her head. “No. I do not have a partner. I simply thought that your ceremony is much more beautiful than ours.”
Ithiel proudly puffed out his chest. The action kind of got lost behind his too large robe. “I understand! I personally hope my tree will join these rows one day.”
The NPC responsible for the marriages wore a strained smile as a couple of players pestered her in a bad attempt of tricking the set regulations of marrying. Wherever the poor priestess walked, the players would follow.
“You Foreigners can be a bit… pushy”, Ithiel commented without a hint of judgement.
“Can’t deny that.”
Ithiel gave them a rundown of the temple’s history before dragging them off to buy some food when his stomach started rumbling. His missed meal in the inn wasn’t fully the players’ fault, but guilty as they felt, they invited him anyway.
The elf thanked them repeatedly, nibbling on something that looked like bread with dried fruits. Once more, he gave them a lengthy talk of its origin.
Surprisingly, it was easy to listen to Ithiel. The way he told his knowledge just pulled people along.
“So”, he said as they walked back on track an eternity later. “What can I help you with? History? Geography? Identification?”
“Medicine”, the beastman responded, as usual taking over the task of talking. “There’s someone who is sick whom we want to help.”
“Oh! Medicine! That’s interesting!” Ithiel walked backwards to face Bloody as he talked but stumbled. The beastman quickly pulled him up again, making Ithiel rub his neck in embarrassment.
As it turned out, the first impression wasn’t all that wrong. Ithiel’s office was a well-organized mess: Things were everywhere, but if you checked the titles, there seemed to be an order. Not one that any random person could recognize, though.
“I’m all ears.” Ithiel shoved some things from a sofa to make place for everyone. They sat opposite of him, with Spiderlily already being distracted by the books around her.
“The one we wish to help is an elf. He appeared very tired, with headaches and issues in concentration. He looked exhausted. His retainer said the illness is called Internal Fragmentation?”
“Eh?” Ithiel blinked again, very slowly. “…Internal Fragmentation, you say?”
“Yes.” Ice nodded, frowning a tiny bit. “That was what he said. It doesn’t sound like an illness, but…”
“No, it is, in a way… I know about it.” Ithiel grabbed the edges of his collar, fiddling with them. “It’s just… I never heard of that having such symptoms?”
“How much is known about it? What are the usual signs? Do you know the cure?” The surprise in Bloody’s voice was evident.
“Ah… Haha…” Ithiel appeared considerably awkward suddenly. “That… I guess you Foreigners don’t know… We all have this. I mean, everyone. Internal Fragmentation is the name of the sickness every inhabitant of Solstice is born with.”
The dumbfounded silence that settled over everyone made Ithiel nervous. He jumped up, running to a corner to fetch something, and returned. He put a heavy book onto the table between them. It was old, with the pages having yellow edges and the binding fraying.
Ithiel went through a couple of pages before stopping. He turned it towards them, displaying the illustration.
The image wasn’t printed. It was drawn by hand and with ink. A humanoid figure was hovering above numerous people. The expressions were only roughly drawn, but they conveyed the feeling as well as if it was a photograph. The people on the ground revered the hovering one, loving them, but the one above only had disdain.
“It’s said that a long time ago, we did something to make our creator angry and in return, were cursed for it. We are forever trapped in Solstice, never to explore the rest of the world again. You Foreigners can travel, can’t you? You don’t have the curse.”
Ithiel changed the page, now showing a group of people standing before a grave with empty faces. Here, he paused for a long time.
“The Interior Fragmentation… You asked about the usual symptoms? There are few. For example… We cannot cry over our lost ones. Whenever someone dies, we… just lose our feelings for them. Adoration and the like, they stay, but love, affection, hate, they vanish. We also cannot love our newborn immediately. Only with time can this feeling grow, as if all bonds that shouldn’t have been there don’t exist. The reason why we call it that… Is because we say that our feelings are fragmented. They’re broken. We know it should be different, but although we know, we cannot change it.”
Ithiel’s shoulders sacked. He returned his fingers to his lapel, nervously touching it.
“There is no cure. It’s a sickness born from a curse, and we cannot lift it.”
“Broken by design? Is this part of the world’s questline?”, Blackstone whispered. “It shouldn’t be an accident if they have an explanation like this…”
“Maybe it wasn’t programmed”, Little Droplet wondered quietly.
Opposite of the sad young NPC, Ice was unable to tear his gaze away from him. His thoughts kept on repeating Ithiel’s words, and the conversation they had had during their travels.
What separates a human from a fake one?
Is it that feelings could only be learned slowly? That they couldn’t exist without a logical build-up? That anything useless was discarded right away?
“If you found a cure for it, Foreigners, I’d be eternally thankful.” Ithiel laughed. It sounded fake. “That way, I… could maybe mourn my parents.”
“But aren’t you?”
The words came blurted out of Ice’s mouth. He kept on thinking about the words.
Ithiel made a confused noise, but Ice was willing to explain. “You say you lose all feelings for the dead. But, wishing to mourn them, doesn’t that mean you have feelings left? If there were none, why would you still bother to think about them?”
The young elf’s face turned completely blank. His body froze up, slightly unnaturally tilted. Seconds passed.
“He’s bugged?” Little Droplet threw the guess into the room. “This looks bugged to me…”
“Is it because you pointed out the bug that the AI crashed?” Blackstone worriedly waved a hand in front of Ithiel’s face.
The elf’s pale eyes twitched over to the hand. His body unfroze, shaking momentarily. His fingers clenched around his collar, a shaky smile on his face. “…I-I’m sorry. …I blanked out for a moment there. What were you saying again?”
“…It’s nothing.” Ice did not repeat his words. Who knew what would happen.
Ithiel’s hands lowered to his lap. He pressed them down, obviously unsettled, and croaked out a couple of sentences. “Anyway, I cannot help you with that. Please find a conclusion on your own. I… I will take a rest now. I’m tired after lunch.”
The elf stormed off without another goodbye.
Ice’s gaze followed him. Breathing in, he was about to call for Bloody, but the beastman was quicker.
“There’s something?”
“Yes”, Ice said. “Could you wait outside? I want to try talking to him again.”
“What are you going to do?” Little Droplet smoothed the creases on their clothes.
The Ice Emperor didn’t want to explain. He quickly hurried after the vanishing elf, while the rest of the group stayed behind.
Author’s Note
Does this count as a cliffhanger?
Have a cute lil chibi that a very talented friend drew <3
Thank you for the chapter!! ❤️❤️
Bloody’s brotherly feelings for Ithiel HAHAHAHAAH
(hiding his head in Ice’s shoulder, super cute!!)
The Interior Fragmentation T_T awwww :((((
thanks for the chapter <3
»Bloody turned his head away, hiding it in Ice’s shoulder. “I want to keep him…”« Awww~ Bloody :3
The dice luck left xDD But otherwise we wouldn’t have learned that an elven marriage sounds so much more meaningful. (And it’s eco friendly, they plant new trees, we humans destroy them :3)
Oho~ bug… was that now a good thing or not? Yes, it counts as a cliff but just a small one xD
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و
Cute drawing!
Thank you for the chapter 💕