Chapter 67: The Vault

Chapter 67: The Vault

Early Evening - Late Spring : Kingdom of Kaelallan

- Oliver Kaelallan ~

*Thump* *Bang* The entire lift shook from the distant vibrations as I descended towards the shelter.

-What in the world is happening down there..-

*Thump* Once I finally got to the bottom of the lift, I heard the sound of a mass of water hitting the ground. *Wshhhh*

*Thump*

-Just what..- Looking over towards the source of the noise, I saw a huge pillar of water coming out of the hot spring. -What is he doing?-

Making my way towards the spring, I wanted to look into the water to make sure everything was alright but got distracted by the new white and gold trim along the edge of the spring.

-Gold?- It took a moment for my mind to process what that gold really meant. -He can make gold too!?-

At the time, I assumed he could only make basic, silver-colored metals, but that assumption was destroyed just as easily as it was made.

As I looked around at the rest of the hot spring, I noticed that the amount of white stone and gold were not small. -It can't be real gold, right? That much could make several gold coins...-

Continuing to get closer, I knelt at the side of the pool and pressed my nail into the gold trim. -Oh my lord... Its rea...- *BANG*

Cutting my thoughts short, a massive plume of water was launched out of the spring, completely soaking me in the process.

*Wshhhh* Through the pitter-patter of the water hitting the ground, a youthful draconic voice met my ears. "Oh, welcome back Oliver."

- Vasilias ~

I was sitting at the bottom of the spring playing with implosion magic when I faintly felt someone’s presence outside. -Oh someone’s here. Is it Oliver?- But when I pulled my focus away from the spell I was holding to reason who it could be, the spell set itself off.

*Bang* The water around me instantly vanished as it was all thrown into the air. -Dammit, again?!-

After letting the water eventually crash back down, I finally swam back up to the surface and started sucking the moisture out of the surrounding air to return it to the spring.

As I did that, I finally noticed Oliver standing there with soaked clothes. "Oh, welcome back Oliver." Not bothering to apologize about getting him wet, I moved my magic over him and quickly dried him off. -There, good as new...-

But even after drying him off, he just stood there, frozen with a look of awe.

"Hello? Oliver?" I lightly nudged him with the back of my nail to try and snap him out of his thoughts.

"Ah right sorry. I was just.. shocked is all." His voice was a bit shaky but I didn't pay it mind.

-It's probably nothing...- "So what do you need? You wouldn't have just come down for a bath, right?"

"No, of course not.” His normal, noble air started to return as he calmed down and brushed his clothes. “I came down to give you a bonus reward for saving my life again."

It was as if money signs appeared in my eyes as I hopped out of the spring and changed to my humanoid form. "Lead the way!"

"Okay, but first of all, how did you get that gold?" His eyes were still locked on the edge of the spring.

-Hm? That?- "Well, I thought the spring looked a bit dull so I made it."

It was clear he didn't believe me though. "What do you mean, ‘you made it’?"

"Hmm... I'll look around first."

I spent the next hour or so looking through the various chests and thinking about what I really needed currently.

-Don't need a weapon. Don't need the gold. Don't need any of the artifacts...- But as I was looking through everything, I noticed a small black rectangular ‘thing’ laying on the ground.

-Hey, that looks like a phone!- A smile came to my face as it brought back a wave of nostalgia.

Picking it up, I looked around for buttons but couldn't find anything.

-Haha, imagine if it had a home button.- As a joke, I tapped my thumb on the bottom of the screen. *Beep*

Both Oliver and I instantly froze, letting the noise of Ilios walking down the hall echo through the silence.

-This thing.. might actually be a phone...- Following the beep, an unfamiliar symbol formed on the screen before disappearing and displaying ‘0’. -Is that, its charge?- An instant later, the display returned to black.

In a desperate attempt to try and give it life, I scanned through its insides to look for a battery I could charge, but every bit of technology within it was insanely foreign. -What am I even looking at?-

I ended up spending the next several minutes just trying to find something that even resembled a battery, but to no avail.

But that didn't mean I gave up on it. "I'll take this." -I'm sure I'll eventually figure something out...-

Oliver just stared at me with a confused look. "That's an artifact we found quite a while back. It came from the sky along with a bunch of unusual scrap. We ended up selling and reusing the scrap but we kept this since it was still intact."

-So this came from space just like the cube, huh...- "Yeah I'll take this." Although the core was very enticing, I assumed it would only expand my reserve. I couldn't just pass up the opportunity to get a step closer to finding out what that cube was.

"Alright, well I hope you don't regret it." Oliver was humble on the surface, but under that facade was joy. A joy that I took something seemingly worthless over his family heirloom.

As we eventually walked out of the vault, we didn't talk at all. I was busy inspecting the 'phone' and Oliver didn't care to interrupt, but once we got out of the warehouse, Oliver looked like he wanted to speak up.

"What is it?"

"Ah, I was just wondering if you could do one last thing for me." He seemed a bit awkward as he spoke.

-Sounds troublesome..- "And that would be?"

"Could you go with Lucy to school tomorrow? She seemed down when I said you probably weren't going to go at the same time as her."

"How about you get me a decent-sized monster core as payment?" The huge core in the vault made me hungry for one, even if it was small.

"A..alright, I'll see what I can do."

Although I could see he wasn't super happy with it, he still accepted so I complied. "Well, I guess I'll see her tomorrow morning then."

"Haah..." Letting out a deep sigh, Oliver walked back over to the lift and left the shelter.

“Well then, what now?” As I glanced back to Ilios, who sat next to me, I saw him let out a big yawn. -Hm...- "How about a nap?"

"Ouu-Woof." With a lethargic nod, he looked up at me with a wagging tail.

-Haha, I'll take that as a yes.- Seeing how tired he was, I made my way over to the cushions and curled up to let Ilios lay in my embrace.

Seeing his adorable smile as he closed his eyes made me move my head over and nuzzle against him. “Haah...” -Petting his fur is true bliss...-