Aella perched on a tree branch, idly playing with her tiny blue dragon, Stormy, while awaiting her target's arrival. However, something seemed amiss. Aella looked much older than her years, and her characteristic fox-like features were nowhere to be seen.
"The Mana drain isn't too severe," she mused, examining the information window for her [Transformation] skill. "I think I can maintain this form for a couple of hours."
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The sun was high in the sky, leaning ever so slightly toward setting rather than rising, and the park had few people. Several young adults, so few that they could be counted on one hand, most sitting dazed as they still tried to cope with what happened yesterday.
It wasn’t like Aella could blame them. Even she, a being who has lived for longer than one thousand years, had limited adaptability. If that was a setting she had never found herself in, she was sure part of her would still be contemplating the whole thing…
Her other parts would be salivating at the thought of fighting monsters, so…
Never mind, scratch that. Aella would never have trouble adapting to such a situation.
“Oh look, Stormy! There she is!” Aella perked her head up, a specific set of footsteps appearing in the park, not that it took long for her to Identify the woman in seconds.
The woman, Blair, was clad in a chic business suit, her platinum blond hair elegantly styled into a bun, the small amount that was left out falling below her breasts. Sunglasses concealed her ruby eyes, and she wore a single earring.
“Aya, she’s dressing up just for me? There’s no way she had work after that event.” Thinking about it a little more, she wore a business suit during their little excursion as well. “She must be on a business trip of sorts. Or at least preparing for one.”
Leaping off with the tree, Stormy giving a little chirp while perching on her head, Aella walked up to Blair.
“How punctual. You’re 3 minutes early when coming to meet such a young girl~” Aell spoke, her voice not being that of Aella but of an accusing adult male.
Her words caused Blair to turn frantically, “Lass?” She questioned before her head could turn her head. Although her tone was full of confidence, vestiges of confusion laced her voice.
Aella was… Genuinely impressed “10 Points.” She said, clapping. “How’d you know? I’m sure I changed my voice, too uh… What was his name? Chris… Chan? Chandler? Whatever! I thought it was perfect!”
She wasn’t the only one surprised, Blair’s face lighting up upon seeing Aella’s grown-up body. Although she wanted to question many things, she took a deep breath and kept her composure.
“You can manipulate sound waves as you see fit? Did you think I was stupid enough to fall for such a trick after you revealed your abilities to me?” Blair inferred, narrowing her eyes at the supposed adult in front of her.
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“Honestly, yeah.” Aella nodded with a chuckle. “It’s nothing against you specifically. I just think all humans are stupid, especially adult humans. Anyways, you have questions, and I probably have answers. We have… Probably 4 hours before Mama and Papa realize I’m missing.”
“I’m sorry… They don’t know you’re out?” Blair questioned.
“Well… Father is apparently dealing with the aftermath of yesterday, and Mother is… Dealing with something slightly more important. That aside, I’m pretty sure they figured it out and aren’t acting on it for some reason. He definitely saw me pierce a hole through a giant’s heart and didn’t reveal me to my Mother, so… Yeah, they probably don’t know.”
Blair’s mouth opened slightly and suspended there. She didn’t know how to respond to those words, so she simply chose not to. She asked two questions off-handedly, and it only led to her wanting to ask a dozen more. If that was anything to tell how this situation was going to proceed, Blair was sure she’d get grey hairs before the end of the day.
Letting out a sigh, she simply bit the bullet and asked as directly as possible. “Who are you? And on that topic, why are you so interested in my daughter?” Blair had some vague ideas and theories but Aella’s… Acting threw her off.
She clearly pretends to be an innocent girl in front of her own parents and Seraphina… Well, less so Seraphina but she was an actual child and was far easier to trick but acted like a fully grown adult when it came to Blair and her husband.
“Hmm… I’m Aella Seren Rossi. That wasn’t a lie. What you mean to ask is ‘What’ am I, yes?” Aella said, proceeding to sit in the air, the wind pushing her upward. “Well, pushing that one aside for a moment. You’re assuming a lot that I’m interested in your daughter. You were unconscious when it happened, but those cultists who I saved you from. They mentioned a prophecy related to Seraphina… Frankly, that’s what I’m interested in.” Aella continued, explaining herself without leaving anything out, even including the snippet of information she got from the cultists.
Pausing, Aella looked up at the sun with an expression that was hard to discern if it was serene or melancholic. Perhaps a bit of both. It was like she was looking into the past yet forward to the future at the same time. The exact moment when her previous events begin to form the future.
Many would call this the present, but Aella saw it a different way. To her, a being who had an infinite lifespan, time seldom seemed like a straight line. Often it seems more like a loop. She’d make a mistake, get punished, fix the mistake, make another mistake, get punished, fix the mistake…
Even now, she wondered if that cycle continued with her Reincarnation or if her losing to Velfius was her final mistake. Allowing that damned Dragon God to do as he pleased with her people.
“As for what I am? Just a little lamb who is forced to obey the whims of God… Just like everyone else in the world.” Her words echoed with ancient wisdom, almost making Blair take a step back in contemplation.
“You… 10 years ago, a Dragon with the ability to raise the dead appeared with his Dragon Master. Those undead had their memories intact but lacked any personality. This raised many theories on how the body functioned and what happens after death… Are you, perhaps, a [reincarnated]”
Raising a brow at the mention of those Theories, Aella turned her full attention to Blair once again. “What an interesting theory. Unfortunately, you’re not on the right track about it. If they kept their memories but not their personality, it means that the Dragon is using an [Artificial Soul]. If the original soul was placed back into the body and vital functions were restored, even perfectly resurrecting the dead is rather simple. As for if I’ve been Reincarnated or not… I feel like the answer to that isn’t something I have to answer.”
What did she say next? Blair, although she couldn’t trust the words of Aella for rather obvious reasons, her answers lined up with her own theories. That was the issue, though. Her thoughts were ludicrous. Ramblings of a madwoman. She had expected all of it to be wrong, and that age was just making her paranoid of an innocent child. So whenever Aella indirectly confirmed her suspicions, she froze, her mind completely devoid of any thoughts.
Until two words came to mind. The only two that floated in her head spilled out without filter.
“Why me?”
“Why did you decide to tell me all of this?”
There was the question Aella was waiting for. A question which even she wasn’t fully ready to answer because, frankly, the only correct answer was Whimsy. But whimsy could be the answer to any question related to her.
Why did she fight the first miniboss so closely to a double knockout when she could have easily killed it instantly if she had taken the time to prepare a big spell, even with her small Mana pool? Because she felt like it. It was safe for the other miniboss and boss as well.
She fought that way because it was more fun. So, instead of answering with whimsy, she instead answered with, “A gamble, I guess? As I’ve said, those Cultists will be going after Seraphina nonstop because of the prophecy. It’s not just her, though. Me, that little boy you saw with my mother in the Abyss Nest, and every other Naturalis is in danger. So, to answer your question, A gamble.”