Volcatia moved to another rooftop and hopped off it, opening the door at ground level and walking into the armor shop of Laetoria Cerularia.

She pulled the pannus back over her face quickly.

Another fucking thing she'd forgotten.

Frustrating.

Spending too much time like she had watching Sylmare made her forget things.

It was amazing she'd remembered this.

There were a couple people inside, but they didn't matter.

She walked over to the same woman with tattoos at the ordering counter that she'd talked to earlier in the month.

The woman's eyes opened wide, and her hands rose up to cover her mouth. "Sc—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here for the helmet," Volcatia interrupted.

Admirers were so tiring.

"Oh, um, okay, of course," the woman said, interrupting herself with a nervous laugh.

She didn't go to get the helmet though, instead continuing to stare annoyingly.

"Is it back there with you?" Volcatia asked, pointing to the space behind the walled off countertop.

The woman nodded with an excited grin. "I've kept it here every day since it—"

Volcatia stopped listening.

She'd needed to show her special badge in order to prove her identity and get the order finished in days instead of months.

She didn't need to stay here and continue to be annoyed.

She moved behind the counter.

The woman squeaked.

Like a rodent.

The helmet was…

Volcatia looked around.

The helmet was on a shelf nearby.

It looked…

Huh.

It didn't look as stupid as she'd expected.

She walked over and tossed it into her Inventory.

Good.

Done.

She moved to the lake.

Carl was standing on a dock some distance in front of her next to a shorter man.

And now she saw clearly what weapon he preferred.

Hasta.

Strong-looking one at that.

She didn't typically bother with weapons, but that one looked like it might be fun.

Fishing though…

She decided to spectate.

She'd never really seen someone fish.

It was something she knew people did, but it seemed so boring she'd never bothered to see it happen.

Maybe it would be fun.

She quietly took her chair out of her Inventory and set it down to sit in.

"That's pretty big, Rex," Carl said as he looked at the thing the shorter man had caught.

So this was Rex.

And he'd caught a worm sort of fish with lots of small wavy parts that had small bolts of fulmen shooting off it.

She could feel the current.

So far, fishing wasn't very interesting.

She decided to grab food out of that part of her Inventory.

Some type of meat.

She wasn't picky.

It tasted vaguely spicy, but she wasn't eating it for the flavor.

With each bite, she felt her humanity increasing.

Eating was something humans did.

She was really fucking human.

She tried to be.

"Damn, Carl, how does that thing work, anyway?" Rex asked as her friend caught a slightly bigger-looking fish with spines all over its body.

"Well, you know," Carl said, speaking slowly enough to be annoying while he fiddled with what she assumed was the hook in the fish's mouth. "Just your usual fishing spear of the sea god. Deploys unbreakable line from up here by the tip, got a normal bait hook that scales its size based on whatever bites on it—all pretty normal stuff."

She understood those words, but there was something more important going on.

He'd used Carl's first name?

They were close enough for that?!

Was he…

Were they also friends?

The idea of it was unsettling to her.

She'd never thought about it before!

Obviously someone as fun and interesting as Carl would have more than just one friend!

He was extremely human.

Painfully human.

Humans had friends.

But what if he spent more time with his other friends than with her?

What if they were more fun than she was?

What if they were more interesting than she was?

She frowned.

There was no chance…

Or was there?

How much fun was she to spend time with?

It wasn't like she was boring.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Right?

She tapped her chin while she thought about it.

Maybe she'd been more interesting in the past?

She thought about it for a while.

Carl and Rex continued to catch bigger and bigger creatures out of the lake.

Seeing the water monsters again brought back memories.

Memories of the lake being stirred up to anger the monsters before matches.

Memories of leaping between small boats floating on the waters, dodging iacula and pila along with whatever else the others hurled at her.

Memories of victory.

She stopped remembering.

That was a long time ago.

Decades, but not really.

"Where did you get it, if you don't mind my asking?" Rex asked.

"Just, uh, went and solo killed that super powerful sea god, and he—or she—dropped it." Carl said.

Carl killed a sea god?

That didn't sound right.

She couldn't imagine him killing a weakling goddess of light, let alone a more powerful deity.

He'd probably just trip and land on his fucking head.

This Rex guy didn't even seem like he was paying attention.

He'd caught another big fish and was bragging about it.

Were they competing?

If they were, Carl had to win.

He was her friend, and she never lost.

She'd be upset if he lost.

She might have tried to cheer him on, but fishing seemed like it was supposed to be a quiet way to spend time.

If she hadn't been sitting so close, she probably wouldn't even have been able to hear them.

She still didn't like the idea of this Rex guy being friends with Carl.

He didn't seem fun.

If she had to describe it, he reminded her of the new gladiators who refused to accept their defeat when they took a single step outside of their fighting platform and instead claimed that both feet needed to be outside for it to be a loss.

Fucking idiots.

It was true according to the rules.

They weren't wrong.

The crowd hated to see someone step outside the platform though.

They jeered and taunted enough to make it feel like a loss afterwards even if the gladiator eventually won.

No experienced gladiator would try to continue fighting after being forced to take a step out of bounds.

Maybe Rex wasn't experienced in competing.

Volcatia tried to continue spectating, but it was hard.

Fishing was unbelievably boring.

She felt her attention wandering desperately as her mind rebelled.

Maybe they would stop soon?

"That's a big one," Carl said as he looked over at Rex's latest catch.

Fuck, Carl was losing now!

"Yeah, can't imagine you'll catch anything bigger," Rex said.

"We'll see," Carl said as he threw his fishing string out across the lake.

Urgh, they were still going.

How was fishing this fucking boring?

It was just standing around waiting.

Awful.

Her thoughts drifted away from her again.

Sylmare had amazing legs.

Maybe she should have gone back to see him sooner.

Maybe not though.

It still felt a little weird that he'd changed his mind about everything.

She wasn't complaining, obviously.

She liked knowing that she could go see him again whenever she wanted.

It was more like…

What the fuck were they supposed to do?

It wasn't like she could bring him along with her.

He couldn't be anywhere that humans were.

That was a lot of the world that he couldn't visit.

Most of the fun places too.

Was she supposed to stay there with him until he died?

She liked Sylmare, but she wasn't sure she'd like staying in any one place for that long.

Or with any one person.

She'd never tried it though, so maybe she was wrong?

Eh.

Probably not.

She knew herself too well.

Centuries had that effect.

Sylmare seemed to feel the same way, at least about spending so much time together.

Even when she'd stayed with him in the past, he'd leave to hunt for food or even disappear for days to spend time with the other elves, who had never trusted her.

He enjoyed being alone, at least sometimes.

She liked that about him.

She wasn't making any fucking progress on this though.

She needed a distraction again.

Maybe she'd try visiting Egrata that night?

If Sylmare had gotten so much more agreeable in a little under two years, how much more calm would Egrata be after five?

And those legs…

The thought of the other woman's smooth, dark legs sent a dangerous tingling feeling surging through her body.

Okay, maybe she didn't need this kind of distraction.

"Heck of a lot more than something!" Carl shouted randomly.

Finally!

Something was happening!

Something was happening though.

A flickering of something that she'd really see soon.

Something weird.

She always half-watched a short while ahead in case something weird happened.

A habit she'd kept from when she was human.

From when she was weak and thought herself strong.

This was weirder than the usual sort of thing she saw though.

She decided to watch it again and sat in her chair while sitting in her chair.

Rex stepped back towards the shore, his eyes fixed on the end of the dock.

Carl wasn't there, just as he always disappeared when she watched.

Dozens of currents appeared to her.

Or had they always been there?

Yeah, they had.

They were just more subtle, and she hadn't cared.

The currents had no visible form, which was confusing.

She'd never encountered it before.

The currents charged towards the dock, and the two largest ones continued to the end of it where Carl was standing and jumped off.

Weird.

She started watching again.

She couldn't see anything with her eyes, but that meant nothing to her.

She'd killed creatures that couldn't be seen before.

Volcatia reached out and shocked the closest one.

Maybe that would show her something interesting.

Yeah, it was interesting.

Some sort of metal canis?

It was still twitching, but she hadn't intended to kill it.

She tapped her chin.

Rex whirled around to face her, but he didn't matter.

Sort of interesting?

He said something, but she was too busy thinking.

What was it?

She attached the metal canis to her hand and turned it over when it came into her grasp, feeling herself sink down deeper into her chair from its weight.

It wasn't alive, but its teeth were still sharp.

Weird.

Heavier than it seemed like it should have been too.

Just like the weird metal tower she'd found at the track last…

Oh.

It was him.

The metal canis tried to bite her, so she crushed its head with her hand and tossed it aside.

Annoying.

The rest of the currents, which she figured were more of the metal canēs, raced towards her.

She was still sitting in her chair, obviously.

This wasn't something she'd need to stand up for.

Or was it?

She felt the beginnings of a long-dead excitement stir.

Fuck, but Aquila was using him to improve the city, wasn't she.

The Imperatrix always had a plan like that.

So she couldn't fight him.

Even if it wasn't real, fighting someone she couldn't actually fight was boring.

A waste of time.

It wasn't like she could lose.

Volcatia stopped watching.

Fine.

No fighting.

Unless he attacked first.

Aquila couldn't blame her for that.

If he really tried to attack Carl while she was there…

A new thought occurred to her.

Rex wasn't Carl's friend!

Yeah!

He wouldn't be attacking his friend with his metal canēs, would he?

She felt proud of herself for having such a smart thought.

Maybe she really was becoming smart.

She put her chair away and started walking forward. "Hey, Carl, didn't expect to find you hanging out here," she called in a loud voice.

"Hey, Vol, Kinda…" Carl apparently thought fishing was more important than talking to her, which was a very Carl thing to do.

She didn't mind, obviously.

They were still friends.

Rex turned back to face her. "Oh. It's you," he said.

He'd recognized her?

Even through her disguise?!

Fuck, was he an admirer too?

Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Everything was awful.