"Then! By any chance!" Humming seemed to be thinking the same thing Kalia was.
She sprang to her feet, clenching her fists as if she had made a great discovery. The pot that had been sitting on her head rattled and shook with her every motion.
"Then! When the wolf rushed me, mana had burst from the egg! Thanks to that, I evaded that attack and then you arrived just in time to save us! Maybe he's weakening so fast because of that magic explosion?"
In fact, she had wondered whether the hatchling in the egg knew to protect them in that moment of life or death…
But as if she had already come to that conclusion, Humming's voice was hoarse and grim, "I think the egg must have pushed itself too hard to protect me. Oh my god, oh my god!"
With tears in her eyes, Humming turned to ask Allen, "I'm a very loyal person. We have to save this egg. This time, I will be the one to protect it! Allen, can you save it?"
"Ah, there's not much I can do right now."
"Please save its life, our egg…!"
She didn't know since when the dragon egg became 'our egg' but Humming seemed determined.
"All right, all right. Calm down, Humming. Let's keep an eye on him for now. But more than that, you two," Allen, put down his stethoscope and magic wave meter, and turned his head to look at the other two.
He sighed loudly as if he had held back the words he wanted to say, and opened his pursed lips to ask in a polite but firm voice, "Can you please go wash up now?"
"Huh?"
"...….Well?"
At Allen's words, the two women looked down at themselves and then at each other. Their clothes were stained with grass and dirt and their hair was a tangled mess. Above all, the hem of the skirt was soaked with monster blood which made for a bizarre look.
'...What's that smell?'
'Is the smell coming from our bodies?'
'No, since when did we start smelling like this?'
In disbelief, Humming and Kalia both sniffed the air around the other's body.
Allen gracefully covered his nose. His words, on the other hand, were not so subtle.
"You two smell. Since you're aware of it now, why don't you go wash up now, ladies?" He smiled embarrassingly before promptly pushing the two towards the bathroom.
"Wash up, both of you. Hygiene first!"
...Well, I guess the smell was enough to pose a threat to our hygiene.
Kalia was a little sullen but quickly disappeared into the bathroom, agreeing with Allen.
***
After taking a warm bath, Kalia and Humming returned to their rooms, unable to overcome that annoyance, Allen, who had chased them away.
'But I'm still worried. Should we go take another look at the egg? I took responsibility for it and brought it back after all…"
As soon as she thought that, she, unfortunately, fell asleep. After her head touched her pillow, her eyes closed. She didn't remember anything after that.
She woke up very early the next morning, somewhere around dawn. Perhaps it was because of Allen and Humming's overprotectiveness. She had not been able to take a long walk, let alone exercise properly or move so actively in a long time.
Kalia woke up very refreshed for the first time in a while and got up from bed. Because of her pregnancy, she's constantly been swollen but because she had moved around a little yesterday, her condition this morning was different. Kalia, who was about to head downstairs to the living room where they had left the egg last night, paused. Taking a few sniffs of her body, she agonized for a moment but ultimately took a quick shower.
'Just in case…'
After washing herself clean, Kalia headed straight to the living room. She had woken up so early that it was still very early in the morning when she finished washing up. Much earlier than Mrs. McCannna's usual arrival time.
'Oh, come to think of it, all that happened yesterday, so I'll just call her to take the day off. I couldn't say that yesterday because I didn't have much time.' Kalia thought casually as she opened the door to their small living room.
The moment she entered, Allen, who had been guarding the egg seemingly without sleep all night, raised his head.
Kalia paused in her steps.
It was because he had an unusual expression on his face.
"Allen."
"Miss Kalia."
"You didn't sleep at all?" Kalia asked anxiously, seeing his dull complexion, and he raised his hand to rub his dry face.
"What about the egg?"
"It's not good. The waves are getting weaker. Fortunately, the temperature didn't drop any further, but, if it goes on like this, its conditions will only continually worsen. I think we need to inject energy into it right away."
At Allen's words, Kalia approached the egg and reached a hand out to touch the egg.
'It's only a temporary measure, but it wouldn't hurt to try.'
Swordmasters cultivate something called aura through their swords and swordsmanship. A swordmaster's aura1 is a power similar to that of a mage's mana.
Although she could not freely wield an amount of mana as large and sophisticated as a mage's, her aura had the same destructive power as mana.
Kalia let her power flow cautiously as if she gathered her aura in her palm. Carefully controlling the energy, Kalia's blue aura wrapped around the egg. Slowly, she could feel the egg absorbing her power. Little by little, it received and ate her aura and after some time, it was sucking her of her power as if it were drinking water in a desert. The sensation of her aura being sucked away at that speed made Kalia falter for a moment.
"Miss Kalia!"
Kalia raised her free hand to indicate that it was okay.
The egg devoured her aura greedily, but it wasn't too much for her to handle.
It was so hungry that it swallowed the energy well.2
Kalia gave it a few more seconds and then cut off the aura supply.
"No more for now. If you eat a lot at once, you will feel sick," Kalia muttered her innermost thoughts to the egg as if she was feeding her baby.
Abruptly the little hatchling responded, shivering in its egg. It was a fascinating thing. Unable to open its eyes, it dilly-dallied, and it began to rub its forehead to the side where Kalia's palm was touching its shell. As if it knew the warmth there was taking care of it.
And just in time, Shasha started kicking in her stomach. The kicks had some power behind it.
"…These guys."
Feeling these two little creatures wriggling in her touch and warmth, Kalia felt something inside her heart tremble. The hatchling in the egg shook as if it was still hungry.
Kalia, whose eyes were still on the egg, opened her mouth to tell Allen, "We need to pay a visit to the lord's3 castle, Allen."
It looks like she had to call the mages.
As soon as possible.
***
"…Son of a b*tch," From behind a black curtain that blocked out all sunlight, rough cursing burst out from between the lips of the man sprawled on the sofa.
'...I didn't know that the Fairy King would be there.'
He raised his drooping head while rubbing his shadowed forehead. His cold eyes stared at the small bodies that littered the floor.
Last night, all the spirits who had been singing for freedom had their hearts ripped out and became cold corpses. The bodies were gradually disintegrating into soil, dust and wind.
Spirits and fairies were similar beings but one was a subordinate4 creature to the other.
Although spirits gathered their strength in their hearts like fairies, their power was not strong enough to become 'petrified5'.
Moreover, most of the spirits were too small. The power gathered in their small hearts was often worse than even low-level fairies. Of course, the four elemental spirits that the elemental mages wield were a different story.
Buford looked at the bodies of spirits turning into dust and wind with his lethargic eyes. Last night, the shadow of the Fairy King suddenly appeared and crossed his path.
"A suspicious man," The king had uttered.
When he first encountered him, Buford had no idea he was the Fairy King. He didn't give off a fairy's signature light6, nor were there other fairies around him protecting or assisting him.
"Are you a human who entered the forest by mistake?"
The man stood alone, in his comfortable and simple outfit, looking at Buford indifferently.
It was difficult to discern his age from his appearance, which shone beautifully in the dark. Although his huge shoulders and magnificent warrior-like spirit were unusual, he was also ordinary in a way. The only strange thing was that he was standing so casually in this dark Fairy Forest.
Leaning against a tree with his arms crossed, he looked at Buford and his companion as they entered the forest with heavy eyes. The sharp and wary look he trained on them was full of vigilance, like he was looking at them as if they were people who broke into the courtyard of his house.
Hm.
Stopping in his steps, Buford glared at the man.
"Fairy? Were there any guardian fairies in this forest?"
The main stronghold forests used to be guarded by guardian fairies. Sometimes there was a group of a dozen fairies and sometimes there were one or two powerful beings. But, this was the story only when it was a base or important forest. Lohas' Fairy Forest was just a tiny twig of the central Fairy Forest. The number of fairies and spirits living inside this forest was small and the forest itself was only about 1,000 pyeong7.
But how come there was a being with such a huge presence?
As he gazed into the blue eyes of the wild, beast-like man, Buford felt a splitting pain in one side of his heart. A rush of energy surged and his heart beat frantically, both actions so violent it was as if it wanted to escape his body.
In that moment, the man's eyes gleamed with life.
"There is an energy flowing through you that shouldn't be there. Same with the black robe boy behind you."
Throb.
Buford glared at him, gripping his squeezing heart.
At that moment, a dazzling light flowed from the man's whole body and an amount of power so tremendous that his legs unconsciously began to shake, was released.
It was not the energy of an ordinary fairy. This was a tremendous force that no lower class creature dared to or can even exude.
Buford had only encountered a similar situation once, when he was very young. This very energy that can only be felt by the highest-ranking creature of the Fairy race.
The Fairy King.
That man must have been the Fairy King.
As soon as he saw the huge spear appear in the man's hand, he had a feeling in his gut.
'Die,' The king's power seemed to scream.
His intuition screamed at him, telling him that if he didn't get away from there right now, he would surely perish here.
Translator's Corner
I'm taking a liberty by calling a swordmaster's power "aura". The author never gives the power a name, just saying that it's something similar in power to a mage's mana.
For anyone confused, here's how I would explain all these (not very well defined) concepts (with the help of all my years of anime, manga and novels).
(Repeated in the glossary)
About Mana and Aura
Mana and aura are both forms of power. At its core, they're all types of energy. Mages are able to control their body's mana and convert that, through spells, scrolls and whatever magical items that exists in the TBIY world, into magic. Magic is essentially the 'product' while 'mana' is the 'magical power/energy' that you input. If you were to put this into an equation, it'd look something like this:
For aura, errr idk how else to explain it besides: the colour that engulf an anime swordsman:
It's a form of power but it can't be cast like mana. It's kind of an extension of the swordsman.
Again, this is all my own interpretation since the author never really goes into any detail of much of the TBIY world and its magic system :3
About Fairies and Spirits (repeated from my footnote)
Spirits gather their power in their hearts like fairies with their spirit cores. However, the spirit's power doesn't 'solidify' into an actual core/stone/gem(?) like a fairy's spirit core that can be dug out (as exemplified by the Fairy King). It's just an intangible ball of power in the spirit's hearts.
About the Fairy Forest
The fairy's territory spans out from a central point and, like the roots of a tree, spreads into neighbouring countries. The borders of the fairy territory is divided by Fairy Forests. The more important or closer to base, the more protected that specific Fairy Forest would be.
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