A Tale of One Deviant (Book One)

Chapter 48: Pirates of Smile...Heh, Nothing Much

That night, I put Adoray in the bed again. He wondered how he had been in the bed when I electrically woke him up after the Knight thing, but had learned not to question me. So, if he woke in the middle of the night sometimes and found himself there, he just fell back to sleep after seeing me curled up in a ball on the chair. He did not care that I took the lesser and switch with me like a kind-hearted fellow, no he did not. He pretended he did not see me in the first place.

     Maybe I shouldn't have switched with him, or shown kindness at all.

All I was doing was preparing him for when I left. He got used to me being on the chair, waking up less every night as he got used to how comfortable and alluring the bed was again. It practically begged you to stay, sleep more...

That may have sounded weird, but that was just my way of describing that bed. For sure, I would come back again someday just to sleep there.

Later that day, after the Church members were all locked in their inn rooms at Marinette's "The Whistling Bard," I tucked Adoray in after making sure he wasn't faking and left.

I had found a map by pure chance while looking into the restaurant they had dined in hours before, since it doubled as an adventurer hang out spot during the seasons they were most active in Zueltina, fall and winter.

It wasn't too much work to find the Smile islands and use the unit rate measurements in the bottom corner to find out where it was. So, after making sure everything was set, I went back to the crime scene.

The mana stone barrier that had been set up was quickly dismantled by my small fingers twirling the mana flow around a bit so it looked like it malfunctioned, and I entered the scene. It looked the same as two days ago.

Midnight was nearing and it would soon be day three, the time of the exchange. If I was not mistaken, the exchange would take place early in the morning way before dawn, after meeting up at some old port that was there from the time Smile Islands were inhabited by people. Then, we would sail our own ways and never meet again unless fate willed it.

That's not how this night would go down. Or morning, whichever you prefer.

As I walked through, I transformed into Knight and made the ice melt away, turning back into regular colored sea water and pulling Debrah up from its depths.

She had been starving for two days, which made me wonder if she would still be sane after being cramped in such a small place for that time, but she seemed only extremely dehydrated and a tiny bit crazed. Well, beastkin were meant to be durable under pressure, not sane.

"Welcome back to Severo.
Did you enjoy your prologue of the underworld?" Knight asked, a bright smile gracing my now full lips again.

     Debrah was simply shivering and gaunt in the ice I had trapped her in, eyes unseeing as her fallen back head looked to the ceiling.

     "Hey, are you still alive?" I asked her while floating up to her head, the ribbons on my arms coming alive and my dress billowing as I touched her cheek.

     My fingernail scraped her face as I dragged it down, drawing a line of bright red blood. She didn't respond since it was likely not as painful as the rest of it.

     "Phooey..." I sighed. "Well, it's not like you're supposed to respond anyway. I guess I'll just get the rest of the answers from that one lad..."

     So, I took her and her snow shaved self, dragging the ice block outside and leaving it there. The night made it very cold, so she stopped shivering and just lay there in the ice, numb.