Chapter 332 - The Scheming God’s Apostle III

Sylvia raised her butt and stretched her back as her mind was slowly reinstated. Like butterflies in the wind, her eyes slowly fluttered open and revealed the beautiful dawn sky, only to close again as an embarrassingly long yawn found its way up her throat.

“Good morning,” she said, as she settled back into her chair.

“It’s not morning,” said the two-legged sofa.

“It isn’t?” She turned her eyes to the horizon and confirmed its colour. “It looks like morning.”

“Because it’s evening.”

“Huh?” The fox blinked. “Wait, really!?”

She stood up on her hind legs and scanned their surroundings. Surely enough, a quick look confirmed that the camp was freshly established. The only maid chopped up their rations while the champions engaged in their evening routines. Some were sparring, some were practicing their forms, and some were resting, doing away with the day’s fatigue knowing that they would soon be tasked with guarding the camp.

Looking purely at the scene before her, the fox was almost, almost tempted to think that the head maid was living up to her title. It was only her ability to read the succubus’ mind that convinced her otherwise. Chloe was surprisingly high spec; she had four separate streams of consciousness running perfectly in parallel. It was a shame then that three of them were occupied with lewd thoughts. Even the last was half consumed—it was truly a marvel how she was functional at all.

“What the heck!? I swear it was evening when I went to bed last night too. How did I sleep for a whole day!?”

“I was wondering the same thing,” said Claire. “I was going to dunk you into a river if you didn’t wake up in another hour.”

“Wha!?” Sylvia looked into her pet’s head and found a perfectly constructed image of her holding a fully conscious fox underwater. “Now that’s just mean!” 

“I needed to check if you were still alive.”

“You can literally hear my heartbeat!” said the vixen, with her cheeks puffed up.

“I needed to check if you were in a coma.”

“That doesn’t mean you should try to drown me!”

“Don’t worry. It would’ve been my last resort,” said Claire.

“Liar!” cried the fox. She lightly thwacked her paws against her chair over and over. “Ughhh. You’re so mean,” she huffed.

Though still annoyed, Sylvia eventually halted her paws with a humph and returned her eyes to the area around them. They had set up camp in a clearing along the side of a forested road. Both sides had large trees extending far and wide, as was the case back home, but the scenery was not exactly familiar. While Vel’khan’s forests were made up of dense jungle, the foreign land was not quite as overgrown. The soil was much sandier and its composition greatly limited what could and couldn’t grow. Most of the trees were cypresses, palms, and ginkgos, with the occasional honey locust and zelkova mixed in. The ground was still covered in grasses, but there were a few shrubs and bushes present to hide the trees’ roots. At least compared to what they were accustomed to, the landscape was empty and bare.

There were only two tents set up around the site. They were identical, for the most part, but the men’s faced towards the fire while the women’s was directed away from it. Considering Arciel’s position, it would have made more sense to bring three tents along, but the queen had explicitly spoken out against it.

Given the headcount, the women’s tent should have been a bit of a tighter squeeze, but it was only really the men who found themselves uncomfortable. Jules, whose shell had a diameter of three meters at its thickest point, took up as much room as Claire, Sylvia, and Lana combined. It wasn’t like Ace or Matthias were much smaller, with the lizardman standing over two meters and the mantis nearing three. The reptile had an added tail to consider, and the mantis’ shape was anything but compact. Krail was the only one whose size fell within the standard humanoid range, but the men took up more space than the women even with him entirely dismissed.

Space wouldn’t have been a problem had they used regular army tents, but the group had gone with something more standard for travellers. The smaller tents were not only easier to carry but far less off-putting and conspicuous.

Parked just outside the sleeping quarters were half a dozen turberi. The three pairs took turns hauling the covered wagon throughout the day. And though they didn’t quite share the responsibility, Boris and Starrgort were stationed alongside them. The two somewhat intelligent animals had been assigned the task of watching over the supplies; they were to ensure that no one got in while the lyrkress’ attention was turned away—not that she was expecting them to succeed.

Sylvia was so bored that she almost wanted to join them. The party had spent the past three days doing nothing but walking, in spite of the moon’s supposed guidance. Groaning aloud, she turned her eyes towards the rising space rock and gave it a bit of a glare. Griselda almost seemed to respond; she could swear that her eyes twinkled and her hat twitched, but both changes were too subtle and momentary for her to say for sure. Her attention remained fixed on the floating object until her ears caught a distant crackle. Raising them overhead, she shifted her eyes to the road and waited for them to catch the disturbance.

At first, it blended into the horizon, but its reds and yellows only hid it for so long. As it continued to approach, it revealed itself as a burning carriage. There were no animals out in front, but it barrelled down the road regardless. The driver was in much the same state as the vehicle. His body was covered in flames, with the few parts of it still visible charred a deep black. And yet, he was still moving, whipping his reins as he commanded the non-existent mounts that pulled his wagon along.

A closer look revealed that he was not alone. There was a bipedal, cat-tailed frog in front of the burning coach. He was pumping his legs as hard as he possibly could and screaming at the top of his lungs. Though one might have suspected that he would rejoice, upon seeing other travelers, his face only paled when his eyes caught the encampment.

“What the hell are you doing!?” he screamed. “Don’t just sit there! Get to the water, quick! Before it changes targets!”

His panic failed to spread, but Sylvia’s chair slowly got to her feet and walked out onto the road.

“Are you insane!? Run, damn it!” The man tried to grab her when he passed, but she flicked his hand away and raised an arm in front of her. A wave of ice erupted from her palm and swallowed the monster whole, putting out its flames in the blink of an eye.

Eyes wide, the man slowly lost momentum and fell onto the ground with his chest heaving up a storm. “Thank you,” he said, between heavy breaths. “You saved my life.” When he finally found the strength to stand, however, his saviour was nowhere to be seen. She had already returned to her seat.

“What a strange monster,” remarked Arciel. With all its fire quenched, the creature’s form was made clear. It was fairly wagon-like. It had the standard wooden frame as well as four large wheels to keep it steady. Its propulsion was derived from the equally wooden hands and feet that grew out from its underbelly. The limbs were so massive that they looked completely out of place. Their size only seemed to match the massive, three-holed face that sat beneath the driver.

“It was a trent,” said Claire.

“How curious,” said Arciel. “Its shape is strikingly bizarre.”

The grug on the road stumbled over. “You must not be from around here,” he said. “Most domestic trents are shaped in ways that make them easier to use,” he said.

Claire looked between the frozen tree and the man it had chased. “Domestic?”

He laughed nervously. “That one just happened to catch the maddening disease that’s been going around, so it weren’t much in the way of friendly, but most of them are gentle.”

“Oh,” said Claire. She returned her attention to the half-made ice sculpture floating between her hands.

To her annoyance, the frog failed to take the hint. Not moving from where he stood, he fidgeted around and kept shifting his eyes towards her and eventually raised his voice. “You uhm, interested in the disease at all?” he asked.

“Not particularly,” said the lyrkress.

The grug made a face, but Claire ignored it and continued to practice her magic.

Sylvia couldn’t be bothered to participate in the conversation at first, but she perked up after a delay, and half-panicked, trapped the frog in a bubble.

“Wait a second!” she said. “Doesn’t this kinda smell like an opportunity to fight something strong?”

“It is difficult to say without any additional information,” said Arciel, with her eyes on the imprisoned frog. “What have you done to him?” He didn’t seem to be moving or reacting to any external stimulus. His expression remained unchanged even as the world around him continued to move.

“I put him in stasis just in case. Since y’know, it’d be a bit of a pain to help him if he’s not really the guy we’re supposed to help.”

“Perhaps it would be best if I spoke to him myself then?” said Arciel. “Claire is likely to drive him away before we are able to extract any meaningful information.”

The lyrkress frowned. “I’m better than you at interrogating people.”

“I believe your use of the term interrogation suffices as grounds for immediate disqualification,” said Arciel, with an awkward smile, “but very well. If you wish to deal with him, I shall gladly allow it.”

“I don’t wish to deal with anybody,” grumbled Claire.

“Okay, uhm I think we’re probably ready, so I’m gonna unfreeze him now.”

Sylvia clapped her paws and popped the bubble that had formed around the man’s body. He blinked a few times as soon as he was released and slowly moved his head around. He even scratched the spot right behind his awfully feline ears before turning back towards the lyrkress. “Did something happen just now?”

“Not at all,” said Claire. “Now leave.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” said Sylvia, after bubbling the man again. “Didn’t you just say you were going to interrogate him!? Why are you telling him to leave!?”

“I know what I’m doing. Any minute now, he’s going to volunteer everything he knows,” said the lyrkress. “Now stop complaining and let me work.”

“Well uhm… alright, I guess.”

With yet another casual clap, Sylvia once again removed the man from his bubble. He stumbled for a second when it popped and brought a hand to the side of his head. He was clearly disturbed, but he continued speaking nonetheless.

“Can you please just hear me out, at least? This disease, the firerot, it’s hurting our village real bad. And it’s not just ours. All the other villages in the area are in trouble too,” he begged.

“I don’t care. Go away,”

The man hung his head. “Right. None of a traveller’s business,” he said. “Sorry.” His face still fixed on the ground in front of him, he walked away from the campfire with his hands balled into fists.

“Oh, come on! What the heck!?” cried Sylvia, as she trapped the man in a third temporal anomaly. “You literally had him! Why the heck would you tell him to go away!?”

“It’s part of the plan.”

“There’s no way it is!” cried the fox. “You’re literally just doing this to mess with us now!”

“I’m not,” said Claire, with a perfectly blank stare. “I promise.”

“And I don’t believe you,” huffed the fox. Despite continuing to complain, the vixen eventually put her paws together and released the cat-frog from his prison.

That was when Claire descended upon him. Shaping her hand like a knife and raising it above her head, she knocked him out in the blink of an eye and left Sylvia with her jaw hanging open.

“Heal him,” said Claire, as she dragged him towards the campfire.

“Uhm… okay.” The fox was too tired to argue, so she simply did as told and hummed a quick tune. The glowing notes that strayed from her lips circled around the man, and after a brief dance, entered his body and filled it with light.

He began to stir as soon as it faded, rubbing his eyes, as well as the bump on the back of his head, as he slowly got to his feet. “What’s going on?” he muttered. “I swear everything kept… stuttering. Did I black out?”

“Oh, you’re awake. Good morning,” said Claire, with a bright, friendly smile. “Are you okay? You hit your head awfully hard while you were running from that trent,” she said, as she pointed at the tree in question. The ice that had surrounded the creature was gone, and its body had been ripped in half by a series of vectors—both feats accomplished during his moment of unconsciousness. “You probably would’ve been a goner if my bodyguards didn’t take care of it.”

“Huh?” The man snapped his eyes between the liar and the dead tree. He blinked a few times and scratched his bump again before giving his cheek a pinch. “I guess I must’ve…” he mumbled. “Thanks for helping me.”

“No problem,” said the lyrkress. “Are you okay? Does it still hurt anywhere?” Her face drew a little closer with each word; he had no such thing as personal space.

“I-I’m fine, thanks.” A faint blush crept up onto the frog’s face, turning it from green to blue. “O-oh, that’s right! You really need to get out of here! These parts of the wood ain’t safe anymore with the firerot spreading through.”

“You mean that thing that’s setting all the trents on fire?”

“Yeah, making them lose their minds too. It’s only been two weeks since we first spotted it, but it won’t be long before it spreads through the whole forest. I know your friends,” he glanced at the men sitting around the camp, “are probably real strong, but it’s best if you make a run for it before they start shutting down the roads. I’d appreciate it if you could file a report and ask for help once you’ve reached the nearest city though.”

“Uhmmm, sure,” said Claire. “What are we supposed to tell them?”

“Make sure they know that there’s something wrong with the forest, and that all the villages ‘round these parts are gonna get wiped out if nothing happens.”

“Oh no! How awful!” gasped the fair maiden.

“We’ll be fine,” said the man, with a grin. “We’ll hold out one way or another, so long as you get to town as quick as you can.”

“We’ll do our best!” said Claire.

“Now I’d better be off,” said the man. “We’ve gotta fortify our village before it gets even worse.” He broke into a quick jog and started heading for the road.

“Stay safe!” shouted Claire, after him. She waved and smiled until he turned around, in spite of the goofy grin plastered across his face. It was only when he was gone, completely out of sight, that her face returned to its usual blank state. “That’s about as much useful information as we’re getting out of him.”

“I suppose so,” said Arciel.

“Somehow, I’m almost not surprised it turned out like that,” muttered Sylvia. Her exasperation, however, only lasted for a moment; it was quickly converted to hunger. “What are we having for dinner anyway?” 

“I cannot say, but I believe it should be of a fair quality at least. The menu was by Chloe’s design.”

“Oh! That means there’ll be dessert!” cheered the furball.

Of course, it was not only Sylvia and Arciel that had watched the events unfold. Most of the others were too busy with their own activities, but Jules had watched the whole thing from start to finish. Taking deep breaths, as soon as he found Claire’s eyes upon him, the clam closed his lid and shivered within his shell.

There was only really one thing he learned from the experience—he likely shouldn’t have been so quick to judge his brother for his fear of women.