Chapter 103: The crest (3)

"Wait, settle?" I tilted my head to the left, still a bit confused.

Upon hearing my question, she looked at me with a smile, "exactly! It needs to accept the new owner, and the new owner needs to accept it, too."

Hmm, still a bit too abstract for me, but let us see...

"The crest is our heart, the core of our soul. So when it's transferred to another royal, the two souls will be conflicting against each other. The new owner's original crest might reject the new crest and it will lead to a dent in the soul, causing the new owner to go crazy." She explained with a frown.

"I see, I wonder how crazy." I nodded and waited for her to continue her explanation. It must've had happened before for them to know about this information. From the way that freaky king explained to us when we talked inside their castle, I was under the impression that he might have witnessed that himself... Probably.

"That's why it's important to get to know the crest first, accept it, and finally, integrate it into one's soul!" She grinned, proud of her knowledge. Aww, I was proud of her, too. Such a smart girl.

"So how do you initiate each phase?" I asked as I rummaged through my backpack to open my inventory, looking for something.

"The first one is simply by touching the heart while flowing your mana into it, and it'll unlock the most important, most meaningful part of the past owner's life, and shows it to the new owner," she continued, "it'll only last for a few seconds, but the new owner might be shown an hour's worth of memories, or even a month's worth of memories, depending on each crest."

Great, that meant I had already initiated and passed the first phase.

"And what do you need to do after that?" I questioned as I grabbed a certain something inside my inventory. Ah, there it was, still in one piece. Good, good.

"Hmm, I'm not sure... Mom said that you won't need to do anything, you just need to understand the previous owner's heart..." She looked up, as if trying to recall her memories, "because, as my mom said, you need to know the crest well to successfully pass the second and third phase!" She giggled as she held up both of her hands, showing 2 and 3 digits.

"Hmm, it's quite an elaborate process. Does that mean you have to go through all three of them, Firiell?" Jeanne asked as I saw her tighten her grip on the little girl's hand, "I think you should get some more rest first. How about doing it after you recover?"

"Oh, no no, big sis Jeanne. I won't need to!" She giggled.

Aww how cute, she called Jeanne 'big sis'.

"What do you mean you don't need to?" Jeanne raised an eyebrow.

"I only need to touch the heart while channeling my mana into it. After starting the first phase, the crest should be revived! And then we can hand it over to uncle Erenduill without undergoing the second and third phase, since he's the one who wants to use the crest." She beamed with happiness.

Wait, that's right. Erenduill did say that we can 'revive' it with mana... So did the first phase activate for me because my mana was overflowing after general Zhang touched me? Quite a plausible explanation. And as for the royal blood, I was pretty sure it was only because Ioriell's blood got into my wound when I was, um, rearranging his insides, respectfully.

... Nice. It turned out that extracting the crest wasn't as impossible as I thought it was.

"I see. That's great to hear." Jeanne answered with a gentle smile on her face.

"I just hope I don't accidentally trigger the second and third phase, though. Hahaha..." Firiell nervously laughed.

"Ooh, try, try!" General Zhang excitedly told her as he leaned forward in anticipation.

"No, I'll die!" She exclaimed.

"Die? I thought the worst that could happen was you going crazy?" General Emilio casually asked, as if going crazy was something normal.

"That's the case for elves, as for humans, uh..." She pondered for a bit, "generally, their mana will clash with each other, causing a turbulency in mana flow and that should lead to um, death..."

"How do you know that?" He pressed on.

"... Mom said that several experiments have been conducted in order to fully understand how crests work, so..." She averted her eyes from us.

"I see, and because you're half-human, you might also die." I nodded my head a few times. Geez, they must've tested it on a lot of humans before coming to that conclusion. Although I wanted to say that it turned out that they weren't exactly a peaceful species, that'd be hypocritical of me, since we humans had been conducting a hecking lot of tests on animals too. On other humans, even.

"Yeah, that's why I'm concerned. But it should be fine! The second phase will only start once the crest is fully charged with mana," she explained with confidence, "after the first phase is over, the dead heart will have changed into a crest. It looks the same, just with a slightly different color, which signifies that the extraction is complete."

"A different color...?" General Zhang muttered to himself.

Oh, crap. Was he going to realize it? I had to make this faster!

"Firiell, that's nice. But may I ask what happens during the second and third phase?" I nervously asked, although it was abrupt and out-of-place.

"Mmm, we're not entirely sure about that either. So far, it was reported that the new owners always blacked out for an unknown time period, and when they woke up, they described the feeling as 'being reborn'." She answered while putting a finger on her chin and looking up, thinking about something.

"Being reborn?" I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Yep. They said they feel like they have a larger mana pool, and although it felt strange and unfamiliar to them at first, they eventually grew accustomed to it," she continued, "they didn't say anything about what happened during the blackout though, no one remembered anything, which was quite strange, to be honest..."

"Ahh... I see, I see." I grinned and nodded my head profusely.

"Now, are there any questions before I start the extraction?" Firiell clapped her hands together happily, and looked around the room for any raised hands.

"Nope, but I think this little cub has some, hehehehe!" General Zhang laughed while giving me a weird look.

"Stop giving me the stink eye, and no, I don't." I pouted.

"Hahahhaha!" He continued to laugh his butt off as veins popped on my forehead.

This eel, he knew that I had accidentally extracted the crest already, but he wouldn't say anything about it. Not sure why, but he was being a bro in this case, so let me give a silent thank you for that.

"Wait." General Emilio suddenly stopped us.

We turned our eyes towards him and waited for him to continue his speech.

"I don't plan on handing the crest to that king. I thought we can give it to the headmaster, but now that we know that humans can't use it, it's kinda troublesome." General Emilio concluded.

"What-- So that's what you meant when you said that you had other plans? But... How else are we going to get their cooperation? We can't possibly extract the hostages with just the orc's help!" Jeanne interjected with a worried look.

"I... I don't think uncle will like it if we lie to him..." Firiell shuddered with fear, a contrast to the bright little girl just now.

While they argued about what step to take, I stood up and pointed at the orc leader that was lying unconscious on his bed.

"Alright, you guys go discuss while I check on that fat orc. He was starting to move. I might be able to talk to him or something." I told them as I turned around, and walked away with my backpack in my hand.

Once I've gotten far away enough and made sure that they were busy arguing without noticing me, I unzipped my bag to reveal the blood bag from Firiell that I had saved before. Who knew it'd be useful in this way?

"Oooh, sneaky little cub, are you thinking what I'm thinking~?"

"Oh my gosh, you spooked me!" I quietly exclaimed as I jumped away from the silly white-haired general that suddenly appeared behind me.

"Are you going to make new friends with the orcs? Aww, I'm left out~" He circled his arms around my shoulder and exclaimed loudly, a bit too close for me to keep my cool.

"Ack! Wait--"

"Pretend like I'm bothering you. That way, they won't pay attention to us. That porcupine is quite perceptive, so you have to do better than just walk away," he whispered into my ear while grinning, "I'll block their view. Say 'get away from me' or something."

Huh? He was helping me?

... That was unexpectedly kind of him. Although a bit suspicious.

"Get away from me, you eel." I said as I squirmed a little in his embrace.

"No, I don't wanna~ Let me join you, they're talking about boring stuff back there~" He whined with his trademark annoying voice, but his face was grinning. Only I was able to see it, though, since our backs were facing the others.

"Shut up." I replied concisely while I quickly took out the blood bag and poked a little hole on the corner of it using my finger that I had coated with mana.

Once I was about to bring the bag to my lips, I took a second to glance at general Zhang, who just stood there beside me, observing my lips with those striking red eyes of his. Ack! What was I thinking!

Well, here goes!

'Gulp!'

I held my breath as I took a few gulps from the bag, making sure to not drink all of it in case I could use it again in the future, and frowned when I felt the taste and smell of blood filled my mouth and nose cavities.

"Hngg--" I whimpered quietly as I sealed the hole in the bag with the tape I picked up earlier from the cabinet outside.

"Aww, it didn't suit your taste? Do you want candy to go along with it? Or a kiss?" He whispered to me while winking.

"No." I pushed his unfairly beautiful face away before my cheeks could get even more flushed.

Okay, back to the main problem here. By drinking that, it should count as 'having royal blood inside me', right? I mean, having Ioriell's blood seep in through my wound worked, so I didn't see why this wouldn't work.

"Go on, little cub, I'm waiting," he chuckled, "don't worry, I'll make sure to take a veeeery good care of your body while you're unconscious."

"... That's even more concerning."

I let out a deep sigh, and focused my sight on the heart in my hand. Alright, time to fill this thing up with mana.

Luke, you better thank me for giving you extra living space, you parasite.

'FLASH!'