Chapter 158: of Unknown Promise: The Spirit’s Lake

The next morning we woke up like usual, had breakfast and whatever else one did in the morning. Quite a few of the men were surprised seeing us back up again and asked if we were all right. Most of them we had never even talked with before. It was a bit surprising.

After we had breakfast, we went to Ria, to consult with her. Which was pretty much what we were doing now.

“Ria… Anything you can tell us?”

“Mmm…”

Ria, standing behind me, wasn’t answering me. Instead, she kept making incomprehensible sounds and mumbling to herself once in a while. It was slightly unnerving.

“Ria?”

“... Quiet.”

“Yes.”

And so, I kept quiet, waiting for her to finish.

“Mmm… I see…”

“...”

“...”

“...”

“This is…”

Oh, did she find something?

“... I have... no idea.”

“...”

Or not.

“... Yumi.”

“Yes?”

“Has there… been anything… that has… changed?”

“No? Not really. I told you that already, though.”

“Mmm…”

If I had noticed anything I wouldn’t be sitting here in the first place. Well, okay, I probably would but I would have told her about it first.

“Absolutely… nothing?”

“Nn.”

“Nothing… that is even… mildly… strange?”

“Not really?”

We woke up yesterday, talked with Korwen, lazed around in our wagon, experimented a little on the side and then went to sleep. In the morning, we had breakfast and then went straight to Ria. Nothing really strange had happened during that time. The only strange thing was that the tentacles had been all over the place inside the wagon but we already told her about that one.

“Mm…”

“... Ria?”

“Mmm…”

I really wished she’d say something and not just make these thoughtful hums all the time.

“I can’t… find anything… different…”

“I see.”

So, Ria wasn’t able to find anything either. If that was the case, maybe it really had been taken all by Karen instead. After all, that something had happened to her was obvious to everyone who had seen her before.

“We should… observe… for a while… It might… not be… an easily… discernable… change… I doubt… that nothing… happened…”

“Nn… So, wait and see?”

“That’s right…”

Not like there was much else we could do if nobody could find something.

“Karen should… also pay… attention… It might be… something you… wouldn’t… notice yourself…”

“I’ll pay close attention to her, Miss Ria.”

“Mm…”

Something I might not even notice myself, huh. But it’d be something rather minor if that was the case…

“Haaa… Oh well, nothing I can do about. I guess I should be happy that nothing bad happened.”

I threw my arms up in the air as a sign of giving up. I should look at it positively, after all.

“Then… Next is…”

Ria turned around to take a look at Karen. Seeing that the attention had now been directed at her, Karen instantly stiffened up.

“I’ll take… a look…”

“U— Understood…”

Looking a little meek, Karen let Ria approach and touch her hair.

“Mm… It’s darker… than Yumi’s...”

Ria’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinised Karen’s hair, letting it flow through her fingers, pinching small strands and all that. Watching her touch Karen’s hair so thoughtlessly actually annoyed me a little.

“Karen…”

“Yes?”

“Keep your... eyes open…”

“Eh? Wha—”

Ria’s face closed in on Karen’s as she stared right into her eyes, stopping barely the width of my palm away. Even from here, I could see Karen freeze in place, confused by the sudden action. Even I was too perplexed to react and I was just watching from the side.

Only that extreme feeling of annoyance was growing at a very rapid rate right now.

It’s just a check-up, Yumi! Just. A. Check. Up.

“Mm… I see.”

While I was trying to busy myself with staying calm, Ria withdrew from Karen, then walked around her to touch her back. At this point, Karen finally caught herself again and directed a question at Ria.

“Miss Ria… Just… What were you doing?”

“Mmm… Do you… know of… mana… encroachment?”

“Mana encroachment?”

“Mm… Or was it… called differently… Mana corruption? Mm… I can’t… remember…”

“Haaa…”

I felt like I had heard one of those terms before, though…

“Mana… of an attribute… especially… in the case… of manakin… It… encroaches… and corrupts… their surroundings… Or at least… that was… the theory…”

“The theory?”

“It’s not… proven… I think… someone is… working on that…”

“Hey, Ria,” I interrupted her, “do you mean Professor Marvim and his monster research?

If I remembered it correctly, there were those small critters—Well, technically, they were monsters—that he kept. One being a manakin and one not…

“Ahh… You met him… Right…”

“So, you say it’s this encroachment he was looking into?” I asked her.

“Mm… It’s… close? But no… Not quite...”

“Huh?”

While I would have understood if it had been exactly that case, considering our situation was very similar to that one, Ria apparently thought differently.

“Rather than… encroaching… Mm… No… It is… encroaching… But… it is… also… mixing…”

“Mixing…”

“Yumi’s… mana and… Karen’s… mana… Both are… attributed… The Primal attribute… Lust… and the… Silver Moon… attribute…”

Ria removed her hand from Karen’s back and stepped away.

“Those two… are mixing… and forming… something else… but… I don’t… know what… it is...”

“So, instead of being Lust or stee— Err, Silver Moon, it created a new attribute?”

“That’s… what I… just said…”

And Ria didn’t know what kind of attribute it was… But what the heck could you get from mixing Lust, which was a human desire and need, with steel, which was material. A Lust Steel? Lustful steel? Like, what would that even be?

“It might… be interesting… to test… what it is… But before… we do that… there is… another matter… that needs… to be… addressed…”

“Another matter?”

Ria nodded, her expression becoming more and more serious.

“Her mana… is being changed… This has… obviously… effects… on her body… and these… will only… grow more… pronounced… with time… The hair… and probably… her eyes… will change… even further…”

“Well…”

Honestly, that wasn’t surprising to hear. We both were expecting that to happen already.

“But… it might… not stop… at only… visual changes… But… we would… need someone… like the… High Priest… to determine… whether there… are any...”

“So, you can’t?”

“I can’t…”

Changes, huh…

“Miss Ria… Would that mean I might change into something like Yumi?”

“Mm… That… could be...”

“I see. In that case, I don’t mind.”

“You already… knew…”

“More or less. It’d be… hard to miss…. Ahahaha...”

Karen laughed, trying to hide her embarrassment from Ria.

“Mm… I see… However…”

“Mh?”

“You might… change in… other aspects… too… Like your… peculiarity…”

“Peculia— Oh. That.”

Karen frowned at the mention of the, as Ria called it, ‘peculiarity.’

“Mm… We’ll have… to observe…”

“Same as me then,” I commented, to which Ria nodded once more.

“Too much… we don’t… know about… For now… as long… as you know… what you are… dealing with… I believe… there is… little reason… for concern...”

“You say that so easily…”

We were talking about our own bodies changing. And in Karen’s case, it was quite extreme even. We both knew, of course, that these things would happen. And we had come to terms with it, otherwise, we wouldn’t have done this in the first place. Still, you couldn’t get rid of all concerns so easily.

“Not much… we could do… either way…”

“... That’s true.”

I sighed. In the end, we hadn’t really found anything else with Ria’s help either.

“Haaa… Oh well… Guess we really can’t do much else other than keeping an eye out for any changes.”

“Looks like it.”

So much to that… At least, with this out of the way, we could bring up the other topic we wanted to discuss.

“... Hey, Ria… Changing the topic a little, there was something else we wanted to talk about…”

“Oh?”

Ria perked up immediately. Seeing her reaction, I really thought it was great that she was so willing to help us. I knew it was mostly curiosity that drove her but it sure helped us out.

“Something else… you say?”

“Nn. You see, since we woke up a little late yesterday…”

I gave Ria the rundown of what had happened while we were experimenting on our own. And, most importantly, about what I had noticed about my own body while I was transformed.

“Mmm… That is… certainly… interesting… It only… happened while… you were… transformed?”

“Nn.”

“I see… I see…”

Ria stared at me, seemingly in thought.

“I have… a few ideas… as to why… but we will… need to talk… about those… at a later… time…”

Momentarily surprised at her saying we should delay this, I wanted to ask her about the reason. Before I could, however, I noticed Korwen walking around behind her, clapping his hands and calling everyone to get ready for departure.

“Ahh… We’re leaving.”

“Mmm… Auria is… close… They don’t… want to… delay it… any longer...”

“I can relate to that, to be honest.”

“Me too…”

Ria smiled as she watched the mercenaries getting ready.

“Well then… Let’s stop… here… for now…”

“Nn, that’s okay.”

I really would have liked to discuss this with her a little more but there was no way we could delay the whole mercenary band just for this…

“You two… should sit… on the bench… today…”

“We planned to do that.”

“That’s good…”

Leaving only those as her parting words, Ria went back to her own wagon, disappearing right inside. Even though she just suggested that we should be outside… she herself didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

“Yumi.”

“Nn?”

“Let’s go.”

“Nn.”

I grasped Karen’s outstretched hand and we made our way back to our own wagon.

---

“Lil’ Sis! Big Sis!”

The silver demonkin ran over, a beaming smile spreading her joy upon seeing us.

“Rina. We’re back.”

“Took you long, Big Sis! We were worried!”

“Ahh, sorry about that.”

A wry smile on her lips, Karen patted Rina’s head in an attempt to soothe her.

“Well, well, look who graces us with their presence. You two sure took your sweet time.”

“Lily.”

Behind Rina, the ever familiar beastkin appeared, busy readying the waroxen.

“Good to see you two are healthy.”

“Nn, sorry for worrying you.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Just, try to wake up a little earlier next time.”

“We’ll try…”

Not something I could easily promise. It wasn’t like we knew why we had been sleeping so long in the first place.

“Well, that’s good enough for me. So, I guess you two woke up in the middle of the night, or something?”

“Nn. I think just about when everyone went to sleep.”

“Ahhh, yeah, that’d be pretty late already.”

Lily nodded in understanding. She probably had a good grasp around what time the mercenaries regularly went to bed. Well, most of them.

“Then, do you already know about what happened in the meantime?”

“The captain filled us in about the most important things. We’re about to reach Auria, aren’t we?”

“We are. Ah, one moment. Let me finish this.”

Lily grasped the harness of the warox and pulled at it. The large beast let out a low growl in response, stomping the ground a few times.

“Okay, that’s it.”

“... I have no idea what you even did.”

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I just saw her pulling on it.

“If you did, you wouldn’t need me to drive your wagon, would you?”

“... I have no excuse.”

“Hehe. I just secured its position so that it won’t slip.”

Lily slapped the warox on the back a few times and the beast let out another low growl in response.

“Anyway, we’re good to go. Hey, Rina, Karen. We’re about to leave.”

The two sisters that were busy catching up both let out a surprised ‘Ah.’ and turned to Lily.

“Lily, it’s good to see you.”

Karen sounded a little embarrassed as she greeted Lily, probably because she had been so busy with Rina she kind of ignored Lily.

“Good to see you, too. But you two should get in so we can leave.”

“Nn, about that, Lily. Could we join you outside for today?”

“Huh? I mean, sure you can but what brought that up?”

“Well, we’re about to arrive in Auria, right?”

Lily stared blankly at me for a few seconds until it clicked.

“... Ahhh, you want to see the town.”

“Nn.”

“Well, of course, you can join us. Right, Rina?”

“Yes!”

“It’s just going to be a little cramped.”

Well, we already knew it’d end up cramped. But it wasn’t the first time all four of us would be on the driver bench so we knew it was doable.

“Okay, then. Let’s get up and leave. We don’t want everyone to leave us behind.”

With that, Lily jumped up on the bench and sat down in the middle. Rina immediately ran on the other side and climbed up, too. That left Lily’s other side for us, with me sandwiched between Lily and Karen.

By the time we settled down, other wagons were already on the move, on the way to Auria. Lily, holding the reins, spurred the waroxen on and our wagon soon followed the others. Not wanting to interrupt Lily as she joined the caravan of mercenaries, we kept quiet for a good while. Until she spoke up herself.

“And? How was your overly long nap?”

“Quite good, I’d say. We slept well, right, Sis?”

“Yes. If you can call it sleeping...”

What else should we call it? Being in a coma? Fainted?

“Hmm…”

Lily kept her eyes focused to the front, occasionally stirring the waroxen left or right, adjusting the path.

“And how was I for you?” I asked after a short while.

“How it was, huh… Nothing really happened. We made stops at some villages and towns here and there to resupply but outside of those… Well, there was that incident with the guy who cheated on his wife.”

“Ahh, the captain mentioned that…”

The man who went to the brothel got caught by his wife and was then beaten black and blue.

“You should have seen the guy. His wife completely rearranged his face.”

“That sounds quite scary.”

“Oh, it sure was, it sure was. Would’ve been even worse if the captain hadn’t stopped her.”

“He stopped her?”

That’s something he hadn’t told us about.

“He did. Together with that other man, Taddick. Don’t want to know what would’ve happened if they hadn’t intervened.”

Probably nothing good… If he already needed to be taken care of for two whole days with Korwen interrupting… He might have gotten quite lucky, there.

“Mr Captain said they reconciled, though? I can’t really imagine that if things were that bad…” added Karen.

“Err, reconciled… Well, they more or less did? Looked like it at least, last I saw them. I didn’t exactly go up and ask them, though.”

“Nn…”

Well, it was probably not our business anyway…

“But if the captain said they did, well, I guess they did.”

Lily shrugged her shoulders as if saying she didn’t really care.

“Anyway, I think that was about the only interesting thing that happened. It was pretty boring.”

“Boring, huh…”

I gazed forward, looking at our surroundings. The never-ending scenery of trees, forests and meadows. The same-looking scenery they had probably watched for days without an end in sight.

At that moment, I felt someone poking my side with their elbow.

“Nn?”

The only one who’d poke me right now would be Karen. As I turned around, I could see her grinning and holding a finger up to her mouth, telling me to keep quiet. Then, she pointed with her chin over to Lily. Following her gaze, I wasn’t quite sure she was trying to tell me… Lily sat there, holding the reins in her hand and looking forward.

Doesn’t look there’s anything wrong… Maybe Sis meant Rina?

I leant a little forward, to look past Lily.

“Ah.”

And right there, I could see the reason Karen was grinning. Lily was holding the reins in her hand. In one hand. And with the other, a little out of our sight, she was holding hands with Rina, their fingers intertwined. The latter was also slightly leaning against Lily.

Oh? Ohhhh? Well, well…

Was that what they had been up to in the meanwhile?

Hehe. Lily, I very much doubt it was all that ‘boring’ as you make it out to be.

Noticing we were staring at them, Lily turned around to look at us. We quickly repositioned ourselves so that it wasn’t obvious what we had been looking at, earning us a confused stare.

“Something wrong?”

“No.”

“Not really.”

“Mh?”

Karen and I exchanged a gaze, grinning. It must have been quite confusing for Lily, though, but we didn’t care.

“You two are weird…”

“Sure are.”

“Right?”

“...”

Ignoring the confused Lily, we giggled at each other. We were simply happy that the two got along so well. Yes, that was all.

---

A good while later, the area slowly began to clear up with fewer trees around to bar the view. The wind picked up and a fresh breeze carrying the smell of fish and water came over us.

“We should see Auria soon,” commented Lily right afterwards.

The four of us were staring at the horizon as the wagon slowly ascended a slope. From the front end of the caravan, we could hear the first cheers. I could feel Karen’s grip on my hand tightening as she watched the slope’s end coming closer and with it, the mercenaries’ cheers.

And then…

“Ohhh!”

“... Wow.”

“...”

A lake came into view. A blue line at the horizon stretching from one end to the other.

“That’s…”

“That’s the Grand Spirit Lake.”

Lily sounded cheerful as she said those words to us, who hadn’t ever seen the lake before.

“It’s… huge.”

“Nn…”

I had probably seen a lake here or there back in my old world as well but… I was sure I had never seen something… this gigantic. From this distance, we couldn’t even guess the size of the lake.

“It’s not the Grand Spirit Lake for nothing, you know?”

“But… Hey, Lily, are lakes usually that big?”

“I’ve only seen a few lakes but this is by far the largest I know of, Karen. And I was told by Papa that it was the largest one known, too.”

“I see.”

But… just how large was it really? This didn’t look like a lake to me, it was more like the sea.

“Ohh, if you look closely, we can also see Auria from here.”

“Nn? Where?”

“There, there. Right in front of the lake. A little to the right. No, a little more to the right.”

“Ah, there…”

Just like Lily said, there was a town, bordering right at the Lake. It was still quite far away so I couldn’t see many details. Even though I had gotten quite good at looking at things far away. Still, I could make out the walls and a few towers or large buildings peeking out among the remaining blur. But with all that said...

“It’s pretty… tiny.”

Having seen the capital before, it was just… incomparable.

“Mh, you think so? It’s pretty big if you ask me.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Big, huh… Well, I only had seen, like, three cities in this world so far. Arkesta, Larfas and now this one. Everything else had been a village. Not like I have seen many villages either, of course…

“Mm… Anyway, can you see any fort from here?”

“Nn?”

A little perplexed by her question, it took me a moment to turn forward again and look into the distance.

“No, I can’t.”

“I see… That means it’s still going to be some distance from Auria itself, huh... “

“Do you think we’ll see it today?”

“Today? No, I doubt so. We’ll probably take a rest at Auria first. I guess the captain will have to talk with the people high up in the town first. Ahh, but he’ll probably send some people ahead to the fort. If you ask, maybe he’ll let us go too?”

That might not be a bad idea at all. I really wanted to see the fort. Ahh, but others probably wanted to, as well… Well, asking wouldn’t hurt.

“But first, we’ll have to cover the last bit of distance. It won’t be that long anymore.”

I looked towards the massive lake and the small town in front of it. Looking closer, I could make out several dots nearby the town in the lake. Probably ships.

“Nn… Lily, I heard that Auria has a fishing industry… Does that mean there are many magicians here as well?”

“That seems to be the case. Or more like, for sorting, people that have mana sight are enough.”

Ahh, right, people with mana sight were needed to sort out the fish. Was that even a profitable job? I couldn’t imagine it… You learnt magic only to end up as a sorter for fish… But it probably had to be or people wouldn’t be doing it.

“For preparing the monster meat, actual magicians would be necessary. Since Auria also deals with that, there should be quite a few magicians working in that town.”

“Huh. Monster meat… Monster fish…”

The monster fish was quite delicious. Maybe we’d get a chance to eat it again.

“Hey, Lil’ Sis.”

“Nn? What is it, Rina?”

“Are monster fish delicious?”

“Nn, they are. Incredibly so.”

“Ohhh…”

Rina’S eyes seemed to sparkle from excitement, hearing that.

“Hey, Yumi, stop telling her that. Prepared monster fish is seriously expensive. We can’t just wolf it down like you,” said Karen.

“... Ah. Err, well...”

Oops, I got scolded. I completely forgot about that for the moment.

“Ahaha! Karen, if we can’t buy it, we should just get it ourselves!”

“What do you mean, Lily?”

“Well, we just go fishing. The fort’s close to the lake, isn’t it?”

“... Will it be that easy, though? It’s not like with the river, is it?

“It’s a lake, so it’s different, yes. But it should be possible for us to catch some fish close to the shore. We can ask some of the old mercenaries to teach us.”

Oh, right… The mercenary band was large and there probably were a few that had been living either here or otherwise close to a lake. Chances were quite good that someone knew how to fish.

“Mm… Well, if we catch it ourselves… But can anyone actually prepare it?”

“... Can’t Yumi?”

“Me? I have no idea how to do that.”

“... Damn.”

Sorry to shatter your dream, Lily.

“Maybe Ria or Wendl do?”

“The old man doesn’t. I asked him before.”

“That still leaves Ria.”

Although I had to admit, I was a little surprised to hear that Wendl didn’t know about that.

“If Ria knows, maybe she can teach me how to do it.”

“Ohh, that would be perfect.”

Optimally, I would only need to remove the mana inside the monster. At least, that’s what I hoped for. But I really couldn’t imagine that something as ‘simple’ as that wouldn’t be possible for Wendl, so there might be something else necessary.

“Ahh, now I’m looking forward to that. To think we’d be able to enjoy such a luxury.”

“Lily, we don’t know for sure if that’ll work out yet.”

“It will, it will. Let me dream a little.”

She could dream as much as she wanted but I hoped she wouldn’t blame me if things didn’t work out.

“Lil’ Sis.”

“Nn?”

“Do your best!”

“... I will.”

Oh well, now it would be even harder for me… I had to do my best.

“Yumi.”

“Nn?”

“...”

“...”

And finally, of course, Karen joined in, her excitement visible to all.

“Yes, yes, I’ll do what I can.”

“We’re counting on you, Yumi.”

“...”

They were counting on me, huh… That was nice to hear. Although… I had some mixed feelings about being counted on this of all things.

Girls, technically, we’re mercenaries, not fishers…

Still, maybe this wasn’t so bad.

“I’ll do what I can. But first, we’ll have to get to town, you know?”

“Of course, we know.”

Well, the town was still some distance away. And getting to the fort had priority as well. Who knows when we would actually be able to realise these plans?

But, I’m still going to look forward to that. Yes, I am.

Rinne

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