After Eisen's explanation of what happened to him so far, Xenia looked at him with a smile. "A Guild, huh? Sounds interesting, and if the others join in as well, it can only become more so, meaning I'm in. And you said that you wanted to get to that island group?" She asked the old man sitting next to her on the bench, who quickly nodded.
"Yes, preferably quite soon. Although I think we should wait a bit longer till then and make sure that we properly prepare. And building a large ship will take a good amount of time anyway." Eisen explained, surprising Xenia immensely.
"Huh? You want to build the ship for that yourself?" She asked, showing her light disbelief in her face, but Eisen nodded with a bright smile. "Mhm, yeah. At least that's the plan so far. I want to get everyone's help and opinion, considering that it's a huge project and we'd be spending quite some time on the ship until we reach the islands. And then, of course, we'll be needing a crew and supplies, as well as materials that we need for when we're actually on the islands. We don't know what we can get there, and if there's anything we can eat to get once we're there."
"I guess that all makes sense. You are a craftsman after all. I'll try to support you with magic while you're working on everything. But anyway, you're here for something else as well, right? To find that guy you said took that Amulet's shard?" Xenia asked, resting her chin on her palm in suspicion after crossing her legs, and the old man nodded in response to the question, sighing loudly, since this may as well be quite uncomfortable. This woman here probably already figured out who Eisen was talking about, considering that the person he was looking for was supposed to be her companion.
"I'm looking for a tall Elf with long white hair with a blue streak in it. Do you know someone like that?" Eisen asked her, merely looking at the woman wearing a pained expression next to him.
After slowly opening her mouth to respond, Xenia slowly sighed, telling the side of the story that she knew. "That… That's Dien. He told me the story about some cursed shard of an amulet as well, but he described it as fighting some strong spirit-type monster that just attacked them out of nowhere, and that he and his old friends then destroyed the amulet that it possessed. But in the end, after each one of them took one of the shards, the amulet ended up being cursed, giving them nightmares while leaving them unable to sleep without experiencing nightmares."
"Mhm, that's what happened to another guy I met from his old group as well. The other one died already. Not because of the amulet, though, but because some loan-sharks killed him." Eisen explained to her, making Xenia slightly jump up in surprise as she looked at the old man, seemingly remembering something.
"Wait, you met someone from his old group? Do you have the shard he had?" She asked as she frowned, already knowing the answer to what she was about to ask after Eisen's response through the trailer.
"Yeah, I do. It was kind of troublesome, but in the end, I managed to get both shards. Only missing the one that this Dien kid has."
With a deep frown, Xenia now crossed her arms and stared at Eisen with some evident curiosity. "I see. So you're known as the Golden-Eyed Demon after what happened in Ornier, are you not?" She asked, leaning in toward the old man so that the little girl that was with Eisen, as well as the Half-Dragon, couldn't hear what she was about to say, not worried by the huge bee on the man's shoulder at all. "I was excited when I saw that transformation you had, but I wasn't aware that it ended in something like that."
After sighing loudly, Eisen nodded as he slowly activated his transformation in his hand, as well as in his eyes while activating his truth-seeing-eyes as well. "I used these two skills to transform into that 'form.' This, here is the transformation through my element, Flame of the Earth. In my eyes, it's a combination of that element thoroughly tweaked to show as only flames together with another skill I gained when I became that Gold Dragon's Champion. Just let me ask, how do you know what people in Ornier called me?" Eisen asked, trying to figure out if she found out through some specific person telling her about it or if the rumors spread this far across the continent.
"H-Huh? Such an interesting element! Hm, it's quite obviously a special combination of the Fire and Earth elements. Hmmm...and it's the type with a gradient, you say? Let me guess, Fire makes you faster but weaker, while Earth makes you slower but stronger?" Xenia asked curiously, leaning in toward the old man's hand, slowly touching his skin to see if it really turned into rock. But before she could make skin contact, Eisen pulled away his arm to bring the High-Elf back to reality.
"Xenia… you're right but wait for a second. Just answer my question, will you? How did you figure out, I'm the Golden-Eyed Demon?" With a serious expression, Eisen now stood up and looked down at Xenia, who was longingly looking at Eisen's' still transformed hand and eyes. Reluctantly, she quickly told him so that they could move on.
"Dien's old party member sent him a letter, telling him that a Demonic Dragon might be coming for him next. When we heard about the rumors of the Golden-Eyed Demon on the streets, we put one and one together and figured that both cases belonged together, and the one that threatened Dien's old party member was that Demon." She explained quite swiftly before Eisen dropped back onto the bench.
"Goddammit. So both happened, huh…?" Eisen muttered to himself as he held out his hand toward Xenia, who was curiously examining Eisen's hand. "John sends Dien a letter, and the whole town found out about everything as well… That's not good."
While Xenia just kept looking at Eisen's hand, and the old man himself seemed to be quite conflicted, a certain little girl reacted. And it wasn't the little girl sitting on Eisen's lap.
For some reason, the Melissa that was at Level 99 for a little while now, chose that this moment was the best to rank up. Slowly, Eisen felt his shoulder grow slightly heavier as something leaned onto the side of his head. Surprised, Eisen looked over to his side before staring at a tiny girl, the size of a toddler, that was sitting there.
She had bright yellow hair with a glitter similar to what her fur in her Bee-form had before and quite pale skin, while her fingernails were completely black. Her eyes had a golden tint to them, and she had glass-like wings hanging down her back.
"No good! Woman bully!" She yelled out with a quite high-pitched voice, pointing forward at Xenia with an angry look on her face. However, she didn't seem quite threatening, considering that she just looked like a naked toddler wearing a weird cosplay, especially once Melissa dropped off Eisen's shoulder, forgetting that she needed to hold onto him.
Hurriedly, Eisen caught her mid-fall, holding her in his arms. "Whoa there, Melissa. Careful, you have arms and legs now!" The old man laughed as he quickly took out some cloth out of his backpack, which he used to cover Melissa up so that she wouldn't walk around butt-naked, while at the same time making it easier to carry her. After all, he couldn't just let her walk around on her own from now on.
But instead of reacting toward what Eisen was currently doing, Melissa just stared at Eisen with cold and blank eyes, slowly tilting her head to the side. "Legs? Arms? Melissa has?" She asked, confused, slowly looking herself up and down, especially staring at her fingers, and then at Caria who was looking back at the tiny girl with wide-open eyes that were glittering gleefully.
"Melly evolved! Whoo!" Caria yelled out, throwing her arms into the air and quickly hugging her little sister that just gained a humanoid form. Surprised, Xenia looked at the two little girls before turning back to Eisen.
"Wait, did that Bee just turn into a little girl?" She asked before Eisen nodded with a soft smile, happy that this happened and curious what Melissa's new race was.
Quickly, the old man opened her status, looking at the race display, and he was surprised to read 'Empress Bee' written there. "Oh, interesting! So a step above Queen then? Melissa, do you know if you can do any new things? You don't seem to have any new skills." Eisen asked her before the tiny empress closed her eyes in thought.
"Hmm… Make Queens. Only one for type." She then muttered out quietly, while Eisen tried to decipher what he was just told.
"I see… So you can appoint a queen for each type of Bee? Ah, that probably has to do with all the new species you two made, then." Eisen said with a smile, rubbing the top of Melissa's head before Xenia tuned in.
"Wait, are… are all of these monsters? I mean, I was aware that the guy behind you and that Bee, were monsters, but even that little girl sitting on your lap? She looks so… human. And with her cute hat, she looked like a tiny witch or something like that." Xenia said in surprise, looking at Melissa, Caria, and Kiron one after another. "Hmm, so a Dragon-Boy, a Mushroom-Girl and a Bee-Girl"
Surprised, Kiron stared back at Xenia, leaning forward to talk to her. "Miss Xenia? How did you figure that out without using the appraisal skill? Do you have a skill similar to M'Lord's Truth-Seeing-Eyes?"
"Huh? Oh, nothing like that. His eyes seem quite interesting if I'll be honest. Rather, I can use spirit magic, which is used by most Summoners, and became able to see them through a special spirit magic spell. Spirits tend to stick to what they know and what they like, meaning what is similar to them, especially so for monsters. Some small spirit mushrooms were growing by the Mushroom-girl's feet. The Bee girl had some spirit bees flying around her. And you had a rather draconic-looking spirit around you. Actually, you seem to be some kind of royalty, since the spirit is bowing to you." Xenia said with a slight grin, feeling smug that she was accurately able to analyze what those spirits meant. Still feeling cheered up through Melissa's evolution, Eisen chuckled softly and nodded in response to what Xenia said.
"You're right, yeah. As I said before, Melissa is an Empress Bee. Caria here is a Lesser Druid Myconid, while Kiron is a Half-Dragon. Ah, by the way, he's a Rank 9 Monster and the son of the Crystal Dragon God Trygan." Eisen said with a smile, excited to see Xenia's reaction.
And it was really quite entertaining, considering that it was a good mixture of confusion, fear, and excitement. "H-huh? That's a joke, right? B-But that would explain why that Draconic spirits bowed to him… Kiron, right? Do you maybe have some kind of godly magic that you could show me?" She asked with a curious smile, slowly getting creepily close to the half-dragon, while Kiron himself started freaking out and looking at Eisen to get help.
Realizing that they should continue their conversation from earlier anyway, Eisen chuckled and stood up, placing his hand on Xenia's shoulder from behind. "Hey, come on. We weren't completely finished talking yet. Can you introduce me to that Dien guy?"
With a wry smile, Xenia crossed her arms again, looking the old man in the eyes. "Of course. I already called him here."