“Hmm? What’s this?” Over the course of the fight, Roa had drawn closer to the corpse of the fairy, big blind Gruff. His hand landed on a troop of Luminous Crowns, steeped in a puddle of the fairy’s glittering blood. The rusted scent of iron—it wasn’t what he acquired when the scent of the fairy blood wafted into his nostrils. Fairy blood had a distinct, alluringly sweet odor, one which strongly beckoned one to taste it.

It was once with faint hopes of breaking past the barrier of his broken red-tier spirit and finally advancing a step towards orange-tier, that Roa had gotten his hands on fairy blood.  He could still vividly recall how his zeal over the glittering red liquid almost turned him into a human bomb. 

Fairy blood was too potent to serve as an elixir, and it wasn’t meant to be one either. Getting a whiff of the familiar sweet-smelling aroma, Roa came across an idea which involved the need to first restrain the shade.

“Hah! Aren’t they sentimental idiots? How could I forget?” Too used to dealing with them on his own, a method which he had overlooked until now had appeared.

“Roa Fariche! This guy even smiles like you! Are you sure you beasts aren’t of the same kin?” Ariene called out to him and squinted doubtfully. Her fight with the shade had come to a sudden stop. The reason being, the shade was unresponsive, gazing at her longingly, with its mouth slowly, and awkwardly curling up. If placed side by side with Roa’s dumb expression, there would be no difference in expression. 

“Ariene, now’s your chance! Drop the ruler and lock your arms around him!” Roa shouted.

Ariene didn’t give it much thought. She let go of the black ruler and followed Roa’s instruction, restraining the shade in a vice—at least, she planned to. She forgot all about her diminished strength, and was unaware that her actions amounted to nothing more than a strong embrace.

“Good job! Keep holding on to him like that!” Brushing aside the self-conceived image of a flushed Ariene’s bear hug, Roa grit his teeth in envy and began to act. He dipped his finger into the puddle of Gruff’s blood and hastened a sample with his tongue, only about as much as a drop. 

‘Just a lick should be fine, won’t it? It’s not like I have any other choice. Hopefully it won’t ruin my mana paths like last time…’

The taste of the fairy blood—not too overpowering but incredibly inviting. An explosion of honeyed aroma filled his mouth and immediately spread to the back of his throat. Saying it would be fine to sample just a tiny bit on the tip of his tongue was a lie, as it took all his willpower to hold back the desire to drink directly from the puddle. 

Roa immediately grabbed a handful of Luminous Crowns from the ground and stuffed them into his mouth. He had to prevent himself from biting off his own tongue, knowing what would happen next.

An incredible surge of mana soon entered his mana paths, like a deluge of water pouring into a city’s drought-weathered aqueducts. He couldn’t hold back and screamed in pain as the nature of the mana from the drop of blood was unlike the mana he would recover from eating Luminous Crowns. 

The mushrooms were byproducts of the actual source, safe enough for even an infant to ingest. The fairy blood on the other hand was too potent, as the mana recovered from it turbulently ravaged through his mana paths like an army of ants digging their way out of every vein in his body.

He clenched his teeth, holding strongly onto his rationality. He hadn’t forgotten that they were still in a fight.

Ariene looked over, surprised at the sudden commotion. ‘Why did he scream?’ she thought, only to widen her eyes at the condition of Roa’s body. 

Blood was seeping through his multiple orifices—his nose, the corners of his mouth, and even from his tear ducts. Horrifying, to say the least, was the state of his appearance.

Roa directed what little he could of the violent mana to a point of focus—towards the blade he held in his hand. A frigid bloom of clear crystal spread along the blade as the mist all around the vicinity started to gather towards him and adhere to the blade.

If there was one thing that an entity like the shade was most vulnerable to, it was the cause of its counterpart’s death. —The One-Armed King succumbing to his wounds, wounds wrought by a dragon's onslaught of frost, sleet, and ice. Roa only had to bring about the same conditions. 

A puff of white air escaped from Roa’s mouth as he formulated a spell—a yellow tier area spell. “Detain! –Ice Coffin!” he chanted, and a blast of extremely cold air came forth, released from his blade. The heavy cloud of white spiraled across the area, straight towards the shade.

"Ariene!" Roa shouted. Ariene immediately understood and jumped away, leaving the shade the sole recipient of the spell. The spell inevitably hit its mark, turning into a tornado of extreme cold, immediately freezing everything within its vortex.

The shade was slowly encased in a layer of frost, if it had bled the same as any other creature, its insides would have turned solid from the cold entering its wounds and it would have died. 

Sadly, that wasn’t the case, but at least it was incapacitated.

Even when it recovered from its fae princess stupor, it already couldn't make use of its limbs. The corrupt mana coursing through its body had been slowed to the utmost by the element of ice. The gluttonous blade Jack, even, with its property of devouring mana, was also helpless against this type of magic. 

Area spells, they were definitely troublesome. Whenever Roa used Jack to fight against area spells before, he would feel as if Jack was biting at insubstantial clouds. 

With a drop of fairy blood, Roa was able to invoke an area spell that was at a threshold two levels above his normal capacity, a spell at the current level of Ariene’s Seed of Fire that was quite suited for the situation.

“How is it? Hah! Look who’s finally able to use magic!” Roa gloated. If not for the fact that he looked in far worse shape than the shade, anyone would have agreed if he had said that he won this fight.

Cough! Red liquid on his palm quickly brought him back to his senses. Mana wasn’t the only issue when casting any spells above one’s current capability. Roa’s knees fell to the ground and he immediately began to shiver, the white puffs of air from his lungs unceasing. 

“Roa! H-Hey! Are you alright!?” Ariene raced towards him and propped him up. The moment she touched him, she flinched as she could tell that the extreme cold—the element of ice had begun invading his body. “What are you doing? We could have handled him! Why would you cast a spell like that to ruin yourself?” she admonished.

“I’ll be fine. —I will be. That thing won’t leave us alone till it’s dead. And killing it still proves to be difficult for our current state. This will… buy us enough time to focus on getting out of this place…”

Ariene furrowed her brow. She harbored doubts but quickly put them aside as she had to get Roa medical attention. She asked, “Then, tell me quickly. How do we get out of here?”

“Over there… maybe. I think the way out is there.” Roa was going to have Ariene lead the way in the direction he pointed, when he suddenly remembered that it wasn’t only Ariene that had come to his aid. 

“By the way… That snowflake was here earlier, but—I’m asking just in case—you didn’t leave Yuria at the cave, did you?” 

Ariene shook her head. She had yet to give him a verbal response when he noticed her eyes start to widen, and her head nudged slightly upwards, as if she was just taken by surprise. 

Going along the direction of her gaze, Roa almost coughed himself up another mouthful of blood with what he saw: An unconscious Novis, dragged along with his hair taut; Yuria Illyas as well, wide awake, accompanied by a certain pair of would-be troublemakers.

Yuria spoke with a lively tone, “I can’t believe I fell asleep with all this excitement happening! Little Blue, Little White, Are you certain that a treasure is here? You shouldn’t be making a lady walk so much.”

“Burp! —This esteemed one is Solitaria! Burp! —Not some Little Blue! Since it was this one’s subordinate that woke you up from deathly sleep, address this one with respect! If not, if not... You shall be addressed as Little Blackie!”

“Little Blue, your way of speech sounds stiffer than my grandfather’s! But I find you far more charming. Hehe!”

One walked, two skittered, and the unconscious last dragged along merrily, as if there hadn’t been a fight happening nearby. 

They stopped at a clearing of mist as their path was obstructed. In front of the unlikely group, an extremely unusual-looking mulberry tree, a size larger than any they’d ever seen, with a backdrop of myriad-colored lights floating around like ethereal fireflies.

Yuria Illyas, she brushed her raven hair back to take in the enchanting scene that she’d arrived at, her lilac eyes shining bright with mana as she gasped in awe. 

“This—Is this a Wish Tree?” she uttered.

Solitaria wrinkled her nose, the pair of bejeweled blue above them sparked with interest, “Little Blackie, what is a wish tree? Isn’t this just a tree?”

“Hm? Yes and no? It’s exactly as it sounds. A tree where people leave their wishes—although, it won’t exactly grant them, really. The wishes are more of superstitious belief.” 

Yuria spoke with a hint of derision, but with the passing of a few seconds, immediately changed her tone. “This however… Could this be Eruind’s Wish Tree?”

An old Waylurne fairy tale suddenly came to mind; of which three young fairies, mischievous and curious, delved deep within a certain witch’s orchard and got themselves cursed. A particularly grim tale where, at the end, only the smallest of the fairies found its way to a wish tree hidden inside of the witch’s abode.

The original story ended at that point, as over centuries, people had spun countless conclusions to the tale—the majority, depicting the story as a cautionary tale with a glaringly obvious moral: Be careful what you wish for. —Owed largely to parents warning their children.

Yuria had heard of one such ending herself from her mother as they’d regularly frequented a wish tree near their home. She did initially heed her mother’s words, but as she grew older, she realized how futile they were as there was nothing really remarkable about the large tree. It couldn’t grant any of the wishes she would make.

In the story, ‘Eruind’s Wish Tree,’ however, no matter how many endings there were, only one thing about the tale remained unchanged—that the wish tree would actually grant Eruind’s wish.

“Little White, come here…” Yuria uttered, giddily shifting her gaze towards the chalk pygmy tugging on Novis’ hair. Considering the circumstances and what she could see with her eyes, she would certainly be a special kind of idiot if she couldn’t put two and two together. 

Yuria clumsily wiped the sweat off her palms with her shirt, as she tried her best to rein in her excitement. The corners of her mouth curled up into a wide smile as she said, “—Little White, come here quick and let’s make a wish!”

 —End of Chapter 17

Alkareel

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