Proofreader: Xemul
“So, Loren, what can I do for you today? It’s been so long, I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“We don’t have the kind of relationship where I visit you all the time though.”
Loren had no desire at all to live a life where he had to see the face of an Elder, a highest ranking vampire, every day.
Being given the cold shoulder by Loren, Dia slammed a metal cup down in front of him rather strongly.
After encountering their party in the ruin, Dia had decided that they shouldn’t talk while standing around outside, and had led them to her own base beneath the ruin. Loren wondered who in the world would be visiting a place like this, but the room they were taken to was a drawing room, and Dia was preparing tea for them while they sat on a sofa. The cups were probably made of metal because they would not break or crack even if handled roughly, and the table on which his cup was slammed on also seemed to be made of some kind of metal.
“I see that you had some tea leaves ready.”
Lapis said. Unlike Loren’s, her cup was offered to her without a sound, and she was enjoying the aroma of the steam rising from it.
“I sent Master to buy them.”
Dia answered as if it was nothing.
“You still haven’t forgiven her?”
Dia nodded decisively as if saying ‘of course not’, and Lapis smiled wryly.
There was another Elder who could be called Dia’s guardian-cum-master, and her name was Sierra. She was the one who ultimately pulled the strings behind the scenes in the incident that brought Loren’s party into contact with Dia, and ever since Dia found out about it, Sierra had been letting Dia use her for free to avoid being hated.
“How can I, after what she did?”
Dia said plainly and resolutely, and neither Lapids nor Loren, who were only outsiders, felt like saying anything more. They could only feel worried for Sierra, and hope that Dia would forgive her as soon as possible.
“That was that, but let’s get back to my question, shall we?”
“The reason we’re here? We were in the neighborhood, and thought that we should come for a visit. What’s wrong with that?”
Sipping the tea that had been brewed for him, Loren said in a questioning tone. Taking a look at his party members, he saw that Lapis was watching the proceedings with interest, while Gula quickly drained the tea that had been offered to her and demanded a refill, which earned her an offended look from Dia. It seemed that the Evil God was still bitter about being pushed down from the rubble pile, but Dia seemed to be winning in terms of response: despite her annoyance, she still quietly titled the teapot and poured Gula another cup of tea.
The efl Nim was the only one who took the offered cup with both hands, held it in front of her chest, and sat still with her eyes downcast without taking a single sip. Loren thought that he would have to leave her alone until things were over, since she apparently did not feel very lively in front of an Elder and, no matter how much Loren told her that it would be okay, did not want to believe him.
“You don’t have to convince me though.”
After finishing pouring a refill into Gula’s cup, Dia lightly shook the teapot and said this to Loren while pouring tea into the cup in front of her. Staring at the reddish liquid filling the cup, she then returned the pot to the table where everyone was sitting at and picked up her cup, inhaling deeply and enjoying the aroma before gently placing her lips on the rim.
“I’m not saying that you shouldn’t come if you have no business to. Even if that is the case, you, Loren and Lapis, are always welcome, as well as your friends. I am merely suggesting that if you do have some business, why not get it over first and then enjoy the tea?”
After finishing, Dia took a sip of tea from her cup. Loren blinked at the geriatric-like demeanor of the girl in front of him, but in fact there was nothing strange about the way she acted; after all, even if she looked like a young girl, she was a being who had lived for several hundred years.
Dia’s offer to finish their business first if they did have some, then take their time later was very much appreciated by Loren. He was about to open his mouth to say that he would take advantage of the offer when Gula suddenly pressed her hands on her mouth and fell off her chair with her face upturned.
Wondering what had happened, Loren braced himself and took a look at her. But when he saw Gula stretched out on the floor with her mouth bright red and swollen as if she had been burned, he turned his gaze to her cup.
There was no steam rising from the cup, and when Loren touched his fingertips to the cup itself, the metal, heated by the tea, only transmitted a heat that was not unbearable, and not enough to burn anyone’s lips. He tried to move his fingers toward the tea inside the cup, but before he could get very close, Dia reached across the table and gently stopped him.
“You should stop. It’ll be very troublesome if you get burns on the tips of your fingers. After all, it’s extremely hot and painful.”
“I don’t see any steam rising…”
“Because I put some oil on top?”
Dia said nonchalantly.
Pulling his own wrist out of Dia’s grip and withdrawing his hand, Loren looked down at Gula, who had stopped twitching as if she had hit the back of her head when she fell down. Apparently, her attitude of rudely demanding a refill had angered the Elder. He didn’t know when she did it, but she must have gulped down the very hot tea, which was covered with a film of oil on the surface to prevent the steam from rising, since she was Gula. And this was the result.
If one did not consider the deftness and severity of the attack, it could be called a childish prank. But the only damage was some burns around the mouth because the one who received it was Gula; if it were done to a human, it could have resulted in lifelong injuries.
“Don’t do that to me, okay? And the elf over there, too. If I have offended you in any way, I am ready to apologize.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I wasn’t taught to be disrespectful to guests.”
“Loren, you automatically excluded me just now, didn’t you? You did, didn’t you?!”
Loren had meant it as a casual remark, but Lapis noticed it. When he saw that she was about to take Gula’s cup in her hand, he hurriedly stopped her. He instantly judged that whatever she was going to do, it would be most dangerous to have it in Lapis’ hand.
Lapis, too, had no intention of seriously trying to do anything with Gula’s cup; when Loren wrapped his hand around hers, she pulled back obediently.
“I’m glad to see you two are still getting along as well as ever.”
Dia’s throaty laugh was so different from the smile on her face that Lapis turned to Loren as if confused by the gap.
Loren withdrew his own hand, and began to talk to Dia about his business.
“Actually, I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’d appreciate it if you could answer me.”
“All right. I promise to answer to the best of my knowledge.”
After moistening his lips and throat with a sip of tea, he explained the reason why he had decided to come and see Dia.
“Do you have any idea about how to make the soul of an undead become human’s again?”
“Hmm?”
Loren asked with a serious expression on his face, and Dia stared intently at him while taking a sip from her cup.
Loren did not speak in detail, but Lapis immediately understood that it must be for Shayna, the King of Death resided inside him.
In their previous job, Loren’s team had obtained information about a place where they could make a vessel to turn Shayna back into a human being. However, the place was in such a state that it could not be used immediately, and that was not the only problem: Shayna’s spirit itself had already become undead, and they had established that if it were to be returned to a living body, either the vessel or the spirit, or both, might disappear.
Loren was trying to think of a way out of this, but he was just a swordsman; and it was unlikely for him to come up with any ingenious ideas about magic. So he thought about what to do, and decided to ask Dia, an Elder who was also classified as undead but was hardly an undead, for her opinion.
If Nim had not been here, he might have been able to ask more directly, but it was difficult to ask Nim to leave the room, so Loren had to choose his words carefully.
“Turning the soul of an undead back to a human’s soul huh. Of course it’s not impossible.”
Loren was surprised at Dia’s unexpectedly straightforward answer. He had approached her with the idea that she, as a being classified as high-ranking undead, extremely intelligent and said to be brought forth by the world, would be able to provide a solution to Shayna’s problem. He had not expected to be able to receive it so simply though.
“There is one simple way. Using > after >.”
“That’s absurd…”
It was Lapis who said so frankly in response to Dia’s words. Loren looked at her as if to ask her why, and Lapis, with a weak smile on her face, explained the meaning of the words she had unthinkingly uttered out loud.
“> can be a very simple spell, depending on its use. Something like using it to turn water into holy water can be done by anyone who is a full-fledged priest.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We’re talking about attempting to purify an undead soul by > here. It may be possible, but it would require the preparation of several high-ranking priests from various sects and several days of rituals. In addition, the soul purified by this technique would probably ascend to heaven at once, you know?”
Lapis was implying that the facilities at the Ancient Kingdom’s ruin Loren knew couldn’t be used for this. And even if he was able to turn Shayna’s soul back to human, he would not be able to transplant it into the vessel created at the ruin if her soul had been taken to heaven.
“How to use > is another problem. There have only been a few successful cases so far, and it is the highest ranking spell. Performing it requires nearly a hundred high-ranking priests and a ritual that lasts for more than ten days to enhance their power.”
Death was absolute. It was an immutable law that even Gods could not easily overturn. If such a phenomenon were to be performed by humans, it was understandable that it could only be achieved through such a procedure. Of course, there was no way that Loren could manage what Lapis was talking about, and the method Dia described was nothing more than an impractical plan.
“It sounds like a pipe dream, but it is not unrealizable. And I’m just giving you an example.”
In other words, this method was something that could be done if one tried to, but its feasibility had not been considered at all. Loren grimaced; even though he now knew a solution, he couldn’t do anything to realize it at all.
Seeing Loren like that, Dia asked him with a mischievous smile on her face.
“The idea of turning the undead back into humans is either a fantasy or a pipe dream. Still, the fact that it is not absolutely impossible to realize is a saving grace, isn’t it? So… Would you like to hear about some other ways?”