Although she had a slight shock upon this revelation, but is still listening. To come clean is annoying, as I am still unsure if I can trust her fully.
“They summoned me to fight the self proclaimed Demon King Eg-Never. After he was slain, I was thrown right out of the Kingdom. The God who helped with the summoning has thrown me right into the Void, with all Miasma they collected over my stay to keep the garbage.”
“But what about…”
“I am coming to it right now.”
She is rather unable to stay put by wanting to know about my body.
“He just threw away my Soul. Nothing else was sent. Therefore I came here as a kind of incorporeal being.”
“But you have a Body. How did you become this?”
“Not only one body. I have multiple.”
She was looking at me with a face of not understanding what I am talking about.
“My first Body was a Mouse. I still remember the first being I had come in contact with. Then there were my wolves. Walking through the Forest with my body as a Wolf was nice, until Red… Eastern Redwind killed one of my most powerful bodies. As revenge I got my first Root body.”
Her face got white. She finally understands what is going on. Yep, I am a Ghost! Whoo~
“The body right now is half Red and half one of the guards who disobeyed your orders, when you came here.”
“...please, wait…”
“The fusion was one of my tests with the Wolves and other beings. It was later refined by chaining Red as I call this body in the direct flow of Mana to start a qualitative change.”
“…”
“As I saw how Snow, a rat fused with an overtaken Rat had such a great effect I tried it out with Red and this is the outcome.”
Silence is between her and me. She shivers and sweats bullets. Well she wanted to know about it. Now she knows.
“...this means… Your Body is… not your own but just an experiment? A Marionette? ...are they still alive in there?”
“Yes, the experiment to get a body was summarized into what I right now have in my possession, but it is not a Marionette, as I am in full control. And they are gone right after the first time I disassembled their bodies. Nothing remained of their memories afterwards, so I had to read their brain before disassembling them.”
“Dis… disass…”
“That should explain my body for now. Is there else you want to know?”
“What… a-are you truly?”
Huh, this question goes over the Body question over. Well It should be OK, to at least say a bit, with a small white lie inside.
“A Soul thrown into the Void, changed by it and now able to take over beings as new host.”
Her shivering shows, she would have not be able to stand, like I thought. It was even more shocking for her, than I thought, as she might even hold back peeing herself. Red did that, when he was taken over I remember.
…
Finally out of that body. It is deep in the Night and right now I am happy to be able to not hear any whispers anymore. While it is more silent at night, they do not stop, just getting simpler and quiet.
While I do not know what is right now with Leafy, she is shivering in her hammock. I mean it is rather horrible to hear what happened to me. Helping out then thrown away as a soul to be a kind of ghost haunting the wrong World, but still it is a bit over the top with her reaction.
Then again to talk with an interdimensional ghost, might be scarier than it sounds, as we are in a rather middle aged society and superstition might be higher, than I have imagined. Glad, I had her sit down. This would be way more awkward if she needed to crawl back and I can not even touch her as she would think she would be cursed by just a touch.
Snow is happy to play with me, I remember rats are more active at night, and it shows. Hovering her favorite puzzle from the shelf we sit on the ground and I look over her putting it back together. With time I cut the parts smaller and smaller, but she has always put it back together, even when the parts start to become over five hundred really small ones.
…
The next day was rather lonely. Leafy still had not recovered and is right now hunkering down inside her gazebo. Maybe she needs a while, hopefully not too long, as some herbs I got as gifts would be a great addition to the gardens. Especially this glowroot is interesting.
It glows faintly on the tip of the stalks and brings animals closer by those lights to let their seeds travel in their fur. Those barbed seeds just hang on, when something brushes against it. We had some kind of similar plants hitching a ride in my World, but not glowing.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The effects of this herb is deep sleep in tea. Maybe concentrated would be instant comatose, this would be a nice way to capture a few monster, which do not come freely, like birds and such.
The Understanding, why not many Animals do come is clicking in my head too. Small monster are simple in their mind and often desperate. Larger monster see the cave sending soothing Mana and great shelter inside the terrible place of doom and just think ‘TRAP’. Even Alpha and co just came here, out of desperation.
If I want more variety I need to capture it myself… somehow…
…
Three days and Leafy starts tending the Gardens again, albeit holds a respectably distance between myself and her. It needs time, and while I think that a new letter arrived.
It might be seen as vile, but I was nosy and just overlooked the Letter with my Miasma while she was reading it. It was from Petal, and I now know why she did not greet us, when we were there. She was send on an assignment, but seemed to be more of a farce, the work she had to do as a tender was rather tedious and her assigned ‘helpers’ were playing incompetent to make her work even harder. After our visit, she got called back and suddenly her work was not only back to normal, she had more privileges, better underlings, higher freedom and a new superior, who is not only friendlier, but she gets additional training for her future growth.
Wow, that was better than what I tried to do. For what my plan was made of, I wanted to complain and show a bit of power, so they know I am not a toothless kitten and then add more ‘special requests’, like how I do not condone any guards or other people with weapons being in the vicinity of my voice while talking with the ambassador, making it mandatory for the ambassador herself to collect the Mana dew, letting the delegates stay at least one day, for not offending my trying of great hospitality, etc.
Now it seems, she has no need for the second part of my scheme, but I keep it still in mind, for sudden changes.
Well it is all according to my plan still. As long as Leafy feels valued and the ambassador of the Root feel my helping hand, I have a way better standing. With better standing I have way better access and with way better access I have a true ally in the Root, and not that farce from before.
Me? Helping her, because I like her? Nah… well, maybe. She is rather nice for a Root…
…
“So… they are already gone?”
“Yeah, nothing is there anymore. I can create copies, but they do not have anything resembling them except their form.”
Strange questions, but Leafy starts to talk again with me. Something seems to have changed her again for the better, after the letter. It is nice to have her back.
“And you can create multiple bodies?”
“Not really. Only one alive, as the others can not live without… well one part I can not copy. So that is all.”
“I see. They are already in the afterlife and you just use their likings as you do not have your own anymore. Sad, scary, but I understand your plight.”
And I understand not, why she just asks those things. It is a bit close to things, she should not know, but as a body is not a true necessity for me, it is still alright, just do not ask about the ‘black sphere’ and we are good, Leafy.
…
“Improving plants is you taking two plants and fusing them? One whole and one in spirit… That explains their powerful spirit, as their spirits got more stability and can manifest better roots.”
“Yeah, it is a horrible memory for me, as I first thought to fuse their bodies and got… fat herbs…”
giggle “That is rather logical. Twice the body will have that effect, twice the spirit can ascend. Although I really hate how you just change plants of your own whim, I understand your reasoning to know more about life. You want to create a true body for you right?”
“Like I said, those bodies are not really mine. They just work, but have nothing of… ‘me’ in them. You understand?”
“Truthfully, I don’t. But to not have your own body can make someone desperate, I guess.”
My own body… Yeah, I wish I had one, as Leafy reminded me how… not me, those bodies are I am using. It feels wrong and limiting, especially as I can not use my miasmic powers with the now bodies, not mentioning my presence. I need to be here to do that, and this is… like sending a robot to do the shopping. It works, but it is limited to the functions you can use of the robot, while you have better grasp of yourself. I can not better explain it, there is truly a difference.
…
“That might be the reason your plants are so silent… And nothing ever has their own will you create?”
“Nothing. The only exception was Snow. Snow is special, and I am happy to have her.”
Nuzzling me, Snow tries to hide her embarrassment. It is true, without Snow everything would be so monotone. The sewers would have been a simple design and not that twisting labyrinth, the houses would be all the same, now are decorated differently for her to explore, the gardens would have been made for function and not sorted by color of the plants, as aesthetic did not much for me, but now it does.
She might have given me the start of growing new feelings, as my old are seemingly gone. Maybe they were just drowned, but feels more I learn right now how to be social again rather than remembering.
“What is so different with her?”
“Well… she was a Monster I did not took over. I fused her with a spirit to save her from dying, as she was nearly killed by an acid snake.”
“Snow got revenge. Beaten up many nests down in the sewers!”
While she is being proud, I pet her head. How can she always be so adorable?
“Sadly she is the only one who survived this experiment. Nothing else could fuse.”
“And why is that?”
“I don’t know. If I knew that, I might be able to create more monsters.”
“Oh, lucky you do not kno…”
“Snow knows!”
Huh. Snow seems to think, she knows, why she survived and others not? That is rather curious, as not even me could figure that out.
“You do know that Snow? Could you tell me, what I do wrong?”
“Lord, maybe it is better…”
“Of course! When Snow was close to… Dying? Yes, I was close to dying, I knew Null made the Snake broken. Snow was scared, but when feeling Null doing something to Snow, then Snow just started to trust Null. Null saved Snow, so Null might be friend Snow thought. It was… painful, but Snow was saved by Null.”
“I am sorry Snow. I had no choice other than shocking you, as otherwise your heart would have not restarted.”
It still hurts me remembering how I electrocuted Snow multiple times, but it was necessary. Hugging and petting her I try to sooth her, or rather myself.
“Snow is not angry. Snow likes being alive.”
That is nice. I like Snow being alive too. So we are two.
“So it has to do with trust… Not really possible to get the trust of Monsters so easily. It will be close to impossible to create other monsters like Snow. And they might not even be on my side, so I scratch that for now.”
“It might be for the best Lord, really!”
Leafy is rather stressed out. Well do not worry, just because there could be more monsters, I do not want to just forget our friendship Leafy. We will still be able to talk as much as you want.