Chapter 42: Chapter Fourty: Communication is Key

“...I took a sip of a beer, then passed out, and presumably died,” I said, finishing my narrative on my life after the tragedies of the three people sitting before me.”

“...pfft.” A certain golden Dragonoid seemed to be struggling to hold in her laughter. “I’m not going to do it…nope.”

“HAHAHA!” she exploded.

My cheeks swelled up as a massive pout made its way onto my face.

‘I feel a lot more expressive in this form…interesting.’

The dragon lady’s laughter stopped abruptly as her sister smacked her upside the head.

“Rude, Rua!” Ms. Azalea scolded. “How would you like it if someone laughed at your death?”

“It’s fine,” I waved. “I expect that from someone like Ms. Murua.”

I made sure to emphasize calling her by her name and not master. For some reason, over the last couple of weeks, she seemed to really like when I called her Master. I could almost see her swell with pride as I did so. 

Sure enough, I watched as the golden dragon deflate as I decided to not use her title.

“Well, it’s not that odd when I think about it?” Ms. Azalea said.

“What’s not that odd?” I asked.

“The way you passed away,” she stated. “See, your mom is also a total lightweight when it comes to alcohol.”

The lady in question flinched and her cheeks turned a red as she was exposed.

“That in combination with the stress that had been accumulating in your body, along with your family’s hereditary heart disease…sounds like a recipe for death to me.”

“I didn’t even know we had a hereditary heart disease,” I replied, turning to look at my mama.

“That’s not something you tell your seven-year-old,” she responded, face still red. “But enough about that, I want to hear about your new life.”

‘My new life huh?’

“Well, let’s see…I woke up submerged in the ground… as a seed.”

“Oh no, that sounds terrible…wait what?” Mama asked.

Not hearing her, I continued speaking.

“From there I grew into a flower with an eye and then eventually a tree with eyes.”

“Wait a minute, Riot.” Ms. Azalea spoke up.

 With the view, I got from being a tree I noticed that I was on top of a frozen lake of some sort. It reminded me a lot of the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno.”

“I didn’t hear this before?!” Murua exclaimed.

“The tree then spawned a snake, which my consciousness seeped into. I can still feel the attachment to the tree. But with the mobility I got from becoming a snake, I-”

“STOP!” the three of them shouted in unison, shaking me from my stupor.

“Huh? What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is it me being a dryad of sorts?”

“Ri,” My mother sighed as she called out my new nickname. “Do you know about the history of this world?”

“Mhm…well not really? I was told the origin story but that’s really it…”

She facepalmed.

“Well, that should honestly be enough for you to understand what I’m about to tell you. You know that it's believed the tree allowed souls to become a number of different races?”

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“Mhm.” I nodded.

“Well with all that assortment, from angels to anglerfish…there’s no dryads.”

“Eh?”

“Yes. That’s right. No Dryads, no Kodama, no Ghillie Dhu. Absolutely no tree spirits whatsoever. Nw let that sink in then continue.”

‘Whoa seriously? And then people think that the tree built hell around it as a resting place of sorts…’

“Okay from there, I climbed the circles slowly, encountering several obstacles wherever I went. First was the gi-”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Murua said. “But I have to know before you continue. Remember the lecture on soul weapons and all the training we did with them? Could you tell me how you have one?”

“A soul weapon?!” Ms. Azalea practically shouted.

I thrust my hand forward as the three of them looked on. We all watched as my palmed split open, a green snake with red emerging from the crevice. 

“What happened to the blade?” my master asked.

I focused on the serpent and it slowly began to open its mouth.

As that was taking place I began to explain.

“So I said that I was in a place eerily similar to the ninth circle of Dante’s Inferno, right? I wasn’t just saying that because of the scenery. Well actually I guess, that is part of the scenery. But there were people embedded in the frozen ground. There were a couple that caught my eye, but the most important were the three wrapped in the roots of the tree me.”

“And why’s that?” Ms. Murua prodded.

“Well, a very cute and whimsical voice in my head told me to sink my fangs into them and absorb their essence. Figuring that it couldn’t hurt, I did so. And the result of that is…”

I shook the newly regurgitated blade in my hand.

“The blade came out the snake? Voice…absorbed? I’m so confused.” the Dragonoid murmured. 

“We can freak over that later…I want to hear the rest of the story.” Mama said.

“Right. From there I met a giant who threw me to another circle.” I continued. “Then there was an adorably clumsy demoness…then a minotaur…and then I got kidnapped.”

“You what!” the dark-haired woman shouted her ‘ears’ flapping. She hurriedly wrapped me in an embrace as if she could stop the event from happening.

“I’m fine Mama. Well, rather I got snake-napped, from there I met a group of…what are they called again?”

“Mercenaries,” Master supplied.

“Right, mercenaries. I fainted sometime during the kidnapping, so that group carried me to the first circle. From there I was apprehended by Ms. Murua and her group. I awoke as a humanoid tied to a bed and Mayari sitting by me.”

“So you’re who Ari’s been talking about, small world isn’t it,” Mama said.

“You know Mayari? How?”

My mother let out a sigh. 

“Well, I guess it’s our turn to tell a story, huh?” she said giving Ms. Azalea a lopsided grin. “Let me first formally introduce the two of us. Her name is Myri, and I am Asabela Aloha.”

“Wait isn’t this the Aloha Kingdom?”

“Yes, my little Riot, yes it is.”