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The so-called ‘device’ to continue their mission was still being tested, and Ain wondered why that Nasod Queen had not stayed. There was little use caring for a kingdom of machines if the El—the fuel for all life, including her soldiers, as he’d tried to remind her—was not safe for as long as those godless zealots breathed.
He had brought his concerns to the El Masters and to the priestesses, but he was not off to a good start.
“I wish that we could’ve followed after them,” the Water El Master said, his golden gaze cast down for a moment before he sighed. “But I’d rather ensure we have a stable method to track them down.”
“The goddess gave your people enough power to both open portals and smell your prey no matter how far it hid,” Ainchase said. “Why would you not use those blessings when time is of the essence?”
For some reason, Denif took exception to that. He said something about humanity’s pact with dragonkind and some other absurdities that reestablished a shaky peace after some ‘Perkisas’ attacked Elrios.
The Dragons aren't sufficiently devoted to the goddess, but maybe elves— Ainchase thought as he walked away to talk with Ventus. However, seeing the elven El Master sleeping on a hammock hanging over a suspiciously long staircase made his hopes shrivel up and die like his trust of humanity.
“Adelaide, my love,” the elf muttered in his sleep with his usual smile, “this is all a misunderstanding… She’s just a friend. No, Hilda, I don’t mean a friend in that way…”
The fact that he doubted whether to make his nap last forever or not made Ainchase realize that the goddess’s will was manifesting in subtle ways. Ainchase glared down at the sleeping manwhore who kept listing women’s names, telling them that they were his true love.
“You live. For now,” he said, pointing his gloved hand at the man.
“Thank you kindly,” the elf said, his smile growing wider as he half-opened his eyes. “Lincy would’ve been inconsolable otherwise.”
Ainchase’s powder blue gaze narrowed. “Were you provoking me?”
“Why would I seek such troubles, Mr. Celestial? I just woke up,” the odd-eyed El Master said, and that permanent smug smirk on his face didn’t help his case. “But I may have heard you were pestering the old man to get you to the demon realm.”
“So you were awake.”
Soran Ventus, El Master of the Wind, waved his hand as if to dismiss his conclusion. “Elves hear the whispers of the wind all the time in their dreams,” he chuckled. “Imagine how embarrassing it was to be with the beautiful love of my life, my beloved Sarah-Marie-Henrietta of Velder when—”
Ainchase’s gaze narrowed further. “The patience of the goddess has its limits, mortal. Your degeneracy will not be tolerated.”
“Aw, degeneracy’s such a strong word.” The elf yawned as he stretched his arms. “You do know there’s nothing saying that an El Master ought to be celibate, right?” Ventus closed his eyes again and crossed his arms. “Besides, unlike Solace, I knew not to put my d—”
The Celestial raised his arm. “Creber Firmus…” the roof splintered open, and projection swords peeked from the hundreds of portals he was summoning.
“Hm~ Fine, I’ll play a little with you.”
After the Celestial spent all his mana and daily divine energy, the goddess made him see that the elf had some wisdom to give. There were things Ainchase could do to serve her and the El before chasing after those heretics.
The most important thing was to survey the slow restoration of the El, now that the priestesses had other, more important tasks in Elrianode. His first step was surveying how Velder was faring. Not because the goddess had told him the situation there was more dire than the other cities in the realm, but because that was where both Elsword and the new, less-problematic El Lady were headed. It seemed natural to him to follow them as the goddess's guardian.
Plus, there was the chance some demon was lurking and thinking nobody would notice their presence now.
He would make sure their dreams of safety were swiftly corrected.
The human obsessed with Nasods decided to make a ‘test run’ of a portal prototype and send them to Velder.
He gave no assurances to how dire the ‘50% error margin’ could be, but Ainchase was glad that they made it to Velder's ports suspiciously close to Cobo's bank branch.
“Oh,” the timid clerk said, a shiver running down her back. She took off her glasses and took a pink handkerchief from her skirt's pocket. “I… I must be too tired. A-Ariel warned me about this. Where, uh, where is my energy recovery potion?”
“Yo, Luriel!” Elsword greeted the trembling clerk, who yelped and dropped the neon blue potion on her counter.
One very useless conversation later, which was mostly held by Elsword trying to calm that walking bundle of nerves, Elsword seemed to be convinced they owed the clerk an explanation and an apology.
“I understand,” Ainchase nodded. “I shall swiftly explain the situation.”
The future El Lady put a firm hand over his shoulder. “Let me handle this one, please.”
“But you are highly inefficient in handling negotiations that do not involve swinging your claymore around.” He said. “As an envoy of the goddess, I must—”
“I can try, Ain.”
“Yeah, we can let her try…”
The goddess had thus spoken through her oddly hesitant chosen one, and so Ainchase decided to follow Ishmael’s advice. After all, she would've expected that from him.
For once, the El Lady who dressed like a knight captain didn't choose her signature method of diplomacy, and the nervous bank clerk relaxed.
“O-oh, is, uh,” she said, adjusting her glasses before fidgeting in place. “Is that so?” Tears began to appear in her gaze, but Elsword insisted that it was a good sign. Humans were sometimes very contradictory. “You guys… people will appreciate that. Are you sure Rav—”
The El Lady shushed the clerk, looking around nervously. Nobody seemed to pay them any mind. Not to mention that they were the only customers in the bank’s premises.
“No, Luriel,” the El Lady whispered, leaning closer to the counter. “Um… The feeling is mutual, between Velder and him.”
“How so?”
The El Lady turned back to look at her brother. Ishmael’s chosen one clenched his fists, closed his eyes and gave her a weak nod. Ainchase saw him frown before he donned his usual confident smile.
“I’m a bit hungry,” he said, putting a hand over his stomach. “I’ll go grab a bite while you put Luriel up to speed, okay?”
The El Lady pursed her lips, her brow furrowing a bit downwards. She straightened up, her red cape fluttered along with her movement. “Tell ‘im I said sorry, if you can.”
Elsword’s smile faded. “Tell him yourself.”
He bolted out of the bank, his cape followed his rushed, heavy steps before he slammed the door shut behind him.
“Um. I-is everything okay?”
“Aw, you didn’t know Elsword can get really angry when he gets hungry?” the El Lady said with a smile that could’ve fooled the goddess. “He’s just gonna go grab a bite at a friend’s place….”
Ainchase saw no point in listening to deceitful explanations from her, and headed out while the two other women were gossiping about things that were surely not as important as ensuring the chosen one’s safety.
Velder city was cleaner, but also emptier. Ainchase remembered that, in Residential Area 3, where Cobo bank somehow still stood, homes were glued together, almost eating up every street until it was no wider than an alley. The Dark elves took advantage of that, hiding behind broken windows, ceilings and even burning buildings—with a Kenaz to protect them—to make arrows rain on them.
Now, the streets could breathe, but the ground was paler where only foundations remained. Carts pulled by cockatigles—those gigantic walking birds used by both demonic and allied forces—brought masons and their stonework to some of the abandoned sites.
Humans talked about their hatred for demons, their fears for what would happen if they returned. Ainchase vowed, once again, to crush any remnants of demonic presence. He’d go as far as carving warding runes so demons thought twice before setting foot on the city.
But first, he had to find Elsword and make sure no demons had thought they could get away with harming the only one capable of restoring the El.
Elsword wasn’t out to eat, but Ainchase did not expect to find him standing before a monument to all the unclaimed or unidentified knights who died during the demon invasion.
As far as he knew, nothing warranted such a visit from the young saviour. There was no one around, so he couldn’t have been doing to boost soldiers’ morale or to show the populace that he cared.
The red-haired young man left a bouquet of Velder Centinels—the red and yellow emblematic flower of Velder that reassembled a lily—on the plaque. He looked up at the limestone statue of a knight in full plate armour and let out a long sigh.
“You were a shitty dad, you know that?” he said before he swallowed. He scoffed at the statue, as if it could answer him. “What, you thought I’d come here to sing your praises after you fucked off to war and took her with you? Six years. That’s how much time you robbed from us.” He pursed his lips. “I almost can’t call her sis because of how fucking long six years is. I spent half my life, back then, alone. I’m eighteen now, dad.” He pointed at himself with both hands, leaning slightly forwards. “If it hadn’t been for Rena and Aisha, I would’ve spent, what, twelve years alone by now? That’s triple the time.”
It was actually just double the time. but the statue could not have corrected Elsword. A whisper of the goddess urged him not to correct the young knight either, but Ainchase began to wonder when that order would change.
Elsword leaned back and looked at his feet before looking at the statue again. A soft breeze combed through his spiky hair.
The young man bit his lip before he rubbed his eyes. “And on top of that, you made Elesis feel like it was her fault the Black Crow took you.” He took a shaky breath in, and wiped even more furiously the corner of his eyes. “I met a total wuss who just wouldn’t shut up about his dad even when his entire city was burning to the ground.” He chuckled, though his laughter was dry, too dry compared to his usual. It didn’t sound like any human expression of joy.
Ainchase tilted his head, finding little reason for Elsword to tell an inanimate object all his grievances, let alone refer to the Hamelian warrior—someone he respected—with such insulting words. The Celestial asked the goddess for an explanation; if Elsword’s father had indeed been felled by Raven Cronwell and the Black Crow, his body would be either in the Nasod Graveyard of Altera or somewhere in Richie Mines, where the Black Crow used to dump the soot from their incinerators and other trash.
The monument to the unknown knights was as far removed from his father as how far they were from finding a way to the demon realm.
Elsword raised his arms and let them fall flatly to his sides. “I could’ve lived my whole life believing all dads fucked off to war for six years without a care in the world. But instead…” He clicked his tongue and looked to the side. The young man froze when he saw the Celestial.
“What are you doing here?”
Elsword was not talking calmly—not really. His crimson gaze had grown slightly wide, but his fists were clenched tight, and he was holding his sword’s handle as if he were going to unsheath it.
It was the wrath of the goddess in its quietest form. Ainchase bowed and walked away, sensing that the answer of the goddess was now clear: Elsword was still as irrational as every other human, but he had a right to express such irrationality alone.
He wandered around the graves, some of which had been destroyed, pillaged with bones poking fresh from the ground. Some tombstones bore claw marks from glitters, their names crossed out. Others had bits blown off them, with either glitter teeth still sticking out from them or splashed by the dirty-yellow soot Kenaz left behind when they self-destructed.
Ainchase eventually left his mortal shell, walking around as a spirit made for a livelier experience. He could see the life of the city playing out in small chunks—the last, or fondest, memories of the deceased. Some were bringing up their invisible merchandise up to an invisible marketplace before fading away. They were following him in some way or another. Bards tuning their guitars, city guards screaming about an enemy then vanishing before they could tell where the enemy was.
There was also a woman in her nightgown holding a crying toddler she called Elias in her arms. She kept telling him to keep quiet so the bad monsters the boy’s father was fighting didn’t find them. Then, she raised her head and faded along with the child.
Other children ran, laughing as they raised a fresh loaf of bread as their grand prize. A couple proposed to a crowd of cheers, and then, they faded. Every soul faded. Ainchase looked at what lay ahead and saw a statue of the goddess, covered by splashes of soot and with her long robes damaged by maces and arrows from days past. The crown of flowers at her feet was a mix of Elrian lilies and Velder centinels, but the rest of the garden was unkempt, with weeds growing everywhere and destroyed benches.
Though there was no need to, Ainchase sat down on an undamaged corner of a bench and looked at the humans’ representation of his creator. The thought of talking to an idol that held no true power crossed his mind, but he found nothing of note to say. Ishmael was always with him, so she knew what he thought about Soran Ventus, about Denif’s hesitation, but there was one thing…
“Why,” he said before falling silent again. He couldn’t utter a question that way. It was unsightly—it would’ve sounded as if he doubted the goddess. “Is there a way, goddess Ishmael, that you can use to enlighten me to the reasons why you tolerate the irrationality of mortal souls?”
The statue didn’t answer, of course. However, Ainchase heard the rushed steps of some dwarf running towards him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a magenta-eyed, strawberry-blonde girl with a patched up blue dress, sandals, dragging a cart with one hand and holding a wooden trowel with the other. The cart held two buckets, one full of water, the other full of mud, and some dirty rags. The girl stopped in front of the statue and sighed.
“You’re really dirty,” she said as she took a rag from her cart and soaked it in the water. “I keep coming here everyday,” she wringed the rag and reached to scrub one spot of soot at the statue’s feet. “but these aren’t coming off!” She growled, scrubbing faster and faster, her ponytail swaying along just as furiously before she sighed and gave up.
The girl sat down in front of the statue and flung the rag on it. It slid down one of the edges and onto the ground.
“Mommy told me in my dream that you’d send an angel my way to help me,” she picked up the rag and threw it behind her. “So where are they?”
Ainchase caught the rag mid and manifested his human form again. The goddess had called him here to enact her will. He walked past the girl and enchanted the rag with some divine magic.
“The ashes of the Kenaz are the remnants of their cursed existence in this land,” he said as he passed the enchanted rag over the statue’s feet and the stain vanished. Ainchase turned towards the girl, who was staring at him, wide-eyed. “Water alone is useless to purge their blight. Now, tell me, girl. Do you know how to channel mana?”
“Wow…” the girl breathed out, a faint grin crawling on her face.
The girl’s name was Amelie. She kept repeating it, for some reason. She didn’t know how to channel mana, but she also didn’t seem to understand that her scrubbing with water didn’t help either.
Amelie kept asking him if he really was an Angel, what Angels did, what they ate, if everyone got an angel from the goddess like she just did. She shot her near-endless barrage of questions while scrubbing and asking him to lift her up so she could ‘help him clean the tough spots’.
Before he agreed to such a request, Ainchase took Amelie’s rag for a moment, channelled his mana within it before letting her take it so her task bore fruit. The statue of the goddess was now clean, and Amelie was resting her head over his, in complete silence. She wrapped her arms around the top of his head, seemingly forgetting she had a rag in hand. The smelly thing slapped him across the face before it rested to the left, covering his ear.
“Can you help me make the mud magical? I wanna make her dress pretty again.”
“Mud will not stick to limestone,” he said, now perfectly aware of how limited the girl’s vocabulary was. “Magic makes it more bri—uh, more fragile.”
“So we can’t fix the goddess’ dress?”
The profound disappointment in Amelie’s voice held yet another hint of Ishmael’s will. “Get off me for a minute, girl.”
“My name’s Amelie.”
“That is not what I asked of you.”
“I’m not girl. I’m Amelie,” she pouted, drumming her fingers on his head. “There’s no girl on you right now.”
“You are a human girl. And you’re on me.”
“Nuh-uh. I’m Amelie. Not Human girl. That’s an ugly name.”
Humans held an irrational sense of worth to their names even when they were irrelevant to the goddess’ mission. He couldn’t understand that. Ainchase took a deep breath. “Get off me for a few moments… Amelie.”
“M’kay, but you gotta crouch first. You’re too tall. I can’t jump off you, Mr. Angel.”
Ainchase obliged and once the girl was standing to his left, hands behind her back, he glanced at her. “My name is Ainchase Ishmael.”
“Ain…jayce Itch-mel?”
The Celestial closed his eyes and focused threads of mana on his fingers. “You may call me Ain instead of butchering my name with such incomprehensible savagery.”
“Okay, Mr. Ain,” she said with a nod and a smile. “What are you going to do?” She raised herself to the tip of her toes, watching how the mana threads he was weaving manifested as crystal-like projections that slowly covered the damaged parts of the statue.
She gasped when she understood what he was doing, but she didn’t interrupt him. It was over in a minute and the stubborn girl wrapped her arms around his hips, laying her head around the end of his ribs.
Such impertinence from a mortal would usually call for a swift execution, but the goddess was giving her grasp some kind of quiet command to allow her to get away from the consequences of touching a higher being such as himself. Ainchase obeyed that command, but he waited for the next one, looking at Amelie for a sign that such a strange display of impertinence would end.
The magenta-eyed girl gripped with her dirty hands at his white coat, “Um, Mr. Ain…” she pursed her lips and looked away, “Can I, uh, no—” she snapped her head back at him, “May I ask you what’s that magic you just used?”
“It’s called projection magic,” he said. “I can weave mana into tangible threads and create objects of my choosing.”
“Can you make toys with it?”
The Celestial blinked. Amelie’s cheeks got flushed and she let him go. She made a few steps back and looked down, fidgeting in place. “Not for me,” she said. “It’s, uh, for my friends at the orphanage.” She looked at him. “I got mom’s diary for my birthday. It’s a little dirty and hard to read, but I’m learning more about her and dad with it.”
Toy. Ainchase pondered the meaning of the word, rubbing his chin. It was something mortal children liked; it was their treasure, according to the elven archer who followed Elsword. However, that meant nothing to him. Ainchase had no precise idea of what the standard of a ‘toy’ could be. Such knowledge had been irrelevant to his mission… until now.
The Celestial recalled the spirits of those boys taking a loaf of bread and claiming it like their treasure.
Toys are bread, then, he concluded as he began to weave the shape of a loaf of bread. He showed it to Amelie, who stared blankly at the crystal replica of a toy. She looked at him, then back at the toy he made, then back at him.
“Do you dislike the shape of this toy, Amelie?”
“Mr. Ain, doesn’t the goddess give you toys for the Harmony Festival?”
Ainchase looked down at the toy he created and back at the girl. “I do not need to eat human food, Amelie. The goddess never gave me, nor any of her warriors, any toys.”
The blonde girl let out a sigh and her lips curled slightly down. “Can you crouch for a moment, Mr. Ain?”
Though her requests had so far been perplexing, Ainchase obliged. The girl approached him, arms wide open and wrapped them around his neck, patting his head. “I’m sorry the goddess is so mean to you, Mr. Ain.”
“The goddess isn’t mean, Amelie.”
“Shh, it’s okay,” she said softly, combing his long hair. “I know she loves you and all of us in her own way. But that doesn’t mean she can’t be mean.”
“The goddess Ishmael isn’t mean.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Ain. You can cry if you want to. I won’t tell anyone.”
Toys were definitely not bread.
Toys were things like dolls, balls, plushies, wooden horses on wheels and other such artifacts that captivated the attention of human children like Amelie. Most importantly, they were not sustenance, although young enough children would still put toys in their mouth before older kids or adults yanked them away from them.
Amelie took him on a tour of all the shops where merchants sold toys, pointing at some and telling him which one of her friends liked dolls, which ones liked the wooden horses, and the favourite animals of all the smaller children. She said that before the demon invasion, her father only took her out to shop for a dress once. It was the one she was wearing.
“Dad looked like you, Mr. Ain,” she said, holding his hand as they walked through Clocktower Square, “He said many big words, and I didn’t get what they meant. I don’t get them now either. I kinda forgot them, too.” She paused and looked up at him. “I thought maybe if he was with Mom, Elias and I, that he’d be happier. But he didn’t want to. Do you know why he didn’t want to?”
“I don’t know your father. How could I know that?”
“Hmm… but you have sad eyes like him, Mr. Ain. Like you’re all alone all the time.”
Her second assessment wasn’t incorrect, but his job was a solitary one. He felt no longing or sadness for the ways of humans or whatever they considered as companionship. Ainchase simply found them strange and irrational. That was it.
The clock tower rang seven times, and the sun was setting on the horizon. Amelie gasped and said they had to rush back to the orphanage or else incur the wrath of Mr. Praus or, worse, Mrs. Vanessa. Ainchase followed her along the different streets and alleys until they reached what looked to be a noble’s manor.
The gardens were unkempt, and some windows were still barricaded by wood, but the voices of children laughing could be heard even from the outside. When he knocked at the door, Praus, the green-haired accessory vendor Aisha rescued from Residential Area 3, opened, holding a small black-haired child that was pulling at his scarf and asking for a story.
The former jeweler paused, but welcomed Amelie first, patting her head and telling her to make sure the younger children were all tucked in bed for their bedtime story.
“I will, Mr. Praus!” the girl nodded as she scurried in.
Praus then welcomed Ain, telling him to sit on the picnic bench to his right while he went to set the children to sleep. The Celestial obliged, if only to kill time and practice how to make real toys.
The luxurious home was stripped, or rather ransacked, of all signs of wealth. There was no mistaking the traces of ice-burner damage to remove the gold decorations around the fireplace, or how the fine golden chain that held a crude iron chandelier on the ceiling had most likely held a very different kind of decoration beforehand. Ainchase even spotted the paler squares of paint he assumed had once held portraits of whoever the real owners of this place had been.
The owners certainly won’t be pleased if they were to return, Ainchase thought as he began to weave a small wheel, then connected it to the other. The demons had taken most of Velder’s nobility with them, but it seemed like the city wasn’t missing them. It was a tad strange, but considering how many more had died, the Celestial concluded that the city of Velder was now small enough to be ruled without most of its noble lineages.
He had built a small horse on wheels, but when it came time to make it move, the axle of the back wheels detached itself from the rest of the structure and the horse fell on the side.
“Toys are quite complex,” Ainchase muttered to himself before picking his failed attempt up. He flipped it and began analysing the strength of his mana threads, their structure.
“Hey,” Praus said, tapping on the wooden wall of what was now the orphanage’s dining room.
Ainchase glanced to the source of the noise, crushing the toy into mana threads again.
Praus nudged his head to the side. “Gotta talk to you for a minute. You can stay here and do whatever it was you were doing after that.”
“Very well.”
The jeweller-turned-orphanage-manager led Ainchase upstairs towards a tiny room at the end of the manor’s west wing.
It was a room that would’ve looked spacious if it weren’t for the crates full of all sorts of silverware, accessories and luxurious small pieces of furniture. A portrait laid at the end of the room. It was of a white-haired knight with a tired, almost lifeless magenta gaze, staring back at the painter with a tiny curve on his lips. It was impossible to tell what that kind of smile meant. Ainchase had seen smiles in all sorts of ways, but never like that.
He even wondered if the man was smiling or if he, like Elsword, was clenching his fists and readying himself to take out his sword on the painter who had immortalized the seconds before he asked ‘What are you doing here?’.
Praus flipped the canvas to the other side on his way to the tiny desk he occupied. “It’s been so long since you guys have been around here,” Praus said, scratching the side of his hair. He had let his hair grow longer, and it hung now on a braid over his shoulder, not too dissimilar to the hairstyle Ainchase used to have when he first appeared on Elrios. The man grabbed a bottle of liquor and two glasses from the shelves behind his desk and asked if he wanted to drink.
“Alcohol doesn’t affect me the way it does for you humans,” Ainchase said before he sat down. He looked to the side, where the knight’s painting was. “Was that Amelie’s father?”
“That’s the kinda question,” Praus said as he poured himself a small glass of Spirit Water, “I’d only answer if you were looking to adopt the poor girl.” He filled the other glass and slid it towards him. Then he leaned back and raised his glass. “Is that what you wanna do?”
Ainchase took his glass and raised it before taking a sip with Praus. “I am leaving for the demon realm soon. I’m in no position to care for Amelie.”
“Oh, you’re on a name basis with her already?” Praus whistled, taking a second sip. “Wouldn’t have expected that from ya,” he added, speaking into the glass before he tilted the liquor into his mouth.
The green-haired man finished the rest of the glass in one big gulp and set it on the desk. “Just tell me one thing, Ainchase Ishmael,” he leaned forward, setting his elbows on the desk, revealing his lilac gaze to the Celestial. “Who told you to come and meddle with Amelie’s life? Not a problematic someone we both know, I hope?”
“Are you insinuating that I would put a mortal’s will above the goddess’s?”
Praus closed his eyes and laughed, dismissing the accusation with a friendly wave of his hand. He bowed and said that he, in no way, had intended to insinuate he was failing the goddess.
“It’s just that, you know,” he added with a click of the tongue. “Vanessa’s protective of her. She doesn’t want that guy to be ‘round her, no matter how many times he’s said sorry or whatever.”
“Vanessa?”
Praus showed off a ring on his right hand. “The wife, Ainchase. A man’s gotta respect her wishes, ya know?”
Ainchase furrowed his brow. “As impertinent as this question might be, I cannot help but remember how much the mage girl tried to get you and the blacksmith woman together. That’s the only thing she talked about for two months.”
The green-haired jeweler laughed and told him that he had given up on Hanna years before he ever met Aisha.
“I just thought I’d let her be a heroine in another way,” Praus said as he circled the rim of his glass with a finger. “Not that you’d get it, but I’d rather see kids her age try to be wingmen for their elders than put’em by the dozen on a hearse.”
By the time he got the first batch of toys right, the first rays of sunlight were peeking through the dark indigo cover of the night, making it a lighter shade of blue.
The artefact Add had left each one of them to tell them when to come back vibrated. Ainchase set the doll he had just finished making to his left and grabbed the tiny dynamo replica before putting it to his ear.
“What is it?” he whispered.
“Why the hell are you squatting in the Felford Residence?” Add’s voice came from the other end, as loud as ever, accompanied by near-deafening beeps from his keyboard. “Get your ass back in the coordinates I left your pompous ass at. Elsword and Elesis are already there. You got an hour before I leave your ass there.”
“I am perfectly capable of manifesting myself in Elrianode without your help, Mr. Grenore.”
“...Who told you that name?”
“Who told you I would stoop so low as to squat in a human residence?”
“Tch.”
The artefact beeped and then silence came. However, there was a tiny silhouette standing somewhere down to his left. The strawberry blonde hair gave away her identity, even if it was so messy it was as if it’d been caught in a storm.
“I’m almost done, Amelie,” he said, picking up the teddy bear to finish making its eye and the bow on its left ear. “I do not require your supervision. You have given me a perfect understanding of what toys are.”
The light tapping of her naked feet followed him closer and closer and she sat next to him, resting her head where his ribs ended.
“You’re going away, Mr. Ain?”
“As I’ve told you before, I’m the goddess’ executioner,” He said, carving a flower on the centre of the teddybear’s bow. “Although her will guided me to you, my duty is to exterminate all traces of demonic presence and other things that displease her.” He put the teddy bear on his lap so the girl could admire it.
She touched it and smiled when her finger sank into the toy’s fur, “It’s so soft.” Amelie straightened up and looked at him. “Who is it for?”
“It’s for a human girl whose name I shall not forget,” he said as he put the toy on her lap. “For it is a courtesy I owe her.”
Amelie took a moment before her arms wrapped themselves around the teddy bear. Her magenta eyes filled with tears.
When she calmed down, Amelie told him a story, or rather, asked him to help her read her mother’s diary.
Elrianode was quiet, late at night. Ainchase had not expected to see anyone, besides Denif and maybe Sasha, to welcome him back. However, there was a member of the El Search Party, a man with short black hair, a golden gaze and a Nasod arm he had asked the Nasod Queen to model as close as possible to a human hand.
“We were wondering if you had vanished again," the golden-eyed man said. “It’s been... a while, Ain.”
“I am still on time for the mission. The portal is still two days away from being finished, is it not?”
“Yeah, that’s about right. Eve saw some last-minute issues, so... she and Add are still fixing that.” the golden-eyed man looked down before raising a bottle of whiskey with his human hand. “Care to join me for a drink before we hopefully pack for good?”
“Alcohol doesn’t have any effect on me,” Ainchase said as he joined one of the many irrelevant companions Elsword had picked up along his travels. “Nor can I taste it.”
“I guess that’s as close to a yes as I’d get,” the half-Nasod grumbled before inviting him to the edge of the Water Sanctum. He had already set two wooden cups next to a campfire and, unlike Praus, served them a glass full of liquor. They raised their glasses and the half-Nasod downed half of his drink.
“I don’t get as easily drunk as I used to either,” the black-haired swordsman said, swiping his mouth with his sleeve. The blush rising from his cheeks seemed to tell another story. He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Perks of being half a machine now, I suppose. That and being young again.”
“How old are you?”
"Should be in my mid-forties by now. Nanomachines gave me gold eyes and my youth back, according to Eve.” the half-Nasod said before letting out a long sigh. He glanced at him and smirked, “She even proposed to make me stop aging entirely if I wanted to,” the swordsman’s smile vanished and his voice lowered into a mutter. “But I like aging. It’d feel better to at least see that the fifteen years I spent being a Nasod experiment actually happened to me. That it wasn’t some collective nightmare I woke up to without Seris by my side.”
Ainchase purses his lips, but the goddess told him to not utter what he was thinking about the half-Nasod’s way to talk about the people, the Kingdom, he betrayed and the people he and King Nasod turned into more half-Nasod abominations or trash. He disliked how it centered the burden on himself, but the goddess knew better than him; human emotion was sometimes subdued, too.
“You are the second man who unexpectedly invites me to partake in drinking,” Ainchase said as he took a sip of a liquid that—although it smelt different than water—tasted and felt no different to him.
“Who’s the first one?”
“The green-haired jeweler in Velder.”
The man looked at him, his brow furrowed as he took a more careful sip. Then, his eyes widened. “Oh, Praus? Is he still in love with Hanna?”
“He was no longer smitten by her when we met him. He’s married to that blue-haired knight. The leader of the Centurion Guard.”
The half-nasod spat his drink. He coughed for a moment, but recovered soon enough. “Vanessa? How did that happen?”
“Are such insignificant matters relevant for our upcoming journey?”
“No,” the golden-eyed swordsman sighed, “but I don’t want to talk about that right now. I overheard Add saying you were… not with Elesis and Elsword.”
“Ah, yes,” Ainchase drank another sip of the drink. “The son of heretics accused me of squatting in a nobleman’s house.”
“Were you?”
The half-Nasod was staring at him, and though his tone was calm, Ainchase felt that it was different from his usual. It was almost the voice he had before he joined the group.
“No.”
“Well, glad to know that,” he grumbled before taking a last long gulp of his whiskey. Then, he served himself another cup. “You know, you remind me of a guy I used to trust.” He sighed and took a sip of his drink. “I don’t think I ever understood him. But you remind me of him, somewhat.”
“I am as far removed as a human being as you are from being a saint who’s never orphaned children.”
A pair of golden eyes set on him and studied him for a long moment. “You’re… angry?”
“The goddess gave me a temporary role as the guardian of a girl you terrified,” Ainchase answered as calmly as ever. The tiny furrow in his brow was so insignificant it might as well not exist. “And I just wish to know this: how long will it take before you stop hiding what you did under King Nasod’s control?”
“I don’t think I’m doing much hiding if you know about it,” Raven said before gulping the rest of his drink away. “I can’t revive the dead, can’t shoo people’s fear away, and I’m sure Vanessa won’t even let me make up for killing Owen’s bastard son and his mistress by adopting that other girl of his. I’m glad I didn’t kill both of Owen’s twins, but... I can understand if that girl still remembers that night.”
“What will you do, then?”
“What I’m already doing, Ain. Saving the world’s gotta count for something after you’ve destroyed the worlds of countless people, no?”