by J. J. Pavlov
"I... am sorry..." She sobs between each word. I'm unmistakably the reason for her newfound ruthless and murderous nature, so I have to be the one to keep her in check and teach her the limits. Even if she's a yandere, she's not the type that has departed the realm of common sense yet.
I kiss her on the forehead and separate from her. She quickly wipes her tears and forces a smile, but I know that my harshness has shaken her to the core.
Now for the hard part. My vularen back is pretty big, and I can easily fit two children next to Hestia. But will they be willing to ride on a giant wolf-like monster the likes of which they have never seen before in their lives?
"Don't be afraid." I say in a reassuring tone and hold out my palms in front of the boy to tell him that everything is alright. Falling on all fours, I transform into a massive vularen, then quickly add the carriage on top to make me look more inviting.
As expected, the children start screaming.
Chapter 52 - Lost In The Desert
The laughter of fascinated children echoes across the barren desert landscape. The dunes that piled up to a hundred meters in some places has slowly smoothened out to flat plains, and the fine sand transitioned into a rocky wasteland. Across it all, the voice of a boy and a girl unburdened by life's setbacks can be heard traveling on the wind.
Hanif, the older brother, and Fayza, the little sister, are riding on my back and enjoying this mode of transportation they would have never even dreamed of taking in their entire lives. Hestia's attitude toward them did a complete one hundred eighty after she wanted to mercy-kill them, and she was able to learn their names through a lot of gesturing and pointing.
Even though they know our names, they keep calling both of us 'lahuta'. Their pronunciation is entirely foreign, and their names are nothing like those in the Kingdom of Lares. It drives home that we're far from it right now more than even the landscape does.
My traveling speed on all fours is much faster than I could ever run on human legs. Of course, I have to be careful not to shake off my passengers accidentally, but we make significant progress under the guidance of Hanif as he periodically corrects my direction even though I don't see any especially prominent landmarks he could be using to orientate himself.
But while I don't tire and can run for hours without sleep, those on my back do need to rest. The sun nears the horizon to our rear when I find a cliff at the bottom of which we can set up camp. There's even a little dried up vegetation here that can be used to make a fire, and after transforming back into my human form, I use earth magic to open a hole in the wall that provides shelter for the night.
The issue of food comes up pretty quickly when I hear the stomachs of the children rumble. Unfortunately, all I can provide is water, as no magic can create food as far as I'm aware - or I would have learned it in the library first thing. Placing the bucket we took with us from the remains of the two siblings' tent on the ground before me, I ready myself.
"Pilos Aquos." With this, a ball of water forms inside it. It's larger than the ones I was able to summon in the sandy desert, meaning that the humidity in this area must be higher.
We did stop a few times to rehydrate along the way, but since I don't tire, hunger or thirst like an ordinary living being, it wasn't enough for them to endure the hot and dry climate. I can tell because even Hestia forgoes her usual dignified act and quickly gulps down the water from the bucket when it's her turn. At least she had enough restraint to let the children drink first.
Chanting the spell once again, I summon another sphere of water above my head. It splashes down on me and drenches my entire body. Sucking the moisture into it through the skin, I instantly dry myself and drink at the same time. It's a different application of absorbing food through my skin without using my mouth.
When I look at the kids, they stare at me with round eyes and open mouths. I understand that the water affinity allowing a person to summon water out of thin air in a desert climate would be considered a divine gift.
"Pilos Aquos." I speak the incantation and keep the resulting sphere afloat in the air, then point at it with a finger. "Water."
They stare at it for a moment and then at me again. Their expressions as they try to figure out what I mean are unexpectedly cute, and I catch myself playing with the idea of keeping them.
"Maan." Hanif seems to understand what I was trying to say and points at the water. Apparently, that's the word for water in their language, and it sounds pretty simple. While I'm not trying to teach him, there's actually not a hint of him trying to repeat the word I said. Maybe he dislikes the sound of it, or he doesn't consider the possibility that I might be teaching him after all.
"Drink." With one hand, I gesture towards the ball of water, and a cup-sized amount separates from it, which I bring to my lips and suck out of the air. It's a strange feeling, but I've seen a video of astronauts doing it like that on a space station.
Instead of translating, the two children cheer at my neat little trick. It wasn't what I intended, but seeing even Hestia clapping her hands in a reserved manner, I scratch the back of my head in embarrassment.
"Wait, that's not what I meant." I stop myself and pick up the empty bucket the other three drank from. Then I put the rest of the water sphere inside it before lifting it to my lips and drinking it demonstratively. When I finish, I repeat myself. "Drink."
"Shuriba." Hanif claps his hands once in understanding and exclaims. Then he brings out a leather bag from within the folds of his dark robe, uncorks it and puts it against his lips. It's a waterskin, like the ones we used during our journey from Hovsgaerden to Kongenssoevn. No water is flowing from it, so just as I thought, they had already run dry before we arrived.
I doubt I'll remember those words because their pronunciations are wholly different from that of Imperian. And even that I got for free the moment I was reincarnated into this world, so I didn't have to make an effort to learn it. It did take me some time to learn the written form, but I could already speak it, so it was much more accessible. Having to pick up an entirely new language from scratch without any crutches like textbooks and dictionaries will be impossible for me.
As we pass the time teaching each other common vocabulary, I notice that Fayza has dozed off already. Hestia also appears tired, and Hanif is only kept awake by the excitement from our little game. I gesture at his little sister and signal for him to join her. He does as he's told and lies down on the bedroll they brought along, next to the little girl.
I leave the cave and look up into the sky. A band of stars covers the entire heavenly dome, and I'm reminded of Kamii's eyes. As the curtain closes on the first day apart from her, I think of all the things that could have happened to her while I was gone.
Transforming my right index finger into a bone blade, I carve a line into my left forearm. I could easily create one from differently-colored skin, but the pain serves to remind me of the urgency of our situation. Closing the wound just enough for it to leave a scar, I ball my fist in determination. From now on, I'll do this every night until I'm back by her side.
And I'll forgo sleep too. If my body can handle never resting, then my mind will have to grow to match it.
"Good morning, Chloe." Hestia emerges from the cave shortly before the sun completely separates from the horizon. Seeing me outside at this time, she begins to wonder. "Were you awake all night?"
"Yes." I respond calmly. As expected, I'm not feeling any fatigue as long as I occupy myself with a goal. Throughout the night, I tried my hardest to remember what the teleportation circle under the academy looked like, and when I continued to draw blanks, I started practicing partial transformation.
I also learned to save a template as one would do with equipment sets in video games. If I transform into a vularen and back, the scar on my arm would typically disappear. But my blond and blue-eyed appearance from when I was in the kingdom is now saved, and I can always return to it with just a thought.
Chloe Marcott is no longe
r just a constructed fake identity of Chaos; she has become an aspect of it. After all, I spent most of my life in this world in that form, and it's the one Kamii, Daica, and Hestia fell in love with.
"Are you alright?" The fallen angel comes up to me and asks with a concerned expression.
"Don't worry about it. I'm fine." Although I'm not really; I did just spend a whole night trying to recall something that was clearly ripped out of my memories. When I couldn't, I played around with my body, all to escape my own thoughts. Different scenarios of what could have happened to Kamii after Hestia and I disappeared crept into my consciousness and wouldn't give me any rest even if I had wanted to.
I'm not a pessimist, but the worst possible outcome continues to haunt me. Maybe that's why I promised myself not to sleep; I subconsciously knew that I would see nightmares of Kamii's fate if the dams of my deepest fears were to be forced open during my weakest time of the day.
"Are you well-rested?" I ask the angel girl in a serious tone. Hanif didn't explain how far the city was going to be, but I fear that neither they nor Hestia will survive the journey without food. We have to switch to a faster mode of transportation and try to cover the distance in one quick burst.
Then I remember another issue that comes first.
"Hestia, how are your eyes?" I seriously hope the curse doesn't permanently worsen her eyesight in exchange for using her ability.
"I think they are better now." Looking into the distance, she replies with a smile. I breathe a sigh of relief; that means it's only a temporary tradeoff, and repeated use of this powerful skill might only blind her for a while so that she can't spam it endlessly. At least that would be the reasoning behind it if this were a game.
"Do you think you have enough energy to fly for a day?" Then I bring up the next question.
"Yes, I use very little energy when I am flying. Fatas can glide for long distances without beating their wings." Hestia responds with a confident smile.
"Can you do so while carrying somebody?"
"If it is only one of the children..."
"Then carry Fayza. I'll take Hanif." I quickly decide and transform into a full copy of her, including the black wings. My body doesn't tire even if I have to flap my wings more often, so I can carry the heavier of the two without a problem.
"That is a strange feeling." Hestia stares at me with a perplexed expression. Last time I tried out her template, she was asleep and didn't see me. It must be like an out-of-body experience for her.
"How about this?" I turn back into my human form but keep her wings. The moment I do so, I remember that humans lack the muscles to support what is essentially an extra pair of arms. They droop down, and I realize that partial transformations aren't as easy as I thought after all. Creating a vularen's olfactory systems inside my nose was one thing, but extra limbs that require corresponding muscles will require more work.
Doing it over, I leave most of the torso in Hestia's template, growing her bountiful mounds that seem to exist solely to hide the extra pair of pectoral muscles underneath the ones for the arms. Looking down at myself, I get the urge to feel them up but suppress it.
"This should do it." Beating the wings as a test, I then realize that I'm too heavy because of my human bones and denser muscles everywhere else in the body. Essentially hollowing myself out by cheating with my physically impossible body, I reduce my weight too. At this point, I might as well have stayed in the angel girl's complete form. But this way we can appear as two separate people.
"Chloe, I think you should do something about not wearing clothes." Pointing at my naked body, Hestia remarks with a glance past me. I turn around and see that Hanif and Fayza have woken up and are peeking out of the cave.
"It's alright. I have a plan for when we do reach a town." Winking at the fallen angel, I turn around to face the two kids in all of my naked glory. They stare at my black wings with sparkling eyes instead - as expected of children.
"Qashrad Al-Majnun?" Hanif asks in an excited voice. He turns to his sister whose expression I've seen before; fans of idols look up to them like that. I have no idea what the boy said, but he keeps repeating it in a more confident way instead of voicing it as a question. Maybe he came to a conclusion about what I am, and judging by his tone, it's nothing negative. He may even think that I'm some kind of goddess.
I squat down in front of him and stretch out my arms as if asking for a hug. It's exactly what I want to do when we take off, although I'll secure him to my body with some tentacles too - let's see how he reacts to that at the time. His innocent expression of awe from receiving such attention from what he may think is a mystical existence is quite endearing.
But instead of him, his sister runs forward and jumps into my embrace and buries her face into my bountiful breasts. If she weren't a child, I'd think she's doing this with an ulterior motive, but maybe she just saw something like a mother figure in me.
"Fayza!" Hanif's voice sounds reprimanding as if scolding her for being so straightforward with me.
"Don't worry." I say even though I know that he doesn't understand. But words hold power no matter the language, and the reassuring tone I deliver it in should calm him down. "And sweetie, I need you to be like this."
Taking Fayza's shoulders, I turn her around so that she faces away from me. Before she can run back to her brother's side, thinking that I'm turning her away, I pick her up at the waist. Tentacles grow from my shoulders and create a makeshift harness with which I secure her in place.
"Medha tafalu?!" Seeing this, Hanif's eyes widen in shock. I'm sure the sight of these tentacles is scary.
But not waiting for him to get the wrong idea, I spread my wings and beat them, creating a gust of wind underneath them that blows the dust aside. With a few strong beats, I soar up into the sky and look down at Hestia and the boy staring up at us.
Fayza's voice comes out as surprised and excited squeals when she finds that her legs are now dangling over a drop of several dozen meters. But instead of struggling, she holds onto the harness made from my tentacles with all her might. For the average human of an era of this technological level, flying must be a completely foreign concept. While wind mages can levitate, taking to the skies like this must be farfetched even for them.
Circling a few times, I come back down and land near where we took off. Hanif runs over to us while I let Fayza down to see how she's holding up after our short trip in the air. If one or both can't handle flying, I'll have to get back to carrying them as a vularen, but I'd prefer the faster mode of transportation.
The older brother is most definitely asking the shaky little sister whether or not she's alright. Her legs are quivering, and she can't even take a step, but when she replies with a nod and then begins to talk excitedly, I can tell that she braved it pretty well. She isn't crying or throwing up, so she should be fine.
"Hanif." I call out to the boy as he continues to ask Fayza questions. Either he wants to be sure that she's alright, or he's trying to glean impressions about what it felt like. Once again, I stretch out my arms.
He stares at me for a moment but then approaches me slowly and gingerly. If he were a perverted boy, he would have jumped into my bosom just like his sister did innocently before. But knowing that I'm going to strap him to my chest with his back, he comes over and nervously turns around on his own.
"Good boy." Embracing him from behind, I once again grow out the tentacle harness. With the bigger kid fixed in place, I take off once again, noting that it's slightly more difficult with the added weight. But I don't tire, so it's going to be alright even if I have to carry him for a long time.
Performing a flight test with him, I notice that he quickly embraces the idea just like his sister did. He was screaming in fear when we first took off, but now his voice is filled with excitement as he even spreads his arms instead of holding onto the harness with all his might. The liberating sensation of flying freely through the sky will have any earthbound person craving for more.
And using the angel girl's template gives me the instinct to glide for a long time without having to beat my wings. She's behind me with Fayza strapped to her chest using cloth twisted into ropes since she lacks the convenient feature of growing a harness from her own body that I have.
We travel for most of the day while I fly above Hestia to shield her from the sun with my shadow and refueling her water stores with magic without landing. As the sun nears the horizon behind us, I see something reflective in the distance.
"Hey, over there." Calling out to Hestia, who's flying in my slipstream to conserve energy, I point ahead. I turned my eyes into those of Fatas so that I can spot anything out of the ordinary from afar, and it paid off.
"Yes, I see it!" The fallen angel sounds tired but happy. She's nearing the end of her strength, and going for two days without food and only water created through magic can't be good for her health.
As we approach it, I find that the reflective surface I saw was the gilded and closed gate of a walled-off city. It's far smaller than Hovsgaerden, but the walls look taller and are made from clay. People are patrolling the walls, so I signal Hestia to land.
"We shouldn't fly in there. In fact, I think you shouldn't even show your wings." When I let Hanif down, and he reunites with his sister while walking on shaky legs, I explain to the angel girl why we're stopping here.
"But I cannot hide them." She folds her wings and tries to make them look as small as possible, but they're still huge. If she were to cover herself with robes, her back would be bulging unnaturally.
"That's why I told you I had an idea for when we reach the town. After all, I don't have clothes either." With a grin, I approach Hestia, who looks at me in uneasiness. It's like she's anticipating something bad happening. "You're going to wear me."