The sound of grass whispering in the wind rolling over the flat plains of eastern Edor filled the air. In this endless sea of green, the two undead adventurers stood tall above the tall grass which rippled under them like waves in a storm. They had deviated away from the Vitas's banks, trying to avoid the partially flooded floodplains in which each step risked stepping into an unseen pool of quicksand-like mud reaching deeper than a human in depth. Even with her strength, Iris found very little improvement with wading through deep mud, unlike a certain cheating undead walking beside her with one both hands caressing the glades of grass around her.
Kia's hood was down, exposing her snow-white skin to the winter sun. Iris wasn't sure if the girl's sheltered high noble-like complexion could change with the amount of sunlight she received while they wandered through the wilderness together. The elf looked down at her own hand, her previously slightly tanned skin was replaced with a similar pale complexion. She was somewhat darker than a vampire like Umbria, probably because she still possessed blood inside her but she still was extremely light-skinned compared to a healthy person. She has not noticed any change in her own skin tone even with the almost constant exposure to the sun before she observed before glancing at Kia. She started to imagine how the fair-skinned girl would look like with a different complexion, eye colour and hair dressing the doll-like girl in her head.
"Is there something wrong with my face?" Kia's voice suddenly sounded in Iris's mind. "You are staring at it for a long time."
"I was wondering about how you would look like if a couple of things would change." The elf said without thinking.
"A-and?"
"..."
"Iris!?" The girl stared at the guilty-looking elf with a terrified expression.
"I couldn't imagine you differently, you are perfect the way you are." The playful elf embraced the shocked girl before kissing her.
"You are a bully." Kia declared, opposite to her words her body seemed to not be in a hurry to escape the elf's warm embrace.
"I know," The mischievous risen said before giving Kia a breathtakingly long kiss, "And I like it~"
"Iris?" The flushed girl fidgeted in front of the tall elf before sheepishly asking.
"Want something?"
"Could you cook something for me?"
Iris shook her head in disbelief at the shameless request while wearing a small smirk on her face. "Of course but first we have to find a good place to set up camp." She scanned the horizon around her, spotting a small rise in the land roughly halfway from the edge of her vision.
It didn't take the two undead with perfect vigour to reach there soon to be campsite on the top of a hill if they were generous to call the small overgrown mound of earth a hill.
"Could you clear out a patch of ground here?" Iris asked, not wanting the fire to accidentally spread and cause a wildfire.
"Sure!" The excited girl replied.
"...Kia?" The risen said after a moment of silence with the girl standing still.
"This one!" The petite mage finally said before the flush green grass around her started to wither away into dry husks which crumbled under their own weight into dust. The withered area rapidly expanded beyond what Iris had expected before stopping at the foot of the hill. "Done." The girl puffed out her chest and rested her arms on her hips as she announced her achievement.
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"Well done." The elf congratulated the proud mage spoiling her a little, "You also have to pick up the kindling." Before reminding the smug undead of the task at hand, causing Kia to make a cute "Eh?" sound.
In almost no time at all, the two gathered enough withered grass to sustain the necromancer's black and white flame which consumed almost no fuel.
"Kia, could you make a long flat rock?" The elf asked after fruitlessly trying to find what she had described to the mage.
"No, I am not that good with earth magic but I could find one." The girl explained before stomping on the ground with her foot with nothing happening for a while after.
Iris suspected the girl was trying to locate the rock using magic but a dull sound of something hitting the soil swiftly dismissed her theory. To her amazement, at the southern side of their camp, a long flat rock popped out of the ground like a fish jumping out of water.
"Could you show me what you have in your inventory for me to cook?" The hoplite requested after hauling her table closer to the fire.
"MmmHmm." Kia nodded and began to pull out things from her inventory.
Iris's table quickly filled with fresh food and some stuff the necromancer thought was edible but wasn't.
"Where did you get this?" Iris pointed at an unfamiliar crimson-red meat which still oozed fresh blood onto the rock.
"From a monster?" Kia tilted her head to the side in confusion.
"What monster?"
"The one, which attacked us when we were gathering iron for material foraging quest." A precise answer came from the girl.
"Ahh." The elf remembered the bear-like monster.
[Inspect]
[Stone-Hide Bear Level 65]
{This is a part of a Stone-Hide Bear}
"I don't really know how to cook this, lets's see if there is something else we can use." One by one the things which the risen didn't keep a hand on, disappeared before being replaced by another set of fresh ingredients. "Why are you holding onto the ring Umbria gave you?" She asked, extending her open palm to the girl.
"It has a storage enchantment on it and there is a lot of food there." Kia replied as she removed the ring from her pinky finger and handed it to the elf.
Iris examined the small dark silvery piece of jewellery which was reflecting the sun above her giving it a soft white glow around it. Carefully inscribed into the dark metal on the front of the ring was a chest surrounded by a bouquet of large roses at its feet with a sword embedded deeply into the chest. Coiled around the sword was a headless snake-like being which proudly presented its circular teeth-filled maw. She tried to find more inscriptions on the ring but the relatively simple seal was the only thing adorning its metallic body, indicating its more practical uses instead of showcasing the wearer's wealth.
"How do you even use this?"
"I don't know." The mage casually shrugged her shoulders.
"But you just used it, didn't you?"
"Yes, but that's because I know how to use inventory. It is more of an instinct than a thing I could teach, I think." The girl's words trailed into a quiet mumble as she began to scratch her chin while deep in her thoughts.
Iris idly twirled the ring between her fingers before giving it back to the mage. She wasn't angry at the fact that she couldn't equip the ring, only certain people possessed the ability to use inventory. The gift wasn't extremely rare but it was still a rarity for someone who could fit more than a pouch worth of items inside their inventory, it was yet another thing mesmerising about the undead girl sitting beside her.
The storage enchantments are exclusively used by those who already can use inventory and people who were fooled by a shrewd merchant. Maybe because of her race, she will be gifted with her own inventory skill but that was probably just wishful thinking.
"I won't even ask why a vampire possessed all of this." The elf stared at the fresh ingredients in front of her with a complete set of pans and pots which looked crude and old, especially knowing from who did the girl received from these gifts.
"Mmmm, smells sooooo nice." The ever-hungry undead said as she smelled the air above the cast iron pan covered by a lid.
"Don't fall into the fire." The comfortably seated risen commented on the undead squatting dangerously close to the magical fire.
"But it smells so nice."
"Let's hope it tastes as it smells."
Iris stood up and lifted the iron lid causing a bust of hot steam to hit her face. Inside, golden brown cabbage leaves cooked in their own juices. She scooped up their roll-shaped meals onto a fresh cabbage leaf, laying on their primitive table. Interestingly alongside raw ingredients, Kia could only find two prong forks and a pair of mundane-looking hunting knives inside the ring causing the elf to question from where did the contents of the ring come from. Nevertheless, she was thankful to the slightly annoying vampire as she cut into her meal. She had experimentally cut the stone-hide bear's meat into small pieces before mincing them thoroughly. Finding the monster's meat as the only meat available, she mixed the unknown meat with rice manually with her hands until the two combined into a sort of pulp before dividing it into smaller portions and wrapping them in cabbage leaves into hand size rolls.
"Mmm, pretty good." The cook congratulated herself for her own work. The food needed a bit of salt but she still ate it with pleasure, having grown respect for the sometimes sparse commodity.
Beside the risen, Kia was squealing in delight as she munched on a juicy meat-cabbage roll. It didn't take long for Iris's hard work to disappear into the happiness radiating girl.
"More deliciousness?" A heart-wrenching look assaulted the elf as the girl begged for more while chewing on the last roll.
"I could make more but not today." Iris explained as the last orange rays of light hit the right side of the girl's face.
"Promise?"
"Promise as long as there is enough to make more." The girl's face contorted into a suspicious frown before being interrupted by a loud tired yawn. "Sleepy?"
"Yesh." Kia shuffled to the elf and lay on the ground with her head resting on the elven thighs.
"Before you dose off, could you give me the tent I gave you before?"
"No." The girl rolled on her back and gazed up.
"Why not?" The elf leaned her head forward matching the necromancer's glowing eyes.
"I want to see the stars." Kia lifted her arm toward the sky, grasping at the semi-visible white dots slowly filling the sky.
Iris began to stroke the girl's black hair in silence as the comfortable laying undead fought against exhaustion. "I especially like the purple ones..." A soft whisper reached the elf's ears as the sleeping girl's head slumped onto one side.
The risen looked up to see what Kia was talking about before smiling at the sleeping mage. "I like the pale blue and golden stars."