Chapter 60: Chapter 99 – Isla

Professor Markel allowed the alraune girl to stay in my dorm for the time being. He would give me a heads up if they were coming to take her, which didn't inspire any confidence. I'd have preferred it if they didn't take her at all because I was having a hard time breaking the news to Val, who was quickly growing close to the new girl.

"No, no, no. Dear, you must drink properly. Do as I do."

From the kitchen, Val and the alraune girl sat together, while the latter was being shown how to drink from a cup. The girl watched intently as Val lifted the glass to her lips to sip on water. When urged to try again, she wound the roots on her limbs into hands to pick it up.

Val beamed, seeing progress being made.

Then the alraune girl poured water over her head.

"Well, we were close." Val sighed.

"Why are you trying to teach her to drink normally anyway?" I asked from the stove.

"Would you want her to quench her thirst by splashing water all over the place?" she asked.

"No… Touche. But the kid was just born yesterday. She doesn't know what cups are. All she probably knows is that her source of sustenance is in there."

The alraune girl picked up Val's glass of water.

"Oh, did you want me to show you again?" Val asked. "Very well. I shall—"

Water being poured over her head cut the rest of the sentence short, drenching her down to the shoulders. I looked away and slapped a hand over my mouth, trying to keep from laughing at the soaked elf.

"Laugh at me, will you? Perhaps you would like a drink, too!" Val exclaimed as she cornered me to pour water on my head.

"Val, wait! You'll get water in the pot and ruin the measurements!" I yelled, holding her wrists back.

"Val, I need to write about everyone I live with for homework and you're the last one left! Are you busy?" Tamara peeked in from the hallway and barely saved my stew.

She flashed a glare that reeked of 'consider yourself lucky' and let go to accompany Tamara to the living room. As they took a seat on the couch, the alraune girl hopped off the stool and shuffled over to me.

I picked up the two-foot tall humanoid plant, and she responded by wrapping arm roots around my shoulders to stay steady. Her eyes fell curiously to the bubbling tomato soup.

"You hungry?" I asked. "Not sure what to feed you except for water though."

The girl extended a root towards the pot, and I quickly jumped back.

"No, don't do that! It's hot!" I warned.

My outburst, however, startled the alraune girl. The leaves and roots on her body began to sag.

The youngest person I had in this dorm before the alraune was Tamara, but she was already old enough to be independent and do her own things without help. How was I supposed to take care of a child?

"What an inept caretaker you are." Val came over to unburden the alraune girl from me, and turned on the kitchen faucet to let the water run at low flow. The hair roots extended until they reached the water, soaking the stream until only droplets slipped by.

"Can I hold her?" Tamara asked, trotting up to us.

Val leaned down to pass the alraune girl to Tamara, who clung to her bed of woolen hair like a baby koala to her mother. No longer the youngest of the dorm, the sheep girl exercised her newfound big sister energy to give the new kid a piggyback ride around the living room.

"Tamara, you said you need to write about everyone living in the dorm? Guess that includes her, too." I pointed the soup-smeared ladle at the alraune.

"That's right! But she needs a name before I can write about her!" Tamara exclaimed, returning to us expectantly.

We threw a look to Val.

"Me?" Val swapped her gazes between us, then finally landed on the girl in question. "An Isilus… How about Isla? Do you like that, Isla?"

The alraune smiled.

"Isla!"

I was still on the computer when Ange emerged from the bathroom, beaming more than usual. She hid her hands suspiciously behind her back.

"What's got you so happy?" I asked.

"Don't panic, but…" Ange tiptoed over and showed me a pregnancy test with two red lines.

My mind blanked out.

"WHAT?!" I jumped out of the chair. "Pregnant? When? Oh, my god… I knew we should've kept using condoms. What are my parents going to think? I'm too young to have a baby! Holy shit, I feel faint. O-Okay, don't panic. I've already sworn to be committed to you, so we'll get through this somehow and raise the baby… together?"

Ange doubled over laughing.

"Calm down, my love! It's not real. Look."

I watched as Ange rubbed the second line into a smudge which had been clearly drawn. To further prove her joke, she waved a pen in my face with her other hand.

Everything came to a screeching halt. Like someone slammed the brakes while going 80 on a semi-truck with a full load, and it all smashed right into my body.

"It was… just a joke?" I asked.

"I saw Ines using one a week ago and showed me how to use it. What convenient devices these are. Normally, offspring come as a surprise to my kind… Akira?" Ange lowered her voice to a whisper.

"Sorry. It was just a lot to take in for a joke."

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A minute and a lot of deep breaths later, I finally calmed down.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't know you would take it so deeply. I should have been more conscious about making a poor joke," Ange said, holding me tighter.

"No, it's not your fault. Uhm… The thing is, Professor Markel told me that they might have to take Isla away. Being born here makes her a citizen, not a netherfolk immigrant. When I thought about how our child would be born here, I…"

"You're afraid our baby would be taken away," she finished my thought which hurt a lot more to think about than I expected.

Things were complicated. I saw from Professor Markel and the government's perspective the dangers of how a wildcard like a newborn netherfolk could pose. Their idea of taking care of bad apples was to deport them back from Weyera. They couldn't deport a natural citizen.

What a headache.

As I sat back down, Ange embraced me from behind.

"We will be just fine," Ange said, gently drawing her fingers through my hair. "Your rather passionate reaction tells me you will make for a great father of ten one day."

"Ten, huh? Thanks for the vote of confidence. I don't think I can accept that if I can't keep one of our own from being taken away." I sighed, turning my gaze back to the computer screen.

"Ah. They got back to you so quickly?" she asked.

I nodded.

Perhaps it was due to the extraordinary circumstances, but Professor Markel and High-King Tarcosa compiled a comprehensive report on the Isilus Mandragon in record time for me.

The Isilus Mandragon. An exceptionally dangerous alraune that thrives in lands rich with prey. There were two phases to it. A plant phase and an alraune phase. As a plant, the Isilus disguised itself as the flowers near it, which explained why it had taken the appearance similar to a rose in Val's garden patch.

In order to grow, it must drain the magic of living beings, typically to the point of death.

I gulped hard. If Irapesha and I hadn't returned when we did, who knew what would have happened to the tenants.

The primary bulb would increase in size and serve as a cocoon for the second phase. What proceeded to happen next was metamorphosis, where the ovule incubates an alraune. The true danger came at full maturity. The Isilus alraune ejected pollen into the air to propagate, spawning more of itself that could number in the hundreds.

For our world to one day co-exist with netherfolk, allowing an Isilus alraune here would jeopardize countless lives.

Listed at the bottom of the document was a number of possible reasons an Isilus got to our world. The most likely scenario was that it came through as pollen, clinging to one of my netherfolks. Or me when I had traveled to Weyera.

As a result, new protocols were being introduced: all belongings and persons coming through the interworld portal would be scanned for microparticles.

"What's your take on the Isilus and Isla?" I asked Ange.

"I think Isla is rather adorable. Of course, not as precious as Tamara. However, you must understand that her species was used as weapons of war. Cast enough of her pollen across a kingdom and you would run into an infestation in a matter of years. But, as you have given me, I am in favor of offering the girl a chance to live here," Ange explained.

In other words, the Isilus Mandragon was like a weed in Weyera.

The next day, I found half the dorm gathered outside in the backyard and Isla nowhere to be seen.

"Where did Isla go?" I asked, stepping out to join them.

"What are you talking about? Isla is right here." Val glanced down to a potted plant which turned around to face me.

"Akira!" Isla exclaimed my name.

I knelt down to pat Isla on the head. How could I even consider someone so adorable to be a weed?

"So who put you in this ceramic pot?" I asked.

"Hey, hey! Who are you calling a ceramic pot, bub?"

I squinted hard, then turned the pot around to find the reptilian-eyed pendant glaring at me.

"Ivory… I see you're making yourself useful," I teased.

"Isla over here has a hard time walking. Guess those leg roots of hers haven't grown thick enough yet," Ivory explained.

Part of me wanted to say 'makes sense' but it really didn't. Netherfolks were all just too mysterious and full of surprises. Hell, the newest one grew out of a plant in my backyard.

"So what are we all doing out here?" I asked, taking a gander at the mess from the other day.

The Isilus Mandragon upturned a lot of dirt, and there was still the issue of all the pods and the giant flower in the middle of the backyard. We were going to need Cresta and Irapesha's help once they got home from work. Val's garden took the biggest hit. Most of the flowers were crushed and kicked everywhere.

"We're helping Val fix her garden, but it's really hard work." Tamara wiped the sweat from her brow, and Rakka bleated the same sentiments.

"It hurts to see all my hard work wilt and perish like this. I don't blame Isla, but a part of me does feel at fault. Perhaps I accidentally brought her pollen to this world." Val frowned.

"Isla, help!" Isla wriggled within the pot, sending a magical gust across the backyard.

All at once, saplings grew out from the ground and into full bloom to replace the ones that had been ruined. Our jaws dropped. A beautiful and colorful garden returned to the backyard, some of which were foreign flowers I'd never even seen more.

Val's eyes went wide with surprise.

"Isla… did you just do all this?" Val asked, eyes moist as she was overcome with emotion.

I was speechless, shocked by the jungle of flowers before me like a picture taken right out of Weyera.

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