“So, Lucinda …” The voice of a young man resounded through the place I was sleeping in, prompting me to wake up right away. My strength was already back, and yet the twins were still sleeping, along with all the other living members of this group.
“Aska …” I whispered, looking around intensely without seeing anything but the darkness. But I could feel him all around me. His deathly presence was all to present …. Way too much for comfort. And yet, it wasn’t what I felt when we were on the archipelago world. He he missed that by a wide margin.
“Nice to see you again in this little dungeon I designed. How is it so far?” He asked, quietly appearing in front of me. And yet, he was still a bit see through … we hadn’t lost yet.
“Why do you want to come to this world? Huh? I thought we had an agreement!” I shouted out angrily and drew my sword, only to slash through him right away.
“You will understand at some point. We want the same after all. We always do.” We honestly did, and that made me fearful. But in the other hand, I had what he didn’t possess.
“No. Not anymore. I have found friends here! And I’m not going to let you ruin any of that.” I stated, threw my sword at him and balled my hands into fists.
“Do you know why I don’t have any? Because they always betray you in the end. You will make that experience soon enough. Let go of these feelings before they hurt you any more than they already did.” He stated drily as if that was a fact. But so far, it didn’t look like any of my friends were attempting to betray me.
“You … it’s your fault Luna is dead?!” I screamed hysterically while looking at his completely blank face. I had feelings for her, but he certainly didn’t.
“It’s not. I told the demon king to come here right away, but he wouldn’t leave without a fight.” He said, which could be a lie or not … Aska was impossible to read for me after all, despite our similarities.
“… don’t come to this world, Aska. I’ll make you regret it, no matter what your motives are.” My emotions were still in turmoil, my chest was clenching tight and fury reached my fists.
“We will see.” And with that, he vanished in front of me. Breathing in and out a few times, I calmed my rage down and listened to the sounds of thousands of thousands of little feet hitting the rocks in the distance.
“Hey … WAKE UP!” Everyone jerked up from their sleep and gazed around confused for a little while until they noticed the single tear rolling down my cheeks.
“What happens? Hannah asked, standing up alongside everyone else while the twins looked around a little confused.
“Nothing. Louis, did your bats catch anything?” I asked a little hopeful.
“Oh right …” He closed his eyes swiftly, probably getting in contact with his creations again. “There is some kind of pillar a thirty kilometres away.”
“Hannah, can you fly us there?” She shook her head right away. Twenty kilometres for a group of seven was apparently a little too much for her.
“Bugs!” Clara shouted out and looked into the distance horrified.
“I hate bugs!” Clarice added loudly.
“Lucy, can we go back?” They both asked, their eyes threatening a tantrum if I didn’t agree right away.
“No.” Before they could dash away, I grabbed their black shirts and forced them to stay with me this way. “Hannah, can you do it when Sofie resupplies you with mana?”
“That should be possible as long as you hold onto each other.” She admitted after a little while of thinking, grabbed my sword in the distance and tossed it back over to me. Clara caught it out of the air and put it back where it belonged quickly, naturally not without sticking her tongue out to her sister who couldn’t catch it.
“I want to be on Lucy’s back!” Clarice said and rushed around me to be picked up.
“No? I want to.” Clara expressed indignantly and attempted to push her sister away.
“But you can’t have everything! You already had her sleeping behind you!” Clarice growled and pushed back with all her strength.
“Well … okay.” Clara said, backed down and took my right hand instead. Caressing the flask in my pocket a little, I nearly tipped over as Clarice jumped on my back.
“That was a ruse!” Clara shouted out and simply hugged me from my front. Rolling my eyes, I quickly grabbed Sofie’s and Schwarz’s hand, only to be lifted up by a sting wind seconds afterwards.
“Now I know why you hate flying.” Ellie said as soon as we tilted a little bit forwards and accelerated slowly.
The wind whipped in our faces shortly afterwards as we were basically flung through the air. It was definitely not a comfortable experience, but at least we didn’t have to fight through all the bugs crawling on the floor.
And there were really quite a few of them. The ground seemed to move on its own, which just didn’t sound distrusting, it also looked that way. Luckily they didn’t seem to be able to fly, but we still had to land and deal with them somehow.
But even that turned out rather easy when one travelled with completely over levelled idiots. They just burned everything to crisps. Seriously, Hannah was holding us afloat, sweat visible on her face, and Louis threw flames everywhere, incinerating every living bug in our surroundings.
Was there any way I could have done the same? Of course not! With me it was either all or nothing. I wasn’t a professional de-bugger after all.
But slowly, Hannah was running out of mana and thus set us down on the bug infested ground.
Their chitinous shells crunched underneath our feet and the twins hugged me closer at least until I grabbed both of them by their necks and threw them off me, regardless of their opinion on that matter.
They did look at me a little angrily, but as soon as I grabbed their heads and bought them close to mine, they understood very well that the time for fooling around was officially over.
“This isn’t a hugging adventure, you know? So take this seriously or I’ll make you.” I whispered into their ears and grabbed their shoulders a bit more tightly. So far, I let them do as they pleased for the most part … but we were close. I could feel that.
Or maybe it was just the death of so many insects that riled me up a little. But the twins nodded, no matter my reasoning and didn’t try to latch onto me for once. In fact, they were both silent which could be a first time for them.
“There is a door here!” Schwarz shouted and pushed against the black surface, revealing a dark stairwell leading downwards. “Let’s go before more bugs come back.” So far, this dungeon had been rather simple. True, there were some strength checks in the first few floors, but that was nothing a slave couldn’t do eventually … after a few years of work or so.
The bugs were a lot harder challenge to overcome, but when you have someone who can literally fly … we’ll, even that challenge becomes a mere step.
Truth to be told, there wasn’t much that could stop us at this point. We could have solved everything … except one issue.
The bottom of the stairs lead into a grotto, stalactites forming on the ceiling and only a small island to step onto. The rest was … flooded.
“I hate my life.” I mumbled, knelt down on the edge of the island and looked down into the water. There didn’t seem to be any fish in there, but I couldn’t see the bottom either. Luckily we had someone with us who could populate this aquarium with fish. While I sat down on my butt exhausted and gripped my head in frustration.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in the water. But there is a short underwater tunnel leading to another room. We should check it out.”
“Great, now I have to get rid of all my amour.” Ellie stated and directly started to put her heavy attire onto the ground.
“Lucy? What … how can we help?” Sofie asked the question I couldn’t answer at all. I mean, who put water into their dungeon? That was basically just a middle finger at me personally and nothing else.
“Just go ahead and kick his butt.” I asked, only a slight smile on my lips. In truth, I just couldn’t take this. I was so short of getting there, but Aska used the only thing against me I couldn’t overcome.
“Wait, maybe … Teleport … no, it doesn’t seem to work at all.” Well, Sofie apparently thought she could swim over to the other side, come back and teleport me along with her, but that was quite the obvious plan. There was no reason Aska wouldn’t have at least three ways of blocking that.
“I’m sorry … but we have to press forwards.” Ellie hadn’t made the easiest decision, but it was the right one. We had already lost a day since we arrived … there was no way we could waste any more time than this.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about me.” I smiled reassuringly, which sadly didn’t convince Sofie at all. She was indeed quite heavy hearted as she jumped into the cold water and swam a little.
“Should I go with them as well?” Hannah asked quietly.
“I think that’s the best decision. Make sure they don’t mess it up.” I didn’t trust the four of them to make the worst possible decisions at all. But I trusted Hannah with everything I had, that was for sure.
“Okay … see you in a minute.” We both knew it would take more than a minute, but her reassurance was still nice.
“Wait, why aren’t you going with them?” Clara asked, very close to jumping into the water herself.
“I don’t like water.” I stated dryly.
“Well, neither do I.” Clarice admitted right away.
“I hate to bathe.” The twins were sure to change their opinions really quickly. It only took them a single day to go from playing in the water to despising it … but I didn’t mind their decision. They were a big unknown factor which I didn’t want to have around the others at all.
“It’s fine …” I mumbled and waved towards the others shortly before they dove underwater. “It’s fine …”
Taking out the little flask of my pocket, I caressed the glass a little while staring at the cracked soul.
“Lucy … can we come closer?” Clara asked in a saddened voice and robbed over to me alongside her sister.
“I’m … I’m sorry for earlier. I don’t dislike you but … but I wanted to press onwards.” And their constant latching onto me hindered that progress. “But now, mere minutes after that, I am stalling our progress. Quite ironic, isn’t it?”
“We …” Clara said, looking at me quite unsure.
“Our mother died because of the demon king.” Clarice admitted slowly. “It was our fault … but it was still him who drove us to murder her.”
“And since then we wanted to see him dead.” Clara added, her eyes clouding with rage I had never seen before in them.
“But there is one more important issue to us.” The rage vaporised as both of them touched one of my shoulders each lightly.
“We have seen how you cried out for that girl … it reminded us of our mother, the last person to truly love us.” They were as broken as me, weren’t they? Searching for the thing we couldn’t have, knowing we couldn’t have it and still not giving up was pretty fucked up after all.
“We … we both know that you are will never love us like our mum did. But even when you don’t do, we still feel loved around you. Because you understand us like no one else … and it hurt when you pushed us away.” Clara sat down beside me, hugged my arm and laid her cheek on my shoulder.
“We wanted to lash out at you, hurt you back as much as we could … but our desire to see these emotions you showed for her when one of us dies is far bigger.” Clarice added, hugging me closely from the other side.
“And we won’t give up on that.” Clara admitted, whispering into my ear with determination audible in her voice.
“Never.” Clarice said quietly, stretching that word very long.
I truly wanted them to succeed. I wanted to see how they got their family by all means necessary. But on the other hand, I didn’t feel like I could be that family they wished for. I didn’t hold any emotions for them in my heart and it would be unfair for them to fake everything. They could be happy this way and would do whatever I tell them to, but would stop searching. And I didn’t want that until I found someone loving me unconditionally as well.
Luna … she had been close to that goal. But I didn’t know if she would have accepted every part of me. And I didn’t want to test it out. Her most likely action would be to distance herself after all.
“I can’t love you … I’m sorry.” I said quietly a single tear running down my cheek as my heart aches for Luna’s presence.
“And we won’t give up.” Clara licked that tear up willingly and crept closer to my face.
“What we saw was just too endearing.” She admitted, greed visible in her red eyes.
“There is nothing you can do. Luna was … is special. Even I don’t know why.” I held the flask with her beautiful soul right in front of my chest just to be closer to her.
“So we just have to try everything we can to reach that status as well, right?” Clarice said, placing her hands on mine.
“… it’s not possible.” I muttered while Clara pushed herself onto me and started kissing my nape greedily.
“We have to try, otherwise you will throw us away like some broken doll at some point, right?” Well … if they didn’t make any progress on the family front for some time, that would be the natural conclusion. They were good fighters, but they did what they wanted, couldn’t be left alone and were a huge unknown in any plan I could make. In short, they were the biggest annoyance possible.
“I can’t argue against that.” I admitted entirely honest and noticed how Clarice was reaching us as well, sucking on my nape without biting into that.
“There is an easy way to change that.” Was there? If so, why didn’t they already do it?
“Give us your blood.” Clarice intertwined my right leg with hers and locked them in place.
“Replace ours with yours.” Clara added, doing exactly the same to my other side and bit on my skin playfully.
“And we are closer to our goal.” Clarice said, pushing the flask with Luna’s soul downwards with Clara’s help.
“And you won’t throw us away easily.” Both of them said, quite happy as I stored the flask away. It would be unfair for me to think about Luna while they were giving their best after all. “Control us. Order us around all you want.”
“But promise to keep us close and try cry for us when we die.” Even though I didn’t feel anything, Clara still pressed her mouth on mine and kissed me wildly.
“We want nothing else.” Clarice pushed her sister away and took her place greedily, her trounce playing with my canines after a little while. As soon as she had spent the same amount of time than Clara did though, she pushed herself off me, both of them awaiting my answer.
“Okay … I’ll allow you to do everything you need to make me love you. Give your best girls.” Even though I saw their happily faces, I didn’t know if I made the right decision. The bond we would create by sharing the same blood was powerful, but nowhere near close enough to make me view them as my daughters. I didn’t see Albert as my son either and he tried to do the same.
But it was a decision I had to make. I still didn’t trust them at all, and them being under my thumb changed that.
“So, Lucinda …” The voice of a young man resounded through the place I was sleeping in, prompting me to wake up right away. My strength was already back, and yet the twins were still sleeping, along with all the other living members of this group.
“Aska …” I whispered, looking around intensely without seeing anything but the darkness. But I could feel him all around me. His deathly presence was all to present …. Way too much for comfort. And yet, it wasn’t what I felt when we were on the archipelago world. He he missed that by a wide margin.
“Nice to see you again in this little dungeon I designed. How is it so far?” He asked, quietly appearing in front of me. And yet, he was still a bit see through … we hadn’t lost yet.
“Why do you want to come to this world? Huh? I thought we had an agreement!” I shouted out angrily and drew my sword, only to slash through him right away.
“You will understand at some point. We want the same after all. We always do.” We honestly did, and that made me fearful. But in the other hand, I had what he didn’t possess.
“No. Not anymore. I have found friends here! And I’m not going to let you ruin any of that.” I stated, threw my sword at him and balled my hands into fists.
“Do you know why I don’t have any? Because they always betray you in the end. You will make that experience soon enough. Let go of these feelings before they hurt you any more than they already did.” He stated drily as if that was a fact. But so far, it didn’t look like any of my friends were attempting to betray me.
“You … it’s your fault Luna is dead?!” I screamed hysterically while looking at his completely blank face. I had feelings for her, but he certainly didn’t.
“It’s not. I told the demon king to come here right away, but he wouldn’t leave without a fight.” He said, which could be a lie or not … Aska was impossible to read for me after all, despite our similarities.
“… don’t come to this world, Aska. I’ll make you regret it, no matter what your motives are.” My emotions were still in turmoil, my chest was clenching tight and fury reached my fists.
“We will see.” And with that, he vanished in front of me. Breathing in and out a few times, I calmed my rage down and listened to the sounds of thousands of thousands of little feet hitting the rocks in the distance.
“Hey … WAKE UP!” Everyone jerked up from their sleep and gazed around confused for a little while until they noticed the single tear rolling down my cheeks.
“What happens? Hannah asked, standing up alongside everyone else while the twins looked around a little confused.
“Nothing. Louis, did your bats catch anything?” I asked a little hopeful.
“Oh right …” He closed his eyes swiftly, probably getting in contact with his creations again. “There is some kind of pillar a thirty kilometres away.”
“Hannah, can you fly us there?” She shook her head right away. Twenty kilometres for a group of seven was apparently a little too much for her.
“Bugs!” Clara shouted out and looked into the distance horrified.
“I hate bugs!” Clarice added loudly.
“Lucy, can we go back?” They both asked, their eyes threatening a tantrum if I didn’t agree right away.
“No.” Before they could dash away, I grabbed their black shirts and forced them to stay with me this way. “Hannah, can you do it when Sofie resupplies you with mana?”
“That should be possible as long as you hold onto each other.” She admitted after a little while of thinking, grabbed my sword in the distance and tossed it back over to me. Clara caught it out of the air and put it back where it belonged quickly, naturally not without sticking her tongue out to her sister who couldn’t catch it.
“I want to be on Lucy’s back!” Clarice said and rushed around me to be picked up.
“No? I want to.” Clara expressed indignantly and attempted to push her sister away.
“But you can’t have everything! You already had her sleeping behind you!” Clarice growled and pushed back with all her strength.
“Well … okay.” Clara said, backed down and took my right hand instead. Caressing the flask in my pocket a little, I nearly tipped over as Clarice jumped on my back.
“That was a ruse!” Clara shouted out and simply hugged me from my front. Rolling my eyes, I quickly grabbed Sofie’s and Schwarz’s hand, only to be lifted up by a sting wind seconds afterwards.
“Now I know why you hate flying.” Ellie said as soon as we tilted a little bit forwards and accelerated slowly.
The wind whipped in our faces shortly afterwards as we were basically flung through the air. It was definitely not a comfortable experience, but at least we didn’t have to fight through all the bugs crawling on the floor.
And there were really quite a few of them. The ground seemed to move on its own, which just didn’t sound distrusting, it also looked that way. Luckily they didn’t seem to be able to fly, but we still had to land and deal with them somehow.
But even that turned out rather easy when one travelled with completely over levelled idiots. They just burned everything to crisps. Seriously, Hannah was holding us afloat, sweat visible on her face, and Louis threw flames everywhere, incinerating every living bug in our surroundings.
Was there any way I could have done the same? Of course not! With me it was either all or nothing. I wasn’t a professional de-bugger after all.
But slowly, Hannah was running out of mana and thus set us down on the bug infested ground.
Their chitinous shells crunched underneath our feet and the twins hugged me closer at least until I grabbed both of them by their necks and threw them off me, regardless of their opinion on that matter.
They did look at me a little angrily, but as soon as I grabbed their heads and bought them close to mine, they understood very well that the time for fooling around was officially over.
“This isn’t a hugging adventure, you know? So take this seriously or I’ll make you.” I whispered into their ears and grabbed their shoulders a bit more tightly. So far, I let them do as they pleased for the most part … but we were close. I could feel that.
Or maybe it was just the death of so many insects that riled me up a little. But the twins nodded, no matter my reasoning and didn’t try to latch onto me for once. In fact, they were both silent which could be a first time for them.
“There is a door here!” Schwarz shouted and pushed against the black surface, revealing a dark stairwell leading downwards. “Let’s go before more bugs come back.” So far, this dungeon had been rather simple. True, there were some strength checks in the first few floors, but that was nothing a slave couldn’t do eventually … after a few years of work or so.
The bugs were a lot harder challenge to overcome, but when you have someone who can literally fly … we’ll, even that challenge becomes a mere step.
Truth to be told, there wasn’t much that could stop us at this point. We could have solved everything … except one issue.
The bottom of the stairs lead into a grotto, stalactites forming on the ceiling and only a small island to step onto. The rest was … flooded.
“I hate my life.” I mumbled, knelt down on the edge of the island and looked down into the water. There didn’t seem to be any fish in there, but I couldn’t see the bottom either. Luckily we had someone with us who could populate this aquarium with fish. While I sat down on my butt exhausted and gripped my head in frustration.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in the water. But there is a short underwater tunnel leading to another room. We should check it out.”
“Great, now I have to get rid of all my amour.” Ellie stated and directly started to put her heavy attire onto the ground.
“Lucy? What … how can we help?” Sofie asked the question I couldn’t answer at all. I mean, who put water into their dungeon? That was basically just a middle finger at me personally and nothing else.
“Just go ahead and kick his butt.” I asked, only a slight smile on my lips. In truth, I just couldn’t take this. I was so short of getting there, but Aska used the only thing against me I couldn’t overcome.
“Wait, maybe … Teleport … no, it doesn’t seem to work at all.” Well, Sofie apparently thought she could swim over to the other side, come back and teleport me along with her, but that was quite the obvious plan. There was no reason Aska wouldn’t have at least three ways of blocking that.
“I’m sorry … but we have to press forwards.” Ellie hadn’t made the easiest decision, but it was the right one. We had already lost a day since we arrived … there was no way we could waste any more time than this.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about me.” I smiled reassuringly, which sadly didn’t convince Sofie at all. She was indeed quite heavy hearted as she jumped into the cold water and swam a little.
“Should I go with them as well?” Hannah asked quietly.
“I think that’s the best decision. Make sure they don’t mess it up.” I didn’t trust the four of them to make the worst possible decisions at all. But I trusted Hannah with everything I had, that was for sure.
“Okay … see you in a minute.” We both knew it would take more than a minute, but her reassurance was still nice.
“Wait, why aren’t you going with them?” Clara asked, very close to jumping into the water herself.
“I don’t like water.” I stated dryly.
“Well, neither do I.” Clarice admitted right away.
“I hate to bathe.” The twins were sure to change their opinions really quickly. It only took them a single day to go from playing in the water to despising it … but I didn’t mind their decision. They were a big unknown factor which I didn’t want to have around the others at all.
“It’s fine …” I mumbled and waved towards the others shortly before they dove underwater. “It’s fine …”
Taking out the little flask of my pocket, I caressed the glass a little while staring at the cracked soul.
“Lucy … can we come closer?” Clara asked in a saddened voice and robbed over to me alongside her sister.
“I’m … I’m sorry for earlier. I don’t dislike you but … but I wanted to press onwards.” And their constant latching onto me hindered that progress. “But now, mere minutes after that, I am stalling our progress. Quite ironic, isn’t it?”
“We …” Clara said, looking at me quite unsure.
“Our mother died because of the demon king.” Clarice admitted slowly. “It was our fault … but it was still him who drove us to murder her.”
“And since then we wanted to see him dead.” Clara added, her eyes clouding with rage I had never seen before in them.
“But there is one more important issue to us.” The rage vaporised as both of them touched one of my shoulders each lightly.
“We have seen how you cried out for that girl … it reminded us of our mother, the last person to truly love us.” They were as broken as me, weren’t they? Searching for the thing we couldn’t have, knowing we couldn’t have it and still not giving up was pretty fucked up after all.
“We … we both know that you are will never love us like our mum did. But even when you don’t do, we still feel loved around you. Because you understand us like no one else … and it hurt when you pushed us away.” Clara sat down beside me, hugged my arm and laid her cheek on my shoulder.
“We wanted to lash out at you, hurt you back as much as we could … but our desire to see these emotions you showed for her when one of us dies is far bigger.” Clarice added, hugging me closely from the other side.
“And we won’t give up on that.” Clara admitted, whispering into my ear with determination audible in her voice.
“Never.” Clarice said quietly, stretching that word very long.
I truly wanted them to succeed. I wanted to see how they got their family by all means necessary. But on the other hand, I didn’t feel like I could be that family they wished for. I didn’t hold any emotions for them in my heart and it would be unfair for them to fake everything. They could be happy this way and would do whatever I tell them to, but would stop searching. And I didn’t want that until I found someone loving me unconditionally as well.
Luna … she had been close to that goal. But I didn’t know if she would have accepted every part of me. And I didn’t want to test it out. Her most likely action would be to distance herself after all.
“I can’t love you … I’m sorry.” I said quietly a single tear running down my cheek as my heart aches for Luna’s presence.
“And we won’t give up.” Clara licked that tear up willingly and crept closer to my face.
“What we saw was just too endearing.” She admitted, greed visible in her red eyes.
“There is nothing you can do. Luna was … is special. Even I don’t know why.” I held the flask with her beautiful soul right in front of my chest just to be closer to her.
“So we just have to try everything we can to reach that status as well, right?” Clarice said, placing her hands on mine.
“… it’s not possible.” I muttered while Clara pushed herself onto me and started kissing my nape greedily.
“We have to try, otherwise you will throw us away like some broken doll at some point, right?” Well … if they didn’t make any progress on the family front for some time, that would be the natural conclusion. They were good fighters, but they did what they wanted, couldn’t be left alone and were a huge unknown in any plan I could make. In short, they were the biggest annoyance possible.
“I can’t argue against that.” I admitted entirely honest and noticed how Clarice was reaching us as well, sucking on my nape without biting into that.
“There is an easy way to change that.” Was there? If so, why didn’t they already do it?
“Give us your blood.” Clarice intertwined my right leg with hers and locked them in place.
“Replace ours with yours.” Clara added, doing exactly the same to my other side and bit on my skin playfully.
“And we are closer to our goal.” Clarice said, pushing the flask with Luna’s soul downwards with Clara’s help.
“And you won’t throw us away easily.” Both of them said, quite happy as I stored the flask away. It would be unfair for me to think about Luna while they were giving their best after all. “Control us. Order us around all you want.”
“But promise to keep us close and try cry for us when we die.” Even though I didn’t feel anything, Clara still pressed her mouth on mine and kissed me wildly.
“We want nothing else.” Clarice pushed her sister away and took her place greedily, her trounce playing with my canines after a little while. As soon as she had spent the same amount of time than Clara did though, she pushed herself off me, both of them awaiting my answer.
“Okay … I’ll allow you to do everything you need to make me love you. Give your best girls.” Even though I saw their happily faces, I didn’t know if I made the right decision. The bond we would create by sharing the same blood was powerful, but nowhere near close enough to make me view them as my daughters. I didn’t see Albert as my son either and he tried to do the same.
But it was a decision I had to make. I still didn’t trust them at all, and them being under my thumb changed that.
