Chapter 68: Arc 4 Ch. 23: The Heroine’s Secret, Part IV

“Beryl, it’s so fluffy! Come here and feel me!”

“Thanks, I know, I’ve already fluffed your tail a hundred times by now…”

“I’m serious! Here, you have to come and fluff this part!”

It had been a whole day since Alice first unlocked her ‘snow leopard spirit form,’ and her enthusiasm still felt like it had no limit. I had to admit, it was pretty fun to watch—and her snowy tail fur did feel incredible to play with…!

Freya’s cubs had gotten exhausted much earlier than usual yesterday. After Alice found out she could ‘talk’ to them in the way that only animal spirits could, she played with Sasha and her ‘little sister’ Arwen relentlessly until they were in desperate need of an early cat nap.

Unfortunately, that whole day of excitement seemed to have the opposite effect on Freya. The snow leopard spirit was slumped against the cave’s wall, holding her head in both hands.

“I actually ‘did it’ with a human,” Freya muttered to herself. “There’s no way… I can’t go back home now…”

Alice knelt down beside her and patted Freya on her head. “It’s okay, Freya. Home is where the heart is!”

“I’m getting comforted by a human now…”

Alice offered her arms, and the two shared a fluffy embrace.

“D-Don’t think I’m actually kind of happy about this!” Freya sniffled.

I considered mentioning how useful her new human form would be in this world’s human society, but it looked like Freya would be making a full recovery.

It felt strange eating breakfast in Freya’s cave this morning—the last morning we would spend here before heading out. So many unbelievably weird and crazy things had happened in and around this cave. I would have thought I would be glad to finally leave the Dourland for good, and yet… for some reason, it almost felt a little sad. The realization dawned on me that we might never come back here again.

Then again, it didn’t have to be that way; we could always return sometime in the future. Maybe our party of misfits could actually have a proper vacation in these mountains without a weird gathering quest to complete or a ravenous horde of creepy monsters lurking in the dark.

Maybe one day…

Viela didn’t have to remind me about the stop she wanted to make on our way back to the capital. There was supposed to be a hot springs in the Dourland that even Freya knew about. I didn’t know how long the snow leopard spirit would want to follow us around, but fortunately she agreed to take us there.

As I finished the last of my breakfast, I noticed Titania staring at me with a pensive expression. It was still a little weird seeing our party’s lancer in the mornings without her usual breastplate and leg armor on. She wore a surprisingly plain shirt and pants that made it a lot easier to see the detail of all her toned muscles. Her redheaded hair always seemed to be tied back in a ponytail, too.

This is awkward—I’m just staring back at her…!

After a minute, I realized she was looking up over my head.

“What is it?” I asked. “It’s not like I… I-I mean, these fox ears can help me hear danger better, you know!”

Titania snapped her fingers. “That’s it!” she nearly shouted. “I was wondering why one of those monsters attacked you the other night!”

“Uh… okay? What about it?”

She sat up a little straighter. “From what I’ve heard, the dourlings are supposed to be opportunists when they hunt; they shouldn’t attack humans in groups of two or more people. I couldn’t figure out why you got jumped if you were with Alice back then, but you were looking like that! It must have thought you were a fox!”

Ugh… First it was Freya’s cubs, and now even the monsters took me for a fox? Well, at least it was a fatal mistake for them. I could shapeshift into my human form whenever I wanted to, just like…

Oh my God, I forgot!

“Alice, you need to be able to shift back!” I said. “We can’t walk into the city looking like this! Can you do it?”

At first, she looked startled by the implication. Alice closed her eyes and appeared like she was straining inward.

I held my breath… but her two furry ears and snow leopard tail didn’t disappear.

Alice let out a sad whimper. “Beryl…”

Damn it, that’s not good! I completely forgot how difficult it was for me to figure out ‘shifting’ back and forth. I even had to drink Viela’s weird potion and almost died in the astral plane!

Actually, I think I did die…

When I turned to Viela, Freya spoke up.

“I’m her bonded partner,” she said defiantly. “Let me try to teach Alice how.”

We were supposed to be leaving today! As much as I figured Viela would be better at this, I knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue with the stubborn snow leopard spirit.

Alice and Freya went deeper into the cave’s inner room for meditation training. To everyone’s surprise, not even an hour had passed before they returned.

At first I thought Alice might have given up. Then, I almost couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“You actually did it?!”

Alice giggled at the reaction, now back in her usual human form. After a moment and a blur of light, her snow leopard features rematerialized.

“I want to say that I’m really talented at this kind of soul magic thingy,” Alice said with a smile. “But the truth is… my Divine Gift helped a lot. When I focused my Pyschic Empathy on Freya shifting, it just ‘clicked’ for me!”

Oh, of course… Not only did Alice not have an anti-magic power woven around her soul like I did, she even had an ability that was perfectly suited for something like this. Ugh, that was practically double cheating compared to my situation!

Then again, I thought Alice had told me that her Gift only really let her get a sense of people’s surface emotions. Did her soul bond somehow let her ‘level up’ her Divine Gift like I did with Mirror of Soul…?

Regardless, now we should be alright to start heading out—or so I thought.

Titania cleared her throat, a serious expression on her face. “Alice… I have to ask you one last thing.”

Crap. After everything that had happened the other night, I almost forgot about the way Titania had suspected something nefarious out of her.

“You don’t seriously still think she’s against us now, do you?” I asked.

Titania shook her head. “I just need to know. Since you got that obsidian dagger from the Demon King, and you still have it… Alice, what are your intentions in this world?”

Alice bit her lip. Just when I was about to chastise the lancer for bringing this up again, Alice finally answered.

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“I mostly met him by accident,” she said in a voice that lacked her usual enthusiasm. “I didn’t come to this world because I was after the bounty on Mao. When I accidentally mentioned to the Demon King that I was an Outworlder, he offered me that dagger and said it was the only thing that could destroy his soul fragments. I didn’t really want it, but… I thought it would be impolite to refuse. Maybe that’s just an excuse, but I felt really bad about it, and a week later I went back to his tavern to return it.”

Titania’s jaw dropped. “You actually tried to hand it back to him?”

Alice clutched her arm anxiously and looked away. “I tried… I was more interested in the herbs and alchemy this world had to offer, that’s what I told him. The Demon King didn’t show it, but when I offered the dagger back, I could tell with my Gift that he was mad. Like, really mad. I was afraid he would snap and do something scary. But then…”

I leaned in closer. “Well?”

For some reason, Alice found her smile again. “But then he started laughing really loud and gave me this!”

She ran over to her rucksack and pulled out a giant book. I recognized that as the reference book on herbs she had been reading from time to time. It had a cover with a title that called it the… Herbologion…?

“It’s incredible!” she said. “I still can hardly believe it! This book lists every single herb that grows in the world of Gadea. Mao said he even wrote it himself after centuries of observation! Maybe it’s just a copy made with magic, but it even has some basic alchemy recipes, too!”

So that’s how Alice learned how to make her potions? That old crazy drunk of a Demon King might be even crazier than I thought. I still wasn’t quite sure what he had been up to lately…

Titania shrunk back with a sigh. “I was wondering about that book you carried with you, too. You’re even more incredible than I thought, Alice. I guess a little ‘I’m sorry for thinking you were up to something real shady’ won’t cut it now, huh?”

“Well, on that note, didn’t you say that you had gotten cheated before or something?” I asked.

Titania grimaced like she wished I hadn’t. “This is going to hurt, but it’s the least I can do…”

It took her a minute to compose herself, but eventually she began explaining her troubles after becoming a guild master in the capital. After a year in the Miner’s Guild and a year adventuring, Titania managed to buy The Roach and Rat guild at an insanely low price that seemed too good to be true.

Unfortunately, it was. Even though she had spent all her time in university studying business back on Earth, that didn’t prepare her for the risks of entrepreneurship in this world. She figured the guild’s low sale price was due to its shoddy state of disrepair, but that was only part of it. Her guild’s previous owner had taken on a surprising amount of debt trying to keep their failing business afloat—a debt that all got passed on to her.

Titania had already used most of her remaining gold to fix up the place and make improvements after taking over. By the time she found out about the ‘hidden extra costs,’ it was too late.

“My crew and I had been doing pretty damn well, too,” she went on with another sigh. “It felt like we were really starting something with the ‘R and R.’ Now… we’ll be lucky if we can stay open for a few more months. And I can’t exactly go back to solo adventuring for gold with the other guilds since they know I’m their competition.”

No one said anything for a while.

Titania awkwardly rubbed her neck. “So, what I’m trying to say is… maybe that’s why I got a little paranoid back then. Turns out I totally had the wrong idea about you, huh, Alice?”

Alice’s eyes fell to stare at the cave floor. “Well, actually… maybe you were right.”

“What?”

Her long snow leopard tail curled back and forth while she made up her mind. Eventually, Alice returned to her rucksack and came back with a small, bulging pouch.

“The truth is, I was secretly gathering more murkthistle seeds,” she admitted. “Just for myself. When I remembered how rare and expensive these are back in the capital, I thought I could buy myself a new outfit or something, because, I was kind of jealous…”

Alice blushed before casting an awkward glance—at me.

…

“Uh, you still volunteered to gather those for the witch because you like herbs, right?” I asked.

Alice nodded, still looking guilty.

“Then I don’t see the problem with getting more seeds than we needed. Even if we were supporting the effort, you were basically doing all the work gathering them anyway. In fact, that was actually a really smart idea. Since we’re in the area, we might as well try picking up some more on our way out of here.”

“But I can’t, I don’t want this anymore!” Alice cried. “Guild master, you should have it.”

After Titania reluctantly accepted the pouch, she held it in her hands as if it were full of every gold piece in the world.

“There’s no way I can accept this,” Titania said. “Especially not after how I accused you.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Alice replied. “You’re not a bad person. I saw your emotions with my Empathy that night, back when all the monsters were gathered outside. You really were prepared to die fighting them just so the rest of us could try to escape. If Beryl hadn’t saved us, you and Freya would’ve…”

I cleared my throat. “Titania, you should just take it. Those are worth a lot, right? You need them more than we do.”

Titania’s lip quivered. “You know, it’s funny looking back. Before I reincarnated here, I picked my own Divine Gift on a whim. ‘Dual Genitalia.’ It sounds pathetic now, right? When I saw Psychic Empathy on the list, I thought that was one of the weakest of them all, but I never was great at reading people. Maybe I should have picked that one instead…”

Slowly, she got up and headed out with a pained expression, just like she was fighting back tears.

The cave fell excruciatingly silent. I couldn’t help thinking, I never even got to see that list of all the possible Divine Gifts to choose. Maybe ignorance really was bliss.

No, there was more to her reaction like that. I hadn’t thought about it before, but ever since our party ventured out to these mountains, Titania had spent most of her time alone. Whether it was hunting, or scouting, or gathering firewood by herself, she had still been kind of a ‘solo adventurer’ this whole journey.

A sudden epiphany struck me. Alice had Freya for companionship, and I had Viela—and Alice, in a way… but Titania? Had she been feeling left out since the very beginning, or even depressed for other reasons?

Damn it, why did this all have to happen now? We were supposed to be leaving soon! I knew she would probably come back here before too long, but there was no way I could wait in this awkward atmosphere! Plus, as party leader, I felt like I had to do something about this.

I turned to the others for advice. Freya was minding her cubs—probably just for a distraction, given her absentminded expression. Alice nervously glanced away and frowned like she didn’t have a good idea either. And Viela…

When our eyes met, a shiver ran down my spine. The fox spirit was casually leaning against the wall with a knowing look spread across her smiling face. Viela had been silently watching and listening this whole time, and somehow, it felt like she had expected this outcome.

“You probably know what I’m going to ask,” I said to her. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Perhaps,” she replied with a playful wag of her fox tail. “But it’s not something I can do.”

I gulped. “What do you mean?”

Viela leaned in closer and whispered into my ear. “I know how you can help her~.”

Oh God, why is she grinning like that…?

 

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