Fairy Theft — Aquaril (2)
Where... is this?
Aquaril — Hwaryongwang's strongest fairy — was certain she had lost her way in a boundless ocean of darkness. There was nothing to see in any direction but black. No landmark existed, and her senses were so scrambled she could not tell whether she was standing, lying down, or sitting.
Fwoosh—!
This is... Master's fire.
Flames bloomed out of the dark, several of them, flaring to life around her and wrapping her in their light. She knew by instinct that these flames were her Master's mana — the power bound to her own soul.
Master...
The look in Aquaril's eyes as she watched those flames could not have been warmer. Even in this nameless dark, her Master's mana was trying to protect her. She wanted to see him.
And then —
Slither—
...What?
The darkness heaved, a great rolling surge, and swallowed four of the flames whole. Before she could so much as react, ten flames had become six.
What is—!
Aquaril reeled. The bond with her Master had weakened by exactly as much as the fire had dwindled.
What is happening?
Fear shook through her. She could feel it in her bones: if every last flame went out, the connection to her Master would be severed forever. She would never see the Master she loved again.
Slither—
No!
Aquaril screamed into the dark. The darkness heaved again and devoured four more flames. Only two remained now, and the bond with her Master had thinned to a thread.
She tried desperately to gather those last two flames into her arms, to shield them with her own body if she had to. But she could not move. In that darkness she was a butterfly trussed in spider-silk, wings pinned, utterly helpless.
Slip—
AAAAAAAAAH!
And the darkness took the last two flames as well. Aquaril screamed.
FWOOOOSH—!
In that instant, a new flame revealed itself before her.
It was a fire of an entirely different nature from her Master's. It writhed like a serpent flicking its tongue, and it began to coil around Aquaril's body, winding over her, claiming her.
Ah — ahhh...!
The moment the flame covered her, she felt it: this fire wanted her with a fierce, consuming hunger. It was greed given form. A truly rapacious flame.
What in the world is this...
And in the same breath, she felt her soul bind itself to someone who was not Hwaryongwang. Once again, instinct told her everything she needed to know. She had a new Master.
A fairy's ownership passing to another?
She had never once heard of such a thing being possible. Even the Magic King, whose mastery was said to reach the heavens themselves, had tried to seize another Master's fairy — and had failed in the end.
Who...?
Who had stolen the ownership that Hwaryongwang had held over her?
While the question was still turning in her mind, the darkness began to recede. A white light found her, and at the end of that light stood the man she would serve for the rest of her life. Her new Master.
You... are my Master...
The moment she saw his handsome face, Aquaril felt a kinship with him that went deeper than words.
A fairy is the most loyal retainer there is — a being that will throw its life away for its Master without a second thought. But fairies fear death too. They hurt when they are wounded. Different species, nothing more; they are no different from people. They simply crush that terror beneath loyalty, clinging to the faith that someday their Master will summon them again.
My Master... he's terrified of dying.
Everyone fears death. But the new Master standing before her feared it more than anyone she had ever known. And in that fear, Aquaril found something she recognized.
"Hey, Aquaril. From now on, I'm your Master."
"Fairy Aquaril. I present myself before my Master."
Her new Master smiled and offered her a greeting. The loyal fairy returned it, bowing to the man who now owned her.
Alan Han.
The name of the man who had been an enemy she was supposed to kill — and who was now her Master.
A man stood on a terrace, watching the sun come up.
He was thirty-five this year — an age that should have been the prime of a man's strength — but he did not look it. He looked like an old man who had been through too much. His hair was white as an elder's, dry and brittle, as if it would snap between two fingers. He was tall, but so wasted that the bones showed through his skin, as though he had no muscle left on him at all. Dark, heavy circles hung beneath his eyes, and in the pupils that faced the rising sun there lived a deep, abiding terror of a certain someone.
Who would ever have guessed?
That this frail, shrunken man was a Master of no fewer than six fairies — and the lord of this city, Indigo. The Hwaryongwang.
"...Kh!"
The memory rose unbidden — the man he had met only once, years ago — and Hwaryongwang's body shook as if a gale were tearing through him. The mere thought of that man drained the strength from his legs. He sank to the floor where he stood.
The horrors of his youth had carved scars into both his mind and his flesh, deep enough that they would never close. He did not want to remember. He remembered anyway. The terror of that day returned as if he had been thrown backward through time, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
"Damn it..."
He had not always been this frightened creature. When he was younger still, he had been all fire and nerve, overflowing with ambition. He had cut down the other princes who stood between him and the throne, one after another. He had believed, with a conviction that admitted no doubt, that he would be king. With the fairies who stood so steadfastly at his side, he had been certain he could defeat any enemy — even the emperor of the Ferdium Empire, which, though its glory was not what it had been, still held the largest stretch of land in all of Gaiarium.
It was an absurd claim, of course. But that was how vast his confidence had been. No one alive could have matched it.
And one man had smashed that confidence to pieces.
Young Hwaryongwang, who had decided he was finally worthy of a crown, had challenged the man who already wore a king's title. He had been destroyed. The fairies who had cut down rival after rival at his side died without landing a single blow worth mentioning. If that man had not shown the young challenger a sliver of mercy, Hwaryongwang would have died on the spot as well.
Stripped of the fairies that had been the very foundation of his power, the boy fled. He fled and fled again. Some nights he woke from a nightmare of that man killing him and ran until dawn. He ran until he reached Indigo, a small city at the southernmost tip of Gaiarium.
He put down roots there. From that day forward he gathered strength, summoned new fairies, and made himself the ruler of Indigo. He named himself the Hwaryongwang.
He wore a king's title, the same as that man. The fear carved into his mind and body was another matter. He could not overcome it. He could barely even shape the syllables of that man's royal title in his mouth.
"The Wan—... ghk...!"
"Master! Are you all right?"
A woman came running the moment she found him crumpled on the terrace floor, shaking. It was Nami, one of Hwaryongwang's fairies.
Besides Nami, three more fairies attended him at all times, never more than a few steps away. Ever since that man had broken him — ever since the nightmares that still came, even now — Hwaryongwang had made certain that at least four fairies stood guard over him. If he were ever left alone, he was sure that man would appear from nowhere and kill him the way he had killed the others.
No one in Indigo knew that its ruler was a coward. No one except his fairies.
"I'm fi—"
He tried, at least in front of his own fairy, to keep some scrap of dignity. He pushed the old horror down as hard as he could and waved a hand, meaning to put Nami at ease.
Snap—!
"....!"
Hwaryongwang's eyes flew wide. One of the bonds — the invisible thread tying him to one of his fairies — had just been cut.
A Master and a fairy are joined by something the eye cannot see. No matter how far apart they stand, if one of them dies, the other knows it at once.
"The connection with Aquaril... it's gone?"
Ryona, Nami, the others — those bonds were still intact, soul to soul. The one that had been severed was Aquaril's.
"Master? What are you saying? The connection with Aquaril is gone? You don't mean — is Aquaril dead?"
"This isn't... this isn't death."
"What?"
A bond only broke when one of the two died. Hwaryongwang had felt a fairy die before. He knew what that severance felt like. What he felt now was different, and he knew it in his gut. This could not be explained by Aquaril simply dying.
It was as if... as if someone had reached in and stolen the thread that had run between them.
"...Ryona!"
"Yes?"
"Bring Ryona here. Now. Hurry!"
"Y-yes, Master!"
Startled by the shout, Nami rushed out to carry her Master's order. The fairies who had been sleeping in the bed or standing watch beyond the door looked from Hwaryongwang to Nami and back again, bewildered.
"What... what the hell is happening?"
The same ominous feeling that had crawled over him the day that man destroyed him was crawling over him now. The hand gripping the terrace rail would not stop shaking.
"Nice."
I smiled, plenty satisfied. I had just stolen the ownership of Aquaril, Hwaryongwang's ace. Princess Prisia — the one who'd stabbed me in the back and run off to save her own skin — was an enemy I still needed to deal with. But Hwaryongwang was an enemy I had to bring down too. Gutting his fighting strength like this was already a hell of a win.
Should I just let her off the hook?
The more I thought about it, the more I had to admit this whole situation only existed because Princess Prisia had dragged me here in the first place. If she hadn't brought me to this city, a stroke of luck like this never would have fallen into my lap.
"...Nah. Betrayal still has a price. That's how it has to be."
I turned it over for a second and shook my head. A good outcome didn't wash the betrayal clean. Besides, I would have climbed into the ranks of the strong soon enough even without becoming a servant of Uroboros, the 10-Star monster. Past-life experience and knowledge don't just vanish. Getting the class Uroboros's Avatar had only shortened the road.
"First I should treat her wou— huh?"
I figured I ought to at least stop the bleeding, so I dismissed Aquaril's status window. Something about it felt off — like too much had changed — so I pulled it back up.
◈ Trait: Close-Combat Expert
◈ Class: Swordsman (Lv.7)
1. Swift Blade(Lv.1)
2. Danger Sense(Lv.1)
"...What the hell is this?"
I stared at Aquaril's status window and nearly had a heart attack.
She had been two-star. Now she was one-star. Her level had crashed from twenty-three to fourteen — a nine-level nosedive. The stats that had made her untouchable in Indigo, her class level, her skill levels: all of it had been gutted.
Why? Because she'd been torn up that badly? Or was it just the system's shitty way of saying it wasn't about to hand over a quality fairy for free?
Either way, it was bad news for me.
"...Tch."
Infuriating as hell, but there was nothing I could do about it. Not like I had anyone to file a complaint with. And until I scraped together the three thousand gems I owed Uroboros as tribute, I couldn't summon a new fairy anyway. In this situation, I had to get on my knees and raise even a nerfed Aquaril like she was a gift from heaven.
"Nnh...!"
A low sound escaped her. Aquaril, who had been out cold through the entire ownership transfer, was finally stirring, her eyes opening by slow degrees.
At the same time, every wound on her body — the ones the E-Rank dungeon's boss monster had torn into her, and the ones I had left myself — began to bubble and foam, knitting shut as I watched. I took the clothes I'd stripped off and wiped the blood from her skin. What emerged underneath was pale, unblemished, and flawless.
"Wow. Our lord really doesn't skimp on the aftercare, huh?"
I shot a thumbs-up at the six-headed serpent that was still standing there, watching the two of us like it had nowhere better to be. Maybe I imagined it, but I could have sworn the thing gave me a little eye-smile.
Anyway. Aquaril was my fairy now. I set aside the grudges of the last few days and offered her a greeting.
"Hey, Aquaril. From now on, I'm your Master."
She stared up at me with a dazed, unfocused look. Then her mouth opened.
"Fairy Aquaril. I present myself before my Master."