“See? I told you I’m not insane!” I grinned at Willow. “Not a lifeless statue! He has emotions! He’s a real boy!” I pointed at Chad’s new smile.

“But… how? Did my ability reach him too…?” Willow whispered with a frown.

“Nah! He was just really happy for me, so he smiled! Simple math!” I patted Chad on the back. “Ain’t that right, buddy?”

Her frown deepened. “I’m out of energy for now. But when I get recharged, I’m gonna try using my ability again. Directly this time.”

“Uhm, wait, why is nobody questioning the fact that a statue changed its expression?” Kelly exclaimed with a look of horror on her face. “Does that mean you can reanimate statues into people? Or did he use to be a real person and got petrified?” Her eyes widened. “Wait, didn’t you say he was being used as a statue in the middle of the village square? Who put a petrified elven hero up as a statue?!”

The two of us stared at her in shock. Those were some very good questions.

“Well, dear Watson,” I started. “That’s what we’re gonna find out.” I put a hand on my chin and tried to look serious while throwing a suspicious glance at Chad.

“Why are you always like this…?” The demon whispered. “Can you take this seriously for once?” she groaned.

“What are you talking about? I’m completely serious about it! I’ll figure out who did this to my buddy even if I have to go through seven hells!” I crossed my arms and looked at Kelly whilst setting my expression.

“Okay, actually… Now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t use my ability on him once I’m recharged,” Willow interrupted us.

“Wait, what? Why?”

“Well…” she pointed at my hair.

I picked up a strand and looked at it. “Oh… Hmm…”

Unlike its vaguely reddish-brown color from before, it was deep crimson now. In fact, it was exactly the same color as all the evil red-haired elves had in all these picture books.

Did that mean that those hairist elves were right all along? Or was this just one big conspiracy? Eh, it was probably all just nonsense anyway.

“Nah! It’s fine! Chad is my buddy!” I waved my hand nonchalantly. ”I’m sure he won’t be as hairist as the others!”

“I don’t know… You did say that his legend was what started the whole red hair discrimination.” She shot a nervous peek at the smiling hero’s face. “I wouldn’t want to use up all my power to revive him just so he could stab you or something.”

Somehow, that reminded me of back when I woke Willow up, only to find myself with her sword up to my neck. Fun times.

“Oh, don’t say that! Look at that face!” I pointed at Chad. “Do you think this is the smile of someone who would stab you in the back as soon as you saved his life?!”

“Actually… Kind of…” Kelly whispered.

I ignored her.

“Moreover, what better way to defy fate of being the world destroyers than to revive a certified hero from legends?!”

The goblin gave me a long tired sigh. “Alright… Fine. I’ll try it bit by bit though. Not reviving him all at once just in case.”

Always so paranoid…

“Wait, wouldn’t that kill him…?” Kelly asked.

“What?”

“Well, if you first revive just his head for example… His heart would still be a stone and wouldn’t be pumping blood.”

“Ah… Right. Alright fine. I’ll revive him all at once when I get recharged. But we really need to be careful here.”

“Good! You hear that Chad? Soon, you’ll be free to save worlds and stuff again!”

His answer was his now signature smile. I smiled back and gave him a thumbs up much to the apparent dismay of my other companions.

While waiting for her batteries to recharge, I took stock of what had happened.

First, my body. It felt amazing. That was so weird. I had no idea existing could feel amazing on its own, but apparently, it was possible. I eyed Willow suspiciously, thinking she did something more than just turn me into a cute girl.

“Yeah… I also couldn’t believe it when I did it to myself.” She gave me a wry smile.

Huh, not sure what she was implying there. Did her transformation ability also come with some addictive feels-good kind of drug effect? That was only slightly disturbing… But well, better than the opposite.

Anyway, next up, my hair. Yup, calling it red would be an understatement of its redness. Blazing crimson would be a much more accurate assessment. Truly beautiful. All elves in the village would be hyper jealous. After all, red-haired elves were so rare that legends had to be made about them! The whole world-destroying bit was probably pushed in just to add a bit of flavor to the legends, I bet. All just to play it all up for the sheeple.

A short discussion of my amazing hair later, which left the two dismayed for some reason, we all went to sleep for the day, while we waited for Willow’s lasers to charge.

With the white menace still terrorizing the outside like some kind of zombie virus outbreak, we usually just hibernated through most of the day. Only waking up to eat, tend to our farms and mana tree, and have little chats. I couldn’t continue to experiment with potion-making inside my bubbles since most plants and herbs had withered already. Such a shame…

That night, I slept like a newborn baby. Maybe in a way, I was a newborn baby. A newborn baby with the most beautiful hair ever, that is. I even had an amazing dream that left me excited and happy when I woke up. Too bad I instantly forgot what it was about, other than Chad being in there and carrying me like a princess.

The next day, it was time to prepare for the ritual to break the hero’s curse.

I planted down candles -- with a wooden base instead of a vax one -- around Chad, drew some intricate patterns on the ground around him using the reddish-orange juice of the mana fruits, and waited for the other two to wake up.

“What… the heck are you doing?” was Willow’s response to my perfectly prepared ritual of the awakening.

“Your ability is way too anticlimactic to watch! I needed to create a fitting atmosphere for this grand event!” I replied, still riding the euphoria from being transformed myself.

Once again, I managed to send my goblin friend into a shocked silence. Unfortunately, she had developed resistance to it as she’d spent so much time with me already, and quickly recovered. “Right, okay. I recharged a bit of my energy, but I’m not sure if it’s gonna be enough.”

She looked at the hero. “We should probably wait a little more. As Kelly said, I wouldn’t want to revive just part of him, only for a vital organ to still be a stone.”

Damn. Good point.

“Alright, fine!”

A few more days of waiting didn’t bother me if it meant I would be reunited with my bestie!

BottledChaos

Hey everyone! I'm back! I made a public post on my patreon explaining why I was gone and my plans going forward. tl;dr - Life is finally easing up with those punches to my face, so I'm getting back to writing! More of elf, a continuation of Princess Fox, and a rewrite of Felice Hybrid are all in the works.
(Also, I totally won't mind if you pledge to get early access to chapters.)