Stepping out of his bedroom, properly cleaned up and dressed in new, not blood-drenched clothes, Ryan decided to make a short stop before heading back to the living room. He knocked on the door of Runar's old office, which had now been turned into Liam's bedroom.
"Yo, it's me. Can I come in?"
For a few moments, there was silence coming in from inside. Ryan fiddled around with the small wooden box in his hands, running his fingers over the engravings as time passed. He almost thought he was going to be ignored, but before long, the boy replied, "... Yeah, sure."
Ryan pushed open the door; Liam was sitting in the dark room alone, the blinds having been pulled down completely, and Ryan instinctively reached out to the light switch.
"Can you keep the light off? Please?" Liam requested, and Ryan raised a brow. He figured it wasn't that big a deal, it wasn't like he was here to do gymnastics anyway. After closing the door behind himself, Ryan carefully stepped into the room, sitting down on the ground a few steps away from where the bed should be.
"You like it dark, huh? I get that, so do I sometimes."
"It's not that I like it dark, but the light is just too... bright," Liam explained, and Ryan remembered one of the things that Runar had explained to him about vampires. Some things that he had to know since he was going to be living with a young vampire boy. All vampires, being a people of the night, had dark vision. It adjusted a bit when they were outside, but they were generally just far more sensitive to any sort of light than most other people.
"So... how're you doing? Today was pretty rough," Ryan pointed out, and Liam just scoffed lightly.
"Rough? You got... you got shot..." the boy replied, and Ryan could swear that he was pushing down some sniffles.
"Meh, it could've been worse," with a laugh, Ryan leaned back onto his hands, "And hey, I even got a super cool new skill. Did you see my sick-ass arm earlier?"
Liam stayed silent for a while, and Ryan just sat there, letting him think. He could feel the boy's stares practically digging into his skin, but that was fine. What bothered Ryan more was that he could feel some stomach gurgling closing in.
The young vampire finally spoke up again, "... And you're sure you're okay?"
"Never been better. I got every part of Gaia with me now. Actually, her fragments seem eager to be properly put back together, and then I'll get started building her body," with excitement in his voice that he wasn't able to hide, Ryan looked around the room as his eyes slowly started adjusting to the darkness, "Though, I'll have to figure out how to fix up Maximus first..."
"How can you be so... calm about this?"
Ryan smiled lightly as he pushed himself up, looking right at Liam, though he could only barely see the boy's outline in this darkness, "I'm your knight now, right? Can't come here showing my weak side to my king, can I?"
Liam stayed silent for a while again, slowly speaking up, "I'm... kind of tired. Do you think you could..."
With an immediate nod, Ryan carefully made his way back to the door, trying not to run into anything, "Of course, don't worry. I'm starving anyway, so I'll be headed back out to the living room. I'll probably stick around at home to take it easy for the next couple days, so if you need anything, just let me know, okay?"
"... Okay."
Ryan pulled open the door and stepped outside, smiling at the boy as he stepped into the hallway. It was a very short conversation, but Ryan still hoped that it helped Liam a bit. Or at least, he hoped that the boy understood that he could come to Ryan when something was wrong or when he needed to talk about what happened. And right as he closed the door, Ryan noticed something.
The smell of wonderful, oily, steaming-hot pizza entering his nose. As if drawn to it by force, Ryan rushed into the living room, where Runar was currently putting down the pizza boxes, and without hesitation, he grabbed a slice. He folded the cheese-pizza in half and stuffed it into his mouth, almost moaning as the flavour spread over his tongue.
"Rude," Runar scoffed slightly, and Ryan just stared at him with a full mouth. He chewed a couple of times and then swallowed.
"Yeah, I don't really care, I'm far too fucking hungry," Ryan pointed out, sitting down at the table. He looked over at Silvia as she came over to have something to eat as well, "Oh and... I was wearing those clothes you made for my birthday today..."
The elf looked at him a bit surprised, "You did? I didn't expect you would... that's great! How did you find them?"
"It was comfortable as hell, really. But... I had to tear up the shirt to use it to stop the bleeding on my leg, and then the blood from the wound on my belly sort of soaked into the pants, so..." Ryan awkwardly admitted, and Silvia sighed lightly.
"Well, at least you got some use out of them... better than nothing I guess?" Silvia laughed slightly, "I can make you new ones, I think I still have the patterns at home. I kind of hoard them."
"Honestly, that would be great... these clothes are so fucking hot, I'm dying," with a loud groan, Ryan ran his hand over his arm. He was already sweating a ton right now. His body was running so hot at the moment, and he didn't have any other clothes that allowed him to keep as cool as the ones that Silvia had made for his birthday.
"I'll get to it when I'm home, then," with an excited smile, Silvia reached out and pulled a slice of pizza onto a plate.
"Okay, so. Let's get started," Ryan smiled, holding his hand forward. Two streams of magic flowed out of his fingertips. One of them was a mass of red wisps of light, while the other was made of deep green threads. A one-legged and one-armed Maximus stood there with the Crusader arm laying in front of him. And to his side were the three fragments of Gaia.
Ryan activated his 'Spirit Construction' skill, quickly picking up the arm and attaching it to Maximus so that he had at least a slightly easier time until Ryan figured out how to fix the broken parts. And then, he carefully grabbed the three green fragments laying in front of him.
"Alright, let's get you fixed up first," a smile was solidly planted on his lips, as he took two of the fragments, pushing them together. The moment he managed to slot the pieces together properly, the crack just completely disappeared as the fragments became one. And then, the moment the third piece moved into place, some messages appeared in front of Ryan.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
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[You have successfully repaired the fragmented Spirit Core of the -Garden Golem Spirit Gaia-]
[You have earned Gaia's Gratitude and trust]
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The moment those messages appeared, Ryan could feel something tingle in the back of his head. It was vaguely connected to the side of Gaia's domain, and curiously, he tugged on it. Though right now, it was just a shapeless sensation, he could already guess what exactly it was, stretching out his hand as he pulled it out of his mind. Before, this was provided through Maximus' quest, but this time it was a bit different.
Green threads of mana flowed out of Ryan's arm, and a massive amount at that. They slowly started to form a box in front of him. But... it was kind of large. Honestly, maybe a little too large. It didn't look like it would actually fit on the table, but he wasn't able to change where it would go anymore, as all the threads came together and formed a massive cardboard box just a few centimetres above the table-top.
The box slammed down with a heavy thud that Ryan could feel in his whole body, and Silvia and Runar both flinched in response as an oversized box, 150cm in height, was now standing on the table. On its front was the art of an overgrown golem with moss and flowers growing on its body, surrounded by fields of crops and flowers.
"Uhm... Ryan?" Runar let out, peeking past the box, "What's... what's this?"
"Uh... That's Gaia, I guess?"
"... Seriously?" with an awkward expression, Runar took a look at the box, "Was Maximus' box that large as well?"
"Nope. It was a lot smaller... I think this just means that Gaia's body is, well... massive," Ryan pointed out, looking at the writing on the box. The same as on Maximus' box, there was a small descriptive text, and within that text, the words '1:10 Scale' stuck out to him. So that meant that Gaia's true size was just absolutely enormous.
Ryan could feel the excited wriggling of Tiar on his arm, and quickly got up. He stuffed the pizza crust into his mouth and opened up the box. It was going to disappear once all the frames were taken out anyway, so he didn't need to be careful with this. And so, he quickly pulled out the first frame. It was completely made of stone. And so were all the pieces attached to that frame.
However, all those pieces were really just randomly shaped rocks the size of the last segment of a finger. Nothing that would tell him exactly where the pieces could go, nor how they could fit together. And in the end, Gaia's body was really just made of a pile of rocks.
"Are you... are you fucking with me?" Ryan asked with a wry smile, "Am I seriously supposed to solve an impossible puzzle like this? With a skill that I can activate for ten minutes every hour?"
With a slight scoff, Runar looked into the cardboard box, "Good luck?"
"Oh, fuck off..." Ryan groaned, quickly starting to pull the stone frames out of the box. Silvia and Runar both quickly helped out until the box was almost empty, at which point Ryan took a quick photo of each of the box's sides with his phone, and then took out the last ones. The cardboard box quickly disappeared back into green threads that were soon pulled into Ryan's arm. And then, all that was left were the more than almost three dozen individual frames made of stone.
"... Well. Okay. So, are you going to do the whole trial and error thing again?" Silvia asked, and Ryan slowly shrugged.
"I might have to. But honestly, for now I'm just hoping that these parts are at least sorted a little bit. Like, at least Maximus has six different parts. Each arm, each leg, his torso, and his head. Since Gaia also has a humanoid shape in the picture, I'm guessing maybe it's the same for her? And since there's only one type of frame, and because all the parts are literally the same exact size, just shaped slightly differently... maybe the fitting pieces are close to each other."
"... I think either way, this isn't going to be solved today, right?" Runar asked, and Ryan nodded without hesitation.
"Oh yeah, definitely not. This is definitely going to take a while..." Ryan sighed loudly, "At least it's going to help me level up the Spirit Construction skill."
"You need any help?" Silvia offered, but Ryan shook his head.
"I think it's better if I do it alone. It's not like I'm on a time-crunch here, and I don't exactly have an infinite supply to work with," as he explained this, Ryan picked up Gaia's core, speaking to her, "It looks like it's going to take a little while until you've got your body. Sorry."
The core's light seemed to respond to Ryan's words, as the light that Gaia gave off softened and brightened in joyful patterns. It looked like she was really just happy to be herself again for the time being, whether she had her body or not. Ryan smiled, carefully placing her core onto the table.
"So what, can you just understand them now?" Runar asked with a curious frown, and Ryan looked up with a shrug.
"I get a vibe of how they're feeling. Like, right now, Gaia is happy and excited. Maximus is feeling relieved, despite the fact that two of his limbs are broken. Oh, that reminds me..." Ryan held his hand forward, pulling the broken arm and leg out of Maximus' domain. The table was already pretty cluttered with pizza and the pile of stone frames, but these small parts didn't take up too much space.
"Wait, what the... what happened?" Silvia asked, looking from the broken limbs at Maximus.
"He blocked some bullets for me. The limbs were completely shattered... but the system message said that they 'can' be used until repaired'. So... I should be able to fix them."
"Poor Maximus..." with a sad expression, Silvia walked up to the small knight and carefully rubbed his shoulder with one of his fingers.
Runar smiled lightly, picking up the stone frames to place them onto the ground for the time being so that Ryan had space to work, "Yeah, repairing them is part of the deal. Though exactly how you do it is different for everyone, just as the construction process in the first place. What kind of tools did Hayden have?"
Ryan looked over at the wooden box on the edge of the table and quickly opened it up, grabbing everything out of it. There were different types of clippers and pliers, different brushes, some needles and a small spool of thread, a handkerchief, a metal file, and that was all. Looking at some of the pieces, Ryan noticed that some parts were bent out of shape, others were cracked or fully shattered. The leather was torn, and the branches were cracked into small pieces as well.
Ryan picked up two adjacent pieces that didn't seem particularly bent out of shape. He knew that these parts belonged to each other because there was a small line running over them that seemed to connect. This part was from the upper thigh. Ryan pushed them together as he had when initially constructing the piece, seeing a small red line shining out from the crack. He didn't know how, but he could almost feel the two parts connect, but not quite. As though there was something missing. They were sticking together as if he had used glue that hadn't cured quite yet, but they weren't properly together.
Curiously, Ryan grabbed the other tools. He knew that the handkerchief could be used to remove scratches from Maximus, so maybe he could use it to smooth over the crack and have them properly combine again. Though, as Ryan actually tried this, it didn't work. Though, the scratches on the surface of the broken pieces had faded a bit. And then, he noticed the needles and spool of thread from the corner of his eye. As he reached out to it, thin lines started to glow on the needles, and the thread itself similarly seemed to glow in Maximus' red mana.
Ryan grabbed the end of the thread, swiftly pushing it through the eye of one of the smaller needles. This one had a slight curve, so he figured it was the right choice.
"You did that in the first try? Man, dexterity really is a neat stat..." Silvia muttered as she watched jealously, and Ryan laughed lightly.
"My fingers just kind of do exactly what I want them to. It's pretty neat."
Once he had pushed the thread through enough, Ryan placed the tip of the needle against the metal, and as if he was trying to push through butter, the needle pierced through. And as he pulled the thread through the hole, Ryan could already tell that this was going to work. However, looking at all of these ridiculously small pieces, Ryan also understood that this was going to take a long time as well.
At least Tiar seemed excited.