I could sense Dana breaking off from the group, looking like she was going to go over and talk to a young, felyn girl. However, when my eyes glanced in their direction, I could only see Dana herself. The felyn girl seemed to be completely invisible, only registered by my World Sight. I was… curious, but it seemed like Dana was handling the matter. At worst, she’d be a pickpocket that got caught, but Dana wouldn’t do anything serious to her for something like that.
“Is something the matter, my Keeper?” Tsubaki asked, glancing over at me with a smile. I could hear the click of a spell being activated to record the image, and just imagined how ‘valuable’ a picture of her smile would be. And part of me prayed for the safety of the brave soul that decided to take that picture.
“Oh? I’m fine.” I responded with a shake of my head. “Anyways, where are we going next? You said that there was a big event coming up?” The surrounding crowd seemed to suddenly go silent when I asked that question.
Tsubaki blinked, before quickly nodding. “That’s right. The Queen of Hanbei is hosting a charity tournament of gods in Virtual in an hour. The scene will be projected live, so if we leave here soon, we should make it with plenty of time to spare.”
As soon as she finished, there was a rush of movement, a majority of the crowd clamoring to leave the venue. I looked around for a moment, before realizing that they must be trying to rush to the event themselves. Currently, we were in the city of Gandor, so it was unlikely they’d make it there for the start of the event, unless they had access to high level friends. Still, I shook my head with a small smile, sensing Dana return to my side a moment later. “Everything taken care of on your end?” I asked her, causing the little elf to blink up at me.
“Oh, you saw that?” She responded as if being caught in her mischief. “Just giving some lost soul a little piece of corrective advice.” She smiled, licking her lips. I lifted a brow, but shrugged my shoulders.
“Let’s get Lifre before she runs off, and– she’s gone.” I let out a low groan, looking behind myself at the spot where Lifre had been just moments prior. “Tsubaki, if you would?”
Tsubaki’s smile grew wider, and she nodded her head energetically. She closed her eyes, and I could feel Tsubaki’s own World Sight sweeping over the area, before locking onto the slime girl. Currently, she was rushing along with the crowd, having gotten caught up in their momentum both figuratively and literally.
The kitsune’s body blurred, and suddenly Lifre was being held up by her collar in Tsubaki’s grasp. “Hey, what’s the big idea!?” Lifre asked, struggling, though her feet didn’t touch the floor in her current form. “I wanted to see where the crowd was going! They kept saying there was a huge event soon!”
I let out a low groan. “Lifre, the event they’re talking about is the one we’re going to. We’re just going to get there first. I’d like to actually arrive in time to greet the queen before the event. I don’t want to make her flustered or anything with our sudden arrival.”
“Ohhh…” Lifre nodded her head in understanding, no longer struggling against Tsubaki. “Can I be put down, now?”
“Are you going to follow us, or the crowd?” I asked with a pensive expression, to which she glanced off to the side.
“Why not both? A slime’s gotta slime, and maybe I can find interesting adventure candidates along the way.” As she said that, I could feel that she was just waiting for permission to create an avatar to follow the crowd.
With a sigh, I nodded my head, watching as a blue blob split off from her body to form into a full-bodied clone that sprinted after the horde. She didn’t even forget to change her appearance with her avatar to ensure that she wasn’t recognized. “Tsubaki, please get us back to the Citadel, so that we may head to our destination.”
“With pleasure, my Keeper.” Tsubaki nodded, an intricate spell unfolding in the air in front of her. Ever since Gerard’s creation, the workings of the Citadel were improved one after another. Naturally, this included the barrier protecting it, which no longer allowed any normal high-level portal to enter. Instead, one had to use a portal with a very specific spell to act as the key, which would ping Gerard and have him investigate the identity of the traveler.
Once they obtained Gerard’s approval, the final preventative layer would be lowered briefly, and the traveler could enter. In this way, the four of us returned to the Citadel to prepare for the next event.
“Are you alright, L–I mean, Clara?” Dash asked after finishing his sandwich, noticing that his ‘sister’ seemed to be shaking slightly.
“H-Huh? Yeah, I’m fine. Just fine, Dash.” Lily gulped, nodding her head. She had never heard of someone being evicted from an avatar without that avatar being destroyed. Either Dana did what she thought was impossible, or she had silently destroyed the avatar without any traces, allowing the soul to escape.
Thankfully, Lily could feel the residual divinity flowing back towards her, indicating that the avatar shouldn’t have been damaged. She let out a sigh of relief upon confirming that… whatever Dana was, she wasn’t hostile to Lily. Instead, her thoughts turned towards Dash’s father. When Lily had explained the situation, Dana felt… cold, empty. Like her eyes had become endless portals into the abyss.
She couldn’t imagine what had caused Dana to enter such a state, or what she would do to the target of her emotions at that time. Part of her wanted to quickly return to the festival, just so she could confirm that Dash’s father was safe, but another part of her refused. This was the part that had seen those eyes, and heard Dana’s words to not come back. Going against her wishes right now would be detrimental to Lily’s long-term health plan.
“L-Let’s just get started on your homework, okay?” Lily asked, quickly changing the subject. “So, what class did you learn today?”
“Ugh… farmer.” Dash said, as if utterly bored with the idea already. “Why can’t we learn more cool classes, like Monk and Hero?”
Lily smiled, reaching over to poke Dash’s nose. “You have to get your basic training down, first. It’s for your own safety. Besides, do you know how awesome the farmer class is?”
Dash’s eyes went wide, and he leaned in close, waiting for Lily to continue. “You see, the farmer class isn’t all just about raising crops. Farmers have to be able to rear and slaughter livestock. But more importantly… they have to be able to defend their farms from attack.” Dash let out a small gasp, but she simply kept going.
“Wild beasts are often drawn to the scent of freshly grown produce or young animals, especially those produced with special farming techniques. Because of that, farmers have developed three core techniques. The first of these is a style of swordsmanship that revolves around a sickle. With one swing, they can cut down an entire field of corn, or sever the heads of a stampeding horde.”
“The second technique is an illusion formation that they create with both natural and spiritual energies. Those who trespass within the farm will find themselves trapped in a seemingly endless maze. Only a person with a powerful will can shatter the illusion, something the farmers themselves use to train. After all, the final technique requires great strength of mind.”
“What’s the final technique?” Dash asked, his tail waving happily behind him, showing just how excited he was to learn now.
“The final technique in every farmer’s arsenal is the manipulation of their own crops and livestock. A farmer is the king of his farm. His every plant and animal is a limb for him to control. With a thought, vines rise out to strangle monsters, or innocent sheep turn into battle-hardened soldiers. There’s no such thing as a weak class, Dash. Even something as mundane as the Farmer can be amazing, you just have to know where to look.”
Dash nodded his head, quickly sitting back on the couch and closing his eyes. No doubt he was going to review the information of this class that had been imparted to him in his lessons that day. Shame that those abilities are mostly higher level. Still, I didn’t really lie to the kid, did I?
As the Goddess of Trickery pondered the moral implication of what she had revealed, she heard the door opening. Her mind immediately went on alert. Dash’s mother would still be on her way to work, and the festival was too far for his father to be back so quickly. Lily glanced at Dash, who didn’t seem to notice the door, and slowly crept to her feet.
She didn’t want to alert him, and so she hid her presence again, this time making sure to include her shadow. Once done, she made her way to the door, looking out past it. Outside, she could see… Dash’s father walking in with a smile on his face. Lily’s eyes went wide, surprised to see him home, but even more surprised to see him sober.
That can’t be… he doesn’t know teleportation magic. Even if he left right after I did, he’d be at least another five minutes out. Feeling certain that something was wrong, Lily snuck behind the individual and held her palm in the air to face him. Reveal the trickery before me, and shed your disguise.
There had been more than one occasion when she had been forced to thwart a kidnapping, all because the kidnapper had chosen to take on the form of the parent through some form of transformation or illusion. Thus, she developed this divine technique to see into the truth of an individual.
The power silently rippled over the man’s body as he took off his coat and hung it up. However, his physical form didn’t change, indicating that this was no simple transformation or illusion ability. It could have been a higher level effect, or even some divine technique that rivaled her own. Thus, Lily focused more deeply, taking the technique a stage further to look at the very soul of the potential invader.
What she saw… shocked her. The soul was there, and it seemed to be a rather normal, felyn soul. However, there was a voluptuous elven woman seemingly sitting atop the soul in a pitch black dress, drawing strange patterns in it and whispering quietly. When Lily’s eyes locked onto her, the woman glanced up as well, peering out of the soul and back to Lily.
Slowly, Dash’s father turned to face her, though she was still concealed. He looked right at where she was hidden, smiled, and brought a finger up to his lips. “I would never take a father from his child. I’m just going to… educate him for a while. Once I leave, he’ll be completely unharmed, and a far better father.”
Although the voice was still that of the man who often came home grumbling, bottle in hand, Lily heard a second voice mixed beneath it. This voice sounded shockingly similar to Dana’s, but far more mature. Lily shuddered, nodding her head while the man turned, humming lightly to himself. “A shadow in your eyes~… makes a good disguise~… scatter, scatter~… we all blow away.”
Lily’s eyes briefly widened at the familiar, ancient song. There weren’t many in the world who wouldn’t recognize it, after all. Little Dana Jafer was a famous children’s song even before she became the Keeper’s servant. And hearing it now, the pieces started falling into place about just why Dana had reacted so… dark when Lily told her about the boy’s father.
“Little Dana Jafer, her Daddy couldn’t save her~. Scatter, scatter, she’ll take away the pain~.”
