Day 18 Afternoon - It's a small world

“All right, it’s just beyond that hill,” I stated and closed my map.

“Really… Haaah… Are we really there?” Eriza muttered as she staggered forward, her legs visibly shaking with every step.

She was obviously worn down by our journey, and it was probably partially my fault. During one of our longer breaks, I mentioned to her my hypothesis about a "surge" (read: gaining a level) making her stronger (read: raising her Body attribute) depending on how much she physically exercised beforehand, and since then she refused to even put down her satchel without being directly ordered to do so. I tried to be considerate and added more breaks than I originally planned, but she still got exhausted. Go figure. Anyways, the goblin village was just around the corner, so I stopped for a moment to make sure I was in a presentable shape.

Speaking of the journey, it took slightly longer than expected, which was also partially my fault. We not only stuck to the valleys between the hills when possible, I also asked Eriza to tell me about, and if possible show me, all the valuable herbs, roots and other materials we could gather in the area. This resulted in a lot of sidetracking, but since I could tell on my map that Smaragd was safe and sound in her village, I didn’t feel particularly pressured.

I finished straightening my clothes and gestured for Eriza to come closer and I quickly did the same to her, though her stiffness made it a little difficult. Then I took out a handkerchief, wiped her sweat- and dust-stained face, and then cast a quick healing spell on her too for good measure.

“There.”

“T-Thank you…”

“Don’t even mention it. We can’t have you show up with trembling legs and a dirty face. Now, let’s go.”

With that, I turned around and took a step, only to immediately come to a halt and set my feet. At first I only noticed a crimson shape flying towards me from the treeline, but a quick glance at the DMI map told me it was followed by a marker coming towards me at breakneck speeds. I barely had time to brace myself when a greenish blur flew out from between the trees. It hit me squarely in the chest so hard that if I wasn’t expecting it, I would've probably ended up sprawled on the ground.

“Mafteeeeeeer!”

After I regained my balance, I glanced down and found a very familiar head of messy dark-green hair rubbing against my chest. I smiled and patted my familiar on the head.

“Hi Smaragd. I’m back.”

“Mafteeeeeeer!” she repeated and redoubled her efforts at rubbing her head against me with tears in her eyes.

“Yes, yes.” I told her with mounting irritation as I slowly unclenched her hands and tried to get out of the bear-hug she was giving me. “Please let go, this is getting uncomfortable.”

After some further prodding, Smaragd finally released me and got back on her feet. She still had tears in her eyes and was sniffing, but otherwise she looked perfectly fine. She was wearing the same stained gambeson she had on her when we infiltrated the Old Widow’s cocoon, and even though she was a little disheveled from running through the woods, she looked just as charming as in my memories.

“Smaragd… Smaragd really missed Mafter!” she suddenly exclaimed and she hugged me again. I let out a sigh and patted her shoulders.

“It’s all right, I’m back now.” I pondered if I should've added <I missed you too>, but it felt a little sappy, so I refrained.

“Smaragd was sure Mafter wouldn’t leave Smaragd. Smaragd was… Smaragd…” She slowly quieted down, and then suddenly she started bawling from the top of her lungs. “Smaragd was so lonely, Mafter! Please don’t leave Smaragd alone!”

I was honestly surprised by her outburst. I knew she was attached to me, but I didn’t think it was this bad.

“I'm not going anywhere,” I told her awkwardly while trying to peel myself out of her embrace before she got snot on my new clothes. “I promise.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

At last, after another minute of placating she calmed down enough so that I could completely separate myself from her. It was only then that I paid attention to the gawping girl at our side.

“There are… two Mafters?” she muttered, among other half-sentences. I decided it was best to nip the misunderstanding in the bud, so I wiped Smaragd’s face and then made her stand in front of the maid.

“Eriza, this is Smaragd. She's my familiar. Smaragd, this is Eriza, a servant. I borrowed her from the Floor Master. Be nice to her.”

“Floor Master?” Smaragd inclined her head curiously while she looked over the still baffled girl.

“He is the person who rules this level of the dungeon.”

“So the Floor Master is like a king?”

I thought for a long moment before I shook my head.

“No, that would be Shorkuz. Razzie would be more of a middle-manager under Shorkuz.”

“Under the king? Like a count?”

“Yes, like a…” I cut myself short with a small frown and instead I asked, “Where did you learn these things?”

“Ah!” Suddenly Smaragd gave me a huge grin and pointed at the way she came from. “Lotte told Smaragd.” A second later her smile withered and she looked away sheepishly. “Smaragd missed Mafter and couldn’t sleep, so Lotte told stories about the upworld to Smaragd.”

“Lotte?”

“Ah, the hume Mafter and Smaragd rescued from the big Manylegs.”

“Ooooh, now I remember. She's still in the village?”

“Yes,” Smaragd nodded repeatedly, the smile immediately returning to her face. “Lotte lives in the village now! Lotte is really smart and taught Smaragd all sorts of things!”

“Are you treating her well?”

“Yes! Mafter told Smaragd to look after Lotte, so Smaragd did that! Was Smaragd a good girl?”

She leaned forwards and presented the crown of her head to me with upturned eyes. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the display as I roughly tousled her hair.

“Yes, you were a very good girl.”

“Yay!”

She tried to hug me again, but I skillfully avoided her tackle and she tumbled onto the ground.

“Aaaaw! Mafter is mean!”

“I’m not mean, you are just too clingy.” I deftly leaned to the side to avoid another one of her grabs and continued, “Say, Smaragd?”

“Yef?” she lisped back, as I was holding her back by pushing her cheek with my palm.

“Where's Little Flame?”

She twisted her head around to get my palm off and answered, “Little Flame told Smaragd that Mafter was coming and led Smaragd here. Little Flame should be around here somewhere.”

“I see…” I began to answer, but then I cut myself short and frowned. “Wait, you talked with it?”

Smaragd looked at me questioningly and nodded. “Oh, right. Little Flame told Smaragd that Mafter couldn’t hear Little Flame.”

“Really?” I frowned and decided to observe her for a moment.

Name: Smaragd  Level: 9 Experience: 638

Classification: Humanoid Familiar  Race: Goblin

Health: 89/120 Stamina: 193/225  Mana:  80/80

Body: Low(High) Mind: Low(High) Insight: Mid(Low)

Traits:

*True Familiar (Mafter)

Transformation Lv2 (Fair Goblin)

Supreme Command Lv1

Leadership Lv2

Stealth Lv1

Spirit Vision

*Beloved by the Flame

Wow, Smaragd’s stats were getting really good. At this point even her Mind score was higher than an average human’s. And as for skills… Aha! There! I was pretty sure this one used to be [Friend of the Flame]! Let’s see what is says now.

Beloved by the Flame: The owner is a beloved by the Flame.

I involuntarily let out a sigh. Yeah, even I don’t know why I had any expectations. But still, it was a change. It was probably the System trying to make sense of Little Flame’s connection with Smaragd. I wondered though, since it was friendly with me, shouldn’t I also have Friend of the Flame?

As if on cue, a new pop-up panel opened in front of me.

You have received Enlightenment! Through your connection with your familiar, you have discovered the skill Friend of the Flame!

I couldn’t help but bury my face in my palm. Yep, that is good old "The System" for you. Never change.

…

Seriously though, it was about high time I figured out how this [Enlightenment] business worked. So much to do, so little time. That said, I shook my head to clear it of annoying thoughts and looked at Smaragd.

“When Little Flame comes back, would you help me talk to it?”

“Yes, yes,” Smaragd nodded repeatedly while trying to hug to me again. At first I tried to dodge her, but I was getting tired of the game, so in the end I allowed her to cling to my arm while we walked back to the village. Eriza silently followed behind us, with incredulous eyes. Since we were weighted down by our bags it took us a while to get to the top of the hill, but I wanted to look over the settlement from there. While I've technically seen the place from a bird’s eye view through the DMI map a number of times, I wanted to do it with my own eyes at least once.

The village had changed a lot in the few days since I was gone. Most of the damaged huts were already torn down and scavenged for materials to build new dwellings. These huts were bigger and better made than the old ones, no doubt as a result of Smaragd’s guidance and her Leadership Lv2 skill improving the goblins’ mental faculties. They weren’t particularly well-organized, but from above, I could see something resembling a structure of concentric circles with the biggest hut in the middle. That one was obviously the chief’s, and therefore Smaragd’s place.

There was also a fair bit of expansion. A number of fungus-trees were cut down around the outskirts of the village to make space for new huts to lodge the rescued goblins. While the original village housed about a hundred of them, the current population was closer to two hundred, with most of the rescued goblins either joining the tribe, or still recovering from the trauma.

I opened my map and compared it with the sight in front of me. It naturally matched, but it was best to be careful about these things.

“I-Is that where we are going to live?” Eriza asked tentatively from the back.

I closed the map and gave her a flat glance.

“For the time being, yes.”

She was obviously dissatisfied with the place, and I couldn’t really fault her. I wasn’t one hundred percent satisfied either, though in my case it was for different reasons. The current location of the village wasn’t bad, but it was far from ideal for my future plans. If there was any silver lining to this, it was the fact that the huts were fairly simple constructions, so there was nothing stopping us from deconstructing them and relocating all the buildings. But that’s for later.

For now I gestured for Eriza to follow us and we descended the hill. Once we got close to the clearing around the settlement, I could hear a lot of excited grunts echoing in the air, and by the time we reached the outermost circle of huts, there was an outright commotion with dozens of goblins staring at us from all directions.

Smaragd momentarily let go of my arm and waved to the waiting crowd.

“Mafter is back!” she yelled, and following her exclamation, the entire village erupted in shouts, howls and screeches of "Mafter!", forming a cacophony that physically hurt my ears. Thankfully, they quieted down just as quickly when they noticed the nervously fidgeting Eriza sticking to our back, but even then, they only seemed curious about her presence.

Some of the goblins ran up to me and touched my hands and face. At first I tried to shoo them away, but Smaragd told me they were the survivors of the old village who already met me and they were trying to greet me. Honestly, I couldn’t tell them apart, but it would've been rude to just chase them away, so I let them touch me to their heart’s content (although I tried to keep them from dirtying my clothes.)

At last, we reached the middle of the village, and the large hut there. To my surprise it wasn’t the chief’s hut as I first suspected, but a field hospital with rows of neatly arranged beds. As we entered, my eyes were automatically drawn to the only non-goblin person in the hall, a young woman with long, pointed ears and short golden hair wearing a blue robe covered in stitches. Her hair was unevenly cut, probably a result of the lack of proper scissors, and combined with her still sunken cheeks, it gave her a gaunt appearance. I quickly checked her out with [Observe], and it really was the fae woman from the lair of the Old Widow. Her name was Liselotte, and she was in the middle of chanting. After she finished, her hands glowed with a soft green light, and the goblin under her care let out a relieved sigh.

She did so as well, and at last she spotted us and stood up. I didn’t notice it in the lair, but she was surprisingly tall, almost two heads taller than me. In fact, she was only slightly shorter than Razzie.

“Oh?” She made an intrigued face and kept glancing between Smaragd and I. At last she settled on Smaragd and asked, “Are you sisters?”

My familiar only tilted her head to the side questioningly, so I shook my head and gently got her to let go of my arm in the process.

“No. We just happen to look alike,” I told her with a smile which she returned, albeit awkwardly, then she bowed to me with what looked like some kind of curtsy.

“I presume you are the one who saved me. I'm Liselotte Truant of Askala. You have my eternal gratitude.”

“You're welcome. As you probably already figured, I go by the name Mafter. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine.” She paused for a moment and then added, “You are surprisingly well-spoken.”

“I could say the same about you,” I answered with a smile that seemed to take her aback, so I pushed on. “Now that we are done with the pleasantries, let me take a look at you.” Liselotte momentarily stiffened, probably from the sudden change in my tone, but then she obediently came closer and lowered herself to one knee in front of me so that we were roughly at eye-level. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and gestured for her to stand. “There is no need for that. It will take just a second.”

Saying so I promptly [Observed] her again.

Name: Liselotte Truan Level: 9 Experience: 481

Classification: Humanoid Race: Fae

Health: 28/30 Stamina: 7/100 Mana: 5/80

Body: Low(Mid) Mind: Low(High) Insight:Low(High)

Skills:

*Healing Magic Lv1

Traits:

*Fast Recovery Lv1

“You're exhausted,” I told her flatly.

“I've been healing the goblins,” she answered while making a general gesture towards all the bedridden green bodies in the area. “I've been doing all I could to repay my debt.”

“I see. I'm really grateful for that, but you're really burning the candle on both ends. You're still recovering, so now that I’m back, please don’t push yourself.” Her expression was conflicted for a moment, but then she nodded. “I'm happy we are on the same page. Now stand still for a moment.”

I extended my hand towards her, and to my sincere surprise she didn’t stiffen the way Eriza did even after the umpteenth time. She only looked at me expectantly, so I took a deep breath and activated freeform Healing Magic.

Liselotte let out a soft gasp and her eyes widened in surprise as the golden light from my hand washed over her. It only lasted for about five seconds, but when I was done with her, her complexion was visibly better and even her cheeks filled out a little. I retracted my hand and she blinked at me a couple of times, probably waiting for her eyes to readjust to the dimness of the dungeon, but when she finally calmed down she reached up to her face and muttered, "Rejuvenation? Without a chant?”

“You'll get used to it,” came a surprisingly snappy comment from Eriza at the back.

Liselotte once again blinked in surprise and looked over my head at the girl hiding in the shadow of the entrance of the hut.

“Eriza? Is that you?”

“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow as I glanced between the two of them. “You two know each other?”

“Y-Yes,” Eriza answered, her voice back to her usually stuttery mess. “Ms. Truant was a… return customer at our brewery.”

Liselotte looked like she was waiting for me to give her permission to move, so I inclined my head in the direction of the maid and she immediately walked over.

“Eriza, you're alive! You went missing almost half a year ago! Everyone thought you were dead. The Meister at the brewery was heartbroken.”

“That’s… I’m sorry to hear that,” Eriza answered, her voice once again a little steadier than before. I wondered why that was, but it would've been weird to just outright ask her, so instead I cleared my throat to gain their attention.

“It’s a small world, I guess,” I told them with a shrug. “It’s not a bad thing though. At least you will both have a familiar face to talk to during your stay.”

“Y-Yes,” Eriza mumbled with a clumsy nod. In the meantime I gestured for my familiar, who was once again hanging on my arm.

“Smaragd, could you take this? Be careful, it’s heavy.”

I handed her my satchel, and even with my warning she totally lost her balance and would've fallen over if I didn’t grab her before it could happen.

“Aaaah! It’s heavy!”

“Yes, I just told you that. Please take this and these two to a free hut, I'll follow after you shortly.”

“Hm?” She looked at me skeptically for a moment, an expression I’ve rarely seen on her face, and she asked. “But how will Mafter find Smaragd?”

“Oh, don’t worry, I can find you. I have a map.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Just move along and rest for a while, I'll meet up with you once I'm finished here.”

After some more urging I finally got them to leave, and then I turned around and looked over the small horde of injured, groaning goblins around me. Some quick arithmetic told me that there were sixty beds cramped into the building. A few of them were empty, so let’s say it was fifty goblins in need of attention. One instance of healing with freeform magic was about four Mana points, while I had one hundred and eighty at the moment. I fell a little short, but I was hopeful my mana regen would make up the difference in the time I was healing them.

Thinking so I rolled up my sleeves and, just as I was about to crack my knuckled in preparation, I felt something familiarly incorporeal landing on my head.

“Well, hello there, Little Flame,” I quipped while glancing up just as the rowdy elemental extended its neck and glanced down at me in turn. It made one of its typical purring noises and I felt like its eyes were smiling at me. “I've heard you can talk with Smaragd now. Is that true?” It nodded repeatedly. “Oh really? Well, I better ask Smaragd to translate between us.” It nodded again. “I wonder what kind of nasty things you were telling her behind my back.” This time it shook its head so hard it almost fell off my head, much to my amusement. I stifled a soft chuckle and headed for the first bed to start working on my good deed for the week.