CH 156

I’ve been taking care of Hipopo over these last few days, until one day, I hear a loud knock on my room’s door, before it’s violently opened.

“Shaman! Did he show himself?”

It looks like Taula is here in the capital.

She enters my room here in the inn, and rushes over to me.

“Calm down! All we know for sure is…”

I tell Taula about the series of attacks, as she breathes heavily.

“That’s the shaman’s modus operandi. It sounds a lot like when I had that curse placed on me. But what about Rose? It was cursed, so is it all right?”

I can see the dark fire of vengeance in her eyes, but Taula is still concerned about Rose, my transmuted beast.

“Yes, I pruned it, and used a special potion to coat the parts where the curse didn’t seep in too deeply. Rose is full of energy now.”

I respond while thinking about a few days ago, when I pruned Rose. As always, Rose didn’t like that at all.

“Ah, so my worries weren’t necessary. I should have known it wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“That’s not true. Thank you for worrying.”

I thank Taula, while feeling relieved about talking to someone without worrying about hidden meanings behind her words, unlike Princess Lily.

And as we talk, Kalin enters the room.

“Taula, you’re back. You look all tattered, are you all right?”

“Thank you for contacting me through Ahri. I’m fine. It seems the monsters that appear around the capital have been changing. There was one I had never seen before.”

I hand Taula a potion, as she says something that grabs my attention. Hearing about a new type of monster gets me excited.

“You saw a new monster? What was it like? Where was it?”

“Thank you for the potion. I saw…”

Taula drinks the potion in one gulp, but then Kalin steps in.

“Stop. Sorry Rust, but that’s going to have to wait. And Taula, I’m sorry for asking this right after you got back, but I have a favor to ask.”

I think about asking more about that monster later, but as I look at these two, I feel it’s strange how they’ve become so friendly before I knew it.

“I want you to use your oracle again.”

“Yes. But I must warn you that I have tried to use it about the shaman many times, and nothing came of it.”

“What if it’s about Seilook?”

“Hou…”

Taula looks impressed by Kalin’s proposal. She doesn’t waste time, and takes out her palm-sized scripture of the goddess Araysla, and puts herself in a position to offer prayers.

The light of magic elements shines around her whole body, and she uses her finger to leaf through the scripture with her eyes closed, until it suddenly stops.