Darx in the library

The lot of us end up dividing into groups after breakfast. Cal wants to check his grandfather’s house one more time to see if there is anything left to salvage and Rachel goes with him. Mia and Roland do the same and go to where her family used to live.

As the rest of us are heading towards the mansion, Amelia grabs me by the arm and asks, “Could we go by Alice’s place first? I’d like to see if maybe we can take something back for her.”

“Sure, no problem.” I tell her.

I let the rest know that Amelia and I are going to be making a detour, then the two of us head over to Alice’s house. A decent portion of it is still standing and we can explore a bit inside. After some searching, I manage to find a toy doll. I remember Alice’s daughter playing with it. I’m not sure if it’s her favorite toy, but better something then nothing. Amelia instead is searching in Alice’s bedroom. There, she finds a box hidden under Alice’s bed. She opens it up and says, “Yes, got it.”

“Did you find something interesting?” I ask.

“It’s a rope dart.” Amelia says. “Alice told me about it 2 years ago. It is the weapon she used back when she was with the Dark Dragons.”

I look inside the box and see a thin metal chain with a small weight at the end.

“It doesn’t look like a weapon.” I say.

“I don’t understand it either, but I am sure it means a lot to Alice.” Amelia explains. “I think it would do well for her to have it back.”

“Alright then.” I say. “Some good news will definitely do her good.”

We then head over to the mansion and go straight to the library, Kiara is already there searching through the books, along with some others.

Mr. Enzo has a lot of books in his library. Granted, it’s not as big as the royal library, or the public library in the capital, but Enzo definitely has too many books for us to all bring back to him right now. We would have to come in with a cart and transport them that way. Maybe 2 carts if he also wants some of his chandeliers and candlesticks or silverware and other stuff.

The lot of us start by collecting books that we think are interesting and bring them to a table. Kiara, being the Dark Dragon mentor for new high ranking adventurers, goes through the titles and checks to see which of these books are rare. A lot of them are apparently quite common in the capital. She does manage to find a few rare books among the collection. Those are the ones we are going to bring to take with us back to Riledo. Back to Enzo.

Among the books here, I find one that is titled “The princess of Calamity”. That is an interesting sounding title. I bring the book to Kiara and ask her if she knows about it.

She takes the book and quickly reads the first page a bit. “Ah yes. It’s a story about the last princess of Zrephia.” She explains. “It is a pretty common book in Riledo. Enzo can easily buy another one of these at the Capital.” Then she closes the book and places it on the table with the other rejected books.

Hang on. Did Kiara just say this book is about Zrephia? I grab the book again and start reading the first page. The first line reads, “This book contains a historic recounting of the last days of Zrephia and princess Iona Imrisblood, who caused it’s destruction.”

“This is a history book?” I ask to no one in particular.

“A pretty famous one too. You’ve never read it before?” Kiara responds.

I turn my head to her and say, “No, I haven’t.”

Kiara reaches over and grabs the book from my hands. “Then we shall take it with us, and you can read it on the way home.” After which she places it at a group of books she has selected to take home with us. I am so eager to start reading the book now, but Kiara is right. We are supposed to work for now. I have to wait.

After another 2 hours, we have finally gone through all the books. The others have also finished their exploration of the mansion and have gathered with us. After returning with our haul to camp we notice that Lilith and Kenji have woken up was well. They have turned the campfire back on and have reheated the soup. Well, that sure is an interesting way to skip out of work. Then I realize that my friends often must have thought that about me, every time I woke up late. Sigh, fine. I won’t call them out for it.

Our group informs the two of them of what we have been up to. We also see the other groups return and for some reason Tom and Jenny both have messed up hair with some pieces of leaves inside. I wonder what those have been up to.

As we start talking about packing up our camp and heading back to Riledo, Lilith comes up with a suggestion. She wants us to go hunt some wolves.

“Why would you want to do that?” Shalia asks. “Don’t we have enough food from the inn?”

“That’s all vegetables.” Lilith says. “Either the inn was running low on meat, or the monsters who attacked this village ran off with it. And I don’t know about you, but I would much enjoy some meat before I spend another couple days walking.”

Plenty of people agree with Lilith. Some meat would do us good.

“Ok, I won’t challenge you on that.” Shalia answers. “But why wolves? Can’t we just catch some bunnies or something?”

Lilith grimaces and replies, “Eh, I never liked rabbit meat. But I do feel a craving for roasted wolf.”

“Actually, how about we make the guys hunt the wolves and us girls can pack up the camp.” Kiara speaks up. “I’m sure that by the time the guys come back, we will have cleaned up the camp.”

“Yeah, good idea, Kiara.” I say. “Hmm, should we wait for Cal to come back?”

“We have no idea where he is or how long it will take him to get back.” Kiara says. “I feel it is better for you to go without him.”

With that said, the guys prepare to go on a hunt. As I am waiting for the other guys to get ready, I hear one of the girls saying, “Just follow the guys until the find some wolves. When they do, they will avenge you and then you can move on.” It is barely a whisper and I am not sure if I heard it correctly. I look to where I think the sound came from, but all I see is Lilith standing there all alone. Was she talking to herself? Eh whatever, I’ll have misheard it.

A few minutes later, everyone is ready and we head out to hunt some wolves. Since I am the only one of our group who grew up here, they ask me to take the lead and guide them to the forest. I take them across the same path I used back when I was training to become an adventurer. It feels so strange. Last time I walked this way, I didn’t have a rank. And now I’m A. Higher then even my mother. It has been almost 4 months and yet, so much is different already.

[Kiara point-of-view]

Shortly after the guys have left, I gather the girls together and I tell them, “So, I know I told the guys we would break up camp, but I have not had a bath in several days and we have a small lake near us. I suggest the lot of us take a bath in the lake while the guys are gone.”

Mimizu’s face and ears perk up and says, “Ooooh, that’s such a good idea! I would love to have a bath.”

“Agreed, it’s a perfect idea.” Jenny replies. “Hey, Mimi. Could you help me get the last of these leaves from my hair?”

“What about Rachel?” Merlara asks, “She still hasn’t returned.”

“She went with Cal.” I tell Merlara, “As far as we know, she and her boyfriend went out to make love. There is nothing we can do about it.”

“Maybe Merlara should go find her.” Jenny suggests with a bratty smile. “She could walk in on them and catch them in the act.”

Merlara turns her helmet covered face to Jenny and we can all feel her glaring at the fox girl.

“Ok, nevermind. Pretend I said nothing.” Jenny says while blushing from embarrassment.

“Alright then. Let’s have a bath.” I announce.

The lot of us, 13 in total, walk up to the lake next to our camp and start undressing. I take off my boots, socks, shirt and pants and then also my underwear. The only things I keep on are my hood and the medallion signifying I am with the Dark Dragon. Amelia was about to take off her medallion, probably because she is not yet used to wearing it, but when she notices me and the others keeping it on, she keeps hers on as well. Those of us who finish undressing first then help the fighters, like Leona, Mariko and Merlara to take off their armor. Merlara may be with the Dark Dragons like myself, but this is the first time I see her face, not to mention all the runes tattooed on her body. That is a very interesting technique. I knew Merlara has the [Runemaster] skill, but I was never able to figure out where she was hiding her runes or when she was touching them. It turns out that here runes are hidden under her clothes and she is touching every one of them at all times. For a moment I am wondering of telling Darx about it, but then I realize he would be full of tattoos every time we have sex. Especially if he feels like diversifying instead of focusing like Merlara did here. Hrmph, I guess I’ll have to at least mention it, but I won’t promote it too much.

Sophie is the first to try and get into the water, but when she does, she squeals and comes back out, complaining that the water is cold.

“Hey, Mia.” I say. “Could you heat the water up for us?”

Mia scowls at me and goes, “Huh?”

“Just put your hand in the water and cast a fire spell.” I explain. “The fire will extinguish almost instantly, but it will pass its heat to the water.”

Mia’s scowl quickly disappears as she contemplates the method I proposed and then goes into the water and puts her hand in it. After about a minute or so she stands up and says, “It’s not hot or anything, but at least it’s not cold. Just don’t get too far from this spot.”

The lot of us then get into the water and make ourselves comfortable. We start washing up and talk a bit with Mia and Amelia keeping themselves as far away from each other as possible. Suddenly, Leona looks at me and says, “Kiara, I know you are a big fan of your hood, but I never thought you even keep it on while bathing.”

Of course I don’t keep it on for bathing, I just keep it on because others are here and I don’t want to have an episode. But I also don’t feel like explaining it to all of these people. So, I quickly use my [Glamor] skill to give myself a different face and start taking my hood off.

“Sorry, I am just so used to it that sometimes I forget that I still have it on.”

I toss my hood to the edge of the lake and it land close to my clothes that I have piled up there. After a while, Amelia asks me to help her wash her hair, to which I oblige, and later she returns the favor. But as she is washing my hair, her hands come close to my ears and she stops.

“Kiara? Your ears aren’t pointy anymore.” She says.

Crap, the face I placed over my own was from a human girl. It must have affected my ears as well.

I first look around to see if anyone else is close to us. They aren’t, so I lean close to Amelia and whisper, “You and Darx can see my real face, but it’s not just you and Darx here. There’s a whole lot of other people and I am not comfortable with them seeing it, so I put a [Glamor] on for now.”

“Why hide your face?” Amelia whispers back. “Is there something wrong?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s a psychological issue. Finish washing my hair, and I will tell you all about it.”

Amelia then goes back to my hair, and once she’s done, we sit side by side and I tell her all about my backstory. About my early days in an elf village, the bandit attack, how they kidnapped me and the resulting trauma I got.

“That’s terrible.” Amelia replies after hearing my story. “And now you are afraid of revealing your face?”

“I get incredibly nervous and tense up when people look at my face, yes.” I explain.

“But these people are not bandits.” Amelia reasons. “I’m sure they will not have ill intentions for you.”

“Amelia,” I sigh. “Are you scared of spiders?” Knowing full well that a lot of people are.

“I wouldn’t say scared, but I am not a big fan of them crawling on my skin.” Amelia answers.

“But Amelia.” I reply in a somewhat mocking fashion. “You are so much bigger then these spiders, and stronger too, you are even an adventurer, you can use your magic to kill them. You have no reason to be uncomfortable about them.”

Then I drop the mockery and explain normally, “Fear is rarely a logical thing. It is an emotion and emotions are famous for sometimes being irrational.”

“I don’t know. Being afraid of someone following you through the city at night is a very logical thing to be afraid of, I feel.” Amelia says as she frowns.

“True, sometimes there is logic to the emotions we feel.” I agree with her. “But if all emotions were based in logic, all fears would be much more easily overcome. But can you see using logic to overcome all your fears?”

“Fine, alright.” Amelia sighs in defeat. “It is a thing and you have it. I just find it really sad, you know. Like, your face is your primary identifier and you can’t even show that. I at least would be very affected if I could never show my face.”

I look around for the others and notice they are all busy with other things. Then I reposition myself so I’ve got my back to all of them and am facing only Amelia. I grab my hair and hold it next to my face like some kind of curtains to make myself feel most comfortable. “Ok, here. Take a look.” And I drop the [Glamor], letting Amelia see my real face.

I quickly start feeling nervous, worried about what Amelia might be thinking. For a moment, I feel more naked now with my face exposed then I was being nude with the other girls. Meanwhile, Amelia sits there with her mouth agape, until she says, “You’re beautiful.” Her words make me blush and I quickly put the [Glamor] back on, quickly feeling more comfortable.

“You are now the second person I have voluntarily shown my face to.” I say. “I’ve been showing it to Darx for a while as some kind of exposure therapy. I must say, I am more comfortable showing my face to him now then the first time around. I am going to do the same for you, now.”

Under the water, I feel Amelia’s hand reach for mine and she holds my hand with hers. “Thanks for letting me know about all of that. I really appreciate it.”