Chapter 156: Chapter 148 – Reflection and Night Flight

In the corner of a messy and loud bar in Linsington City, three figures sat around a small table covered in bottles at varying stages of emptied.

Each one had a different figure which was obscured underneath hooded cloaks, as if they were trying to make themselves appear as innocuous as possible. Instead, the other patrons simply avoided and ignored the dark and dank corner. Even the bar wench of this seedy dive drew a large circle around the corner table whenever possible.

"How could this have happened?"

The normally tallest of the trio slumped over the rough wooden table with her head in her hands. The stench of alcohol hardly masked by the overpowering scents of various spices mixed into her wine.

"Just shut it! What's done is done!"

The squat member slammed his cheap wooden tankard. Much of the remaining ale splashing onto the table, hardly noticeable with the mess the top already was covered with.

"Meleager went the way he would've wanted."

"The way he would've wanted?! You rotten squat beard! You're making it sound like he wanted to die!"

The woman glared at her drinking partner, whether her flushed complexion was more due to anger or drink was up to debate.

"Hey! Don't tear at my beard!"

"If you actually washed it with soap, maybe it wouldn't stink all the time!"

"I brush it every morning and oil it every month! That's more than enough to keep it pristine!"

"No wonder you always smells like sheep."

Already fed up with this line of conversation, the woman turned away and took a sip of her mulled wine. A barely concealed cringe flashed across her face as the spices failed to conceal the sourness of the drink.

*Sigh*

"What are we even doing here?"

Following all the energy that had escaped from her body, the robed figure let out a long sigh.

"What do you mean, Hylas? We're drinking."

A quick glare from his drinking companion made the dwarf jump in his seat and change his answer.

"Order! It was orders! What else do you want?!"

"Demon lord. She needs to die. All those spirits need to be freed..."

Finally, the table's resident elf spoke. In her hands was a cup of ale she had been nursing since the trio had originally received their first order. It was still half full.

The other two members turned their attention to the third member, but once it was clear that she wasn't going to say any more, they turned back to each other.

"So Meleager died for some stupid orders huh?"

"I mean, it was from the church."

Despite his words, the tone the dwarf relayed them with suggested that he didn't even have any conviction behind them.

"Weren't we supposed to be retired from all that? We already killed the demon lord. I've never heard of a second one appearing so soon."

"But the pope said that one did. And in fact, we did find a vampire leading an entire settlement only about a week away from here."

"...That wasn't a nightmare, was it?"

The gloom surrounding the woman darkened even further as she took a larger sip from her wine. This time though, her expression didn't change even for a moment.

"There's no way that so many people...all those fairies..."

"Those traitorous scrum! I knew they were all weird and self serving, but to think they'd kidnap all those spirits and defect!"

The sudden outburst by the elf made the other two turn their heads towards her once again.

"Ahem! Uhh...what was it about the spirits again? You said it before right, Idmon?"

"There were so many spirits that they blotted out the skies there. It's like all the spirits of Arcadia were forced to live in that cramped space."

Small fissures spread across the elf's wooden cup as a creaking sound softly reverberated around. Her body trembled as she hid her expression under her hood.

"The spirits huh? Is that really possible? Can't they can just go through walls? How'd anyone kidnap them?"

"They're naive, like children. It's easy to make contracts with them, but also easy to trick them. That's what those fairies must have done. Those damn fruit flies!"

"Like luring children with candy? I kinda get that, but how'd they make them stay then? And even then, is it really that bad?"

"Of course it's bad! If the spirits are gone from Arcadia, we can't train new spirit mages!"

With a loud crack, Idmon's cup shattered, spilling its contents on the table and herself.

"Everyone back home must be in an uproar."

"If that is the case, it's strange we hadn't heard a word about it."

"It's probably because it's such a big deal that everyone's keeping quiet."

"Right. And most elves don't like to leave your home forest anyways."

If the elves who noticed what was going on avoided talking about it to others, only the merchants who came and went from the country would be aware that something was wrong, but wouldn't know what.

"But there's no way so many fairies could turn against us, right? It's got to be something else."

"There were so many dark races there as well."

Ancaeus's argument was quickly attacked by Hylas, a direction he didn't expect.

"Isn't it weird? Vampires drink peoples blood. Why would some fairies serve her?"

"Maybe she tricked them somehow?"

"No, that's impossible. It's said that vampires love to snack on spirits. There's no way that any fairy would let a vampire near a group of spirits."

"Then all of this makes no sense at all!"

Unable to discern what any of that meant, they each turned back to their drinks themselves some space.

After a few more moments of quite, Hylas lifted her cup to her mouth and downed the remaining drink before immediately refilling her cup.

"Hey hey, you're a lightweight, aren't you?"

"Everyone's a lightweight compared to you, Ancaeus!"

Ignoring the dwarf's attempt at a warning, the red faced mage chugged down her mulled wine, slamming it against the table in her tightly bound fist.

"Geez, seriously. Your cup might be smaller, but mulled wine's stronger than ale you know."

Ancaeus mumbled to himself before finishing off his own tankard and filling it again from the pitcher left on the floor beside him.

"Hey! I need another!"

He yelled at the bar wench while waving his now empty pitcher until she gave a nervous nod and ran off to the back of the bar.

"Why did we even take that damn job?"

"I told you, they were orders."

"Who gives a damn! It's because of him. Meleager died because of that damn pope. We should've listened to Euphemus."

"It was your boyfriend who said he wanted to go despite his complaints you know."

"I know that!"

Hylas slammed her empty cup and yelled at the dwarf beside her.

"You think I don't know that? If only, if only we listened to Euphemus. Even just one of us."

Ancaeus grabbed the pitcher from the bar wench's hand and immediately refilled his tankard before emptying it in his gullet once again as the young server quickly evacuated the area. He slammed his empty cup onto the table before filling it again. His tight grip creaking on the tankard's handle as he came to realize that he hadn't even said a word about their friend Euphemus's death yet.

"You furry bastard. Why'd the hell did the smartest of us have to die first anyways?"

Inwardly, the dwarf gave his friend a silent prayer before chugging another drink.

"You know, Meleager always said that everything would fall apart after Euphemus leaves the party."

"It didn't take an hour before that happened."

The atmosphere around the table chilled as if an arctic wind passed right through.

"What are you gonna to do then?"

"What do you mean?"

Hylas looked up with her head cocked at a slight angle. All her drinks making it difficult for her to focus on the dwarf's face.

"I'm going to go back. I gotta at least return this blasted thing."

Ancaeus tapped the sward leaning against the table, careful to only touch the protected grip. Its entire body was tightly wrapped in leather. Even then, anyone with any sensitivity to mana could feel a dreadful aura emanating from the half baked seal that was placed on it.

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"To think that something so abhorrent as that belongs to the church."

The mage looked down at her fingers, unable to banish the feeling of the cold iron sword erasing the mana from her body as she touched it.

"Every organization has its dark secrets. No matter how pure it looks on the surface."

"...I'll go with out. At the very least, I'll stick around until we've finished this. What about you Idmon?"

"I've already sent one of my familiars. The tops of Arcadia will come up with a plan, and we'll save the spirits from those traitorous fairies."

Ancaeus and Hylas looked into the elf's bloodshot eyes, unsure what they should feel about this revelation.

 

"Peekaboo!"

""Aaaaaa!""

"...Abwabwah!"

""Uuuuuu!""

"...Pafuuu!"

""Iiiii!""

Once again, I was playing with my twins. Making faces and other baby games, I couldn't stop smiling, even when I pinched my cheeks to make a funny face. There was no way I could ever tire of Alicia and Fate squealing in joy.

It seemed Elli was right again. Newborn babies not only couldn't express happiness for the first week or so, but they couldn't even see very well. According to her, it took a little while before they can recognize anything beyond light and dark.

I couldn't say that they were exactly smiling all proper, but they were making some sort of expression. On top of that, the voices they made was clearly of enjoyment.

"Scarlet!"

"Eh?"

All of the sudden, the door to my room was opened and a tired looking Elli glared at me while leaning against the frame.

"I understand that you cannot help yourself but loose track of time when playing with your babies, but it is the middle of the night. Please do that sort of thing somewhere else when others are trying to sleep."

"Ah, sorry. I'll do that."

Letting out a weary sigh, the elder closed the door quietly and left.

I did glance at Orphne's bed on a nearby shelf, eyeing how her blanket rose and dropped quietly, but decided that she wasn't a good indicator for anything in this realm.

"You two, gimme a sec to get changed."

As usual, I was wearing that new robe Elli gave me, but unfortunately unlike my previous robes, this one didn't have slits down the back. For a midnight stroll, it wasn't quite suitable.

But as it had the best defensive capabilities on top of being the most comfortable, I didn't like removing it entirely. Instead, I simply unbuttoned the top half and dropped the upper part while wearing the sleeves from the elbows down, then put on the previous traditional dokkalfar shawl around my upper body.

Finally, I put on one of the baby slings I had received almost a year before and inserted both Alicia and Fate into it, securing them to my body.

They themselves were wearing the baby robes I had received along with the sling. It wasn't decorated, but they looked cute in them. I couldn't wait to see them take their first steps in them.

"Claret, let's go."

"Yes Master!"

Leaving the house, I used [Alter Silhouette] to grow wings on my back and took flight. I glanced back once to make sure that my ever faithful familiar had followed close behind before thrusting myself into the cloud of fluffballs above with a strong flap of my wings.

""Aaaaaaa!""

Holding my cute little twins securely in my arms, they squealed with excitement as they squinted from the blowing wind. That was quickly fixed as I surrounded them with a calm bubble of air using [wind magic].

"Look! It's the cute little fluffballs!"

With my altitude rising above the treeline, I was quickly surrounded by all the glowing little spirits.

It was unfortunate that they were a bit wary of my little twins. I doubted they'd do anything to harm the fluffballs, but I couldn't blame them. Just focusing my vision revealed the dark tendrils that extended out from their bodies.

They weren't long, but it was clear that they had snappy auras which made the fluffballs a bit nervous.

A part of me really wanted them to quickly grow up big enough to learn to suppress their aura, but the rest of me felt that if such a thing would happen, it would be a massive shame that I wouldn't be able to enjoy watching them grow up more slowly.

Even still, I couldn't help but to hold Alicia and Fate's arms and lightly wave them at the fluffballs for a bit.

Once I was satisfied with that, I scattered around mini mana treats while being careful with my own MP.

The fluffballs quickly caught and ate them up. It seemed like they didn't have any problems with me even while they were nervous with my twins. But as long as they stayed at least arm's length from them, it seemed like the fluffballs were mostly content.

""Mmmmmm!""

As I was feeding the fluffballs, Alicia and Fate both started to squirm around.

"Are you two hungry?"

They both looked me in the eye, almost like they were trying to telepathically say yes to me.

Or maybe they just liked to look at their mommy. Either worked for me.

I loosened my shawl and adjusted the baby sling so both of them would be at the right height.

(It's times like this that I'm glad I got this nursing bra.)

With how part of the cups can be opened up with a quick flick of the buttons, this was one accessory I could no longer live without.

At least until I stopped breast feeding that was.

"Ack!"

Once both babies latched on, I realized a significant problem. Most of my view of Alicia and Fate were blocked off by my shawl!

It was a terrible and depressing thing.

I tried fiddling with the thing, but no good solutions came about. The shawl just wasn't the sort of thing which could solve this sort of problem very well. Either it exposed my bra straps or failed to cover something else while staying secure. Or rather, the best solution ended up being just pressing the material down as much as I could. It ended up being enough to mostly let me enjoy the view of Alicia and Fate do some of their most important life's work so far.

It's not quite perfect, but this is bliss!

Doing my best to keep my flight as steady as possible, I gently pat the two on the head while soaring through the sky.

(Hmm...their hair is growing out quite well.)

When they were first born, Alicia and Fate only had a handful of strands of hair on their heads, but now that it's been about two weeks, I was able to say that they had a respectable amount of hair. Not nearly enough to be considered feminine, but enough to keep the top of their heads a bit warm at least.

At the current rate they were growing, I would have to think about cutting it soon.

And in regards to cutting hair, the question was, what style should they get?

Alicia would probably want long hair like I had, and I was pretty inclined to give Fate anything I gave Alicia until she was able to form her own opinions on the matter.

But would long hair be such a good idea for a toddler? Or rather, would their hair become that long before they graduate from being a toddler?

A part of me said definitely, but at the same time, I couldn't say I was too sure.

(I should probably ask Elli about this.)

Though a part of me was a bit reluctant, she was the best source of information on this front. I did feel a bit bad on relying on her so much like this, but it wasn't like I could do a google search or something.

"Hmm? Are you two done already?"

Alicia and Fate's have been eating more lately, especially in each meal. It did make me a bit worried that some day I wouldn't be able to produce enough o satisfy them, but hopefully by that time they would already be big enough to supplement with actual blood.

"Alright then, for your usual checkup."

Once I fixed my outfit up and secured my cute little twins more properly in the baby sling, I used [scan] on the both of them.

"Ah! Congratulations both of you! You've learned [cooking 1]!"

It seemed like Alicia and Fate could learn skills from the blood I drank whenever they drank my milk. The problem was that it seemed the skills and XP they gained was diluted when passing through me, so it took much more effort for them to gain the benefit of the blood which I drank.

That said, they were still gaining levels and skills before they could even walk or talk, so it was a fair trade off.

Or rather, they were completely cheating at life. Even more so than me being a reincarnator.

Or even more so, Alicia was a reincarnator as well, so she was a double cheat in that sense. Even if she had the disadvantage of being born with a baby's body, in only a few years, she'll likely quickly outstrip my own level and skills.

It would be interesting to see how she was like by the time she became ten years old, though the thought did make me worry about Fate. I could only hope that she wouldn't feel discouraged or intimidated at Alicia's quick advancement, as it was unlikely she would be able to keep up.

To be frank, it was actually a little scary.

"No matter how things end up, I'll still love both of you, Alicia, Fate."

And with those words, I gave each a kiss on the forehead.

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