Book 3. Chapter 23.
“Shadows, rage, blood, and tears.” Part 2
Two months had passed since the death of Kalysto’s father.
And neither she nor Aegir or his spies had found any trace of Mhiralla. It was as if she had been swallowed up by the earth.
“Maybe she’s hiding in another dimension,” Alice commented just before they both went to sleep as she finished brushing her long blonde hair and began to braid it.
“... It’s most likely,” answered Kalysto, letting out a long annoyed sigh, as she lay on her back on the bed they had been sharing since the ex-saintess had returned wounded and in a pool of her own blood. “Maybe that’s why it took the fairies so long to find her,” she murmured as she stared at the ceiling of Alice’s room, who suffered from constant nightmares in which she found Kalysto and her grandparents dead again, which had ruined Kalysto’s plans to sleep alone again on more than one occasion. “Don’t you think your new boyfriend is annoyed that you’d rather sleep with me at night than with him?” She commented, trying to sound joking, but in reality, she was already tired of having to spend all her nights in the middle of a sandwich between the blonde and Tsuki. He had decided that if Alice could sleep with his master, so could he.
“He’s not my boyfriend!” Alice defended herself, her cheeks turning an intense reddish color, which made Kalysto smile.
“And yet you know very well who I’m talking about, don’t you?” Alice was about to plead, but she pressed her lips together and threw her comb against the nightstand.
“We’d better go to sleep now. After all, you have to get up early to continue with your training,” excused the blonde, wishing her friend could drop the subject.
But Kalysto had no intention of doing so.
“Are you really so naive as to believe that a demon is going to help your grandparents to get a leased piece of land at a very good price just so your grandfather could have his own place and land to harvest?”
“...” If there was a skill that would allow Alice to shoot laser beams from her eyes, she would be using them against her friend right now. “You’re not going to drop the subject, are you?”
“Why would I? It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in the last few weeks,” she replied cheekily. “Besides, I think your grandfather approves.”
“For heaven’s sake!” she murmured, hiding her delicate, beautiful face in her hands. I don’t even know if I like him that way.
“...Sure, that’s why you were kissing him like you had your soul on it just before dinner,” Kalysto answered, half a second before Alice’s pillow crashed hard against his face. “Ouch!” she complained, but the smile laden with genuine amusement painted on her face made the blonde not believe her.
“Don’t complain, it didn’t even hurt!”
“True, but that doesn’t mean I want you to go around hitting me every three seconds. I hope it doesn’t become a habit,” she said, just before throwing it back at her, smashing it into her friend’s face. Before the blow, she had been sitting on the bed, and now her head was resting against the soft mattress.
“Ouch!”
“...I don’t think it hurt you,” she said trying to imitate the accent of the blonde, who threw the pillow again but this time Kalysto easily avoided it, making it fall on the floor, where Tsuki didn’t hesitate to lie on top of it and use it as a cushion.
“... I think you’re a bad influence on him,” Alice complained. Rushing to remove the sacred beast from her pillow, shaking it to remove the hairs left on it.
“Of course I am. I’m his mistress for a reason,” she replied with a mischievous smile, making Alice squint her eyes, and accusing her with her gaze.
“You’ve changed,” the blonde murmured as she put the pillow back in its place.
“Of course, I’ve changed... everything in life is prone to change,” she commented as she pulled her hair back.
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“I don’t just mean that your hair, although it looks lighter than before. Are you sure you didn’t dye it?”
“...” Kalysto rolled her eyes. Alice had insisted on the subject since she came back alive from the third mission. “No, for the umpteenth time Alice, I didn’t dye my hair...” she muttered. “You better go to sleep at once” she growled, covering herself with the blanket, which made Tsuki interpret it as a signal to get on the bed.
“Hey, I didn’t invite you!” Alice tried to pull him down so she could have a little more space in the cramped bed, but all her effort was completely useless. Tsuki didn’t move.
“We come as a pack. If he goes, I go,” said Kalysto, making Alice let out a groan full of tiredness and after giving up, she turned off the lights and lay down to sleep.
“...Kalysto, are you asleep?” asked the blonde 15 minutes later, when Tsuki’s loud snoring filled the room.
“...”
“I know you’re still awake,” Alice whispered, but got no answer. “I know you think I’m flirting with Raphael, but I don’t think I can give him what he wants.”
“... Not all men want to start a family, Alice. Some people are too serious about their work, others are fine with adopting. Whatever you choose, remember to ask him what he wants first. Because right now all you’re doing is assuming he’s just like your ex, and what is he going to want to force you to get pregnant and start a family with him.”
“You weren’t asleep?”
“One last thought as I enter the world of dreams.”
“...Right...And among these reflections also enter the demon king?” Kalysto’s body tensed up like the string of a guitar.
“...I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It is more than obvious that the only reason he is helping you, helping me and my grandparents, is because he wants something with you.”
“What he wants is for me to keep my end of the deal.”
“The one that says you’ll create a protective barrier for his brothers’ castles?”
“That’s the one.”
“Technically speaking, the deadline for you to fulfill it has passed.”
“...I’m well aware of that. That’s why he gave me a time extension, considering that I don’t have a system now, which makes it practically impossible for me to fulfill my part.”
“...So you’ll be stuck in this place for the rest of your life?”
“Only until you fulfill the contract, and technically, I am a guest, not a prisoner. I can walk out of here anytime I want, Alice. As you can.”
“But you can’t go too far away, at least not for too long.”
It wouldn’t be convenient if I don’t want to lose your trust.
“I don’t think your trust is the only thing he wants,” the blonde insisted, but Kalysto didn’t answer her.
Two months later, Kalysto was finally able to start mastering the basic spells of dark mana based magic. Her biggest drawback was that although her body could replenish itself the mana she spent, the same didn’t happen with dark mana.
“You shouldn’t feel so frustrated. Not everyone has the innate ability to create it, let alone manage it without all the facilities a system gives. When you had a system, was the DMP stat always there?”
“No, it was much later when I started entering the towers that I began to have it,” she muttered as she concentrated her energy on crystallizing a pair of dark mana daggers.
“In other words, you absorbed it,” he added, with a half-smirk as he saw that she was still trying to hold back information when it was as easy as breathing for him to enter the minds of others. Whether they had a system or not.
“Persephone has it,” she suddenly muttered.
“Now that’s strange.”
Two hours after Kalysto finally succeeded a couple of times with the teleportation spell, Aegir spoke again.
“That’s enough for today.”
“But I can’t teleport more than a meter away,” the brunette complained. Which made the demon king smile.
“You’ll have to practice a lot more and replenish your mana before you try again” Kalysto nodded and immediately extracted a mana crystal from her shadow and began to absorb it. Now that she had no system, she had no way of knowing how much mana she was drawing, or how much she had left to finish filling her entire capacity. However, Aegir was already teaching her to use a method with which she could see in her mind a drawing in the shape of a bar as if it were a video game, the state of her health, and her mana.
“Come with me. I have something to show you,” said Aegir, slipping an arm behind her back, drawing her to him.
“What...?” Before she could ask him, both had already reached the fairy territory. Where the golden light of the barrier that Artemis had created was broken. “Mhiralla.”
“I also suspect it’s her,” he muttered, summoning his weapon. Even though we haven’t found her, one of my trackers found this a few hours ago.
However, no matter how hard they searched for hours, there was no trace of Mhiralla or her minions.
But the purification crystals that Kalysto had created and placed around the barrier near the portal she suspected the fairies used to escape had disappeared.
“Does any of this look familiar?” Questioned Aegir, but Kalysto ignored him, too surprised to see the barrier she had created still remain intact, and feeling how, even after several months, the barrier was still feeding on her mana.
As soon as she approached it, the barrier allowed her to pass, and Kalysto climbed the steps to the small dais, but just as she took the last step, her world changed.
Suddenly, she was free-falling into the interior of a volcano about to erupt.