Weird Vibes
As I walked from the gate to the entrance, I saw Aunty watering the flowers in the garden. She noticed me and called out “Welcome back Harry. Why did you come back so late?”
“Hey Aunty. I was studying with a friend at school.” I looked at the time and it was already past 6 o’clock. It’s still early for me though but since I always come back home at 2, no wonder why she thought that it was already late.
She looked like she has something to say, so I went into the garden. “I didn’t see you this morning. Did you overslept?” I asked her.
“What? No! The only person that always overslept in this house is you. I just had some things to take care of.” Aunty also lives in this house though. She was my mother’s older sister. This house belongs to my father, which was passed down to him by his father. It was a huge traditional house with up to 10 rooms which includes a huge garden. Aunty was not married even though she was already in her late 50’s and also unemployed. So my father hired her as the housekeeper and gardener. Although Aunty was assigned to do all the housework, but my mother would not want to just sit around and do nothing. In the end, Aunty was only allowed to do the housework when mother was not around or if mother was sick. For now, aunty was only a gardener.
“Aunty, you looked like you have something to say.”
“No, how should I put it? Are you aware of ‘her’?” she points her finger behind me.
“What? Who?” I looked behind me and search for who she was pointing to but find nothing.
“Ararara, it’s fine. You are very welcome to stay here… Harry, forget what I say okay. I hope you will get a nice sleep.” That was unusual of her. She looked like she was talking with someone else before she called out my name. What was that last part supposed to be? Of course I would have a nice sleep. I have always had a nice sleep.
I went into the house while I was still puzzled by Aunty’s behaviour. “I’m back!” I shouted. There was no answer. Probably no one was at home. Well it was a good thing since I have some ‘things’ that I need to watch. I slept late yesterday because these ‘things’ took quite a while to download. I know Aunty will knock before she enters my room, so Aunty’s presence was not a problem. Now I can watch those ‘things’ without getting found out. I let out a grin as I thought of the pleasure of watching it later.
“What are you grinning about? Ohhh… it must be those ‘things’ that was in your laptop. I didn’t know that you were into those kind of girls. Hahahaha.” My brother, Julius, suddenly came out of the living room.
“…ehhh, brother Ju, you’re home. I didn’t see your car at the car porch. Oh yes! I need to take my shower now.” I said hurriedly.
“My car? Mom is using it. She said she was going to buy some groceries.” Cold sweat starts to flow as I try to escape the situation. He stopped me by holding my shoulder, “Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Trying to escape huh? Hahaha, don’t worry my brother, your secret is safe with me. Now get me something to drink, I’m thirsty.”
After he told me that, he went back to the living room and sat on the sofa to watch the television. Damn it, I knew he was going to use that ‘your secret is safe with me’ to order me around. I have no choice and went to the kitchen to get his drinks. I know dad would not mind me watching those ‘things’ since he know teenagers could not hold off their new found life called puberty. The only problem was my mother. She would totally flip out and gave me a very long nag. I fear that she would even kick me out of the house and let me sleep outside for the whole night. Brother Ju had already been in that situation before when he was around my age. I just have to cope with it for one more year until I am legally allowed to watch those ‘things’. I grit my teeth as Brother Ju keeps on ordering me around until mother came home.
During dinner, I felt the atmosphere was really awkward and I do not know if it was caused by my ‘secret’. I also saw brother Ju and Aunty keep taking glances on me. No, they are actually glancing at my shoulder, or maybe glancing behind my shoulder. I look around and saw nothing.
Father was also not around, so I asked, “Mom, where’s Dad? Is he working late again?”
“He said he have something to take care of. I think it’s not work though. Probably it’s something else.”
“What do you mean by ‘something else’?” I asked as this really peaked my curiosity.
“You wouldn’t understand, Harry.” mother said silently, barely audible.
“…huhh? Why?”
She did not answer me but my brother did. “Don’t worry my brother, you will understand it soon enough.”
“Ararara, you noticed too, Ju?” Aunty who was quiet until just now suddenly speaks with her hand covering her mouth showing a tinge of surprise.
“What are you two talking about? Are you all keeping secrets from me?” it felt like I was being left out here.
Then, brother drop a bomb on me while grinning, “…more accurately, you are the one who’s keeping a secret. Isn’t it right, my beloved pervy little brother?” I did not dare to talk back and only continued eating silently after those few words.
Despite that, the atmosphere was still weird for me. I could see wrinkles on mother’s forehead, showing her tense face, “Sister, you mean…”
“Yes, it will be soon.” All of them looked serious as Aunty said those last few words. After that, everyone was silently eating their meals as I was confused by this conversation.
‘..it will be soon.’ Those few words lingered through my mind as I did my usual workout. 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats and 1 kilometre jog. It was a workout inspired by my favourite anime. However, 10 kilometre was a bit too much so i shorten to 2 kilometre. These were the workout that I did at 9.30 every night.
The temperature was nice and cold. After I finish all the sets, I went to the bathroom and take my shower. Even during my shower, those words still lingers through my mind. I cannot shake off the bad feeling coming from those words. Usually, I tend to shrugged off any weird and nonsense things but Aunty’s words carry a weird vibe that I cannot let go. I should just give it another thought the next day. It was already almost midnight, and I was exhausted after the exercise. So I went back to my room. After a few minutes scrolling through my phone, I switched off the light and went straight to bed.
‘*yawn*, why do I feel like something is going to happen.’ Slowly, my consciousness drifted away into the dreamland.
‘I have been waiting for you Harry Mills. I, Ember Agarictree, shall continue with the blood oath’…
The blood Oath
“Gahhhhhhh!” I was woken up by a sudden pain and I groaned as my body aches as if it was being torn apart. In the midst of my agony I saw a small figure chanting some kind of a spell.
The small figure had a body about the size of my palm. It was the same size as a doll that girls always play with, a barbie doll. From the looks of it, I knew it was a female, donning a dark purple dress with bright red lining. The dress’ skirt was short exposing her bare white thin thigh. Her long red hair shines brightly as if it was burning like a small ember. Even though the top part of her face was covered by shadow, I was certain her face was very beautiful.
Looking behind her, two pairs of transparent wing protruded out on her back. I have seen those wings a lot before. It looked exactly like the wings on a dragonfly. The small figure was floating in the middle of the room but her pair of wings were not flapping. After reading so many fantasy novels, I knew exactly that the small figure was a fairy.
I tried to stand up but I cannot move my body. It was as if I was being held by some invisible force. After finishing her chant, she looked at me and said “Harry Straty, I demand that you not resist my magic and let it enter your body freely.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I tried to speak up but another surge of pain reverberates throughout my body “…what are you…Gahhhhhh!!” every inch of my body felt as if it was being stabbed by a knife. I could even feel my blood veins and arteries throbbing so much I thought that it would burst any moment now.
The pain made me sweat profusely and my shirt was soaked with my sweat.“…hmm. Harry, I belittled you just now but now I think highly of you. I’m surprised you have quite a large mana reservoir. It’s going to take longer than I thought. Be prepared!”
Suddenly she took out a staff from mid-air, the air warped inwards as the staff was pulled out. Then she began chanting again. The staff was made up of wood and the crystal embedded to it glows dimly along with the chant. I knew the surge of pain was going to continue and I struggled to free myself from the invisible force.
“Huhuhu, struggle as much as you like Harry. You would not even move an inch.” However, I was not even moving like what she said. I gritted my teeth and closed my eyes as I wait for the pains to come.
***
“Phew… what’s with your mana reservoir. It took me three hours to finish filling it even though its the same capacity as an average person. I even had to use the surrounding mana just to fill it in your body.” After what felt like eternity, she stopped. I tried to curse her for what she did but I do not have any more strength to speak up.
The invisible force holding me down was finally gone. Due to the agony that I had to go through for the whole three hour, I laid down on the bed with my mind slowly fading away. It was cold, probably due to my soaked cloth absorbing my body heat. “Well, next is my blood oath..” she said as she took out a small knife. She cuts her palm deep enough that blood starts to flow out. Then she drips a few drops of blood on my forehead. I felt the drops of blood flowing on my forehead. My body began to heat up. The warm sensation move down to my eyes, to the nose, around my mouth, down to the neck, across my body and ends at my feet.
"Now, we are..." she said something however my mind was fading and my senses begins to dull down. Her words became a buzzing sound which I could not understand. Slowly my eye lid drop and I closed my eyes.
***
I was in a white empty space. There I saw the girl that tortured me to oblivion, standing in front of me. The size of her body was not the small palm size anymore, but a normal human size.
“The blood oath was completed. Now I, Ember Agarictree, am now your faithful servant.” She said and kneels down to me. “Prior to the contract, I shall grant you the skills once you have awaken from this dream.” The face she was showing right now looked innocent and her eyes were showing no hint of deceit. Slowly my anger cooled down.
I carefully scan and examined her body. I did not get to see her properly in the room since it was quite dark. Her body was that of a middle school girl. Like I thought, her face was spectacularly beautiful.
“Listen here umm…Ember, this is a dream isn’t it? So why am I able to talk to you?”
“Yes, this is a dream, my master. I have the ability to enter your dream and talk with your consciousness. That explains why I could speak with you.”
“I see, so this is my dream and you’re my servant. So that pain was also probably a dream too. I mean, there’s just no way fairies exist. It must just be that I wasn’t able to watch those ‘thing’ that I end up fantasizing about you.” my mind was starting to swirl around and something inside my crotch felt like bursting out. My beast slowly grew bigger.
“Yes, I’m now your servant. That pain? Oh, you mean the mana transfer, that was real and of course fairies are…real. M-master? What are you…kyahhh!” I shoved her down. I hold down both her hands as she lays on the floor.
Like a pervy old man, i started to pant and breath fast and my eyes was focused on one thing. “Master! What are you trying to do?!”
“This is just a dream. My dream. So I can do anything I want in my dream. Anything I WANT! Hahahaha!” she struggled as I put my face closer to her.
“Kyahhh!! Master please! I’m not ready!!” I ignored her. This was just a dream right? She was just my fantasy, even her struggling was all what I wanted. Her face was so close, I could clearly felt her breath and her sweet fragrance tingling my nose as if begging me to sniff her up.
"This master-servant play is quite good huh? I can't hold it on any longer! Lets get this thing started!" My hands slowly moves to her chest. My heart beats faster.
Then I looked at her face, an angry blushing face. “Master, please forgive me! Fire Blast!”
“Gahhhhh!!! I’m burning! I’m burning!”…
A bad morning
I woke up with my shirt cold, as the sweats was already dried out. “Good morning master.” I looked up and saw the little fairy floating above me.
“*sigh* so that wasn’t a dream after all huh? I really wished that was all just my fantasy.”
“M-master, sorry I incinerated you in your dream.”
“Hahaha, dream is just a dream but…” veins started to pop on my forehead “…last night was horrible! Why the heck did you torture me?! To make it worse, it took 3 whole hours! Then you suddenly claim you did some blood oath and became my servant?!” I started to swing around fly swat towards her but her movements were agile and I cannot even land a single hit.
“M-master please put that swat down. I am now your loyal servant. I will explain everything so please calm down! I shall answer your enquiry one by one.” she flew in front of my face with her hands clasp together, begging me hardly.
I took a deep breath and sat down on my bed. “Fine, I’ll calm down now. Now spit out everything I need to know.”
“First let me introduce myself again, I am Ember Agarictree, fairy of the night illuminated with fireflies and starry skies, am now your faithful servant. I have received your contract and will be obligated to fulfilling all of it. As for your first question, I did not torture you. All I did was filling in your mana reservoir with my mana. The pain that you felt was your body trying to infuse yourself with the mana and at some point your body rejected some of it. You would feel a pain as if you were being stabbed when you’re rejecting the mana. However, you will also feel like your blood vessels are on the vurge of bursting because the mana is flowing in your body. The fact that it took 3 hours was because the mana density in your body is neither high nor low, it was both. Even with just an average mana reservoir, I still need to transfer more mana than usual…” I started to grit my teeth as I could feel the chill on my spine as I remembered the agony of everything she explained.
I did not want to intervene when she was explaining so I let her continue, “At first I used the usual amount of mana from my body that can be fill in a normal human. However, I did not expect your mana reservoir were so unique that I almost end up using all my mana. So I had to use the surrounding mana to fill your mana reservoir. Oh, the fact that I used the surrounding mana was also the reason you were in so much pain. As for the blood oath, it’s necessary for me to do it to complete the contract. Now I am your faithful servant, if I were to break this blood oath, my mana would disperse and I will cease to exist.”
For some reason, her way of speaking pissed me off. Sounded like a tsundere character acting to be loyal. However, I would forgive it since she was a beauty. “You said about this ‘contract’ a lot of time now. Just when did I get this ‘contract’? I don’t have any collection of it.”
“Ah yes, the contract should have been given to you by the principal of Roward Highschool. I heard from the fairy society that he is the board member of The World Order.” she said while putting her tiny finger on her mouth.
“hmm? That's my school…” I paused as I remembered something, “…hold on, wasn’t that form was just a game survey? And just what the heck is this World Order?! It sounds like some kind of secret organization controlling the world behind the scene!”
“Huh, what survey? Are you mistaking that contract for some useless survey? Those contracts are the thing that keeps the world you’re living in the way it is. Without it, the human race would just be a weak race struggling for survival from the other races. As for the World Order, they are cooperating with us fairies to keep the other races from getting into this world, the ‘real world’.”
“What do you mean by other races? Explain it properly and try to give it more detail so I can understand!”
“Okay, this will be long but please listen carefully…”
It was as if I was in a history class, a boring history class. I try to keep my focus on as I listened to her. To summarize it up, there was an ancient war which started with the human emperor bombing powerful spell on the dragon race. Somehow, the dragon race which was thought to be the strongest race lost the war. Then, this human emperor declared war against all the other races in the world. In the end most of the race surrendered cowardly. The humans expelled the other race out of the real world and got the fairies’ help.
Humans form contracts with fairies in order to gain magical power and are called 'Contractors'. However, contractors are few in numbers and only have authority and solve problems in the real world. Everything went well for 10 000 years, until about half a decade ago. At the end of World War 2, the drop of the atomic bomb baffled the fairies. They claimed that the destruction was almost similar to the human emperor’s magic. The only difference was the emperor’s magic was on a bigger scale.
The fact that it was used against humans was not a problem to the fairies but after the bombing, the mirror world starts to act weirdly, to put make it simple, it was starting to collapse. Many holes leading to the real world started to form. Monster that was never seen before roams freely in the real world while the problems in the mirror world kept on piling up. The World Order contractors managed to fend off the monsters entering the real world but the fairies were at wits end in the mirror world.
The elf starts to splits into 3 groups, the high elf, the forest elf, and the dark elf. The high elf demanded that they are to be granted entry to the real world freely as they have waited for 10 000 years. The forest elf remains quiet and did not interfere with any affairs while the dark elf acts violently by attacking some fairies. The demons were also causing troubles by going through the holes to the real world and attacking humans.
So the World Order collaborated with the fairies in the mirror world to allow the contractors to enter the mirror world freely and solve their problems. However, the collaboration only started 20 years ago, in 1996. Due to lack of experience and their sets of useless skills, many contractors lost their life doing missions in the mirror world. The World Order changed their format of contracts which was, the contractors were only allowed to choose only a small variety of profession and skills were decide by the fairies. The newest contract followed the rpg-game avatar creation format with wide varieties of profession while skills will be given according to the contractors consent and the fairies ability. Basically, the so called game survey yesterday was a contract and everyone in the class signed it up. I expect the others would have already get their respective fairies. To be honest, this felt just like a story from a fantasy novel somehow.
“I get the gist of it. So you’re saying that the world is in danger now and we, contractors, are supposed to save the world.”
“Yes, that is correct. Master, you seem to be taking all this quite calmly.”
“Yeah, I’m quite surprised myself. I thought I would freak out more but since the world needs help, I’ll lend them a hand.” I said as I moved my hand to give Ember a pat on the head.
Then suddenly the door was slammed open, “Harry! Why are you sitting there?! It’s passed 6 o’clock now! Hurry up and take your shower! You’re going to be late!” I finally realised that I had school today and hurriedly take a shower. Ember also followed me into the bathroom but I kicked her out. After I put on my school uniform, I went to the dinning room and swallowed a loaf of bread. Mom was already waiting for me in her car so I decided that I will eat more at the school canteen, if and only if I arrived in time. Ember had been following me around all the time but I did not mind it. Somehow, Mom cannot see her but I think that would the case for everyone else.
In the end, I did not make it on time but the unusual thing was that I did not see any prefects from my class at the school gate.
One prefect came up to me and said with a mocking voice, “Well-well, if it isn’t the Lazy Inchou. Late again today huh?”
I know him since he was from Class 5B, and yes, he knew my nickname too. I replied with a sigh, “*sigh*, I’ll let you have the honour to write my name down.”
“Hahaha, already given up on yourself huh? Don’t worry, you’re getting special treatment today. The principal is gathering all the class 5A students in the class, so your punishment will be overlooked.”
“Oh, so that’s why the prefects from my class are not here. I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Hahaha, the ruckus your classmates make yesterday must be the reason the principal is gathering all of you. An even worst punishment is waiting for you Lazy Inchou. Hahaha.” I smiled wryly at his words. Since he did not know of the contract, he must have thought so. I walked to the classroom with Ember on my shoulder.
“You looked nervous master.”
“Of course I am. I have a really bad feeling about this.”
“Hmm, I don’t know why you are so nervous master. But, I’m so excited to meet the other contractors and their fairies. I really can’t wait to show you off…” She did said something in the end by I couldn’t really hear it as I was walking very fast. I cannot shake off this bad feeling as I arrived in front of the class. The curtains are drawn so I cannot see what was going on inside through the window. I took in a deep breath and opened the door…