“Mo Na and I just explored that side so you two can just take the other side, since you’re both alright now. Make sure to watch your surroundings, also, if you find some Red Lotuses, just harvest them.” Not wishing to spend anymore time on the issue of Mo Na’s comatose state, I sent No.3 and Big 4 away on scouting duty.
“Master, how about one of us stay behind instead, I’m afraid that something might happen while we’re gone.”
“It’s fine, I doubt anything dangerous will happen. Weren’t you two lying there helpless just now while Mo Na and I were off foraging? Nothing happened then so it should be alright now as well. Besides, you guys are just scouting the nearby areas, there’s no need to explore too far.”
“…Understood, Master.”
Having been rejected, No. 3 didn’t seem to react too badly to it. Perhaps even he himself didn’t expect the suggestion to be accepted.
Watching the two of them leave, I then carried little Mo Na off to a nearby stone pillar.
‘Sigh, exactly what’s going on with the little scamp? Why did the grimoire enter her body? I still don’t know the answers to all that, neither do I know when is she going to wake up.’
Like that, Mo Na slept the better part of the day away. By the time she woke up, I found a new marking on her forehead. It was a tattoo in the shape of a black, swirling mass of gas, about the the size of a soybean. Its outer swirl was faint in color and got progressively darker as it reached the center.
“Mama, Mo Na just had a dream, there was a book chasing Mo Na all day. Mo Na was scared at first but then she wasn’t. That book even played with Mo Na, it was so fun!”
Upon waking up, the first thing this daughter of mine did was to horse around while hugging my neck. She continued recounting all the fun she had in her dreams, completely oblivious to how worried I was because of her fainting spell, even the fruits we picked went untouched because of that.
I brought the little scamp to eye level and carefully inspected her. Thankfully, other than that marking on her forehead, there was nothing else that changed. Even so, I wanted to make sure so I asked: “As long as you’re awake…by the way, do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?”
“Nope, Mo Na feels great.” She batted her big, lovely eyes before giving me a confused look: “Mama, your face looks weird, did something happen?”
“Nothing, it’s just that you scared Papa a little by fainting just now.” Patting her little noggin, I handed a Red Lotus to her. “I bet Mo Na is hungry now, have some.”
“Yay!” She happily snatched the Red Lotus from my outstretched palm and gobbled it down, finishing it in a few bites. Having finished the fruit, her body suddenly grew hot and her face turned significantly redder than usual: “So full, sooo full, Mama, Mo Na’s feel a little hot right now.”
“Hot?” ‘Come to think of it, since the Red Lotus is like a supplement of sorts, isn’t it kind of bad to feed someone the size of an infant, basically a giant ginseng packed into a red fruit? Is that what’s happening to her right now? Because she was barely a day old, she couldn’t accept such a massive surge of nourishment?’
In the midst of my panicked thoughts, Mo Na’s breathless panting suddenly interjected themselves into the conversation: “Mama, Mo Na isn’t feeling that hot anymore but her think box is feeling kind of itchy.”
‘Think box? I guess she meant her head.’
As she said, her head was undergoing a strange reaction at the moment. Before eating that fruit, her head was perfectly shiny and devoid of hair, now however, I could see a full head of purple hair growing out of her scalp at a speed visible to the naked eye, till her hair finally reached her shoulders.
“Ahh, is that hair? Mama, look, Mo Na has hair!” Grabbing the hair on her shoulder, Mo Na excitedly hopped around. “Mama, is Mo Na’s hair pretty?”
“Of course it is, honey.” ‘Of course, my daughter’s hair was pretty, was there ever any doubt there?’ Like that, I inexplicably felt a sense of pride well within me. However, that was mercilessly cast down by her next statement.
Fingers pointed at my head in excitement, as if she had discovered a whole new world by herself: “Mama, look, you’re bald!”
“…”
‘That hurt so bad…maybe I shouldn’t bring up the matter of hair anymore…’
After that, I questioned her on what happened while she was unconscious, to which she responded: “There’s a ton of new things in my head.”
“New things?” I asked, surprised by what I heard. “Exactly what kind of things?”
“Many many things, one of them is really simple too, it’s a magic to move bones.”
‘A magic to move bones? That’s probably the summon skeleton spell. Nothing out of the ordinary so far…the fact that she learned something new like that after the grimoire inserted itself into her, was within expectations.’
“You must be talking about summoning magic, other than that, what else did you learn?”
“Hmm, there’s also a magic to wake up the dead but those who wake up will become smelly and disgusting, Mo Na doesn’t like that.”
‘Hmm, that should be the summon zombie spell, judging by that look on her face, I doubt she likes it much.’
“That’s the summon zombie spell, don’t worry, Papa hates it too, anything else?”
“Yeah, a lot lot more. There’s one to create a long spear, a shield and a wall. Also, there’s a magic to make people slow, stupid…and one more that can create a whole ton of thingies, so fun!” She flung her arms wide open to show exactly how many things she learnt before finally saying, in a slightly rueful tone: “But Mo Na doesn’t like that smelly wake up spell, everything else is great!”
From what she said, it was safe to assume that the grimoire performed a knowledge transference on her and taught her a variety of spells, including Dark Alchemy. As for the magicks to make people slow and stupid…those were probably curses.
Based on what she said so far, the grimoire entering her body was a positive thing and shouldn’t cause too many problems…
‘Well, even if it did, it wasn’t like I could do anything about it anyway.’
Giving it a quick count, I discovered that the time the grimoire went quiet was slightly before Mo Na’s egg was about to hatch.
‘Perhaps it already chose her as a successor before she was even born.”
Come to think of it, it could be said that Mo Na’s true birthplace was the Land of the Dead. She then spent the most part of her life as an egg, incubating within the Prison of the Dead. Moreover, all she ate were Soul Flames. Adding that string of happenstances together, it probably led to her affinity for Undead Magic being extraordinarily high.
With no other explanation in mind, I could only attribute the grimoire’s choice of possessing her to that.
Naturally, all that was just a guess, whether or not it was true…would become evident with time…in other words, it was all up to fate…
Because each Red Lotus contained a highly concentrated mass of pure energy, it only took one fruit to fill up Mo Na. As for the remaining two fruits, I ate them both and as expected, I evolved to Four-stars…
…
…
Or not, I guess that was just me being overly optimistic. There was no evolution to be found after consuming the first fruit and nothing as well after the second. However, that didn’t mean that those fruits had no effect on me. The moment I swallowed the last bit of the second fruit, my body started to heat up as if I had just ran a marathon. Furthermore, the heat seemed to be spreading even further, all the way up to my head.
My whole head started to itch, in particular my forehead and…
‘Hold on, my horn seems to be growing!’
My horn was severed by accident during that fight with Duran in the human realm, and remained severed ever since. Because of that, my magic always felt a little hampered. Adding on the fact that Ferti’nier had absorbed a large portion of my mana, my horn remained severed even after I evolved to Three-stars. After eating those two Red Lotuses however, my horn began to grow, along with my internal mana pool. Though I didn’t evolve in the end, my mana grew by at least a tier or two.
Not only did my horn grow out, I even grew a whole head of long, blueish-purple hair…that’s right, a whole head of sleek, shiny, deep blueish-purple hair that flowed all the way down my back.
With my golden single horn and unusual hair color…it honestly felt like my body had grown a little strange.
“Mama, you have hair! And a horn too, so pretty!” Mo Na clapped her hands in excitement and surprise as she beamed at my unexpected change: “Mama is so great, Mama is so great!”
“What do you mean great, I don’t even know what’s going on here.” Reaching to grab her head, I couldn’t help but run my fingers through her silky hair as I patted her on the head. With each stroke, the feel on my hands just grew that much more comfortable.
“Mo Na wants to play as well.” Perhaps she thought that I was having fun playing with her hair, she decided to get in on the fun as well. Flapping the little wings on her back, she hopped into the air and leapt onto my neck where she promptly hugged my head and messed up my long hair. “Mama’s hair is so nice, so comfy.”
“Alright, alright, that’s enough playing, No.3 and Big 4 are back.”
This was the third time they came back from scouting. The first two times, the report they brought back was basically identical: they didn’t encounter any other devils or danger. This time…judging by the expression on their faces, there was probably nothing new to report as well…
However, something of note was the worm like creature Big 4 held in his claws. It was wriggling about impatiently, not quickly but certainly it was a concerted effort on its part.
A Demon Fire Worm.
“Master.” X2
“Mhm, any discovery?”
“Nope.” No.3 shook his head. “Basically the same except for some Red Lotuses we harvested. Oh right, we caught a Demon Fire Worm as well.”
The Demon Fire Worms could basically be described as a fireproof earthworm, even its wriggling resembled that of an earthworm and creeped me out just as much. Thus, with one simple wave of my finger, I gave the order: “Kill it.”
“Understood.” Big 4 took the worm and gave it a forceful tear, ripping it in half in an instant. However, the noticeably bifurcated worm was still struggling even in its newfound state, spewing blue blood all over the ground as it did so.
It was actually alive!
“Throw it on the floor.”
Big 4 obediently tossed the halves of the Demon Fire Worm onto the floor and lo and behold, something miraculous happened. Both halves immediately began crawling towards the lava river upon touching the ground. Even more strange was that they ran away in different directions…did it have earthworm genetics as well?
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