novelraw Chapter 555: A Little Sweetness
Chapter 555: A Little Sweetness
He and Eimhart in his embrace cast their gazes downward, only to abruptly discover that beneath was very deep and expansive. This tiny pool of water was nothing more than an entrance to a massive space below.
Through this tiny "eye", Fisher clearly saw that the depths beneath the water actually resembled a forest hidden away by the Mother Goddess, hiding quietly in this place unfrequented by people like Eden. The forest in the water contained vibrant vitality, and the rarities within were countless. There were many trees Fisher had never even seen before, let alone recognized.
"Very pretty, right? Especially on a night like this."
"..."
Fisher nodded. He turned his head to look at Renee, just about to say something, but discovered that the black dress on her behind him had vanished at some unknown point, morphing into a pure black swimsuit. Apart from the top and bottom pieces of the swimsuit made of some unknown soft material, black gauze draped between them, curling like clouds. Under the caress of the sea breeze and the illumination of the azure fluorescence radiating from the pool before their eyes, it accentuated her originally exquisitely beautiful figure to be even more graceful.
That black gauze swimsuit covered quite a lot, lingering with a sense of asceticism just like Carduan styles. However, after all, that black gauze was hazy, faintly revealing skin as white as jade. Despite not being able to see clearly, it made the temptation appear even more fatal.
Under the spread of wafts of delicate fragrance, even someone like Fisher instantly opened his mouth slightly and was stunned. He subconsciously reached out to cover the eyes of the foolishly staring Eimhart in his embrace, wanting to monopolize this absolute beauty. This provoked Eimhart to chatter angrily,
"Your mom, Fisher, I told you I didn't want to come with you!! I am merely a Holy Artifact, I don't even have a gender, do you think I'm as desperate for lust as you are?!"
"...Sorry, it's just because she is too beautiful, I was afraid of scaring you."
"Your mom!"While saying this, Fisher was still staring fixedly at Renee, so his tone perhaps seemed somewhat perfunctory.
Renee shot a reproachful glare at Fisher before her, and only then did she blushingly look at the clothes on her own body, saying,
"Over the years, many interesting clothes have appeared in Naris. Is this considered one type? Many noble ladies increasingly dislike the bulky swimsuits of the past, so they are also very much pursuing personalization in this aspect..."
"...Similar to the black silk stockings from before?"
"Oh, Mr. Fugitive from Naris has a very strange impression of Naris."
"Isn't it because a certain someone kept wearing them and wandering back and forth in front of me previously."
"So you still remember. Weren't you unmoved back then? How about this, if you call me big sister, I can wear them for you to see~ just a little later~"
"I remember everything about you."
Renee, who was just maliciously smiling and wanting to tease Fisher, instantly had her face turn slightly red again. That touch of pink instantly turned her wickedness into ash and soil. Helplessly, she could only angrily make a musket gesture with her fingers, intending to shoot this bad man before her dead.
"So, the meaning of you wearing this swimsuit is, we are going down? What is down there, I saw many strange trees..."
"Mm... you should know, the original meaning of every Elf's name is a type of tree?"
"I know this, so..."
Renee floated to the side of the pool, saying to Fisher somewhat reminiscently,
"In reality, the war my previous incarnation participated in was the [Second War of Living Beings], which is also commonly referred to as the [Mythic War]. Since there is a second time, there naturally was a first time. During the First Mythic War, the World Tree, having lost the Loom of Destiny, died. Although I do not know the details, it might be related to the Dragon King Fafnir, or it might be related to Chaos... Having lost their faith, the Tree Continent buried her corpse in the center of the Tree Continent, establishing this place as a tomb..."
"With the subsequent occurrence of the Mythic Wars, more and more Elves did not reincarnate but died completely; they were all buried here by their compatriots. Up until the very end, when the entire race perished, aside from those Elven-kin who didn't have compatriots to help collect their remains and erect graves, the rest of the Elves along with their Mother are all here. Perhaps due to the pity of the World Tree's two compatriots, or perhaps due to luck, this place, which also served as the 'tomb' of the Tree Continent, was preserved."
Looking at the world swallowed by azure below, Fisher was temporarily speechless. Eimhart, however, glared with dead fish eyes and said,
"So you two are now going to swim freely in other people's ancestral graves? I want to go too, I've found this bunch of Elves an eyesore for a long time..."
Fisher glanced at him in his embrace, unable to help but say,
"You didn't even meet them personally. Weren't you staying with Archangel Gabriel all along?"
"...That's true. Then I'm not going."
Renee covered her mouth and chuckled lightly. She explained to Eimhart,
"Elves were originally a race without the concept of Death. They would also reincarnate after dying, so to them, graves are not taboo places. Whether it is reincarnation or complete Death, they believe it is the entrance to the next segment of the journey. They left everything of the past here, and it also survived the wars; of course they also wouldn't not want others to come and disturb."
Following this, she turned her head to look at Fisher, saying,
"Let's go, let's go down and take a look. If we can discover something, that would of course be good. If there isn't anything... just take it as a reward."
"Reward?"
"Swimming with a big sister like me... doesn't that count as a reward?"
She blinked slyly, then placed her hands behind her back, tilting backward backward as if having lost her strength. With a "plop", she fell into this azure pool of water, sinking slowly downwards.
Fisher didn't take off the robe on his body; after all, if he took it off it would be skinny dipping. But just before he entered the water, Eimhart flew out.
"You guys go down, I'm going to wander around outside."
"Are you sure?"
"No matter how great I am, I really hate getting into water! Don't you remember the storm in the Sardin Woman's Country in the Northern Border previously? I almost vomited out everything I had memorized! I'll never experience that again even if you beat me to Death!"
Before Fisher could respond, he flew up, flying toward the mountaintop in the distance, incidentally saying,
"More... more importantly, I don't want to watch you two playing in the water down below! Hmph, I seem to smell something nice up there, I'm going to go take a look right now!"
Fisher smiled helplessly. Originally, he brought Eimhart over just to admire the moonlight, because he felt that with Renee's shyness, she definitely wouldn't do anything inappropriate for children with him. Moreover, tossing Eimhart away every time at the crucial moment wasn't very good either; he had gotten angry over this before.
He stopped thinking further; only similarly sinking into the water.
With a plop, his entire person sank into the incomparably broad azure world beneath the surface.
He had previously obtained the ability to breathe underwater from the Demi-Human Completion Handbook. Coupled with several enhancements, Tier advancements, and the power of the Life Completion Manual, entering the water now was just like returning home for him. Even if he went to Jasmine's hometown, there probably wouldn't be any issues—if he didn't consider her mother and father.
"Fisher, come this way."
Underwater, Renee's voice wasn't affected at all; it was still just as clear.
Fisher's gaze followed her all the way forward, catching sight of her looking at him from afar below. Her long black hair spread out behind her, her graceful figure slowly sinking into that forest with her hands behind her back.
He hurriedly caught up, following her down below.
Just as Renee had said, the trees of completely different shapes below each represented an Elf who had passed away.
Among that forest, there were occasionally pavilions and towers, but perhaps due to some sort of impact, they had already become shattered and fragmented. Only every single tree remained completely intact. In front of each tree stood a stone stele, either complete or broken. The words on them were brief; unknown whether it was because the Elves might have reincarnated, making it impossible to describe a particular lifetime of theirs with specific words.
"Li (Pear), firm as a boulder."
"..."
Following Renee's figure, Fisher could only read the trees he passed by and the text upon them.
It was only when he reached a lush, green, and seemingly quite vigorous tree that he once again stopped his swimming steps.
"Bai (Cypress), like flowers, like fire."
This was Marquis Bai's grave.
Fisher reminisced about that Elf who gave Gou Wen endless headaches within Duke Tao's barrier. But at this moment, what presented itself before him was only this piece of wood symbolizing her.
"Do you know this Elf?"
"Ah, met her once."
"Like this. Since that's the case, let's swim a bit faster."
"So sudden?"
"Because I don't want a dummy like you feeling sentimental over the grave of someone you know. This is a date, we should be a little happier."
"Am I this fragile and childish?"
"Don't know how to cherish things. This is a great opportunity to act coquettishly in front of big sister."
Fisher smiled faintly, but still obediently left from in front of these epitaphs.
He finally swept past an incomparably colossal tree. In front of that tree was written,
"Chun (Tsubaki), flowers in a mirror, moon in the water."
The path ahead was broad. At the end of the forest, passing through a massive "Supreme Gate" made of three types of wood, Renee and Fisher arrived at the end of the graveyard. This place was enveloped by uncorroded painted rock walls, appearing exceptionally solemn and solemn.
A line of poetry written in Elven text was engraved on the rock wall. But surprisingly to Fisher, there were only two trees here yet three epitaphs.
Fisher scanned left and right, saying to Renee,
"There are only the trees of the Elf King [Bing] and [Gui] here, but [Tao] doesn't have a tree..."
"I'm not too clear either, but the Gui you mentioned earlier is right here, correct?"
"Mm."
Fisher looked at that completely empty epitaph standing amidst the two trees, roughly knowing that that spot was where Duke Tao's tree was originally meant to be placed.
But since there was nothing here, it probably also indicated that Duke Tao fought until the very last moment in the war, to the extent that after her demise, there were no longer any Elves left to erect an epitaph and plant a tree for her.
Then again, since Gui's tree was here, did the Elves confirm she was already dead?
Helaire said Gui sacrificed herself after completing the divination of the prophecy. This mutually corroborated what she said, because at that time in the past, the Elves only assumed Gui was missing, not confirming her Death.
"What is written on this..."
"[Gui, Effort Will Not Be in Vain.]"
"What does this mean?"
"It means certain things she did definitely will have returns..."
Renee tapped her lips and looked toward Fisher, asking,
"Did you obtain any clues? Regarding between her and me?"
Fisher didn't answer, merely looking at the lines of poetry all around, wanting to find related clues. But similar to the "Three Children", these lines of poetry still told a story, documenting a segment of history.
Using calm yet intensely sorrowful language, it documented:
"Mother's tree roots were stolen away by the giant dragon. Having lost the Loom, betrayed by her brothers, she couldn't see clearly; all of this was surprisingly a cycle."
"Several thousand years ago, our King was bewildered by a Transferred Person; several thousand years later, our Mother was plotted against by a Transferred Person."
"They come from a place outside the world, they are humans all the same, they use the same writing, they have similar appearances."
"One ignited the Authority of Death, one transformed into the tumor of Life."
"Why write poetry?"
"Because our Mother died from the tumor of Chaos, the tumor chanting poems of Chaos."
"He said: Mountaineer, where exactly are you going? He doesn't want to reach the summit of the mountain!"
"He merely wants to return to the foot of the mountain and wake up from the endless nightmare. Could it be there is no other way besides Death?"
"We don't know the answer either; we similarly only feel confusion and anger."
"Why take away our Mother? Why plunge us into the same nightmare, opening the cycle of suffering?"
"We don't know the answer either."
"Plop!"
Beneath the veil of night, Renee took the lead in leaping out from the azure pool of water, closely followed by Fisher.
This trip actually didn't take long; they very quickly returned to the surface. Of course there were clues obtained from this trip down, but regarding Renee, or rather regarding Gui, the content was only that single sentence, "Effort Will Not Be in Vain". The rest was regarding historical records. Renee had seen these things; Fisher just kept them in mind and that was it.
Fisher wasn't yet certain what "Effort Will Not Be in Vain" referred to, but subconsciously, he felt this was related to the "sacrifice" Helaire mentioned.
This also roughly indicated that the matters of Gui mentioned by Helaire were true?
Returning to the surface, Fisher didn't feel tired at all. It was Renee who seemed somewhat fatigued after flying from the Dragon Court to here and then diving into the water. Panting slightly, she looked at Fisher and asked,
"Where is that little guy? He didn't come down with you, where did he go?"
"Eimhart? He went to wander around nearby. He didn't want to enter the water."
"Like this..."
Fisher shot a glance at her continuously heaving chest, unable to help but ask,
"Tired?"
"A little. This body is a representation transformed from my Authority. But because I must limit its influence on Reality, its Tier is very low, just like an ordinary Witch..."
As she spoke, she suddenly looked at Fisher pitifully, saying in panic,
"Oh my, could it be that the bad Fisher, already at the Mythic Rank, knows about this and wants to do something to his powerless big sister? So scared, so scared, what should I do? Help! Help!"
Her artificial cries for help drifted out some distance in this silent maritime area, but no one answered her. It only made Fisher's face cover in black lines, wanting to teach this Renee who loved teasing him a lesson.
Only, when the time came, she would definitely flee in a panic.
"I thought it had to do with your Heart Birds; I didn't see them this time when you returned..."
Renee was slightly stunned, then said smilingly,
"I returned in a hurry this time. Moreover, the Heart Birds are nothing more than my disguise; it doesn't matter whether they exist or not. In the future I can't be bothered to bring so many buntings back... sneaking around secretly, this way you won't be able to notice me when doing bad things, how about it?"
"What bad things could I do?"
"Hehe, what about that Dragon Queen of the Dragon Court, what is she doing right now?"
"...She is working."
Only upon mentioning this did Fisher suddenly feel that while Raphaela was busy handling various Dragon Court affairs, he first secretly met Jasmine, then subsequently took the time while dealing with the several Demon Attendants to meet Helaire, and now was meeting Renee under the moonlight.
In a single day, just in such a brief time of work, Fisher had highly efficiently utilized every minute and every second without wasting any, this was truly...
"So little sister is working. Then little sister wouldn't get angry that you secretly sneaked out at night with big sister to play, right? Surely not, surely not?"
"Renee..."
Feeling a headache, Fisher wanted to stop the mischievous Renee, but she stuck out her tongue, putting on a jealous look.
I must say, her jealousy truly came bafflingly and unaccountably.
"Hmph, no matter what, she was the first one you saw upon returning, even though I was waiting for you to return the entire time."
Fisher didn't know whether to laugh or cry, asking,
"Didn't you say I'm not allowed to mention other women's names?"
Renee's cheek-puffing motion paused slightly. Subsequently, she flew to Fisher's side, simultaneously pounding his shoulder with her small fists and saying repeatedly,
"I want to talk about it, I want to talk about it, I want to talk about it. You're just not allowed to mention, you're not allowed to mention, you're not allowed to mention..."
"..."
Fisher hurriedly caught her small fists, incidentally pulling her instantly into his embrace, tumbling down wet onto the ground beside the pool.
"Plop."
At this moment, four eyes met, inches apart. Her face immediately turned pink, her breathing nearly stopping. But after all, she didn't etherealize to hide and escape, only blankly widening her eyes looking at the Fisher before her.
He looked directly at the woman before him, unable to help but ask,
"Since this is the case, how should I compensate you?"
"Compensate?"
Renee recovered her senses a bit. Blushing, her gaze dodged as she began to think. After quite a while, she said in a small, muffled voice,
"Then... then kiss me again..."
"What?"
Fisher didn't know her request was like this; he was even willing to suspect he heard wrong rather than believing the request would be so simple.
But Renee glared at him, then said softly,
"Not like earlier... want to kiss the lips... I want to try... you... you are not allowed to move recklessly, not allowed at all."
"I'm not even allowed to move?"
"Mm!"
Fisher was dumbfounded, but looking at the completely flushed, extremely shy yet still resolute Renee before him, he also had no choice but to lie on the ground, wearing a look of martyrdom.
"Alright, go ahead."
"Then... then I'm coming?"
Fisher remained motionless, only looking at her. His looking made her, who just wanted to shuffle forward a bit of distance, get frightened back by him again.
She hurriedly reached out her hand to close Fisher's eyes, her voice trembling as she said,
"You close your eyes first!"
"I even have to close my eyes?"
"Be a good boy, listen to big sister..."
Fisher had no choice but to honestly close his eyes. But truthfully speaking, watching her flustered appearance with open eyes was originally considered interesting. Now suddenly closing his eyes and not knowing her specifics paradoxically made his heartbeat quicken bit by bit, seemingly also deeply experiencing a fluster identical to Renee's.
Renee didn't place her body weight entirely on him, light as a feather. Even so, he could still feel a touch of delicate fragrance constantly drawing near him.
Just as he was teased by that substantive delicate fragrance making it difficult to move and having his thoughts wandering, in the next second, an icy cool, a reserved and shy, a touch like a dragonfly touching the water, fell upon his lips so abruptly.
In that moment, all sounds quieted down.
Perhaps Renee also had her eyes closed, just like him. She was perhaps also extremely flustered, clearly already possessing a Tier akin to a God, yet using such an ordinary, mundane body to touch him.
This was perhaps not a physical touch, but a touch of Souls.
This was only a kiss, and it was only a kiss...
Earlier, he shouldn't have kissed her cheek. That way, he could have seen her expression at this moment.
Fisher thought this, yet at this moment forgot to open his eyes to look at her, only savoring this brief kiss.
A moment later, she left again in a panic, leaving behind a bit of lingering delicate fragrance.
Fisher remained blank, like he had just woken up as he opened his hazy eyes.
Before his eyes, she, wearing a black gauze swimsuit, covered her face with both hands, only revealing panicked, water-stained eyes and pink earlobes looking at the Fisher beneath her.
He stared blankly, thus similarly asking foolishly,
"How was it?"
Renee's fair fingers covered her face even tighter. She took a deep breath, then blinked her eyes that were like fine wine, tilting her head and saying blankly,
"A... a little... sweet?"