While Haruki was busy wandering the forest with Laura, Riley and her stepmother were roaming around the cities under the protection of their elusive familiars. Marching behind the swiftwind spy, a tall, invisible figure cloaked under a rag had a giant scythe over its shoulder, ready to be brought down on anyone foolish enough to assault its master. As tall and as sickly as a dying tree, it had its bony fingers wrapped around the handle, and just its master, it was ever-ready for carnage.
None except Riley could see the lonesome widow following him around, that is unless she decided to use her invisibility ability while holding that person's hand.
'She's terrifying as always…' Thought Margarette, being the only one Riley had allowed to witness the widow so far at the moment. Glaring up at the haloed undead, Margarette could no longer refuse that Riley was, at one point, affected by some devious curse. 'Why did I ever request to see her?'
Caressing the amber ring on her finger, she tried to find some comfort by keeping her hand fixed on its vessel. The ring, unlike the rest on her hands, was a vessel for a fire spirit corrupted by pure darkness. Upon sensing any danger to its master, the spirit would pop right out and defend her with its life. However, since, unlike the lonesome widow, the spirit had no real form, thus it made it harder for the creature to stay out of the vessel for longer than a few minutes.
"Mom, what are you thinking about?" Noticing the forgetfulness in Margarette's eyes, Riley brought her back to reality. "We're here to find clues, not for daydreaming!"
Grabbing Margarette's hand, Riley pulled her forward.
"Sorry, ahaha," nervously scratching the back of her head, Margarette tried to play it off.
Back on track with their mission, they headed over to the city's libraries. There, spending hours of their time scanning through books on Lamenian history, the only relevant thing they could find was the story about the giant's insignia carved all over the cities. Under the shadow of the giant creature was a brave warrior stringing up an arrow in the direction of the giant.
"That day, the last of the battalion from the emperor had sent to these lands, the sharp-eared human brought down the giants carrying the aura of malice," while reading through the passage, what struck Margarette as odd was that the word 'human' was printed bolder than the rest of the sentence. It felt almost as if…"Whoever wrote the book wanted the people to credit humans for the killing."
"That sharp-eared remark, it sounds misleading too," Riley added, pointing at the very word. "That's definitely an elf."
With one simple look at each other, they both knew the history was being tampered with. And no matter how many books they read inside the library it was always bound to favor humans while downplaying the role of elves and demi-humans.
"We should leave, there's no point in staying here," following Margarette's suggestion, both of them left the library and headed back to meet with the rest.
***
Bound to the bed at the nursery, the rest of Laura's companions were screaming out cries of agony. Overwhelmed by the pain from their tattered flesh, all three of them flailed around in bed fighting through the chilling curse. Not even the chains could keep them stable, ever so often they all had to be changed which only made matters worse for the caregivers.
However, since this morning, the caregivers knew some respite after the arrival of three demi-humans. Keeping watch over the three elves, Asuka, Athena, and Alice took turns healing the trio whenever the pain got worse.
"We're gonna need new chains again," Asuka told one of the caregivers.
The man nodded and left them alone in the isolated room in the nursery. Running a bit low on mana, Asuka moved to the side and sat down leaning on the wall. Her thoughts, drowned by the screams of the two female elves and the only male elf, made her wanna bang her head against the desolate walls of the nursery. But then again, given its ruined state of the place with broken windows, cracked walls, and only a few doorways having any doors at all, she felt like the whole thing would fall apart if she pushed it with her finger.
'At least this wall can let me lean back on it…' She thought, watching Athena and Alice jumbling between healing the three. 'These guys are dead, we shouldn't rely on them as any sort of bargaining chip.'
"Healing Prayer!" Athena exclaimed.
"Heal!" Alice followed with the most basic of healing skills.
'Both of them are weak in comparison to us, demons. Master should really consider turning them too,' Glaring at their back, Asuka wondered how long they could continue treating the pain instead of the root cause of the problem. No matter how long they keep healing the trio, the pain wasn't going to stop until the curse was lifted off of their bodies.
"Athena, Alice," Asuka called out to the two. As soon as they turned around to look at her, she voiced what they'd all been thinking so far. "They need medicine for the disease, not a temporary cure from the hurt it's causing."
Although it pained the two, both of them joined Asuka to get some rest as well, all the while, the trio struggled through immense pain. After waiting for a while, the caregiver came back with the chains. Asking him to leave, Asuka used her familiar to replace the broken chains.
"They won't remember seeing those tentacles, right?" A bit distraught by the creature herself, Athena asked Asuka.
"We've tortured people with worse, it's just that we never needed to undo the curses master inflicted," shooting Athena a glance while binding the male elf with chains, Asuka told her what she thought. "I have no clue if they will remember anything, but that's probably for the best."
Not too long after all three of them were bound again, Riley and Margarette arrived at the nursery. Soon after, even Haruki showed up along with Laura holding all the medicine. And while she was happy to be reunited with her master, Asuka couldn't help but wonder…
'Where the hell is Moriyana?'
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