“Aren’t you bothered by the heat?” Hayato asked out of the blue.
I devoured what was left of the fruit in my hand and said “no, why do you- right, I was a snow woman in the past. Well, I’m a devil now so I don’t really mind the temperature. Even if I do, I can simply cast frost aura over my body to keep myself cool.”
My tummy wasn’t satisfied yet so I stimulated the black ring with a white gem on my index finger using magical energy. It glowed for a split second, and then a heart-shaped purple fruit appeared out of thin air.
To those who may not know, the black ring is a magical artifact that allows one to store items in a pocket dimension. I didn’t summon an “Abyss Apple”. I pulled one out of the “Interspatial Ring” which contains all of my belongings.
“Is that so,” Hayato has one as well. But unlike mine, his was plain silver. Furthermore, his can only carry a large room’s worth of items while mine can hide an entire city.
Not that I should be comparing the two. It’s unfair given the fact that mine is a gift from the dragon lord himself. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say my interspatial ring is one of the best in the world. I wonder why Vally gave this to me. He says it’s his “insurance for the future”, but I still don’t get it. I just know it can’t be anything bad. I would’ve lost my life long ago if he wanted me dead. More than that, he’s always been good to me. He’s a nice guy for sure.
“Say, Hayato, what will you do now? You’ve already succeeded in finding me. Is there anything else you need to work on? Tell me, I’ll try my best to help.” I took a bite from the fruit as I waited for his answer.
He went into deep thought, only to shake his head a minute later. “I have nothing in mind at the moment. What about you? Do you have anything planned here in Gaia?”
“Hmm, let’s just say I wish to see what Gaia has to offer. What sort of life will I have here? What types of people will I meet? What kind of joy will I discover? I want to know them all.” And if it doesn’t look too good for me, I’ll go back to the outside world.
“What about sweets?”
“Of course that’s a given, you silly. I exist to consume everything that has sugar! As the saying goes, what’s the point of producing all the candies when they don’t end up in the great Lucina’s belly?”
“Sure,” he deadpanned.
“A wise man also said a candy a day keeps the cute doctor at bay.”
“I wonder who that wise man is.”
“Do you want to know?” I grinned from ear to ear. “I'll tell you if you buy the full version.”
...
Monsters in the desert usually turn tail the moment they sense me, but of course there are exceptions to every rule. Take that huge ass snake for example. It came from beneath the sea of sand, and though it hesitated when it became aware of my presence it continued with its act. It popped out in front of us, sand spewing everywhere from the force of its sudden entrance.
BASIC INFORMATION
NAME
-
RACE
Agaran Desert Wyrm
TITLE
-
LEVEL
162
[EXPAND]
Hayato erected a wind barrier almost instantly in response, saving us the trouble of dusting off our clothes. “I’ll take care of this. You stay back,” he said as he brandished his weapon. Magical energy flowed out of his hand and covered the crimson blade of his sword as I jumped back, soon turning into bright orange flames with heat I could feel from a distance.
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With a burning sword in hand, Hayato jumped dozens of meters from the ground and sliced through the gray scales of the colossal snake’s neck. However, the snake leaned its head to the direction of the sword’s trajectory and twisted its body once it was away from danger, slamming the tip of its tail to the man in midair. To escape, Hayato kicked the tail at the last moment, propelling himself away from it. And as he descended, he generated flames on his sword again – this time they were dark yellow and were way hotter.
Once he reached the ground he shot an arc of flames with a wave of his sword. In a blink of an eye, the projectile bridged the gap between him and his target, and easily cleaved through the monster’s neck.
Silence pervaded the air. Only the whistling of the wind could be heard as the hunter and the hunted stared at each other. After that the snake’s head slowly separated from the rest of its body, falling to the ground with a loud thud and causing a cloud of sand to form. Expecting that from the start, Hayato quickly cast a wind barrier to block the incoming dust.
“Perfect! Ten out of ten!” I announced as my friend sheathed his sword. He tried to hide it, but I could tell he used quite a bit of his stamina from the short exchange. “Actually no, it’s only a seven out of ten. Why didn’t you yell the name of your attack? It would’ve been much cooler that way. Just imagine if you shouted Volcanic Slash or Ifrit's Wrath!”
“What am I, an anime character?”
“Who knows? You could even be a character in a fantasy novel. That would make me one as well, and I’m sure I’ll be the protagonist. Hmm, I wonder what the title would be – Lucina’s Bizarre Adventure?”
“How about Loli Saga?”
I froze at his suggestion, and then smiled with my eyes closed. “And why would that be? Care to explain why a story about me would be called Loli Saga, my dear Ha-ya-to?”
He calmly approached, placing his right hand on top of my head and his left on top of his. He moved them away shortly and set them parallel to each other without changing the elevation, showing the difference between our heights to be more than one head. “This, this is the reason.”
“Uhuhu, it looks like a certain someone is eager to lose his life.” I threatened in a gentle voice.
He smirked evilly and called me “shorty,” before running away. Catching him wasn’t a problem obviously, but for the sake of entertainment I followed him at a slightly slower speed. It was enough to keep him within my sight, but not enough to actually reach him.
“Who are you calling shorty?!”
Our little play went on for a while before the both of us burst out laughing. On a serious note though; I don’t hate my size or gender. I may complain about them occasionally, but deep down I've already accepted them. They're a part of me, rejecting them won't get me anywhere.
The rest of the monsters had enough brain cells to avoid me so the rest of the day went by rather peacefully. The same could be said for the next few days if I don't include the hiccups here and there. Overall, I believe it was a great experience.
“Would you mind if I call you Lucy?”
“Uh... go ahead,” anything is fine as long as you’re not making fun of me. “If you want, you can even call me Christopher Columbus.”
“I think I’ll stick with Lucy.”
I was about to spout more nonsense when a body of water entered my sight. “Hey, isn't that an oasis?”
A lake surrounded by greeneries in the middle of a desert, “it is indeed.”
Hearing Hayato’s confirmation, I immediately ran towards the place. “Hell yeah, it’s time to go for a swim!” It wouldn’t be the first time I’d be playing in water in this world. But it felt like it would be special with my best friend there to have fun with me.
To make sure nothing goes wrong, I fully released my magical energy and marked the oasis as my territory. It's a neat trick I learned from the beastmen. Now only those who have the courage to face me head on will dare approach.
“What was that?” Hayato asked, most likely due to the technique I just used.
“It’s nothing grand, just a countermeasure.” I assured him, “now forget about that and get ready to party!” and dived head first into the warm lake. I preferred colder pools so I poked my head out of the water a few seconds in, and asked “how do you want the pool, hot or cold?”
With a short pause, he told me “it’s your call. I don’t plan to swim anyway.”
“What?! There’s a good pool right here and you’re not going to swim? Are you even human?”
“What does that have to do with being human?”
“Everything! Don’t you know that we evolved from fishes? It’s in our blood to dip in water!”
“I remember it being monk-”
“No, that’s for stupid people! Fools originated from apes, but us intelligent men came from fishes so hurry up and get your ass here!”
He didn’t seem convinced so, “you leave me with no other choice.” I jumped out of water, grabbed Hayato by the hand, and dragged him to where we truly belong. I moved faster than he could comprehend so he stared blankly into space until he snapped back to reality, and noticed the toothy grin I was giving him, “oops, my hand slipped?”
He wasn’t amused at all. With a grim look on his face which sent chills down my spine, he came closer.
“I-It was a joke...”
He started cracking his knuckles.
“I-I’m sorry, okay?”
He smiled with his eyes closed and I knew it was over from there. “What was it that you said? I think it was - you leave me with no other choice.”
“AAAAAHHH!”
Like that, we were temporarily side-tracked from our journey.
...
Somewhere in the Wall of Gaia, a being of the old awoke from its deep slumber. It was mistakenly dragged into the miniature world made by the vile goddess Akasha and turned into a weapon against invading deities. And now its service was needed once again. Whether it liked it or not, it had to fight for the woman it abhors.
With a visible frown, it opened its crystal blue eyes and walked towards the edge of its prison – a cave within the Wall of Gaia overlooking the desert of Agaran. It stared at the direction where the powerful energy it felt earlier came from, and wondered how the deity managed to travel that far before the curse of servitude on its soul was triggered.
Well in the end it didn’t matter, the curse would force it to move just like it did in the past. It could only hope that the deity this time was strong enough to put an end to its life and free it from the curse.
Heaving a sigh, it jumped out of the cave and flapped its white feathery wings, pushing itself above the clouds.