Reminder:
“” Is for Hoof Speech, sounds like English.
~~ is for Umbral Talk, sounds like German with a twist of Russian.
°° is for Radiant Word, sounds like French with a hint of Greek.
…
“Is it really so bad that your friend Harriet is bringing the Umbral Fury here?,” Bellona asked.”I mean, I’ve looked around the latter’s mind before, she seems like a nice person.”
At this point in time, both Alicia and Bellona had dismissed their weapons and outfits back into their hair pins after ending their sparring session a touch early. After all, and proper ladies they had to put in an air of dignity and grace when receiving unexpected guests. Even one as questionable in repute as Umbral Fury.
“Probably not, but it doesn’t hurt in being careful,” Alicia admitted. “,[Chaos] is surprisingly powerful and I’d rather not accidentally expose it to someone who sent three students to the hospital wing with a single punch.”
“Uh…Alicia?”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t that something Zhen Liu can already do?,”Bellona pointed out, remembering a few instances where he and the kaijin, for lack of a better word, punched the living daylights out of multiple people.
Due to their close relationships, Bellona and Alicia would occasionally join Zhen Liu whenever he did his training in that abandoned quarry of his. As such, they managed to witness firsthand how he would spar with the kaijin, the zako and practice some rather basic yet fruitful exercise routines. There were also moments of “fan service” that kept the girls watching, but that wasn’t important right now.
“You’re not wrong with that statement, but you kind of forget an important factor with that statement.”
“Which is…”
“Zhen Liu is not the type to randomly punch someone in the face just because he was feeling moody that day. That’s what the Kaijin are there for.”
“Fair enough,” Bellona capitulated while remembering the sheer number of times that the Kaijin threatened to eat someone, while Zhen Liu ordered them not to do so.”I suppose he is a lot more level-headed in comparison to other elite warriors.”
“Exactly. Now then, help me figure out what kind of tea we should be brewing right now. I’m leaning towards something herbal but I recently got my hands on some Sea Salt Peanut Butter cookies…”
…Couple minutes later…
°Now I think Alicia and Bellona are currently in the middle of sparring so there’s no guarantee that they’ll be-°
°Bonjour Harriet! You’re just in time for tea!°
°Oh! Never mind!°
‘Well, that’s some suspiciously good timing.’
Alice had assumed that by the time she and Harriet would arrive at the rented out training field, that she would be seeing this aforementioned Alicia and Bellona locked in the midst of combat.
Instead, she saw the presumed pair of young women sitting and chatting around a small table with an elegant tea set and resting on it. (Un)surprisingly, there were enough seats to fit four people and in the back, she could see a dutiful maid assassin.
‘Ah, so that’s the presence I felt earlier…although, this girl and her friend…don’t seem like the type to employ such individuals on the regular.’
On a surface glance, Alice’s impression of the two girls were that they were the typical archetypes of a rich girl and a royal. Then again, she wasn’t exactly one to talk to either.
°My word! Alicia, is that Earl Grey tea I smell?°
°Indeed! I figured it would go best with these Sea Salt Peanut Butter cookies I acquired.°
°Lovely!°
Deep green eyes, sun kissed skin with freckles and light brown hair done up into a ponytail and held in place with a gear-shaped accessory, all wrapped up in a lacey blue dress done in the Stampeding Bison style. These were the physical traits that gave Alice the impression of a girl who was definitely “frontier rich”.
°Bellona! It is good to see you again!”
°Likewise Harriet, likewise! You’re just as bubbly as I remember.°
°Oh, you!°
Bellona, on the other hand, had rather pale skin and curly, almost wool-like hair. These traits, combined with the hoof-like feet wrapped in specialized gilded stockings and dark purple clothes, made it clear that she was royalty.
‘A royal sheep Bloodliner…I wonder if she’s related to that royal sheep Bloodliner who showed up at the estate last month…’
A couple more moments of small talk and pleasantries being exchanged occurred before proper introductions were made.
“Ah, where are my manners,” Harriet stopped while switching languages. “Alicia, Bellona. This is Alice Dunkelkrieg. Alice, meet Alicia Seanno Goldshire and Bellona Ecaredies.”
~Nice to meet you, Alice.~
~Greetings.~
“No need to change the language with me, I know enough Hoof Speech,” Alice dismissed before moving topics.”Wait a minute Ecaredies…I think I met a cousin of yours recently.”
“Oh really? Did it have to do with the ongoing succession war?”
“Uh…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Bellona waved her hand in dismissal. “I’ve made my peace with the war, it probably won’t end in too much bloodshed.”
‘Dark humor type. Noted.’
After that rather…unusual joke…Alice finally seated herself at the table to properly enjoy the refreshments and get to know these two friends of Harriet, who both happened to be from Stampeding Bison.
A place that’s been on her mind as of late.
“So tell me, Alice, what’s Umbral Spider like? I’ve only heard my father’s perspective on the place. He says it’s lovely, but that the local flora gets quite strange” Alicia asked.
“If you’re talking about the sprouting bone trees and fungi, I get what you mean. Such sights can be unnerving to travellers,” Alice smoothly answered.
“Interesting…”
“If anything though, I’m more curious about how you and Harriet got involved with each other,” Bellona chimed in. “I thought the rivalry between Umbral Spider and Radiant Feather was quite fierce.”
The word “fierce” was doing a lot of heavy lifting in describing the relationship between the two aforementioned continents.
It was a known fact that the border between Radiant Feather and Umbral Spider was an absurd guerrilla warzone, with combatants numbering by the millions from both sides. In fact, it’s often been said that the mastery of death aether began in this warzone, just because of all the corpses dating all the way back to the dawn of time.
It was due to this factor that it’s often been said that if anyone ever wanted to disturb the Buddha, they should just have a man from Radiant Feather and a man from Umbral Spider become his students.
Of course, there were always exceptions to the rules.
“Bellona!,” Harriet interjected, aghast.”I’m not some brute who just randomly-”
“It’s fine, Harriet, it’s fine,” Alice dismissed, “Bellona’s just the type to bust people’s balls do fun, right?”
“Sometimes,” Bellona smiled in an impish manner. “I suppose I wanted to see what kind of person you would be when aggravated. Have to say, you’re a lot cooler than the rumors suggest.”
“Much appreciated,” Alice said while lifting her teacup to her mouth. As she did though, she couldn’t help but notice an odd undercurrent to the tea.
‘Hmmm? This energy…’
As a warrior from Umbral Spider, Alice was used to detecting poisons and other dangerous substance in her food. Mostly because the best tasting foodstuffs in Umbral Spider were poisonous to the point that people could only dilute the toxins, but not completely erase them.
Based on this experience, Alice could sense that tea wasn’t poisoned, rather that the energy of the maker simply leaked into the food.
Alchemists normally train to control such things, while some aether warriors unconsciously do so when doing anything. In other words, this tea gave Alice a chance to “taste” the character of the brewer.
‘I think I remember them saying that Alicia was the one who made this… I wonder what her character is like…’
The first thing Alice tasted from the tea was the taste of spiced dried orange peel.
‘Mmm. Refreshing.’
The second thing she tasted was…strangely nostalgic.
‘Wait a minute…’
Painfully nostalgic.
‘Why do I know this energy? It feels like I’ve…no way.’
Ever since Alice arose from her comatosed state, she had been haunted by a strange memory that was almost like a dream.
A memory that was directly related to how she awoken.
‘Why do these girls…could it…no…’
She wasn’t entirely sure on the details, but she recalled the feeling that she was being used like living mask for a number of years, fighting and growing but reaping none of the benefits.
However, that all came to an end when the person using her confronted a strange young man and his ballerina puppet.
And that her nightmare came to an end, when she got kicked in the face by that strange young man, and he injected into her, a very strange energy.
An energy that she now smelled in this tea.
‘Perhaps these girls can assist me…’
________________________________________
*Bing-Bong*
Once again, I’m confused, this chapter is still pretty light.
|Wait for it.|
*Bing-Bong*
