.
Although Kanon made considerable adjustments for Ryuu and Chiara, she didn’t make any changes at all for Dilorè. I don’t know if this was because my cousin was the first fairy she had ever trained, or if, as a young fairy, a training scenario for a young Elder was already a pretty good fit. The scenario I had chosen for her was, after all, one designed to assist Elders having difficulty getting started with spiritual training, and Dilorè was a fairy who was a little late getting started with exactly that.
The rest of her stage would be boring as a story, so I’ll just tell it in one breath.
My cousin found a safe cultivation spot in a mass of ‘weeping willow’ fronds similar to her first hiding spot and succeeded in learning the basic cultivation method I taught her. Once she acquired the ability to stop the local wildlife from messing with her mind so that she could see through their stealth, she proceeded to clear the stage, subjugating many ‘Tongues’ and then clearing out the ‘Talons’, the airborne menaces that made flying above the canopy impossible. With those gone, she was able to escape the forest and fly out, since the ‘Sky Jellyfish’ was too slow to chase her.
Okay, maybe that was slightly more than one breath. Nevertheless, like Ryuu, she then joined me in the otherwise empty recovery room. I shared dinner with her, chatted for a while about her experience, allowed her to vent her frustrations and ask me questions. Unlike Ryuu, whom I had simply sent to bed at that point, I then brought her to Kanon’s ‘Garden Pavilion’. After explaining the environment that it recreated, I had her spend a night meditating in a high density spiritual environment.
The completion of Chiara’s stage was much more complex.
Lacking Ryuu’s growth cheat, Chiara didn’t have enough accumulated spiritual strength to begin spiritual strength training. Maybe I could brute-force it with a few months of meditation in Kanon’s pavilion, but I chose instead to give her practice using magic with me as a mana source while I practiced shielding her.
I could use a skill called [Veil of the Mistress] to project my spiritual strength through the Servant bond. It could shield her mind, and, once I became more adept at manipulating my spiritual essence, I could even cover her with my vampire cloak. The cloak would come later. For now, my goal was to protect her mind, and this was a brilliant opportunity to practice doing so.
In my original plan, Chiara would have wandered around the mangroves and coral reef for several days, finding the key at last while eavesdropping on the merrow as they planned their next raid. I hoped to learn several more basic spells by the time she managed this, as a side benefit.
Kanon’s assessment was that, just as with Ryuu, we should help her more. Thus, I began passing clues and hints to her as supposed results of my scouting, and I actively trained my [Veil] while she powered up her existing spy skills with my mana. Chiara also learned in the process that her swimming skill, when boosted with my mana, could propel her through the water as rapidly as the fastest merrow.
Thanks to the more aggressive approach, she died twice, and Kanon terminated two other lives to save her from imminent sexual assaults, but Chiara and I were ready when it was time to tail the merrow raiders as they swam to the mainland. Reaching the safety of a coastal merrow settlement would originally have allowed her to clear the stage.
But, you see, we weren’t finished with Ryuu, so Chiara’s stage made a further detour at this point, borrowing scripts from a completely unrelated training stage to create a whole new story.
# # #
Ryuu woke up on the edge of a beach after going to sleep in the recovery room. He raised his head to see the rollers he was hearing crash into the shore as they washed the ground downhill from his position. The sun was low, nearly touching the horizon to the west.
He sat up and went through the same routine as before, this time discovering that his sword was on his back. He then looked around quickly and his eyes landed on the observation sphere. They narrowed as he asked, “Is this a new stage?”
My voice replied through the sphere, “It’s new for you, Mr. Kowa. You’re joining Lady Chiara’s stage to help her out of a mess.”
I was actually seated on a rock in my sea pixie form, watching from a few paces away. I had my stealth powered up pretty hard. I wasn’t sure exactly how good Ryuu’s eyes were at this point, and I didn’t want to appear just yet.
‘Fairy sight’ is actually just spiritual strength enhancing natural eyesight. Fairies possess an inborn quantity of spiritual essence as a side-effect of having bodies composed of fifty percent or more materialized mana. That’s why they can see mana from birth, and that is why a non-fairy soul with almost no spiritual essence like Robert could suddenly possess enough to have fairy sight upon arriving in Tiana’s fairy vampire body.
Lacking a fairy brain with its built-in instincts, Ryuu could not yet distinguish mana flows and miasma taints. But he would, eventually. More importantly at the moment, seeing through stealth with spiritual strength doesn’t require any training, just an application of spiritual energy. If I weren’t careful, he might see me… but with my stealth reinforced, his lower level of cultivation couldn’t do it.
His scowl sharpened upon hearing Chiara’s name. “Where is she?”
“I’m not telling,” my voice replied, and from the tone, I’m sure he imagined a smirk on my face.
He let out a mixture of sigh and growl at the sphere, then stood and took another look around. He was on a narrow strip of rocky land at the foot of cliffs. To his west, the cliffs continued and the beach disappeared into the sea. To his east, the beach appeared to continue and possibly grow.
“You won’t tell me what direction to go?”
“I’m afraid you must rely on others for assistance, Mr. Kowa.”
It’s time for you to join the party, Kanon’s spiritual voice came to me. I took off and flew rapidly eastward until I thought it would be far enough, then dove into the waves. Dropping my stealth, I reversed course and returned.
My path was initially below water, but I accidentally emerged from a breaking wave and found myself in a tunnel of blue, like a surfer ‘shooting the curl’. In my surprise, I let out a laugh with my tiny little pixie voice, the sound of which caused me to giggle madly as I plunged back under the water. I adjusted course and got back into the tube, now channeling Kiki as I let out a “Woohoo!”
I came back to my senses and pushed myself upward, blasting through the breaker and into the air. I had just managed to avoid dashing past Ryuu’s position.
Adjusting my course to intercept him, I yelled, “Big brother! Big Brother!”
He spotted me incoming, and gave me a suspicious glare.
Of course it was obvious that I was acting as part of the setup, and during his previous stage, I had already managed to convince him I was a wandering spirit who liked teaming up with trainees to teach them how to beat the scenario. I had earned his trust, but only halfway.
“Big brother, lady in trouble!” I told him while circling him rapidly.
“Hold still!” he ordered.
I took a spot to his right and told him again, “Lady in trouble!”
“Is it the one I’m supposed to go help?”
“Yup yup!” I said proudly, folding my hands behind my back as I flew along beside him. “Trainee Big Sis in trouble! Run run!”
After contemplating me with narrow eyes for a bit, he began running forward. I sped up, flying ahead of him to lead him to the fishing village where he would find his lady.
“What kind of trouble?” he demanded as he ran.
For a moment, I hesitated as I wondered, exactly how would Kiki say this? I gave up on that and just winged it.
“Bad people! Grab Big Sis! Make tie tie!”
Really, how would Kiki say bad people captured Chiara and shackled her to a post?
His face darkened further, and he began using [Strength Enhancement], doubling his running speed.
The landscape changed rapidly as he ran. The beach and the narrow strip of land widened and became less steep, salt-hardy grasses, which had grown in spots here and there where he started, began to dominate the ground. A thin stream now snaked along between him and the land inward. After a few more miles, in the land between the stream and the sea, the fishing village appeared.
Drums were beating as he approached. People were gathered on the beach, standing or sitting on the beached fishing boats, watching a platform raised on bamboo stilts. On it, an ancient white-haired man stood next to a post the thickness of a telephone pole, from which Chiara hung completely nude from a hook by her shackled wrists.
Not that anyone in the crowd other than a few elders in robes wore that much either. Other than a few ornaments, most men wore only loincloths, while the women wore only short pareos tied around their hips.
Ryuu adjusted his course, running straight at the beach. One of the men noticed him and yelled while pointing, then someone blew on a conch shell and men began shouting in an unknown language. Warriors dashed forward into a defensive array, armed with spears and cutlass-like swords, while a pair of older men wielding heavy staffs chanted.
A wall of Fire blazed into existence on the beach. Not breaking his stride at all, Ryuu unlimbered his sword and swung in one motion, while yelling, “[Spirit Shot!]”
The wave of wind blew the [Fire Wall] apart, and struck several of the warriors. Ryuu continued to pour Wind mana into his sword, keeping his treasured skill alive, and swung his sword again, the opposite direction, sending out a second wave into the defensive line.
The spectators began a hasty retreat as warriors crumpled, but there were experts in this group. Several of the men had used their own mana to block and remained on their feet. Both of the magic users were still on their feet as well, and shot fireballs toward him.
Ryuu dodged one while parrying the other with his mana-coated sword. Now nearing the beached fishing boats, he used [Strength Enhancement] to power himself in a long leap, aiming for the platform. He had made enough of a mess of the village defenses at this point that it wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, but the scenario had programming specifically to prevent this from working. One of the magic users fired a lucky shot, an [Earth Bullet] that managed to catch Ryuu in the neck, delivering a critical hit.
A horrified Chiara watched his body strike the platform and tumble off. And Ryuu’s corpse fell in such a way on the beach that he had a front row view of what happened to her as the sun vanished and the full moon rose.
My maid Genette is from the Sea Wolf clan of wolf beast kindred, but they are merely named after a monster bearing that name. Actual sea wolves are a nasty species with blue-gray fur, shark tails and mouths full of shark-like teeth. From the direction his eyes faced, Ryuu couldn’t see them breaching the waves, but he surely heard the howls they let out as they streaked back and forth in the shallows.
The elder pointed out to sea and called out loudly in the same mysterious language. The crowd broke into loud shouts as they saw the back of a gigantic sea creature in the waves. Then the elder left the platform and two burly men replaced him.
While wearing huge evil grins, one man grabbed Chiara’s thigh while the other, the machete wielder, grabbed her ankle with one hand. As she let out anguished screams, he hacked her leg off above the knee. Throwing overhand, he sent it spinning through the air out into the waves as Chiara sobbed.
A group of sea wolves dashed in after it, briefly fighting over it, then one of them went dashing back out to sea, carrying it in his maw.
She screamed again as they grabbed the other leg, desperately fighting against the attack, but she was up against a pair who were each about twice her weight. The laughing men performed the second amputation without slowing down at all. Another group of wolves dashed in for the second treat.
Then the massive creature came streaking for the shore, sending up a wake like a speedboat. The men cleared off the platform, leaving the sobbing woman alone to face the monster, another sea wolf but coal black and the size of an elephant, as it came all the way up to the platform on its tail and two forepaws. The drums pounded and the spectators cheered as it devoured Chiara one chunk at a time.
