Chapter 200 (3/19): The Winged Ruler

“I was so worried! I thought I’d lost you forever,” Camilla said, sobbing. Tears spilled out of her eyes and onto Kagriss’s bare shoulder.

“There, there, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, I promise.” Kagriss began petting her head, starting from the top of her head, and running her hand down the back, smoothing out her hair. As Camilla buried her face into the crook of Kagriss’s neck, she realized that Kagriss wasn’t wearing anything.

“Kagriss, where are your clothes?” she asked, her face reddening to resemble an apple. “Also is it just me, or did you get shorter? Are you really okay? Was it because I didn’t give you enough mana?”

Filled with concern for Kagriss, Camilla tried to summon up her strangely ample reserves of mana and give Kagriss some. That was strange. Where did all of that mana come from?

She had no idea what happened after she fainted from the pain. All she could remember was promising to protect Kagriss over and over again, hoping that her sheer will would be enough to turn her thoughts into reality, but when she woke up again, Kagriss was sitting in front of her.

Perhaps she was dreaming…

Kagriss pushed her hand away and shook her head. “Thank you, but there’s no need—you left plenty of mana for me. As for me getting smaller, that’s not quite right,” she said. “You’re the one that got taller. Congratulations, Milla!” Then she clapped.

The news that she grew taller was so unexpected that Camilla went into a daze.

She got taller… She really got taller?! Camilla could scarcely believe it. Perhaps she really was dreaming. Pinching herself wouldn’t work as a test since she did not feel pain in the first place.

“You’re not joking, right?” Camilla asked, just to be sure.

Kagriss nodded, and Camilla jumped into her arms again, so happy that she could cry. “I thought I was going to be that small forever! I’m so happy that I’m bigger now. How can I protect you if I’m so much smaller than you?” She didn’t forget her regrets from when she was trying to shield Kagriss’s body with her own.

It didn’t work. Now, it probably still wouldn’t work, but at least she had a chance.

As she hugged Kagriss, she became aware of something soft that was in her way between her body and Kagriss’s, stopping her from hugging Kagriss as tightly as she wanted. She looked down and saw two pale mounds… four, counting Kagriss’s. One pair was in a black dress, while the other pair was uncovered. Kagriss still didn’t have her clothes on, but when did she have large breasts?

She poked at them in wonder, a bit mesmerized at how soft it was and how weird it was to have enough fat on her body for her finger to sink into. It was also a bit less sensitive to the touch than before.

As she examined her newfound breasts that could actually form cleavage, she suddenly remembered that Kagriss was still unclothed. She also thought back to her words before and found that it wasn’t hard to interpret them in another way. Blushing hard once more, she sat back and glared at Kagriss as if daring her to say something.

“Put on some clothes!”

“I can’t put on any clothes,” Kagriss said, spreading her fingers helplessly. “I don’t have the moonstone you gave me anymore.”

“…Oh.” Camilla remembered now. When Kagriss’s body burned away the first time, she left her clothes behind. At the time, Camilla only cared about the core that made up Kagriss’s entire existence, so she left everything behind and only protected the core.

The dress and the moonstone were probably still outside of the cocoon being burned by the holy light. Moonstone aside, the dress was probably already reduced to ashes and scattered all over the room. Camilla had no idea if the blood bond worked when things were damaged to that extent.

“I guess it can’t be help,” she said, pulling out one of her one of her own dresses and helped Kagriss put it in. While the cocoon wasn’t small, it wasn’t huge either, so it got a bit cramped when it was being used as an impromptu changing room. Luckily, bonded clothes could freely change size to a certain extent, or else she’d have to change her own clothes after allegedly growing taller.

The very thought of having grown gave her shivers and Camilla couldn’t wait to go out and show off her new height.

“Kagriss, Kagriss, how much taller did I grow?” She stood up and spread her hands to give Kagriss the best view possible.

Kagriss looked at her and thought for a little while. “You’re definitely taller than both Victoria and Ismelda now. You’re somewhere between Ismelda and my height.” She stopped when Camilla bounced over to her side to compare.

Whereas Camilla had been more than a head shorter, now Camilla reached up to Kagriss’s nose. All things considered, Camilla was no longer considered short and was now well in the domain of average height.

It didn’t stop Kagriss from petting her head and Camilla didn’t complain.

The shelter that the cocoon offered would not last for much longer. Camilla hesitated as she reached out to tear the cocoon down and step back into the torrent of light. She looked at Kagriss with worry.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m scared. I don’t want you to get hurt. And even if I’m stronger now after evolving, I just grew so much. It doesn’t even feel like my body is my own. How can I protect you if I’m tripping over myself…?” She bit her lips and pulled back her hand, deciding to let the cocoon stand for as long as possible, so she didn’t have to face that painful light.

Kagriss grabbed her retreating hand and pulled it forward, forcing it to touch the cocoon. “Don’t worry. Did you forget that I prepared for months to evolve? Since you’ll be protecting me in the future, then at least this time let’s switch the roles around, alright?”

“Okay…” Camilla said, blushing at Kagriss’s words. Really, she was lucky to have met Kagriss.

With a thought, she deactivated the formations that supported the structure of the cocoon and the whole dark shelter dissolved into mana that should’ve been washed away by the power of the holy light.

However, before Camilla could even completely destroy the cocoon, a black shield rose up around them with a snap of Kagriss’s fingers. It looked and felt almost exactly like the cocoon.

Camilla stared at Kagriss in shock. “How…?”

“You’re not the only one that evolved,” Kagriss said, grinning. “This would’ve been impossible or very hard for me before, but now, I feel like it’s so much easier to decipher the secrets behind formations and mimic them. It took me a while, but I managed to copy it while you were still sleeping.”

She looked so proud that Camilla could almost picture her with a wagging tail and chanting, “praise me, praise me!”

The image was just too precious and would’ve seemed so wrong on the old Kagriss, but… how should she say it… Kagriss seemed to be a lot more open now. More open, more expressive, more willing to talk. Camilla didn’t dislike the change.

In the newly formed shelter, Kagriss knelt down and pressed her hand on the ground, closing her eyes. A moment later, she stood back up and snapped her fingers, a completely unnecessary action. She never would’ve done that before, but right now, Camilla could not stop thinking about how much she was in love with Kagriss’s dandy attitude.

With Kagriss’s snap, the imposing mana from outside the shelter was gone. When she took down the barrier, they found themselves in a throne room that was free of holy mana. The only sign of holy magic ever having been used was the burnt rug and charred ground.

The moonstone was still intact, sitting on the ground and covered in ashes. Camilla picked it up and cleaned it before giving it back to Kagriss. When she checked for the red dress that Kagriss preferred, it was nowhere in sight.

Camilla shook her head. “It’s gone. Not even my blood bond can bring it back…”

“And it was my favorite dress too… it was the first dress you’ve ever given me.”

“You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” Camilla asked, covering her red face, too embarrassed to even look at Kagriss. “I’ll give you as many dresses as you want after this, so forget about it now!”

As they bickered, a presence descended over them. Their playful voices ceased, and they looked up with hostility. Camilla frowned. “You’re that voice, aren’t you? Are you done? I don’t want whatever it is that the so-called child is supposed to claim. I want to leave.”

The voice didn’t reply to her question and instead posed her own. “You… are an undead? How can that be?”

“What do you mean, ‘how can it be?’ I’ve always been undead, starting from way before you called me that child. What do you want from us?” Camilla growled. She turned to Kagriss. “Can you find them? The speakers.”

“I can find them, but unfortunately, I don’t think I can reveal them,” Kagriss replied. “But they’re right over there.” She pointed around the room, her fingers stopping on the throne.

Camilla froze. “Just on the throne?” she asked hopefully.

“No. Everywhere. There are nineteen speakers and the loudest one is on the throne.”

Camilla’s mouth opened and shut, speechless. This whole time she’d been here, and she’d never noticed that there were people nearby. She’d just assumed that the voice was made by a spell that could communicate over long distances.

Who could’ve known that they were right nearby?

Seeing that they’ve been found out, the voice gave a long sigh of defeat. “Very well, we’ll show ourselves.”

Prismatic lights shattered from all around the room as nineteen figures revealed themselves. There were nine on each side of the carpet and one on the throne. Camilla rubbed her eyes.

“You’re… angels?” she asked.

The voices spoke again. “Not quite. We are an old race known as flugels. Pleased to meet you, child… no… demon. We are the guardians of the remnants.”

This time, Camilla could clearly tell who was leading the speaking. Like Kagriss said, the leader was on the throne. The leader of the guardians was a beautiful woman with golden hair and eyes like honey. From her back spouted pure white wings, and her entire figure was covered in an ornate armor that looked more ceremonial than practical yet gave off such magic that it was without a doubt built for war. A matching helmet sat on the armrest of the throne, while a sheathed sword lingered within arm’s reach.

The other angels—no, flugels were also already armored, and they sat in previous hidden chairs with their weapons close at hand. Although their armor was not as fancy as the set owned by the one sitting on the throne, the flugels still exuded the commanding aura of high-ranking officers in an army. Their armaments and scars suggested their martial might and Camilla had the sense that when it came to magic, none of them would lose to archpriests.

Even as she was now, Camilla felt a bit intimidated by their presence, but after she remembered how they treated Kagriss, anger purged her unease.

“I don’t care what you are,” she snapped. “So, answer the question. What do you want from us?”

The leader of the flugels shifted in her throne, resting her head on her fist as she looked down on them. Her mannerisms reminded Camilla of the prideful Victoria, from the way she never looked straight at those she considered lesser, to the leisurely posture that the flugel adopted.

“I’m afraid that there’s been a misunderstanding,” the flugel said. “When I summoned you here, I expected a child of the feathers, or one of our descendants. However, it seems I was mistaken. How strange…”

The last words were spoken more to herself than to anyone else, but Camilla heard it anyway.

How could anyone mistake her for a flugel’s descendants when she had no wings? Was it through her mana when she touched the door? If the vampires specialized in blood magic, then all signs pointed to humans specializing in holy magic, so perhaps that was it. At the time, she had a barrier up.

So it was a misunderstanding.

“So can you let us out?” she asked. “It is a misunderstanding after all.”

“No. There is something else I want to ascertain.” The flugel leaned forward and stared with her sharp golden eyes at Camilla, as if seeing right through her. “You are an undead, yet you can use our magic. You’re not just an undead, aren’t you?”

Camilla froze. She normally kept her vampiric heritage hidden as much as she could in order to keep a card up her sleeve, which meant sealing her blood mana and using only her undead mana and sometimes holy magic. How did the flugel know?

No… she did use mana conversion when she was resisting that holy magic. Perhaps the flugel sensed it then.

She didn’t answer. She was under no obligation to. However, the flugel did not give up. Her eyes narrowed. “You are a vampire, aren’t you? An undead vampire. There’s something familiar about you that reminds me of her.”

Camilla kept her mouth shut, but this time Kagriss couldn’t sit still. “Reminds you of ‘her’? Who is this ‘her?’”

Anything that had to do with Camilla made her excited, and the new Kagriss was way more active. Camilla sighed.

The flugel smiled. “She’s someone very precious to me. Now that I think about it, the two of you are very similar. One loves a flugel, and another loves an undead. Truly a romance that crosses boundaries.” She threw her head back and laughed.

“That doesn’t tell me anything. Flugels no longer exist, so I still have no idea who you’re talking about,” Camilla protested. Kagriss nodded beside her. “Can’t you give us a name?”

Like always, the flugel just went at her own pace and either ignored her question or circled around it. This time, she ignored it. “Flugels don’t exist anymore, huh? Well, that’s not particularly surprising. But if it’s you, purely based on your similarities to her, I’ll give you a chance.”

“A chance? A chance to do what?” The more Camilla spoke with the flugel, the more confused she got. Nothing made sense because the flugel never answered any questions and merely made more.

The flugel held out her hand. Holy mana gathered within, forming a ball of light that grew brighter and brighter. Camilla tensed, ready to dodge if the flugel decided to fire it at them, but the flugel did no such thing.

When the golden light had turned almost pure white, it changed colors and morphed into a small object. The light died down and in the flugel’s hands was a familiar feather ornament. Camilla gasped.

That was the very thing they were searching for in this dungeon. To think that they’d find it here.

The flugel tossed it at her and Camilla caught it without thinking, though her face whitened when she realized that she just caught what might’ve been a bomb of some sort. It burnt her hand when she caught it and she almost tossed it away before she recognized the feeling of it as the natural reaction an undead has to something holy.

The feather ornament was some kind of holy relic.

Camilla stared at the object, then at the flugel, unsure what to say. She had a million more questions and she had no idea where to begin, so she went with the most basic. “What is this?”

The flugel smiled. “It’s a key. It’s something important to our race and something that’s probably important to you. But that’s all I’ll tell you since it wouldn’t be fun otherwise, would it?”

And there it was again, that infuriating prankster’s personality.

Camilla pursed her lips and put it into her bag. The ornament contained too much mana for her to put into her blood, so she had to resort to the mundane. Once the feather was safe, she looked back at the flugel. “You still haven’t answered any of our questions.”

The flugel waved her hand, then stopped. “I don’t want to answer any of them. However, I will tell you this: ‘the outcome matters not to us. We as a race made a choice and we will take that choice to our graves.’”

“Another new question and no answer!” Camilla growled. She huffed. “Fine. Whatever. Please get us out of here, wherever here is.”

“Pfft. Hahaha! Alright, alright, you can leave,” the flugel said. “By the way, as payment for that feather you’re taking with you, can you help me deliver a message?”

“What can a member of a race extinct for a thousand years possibly have to say to someone who’s still alive?” Camilla asked. Her mouth twitched. Then she remembered that she was thinking like a human again. A vampire like Victoria or Victoria’s mother could easily be over a thousand years old. A few hundred at least.

But on the other hand, it’s a thousand years. Who would remember an acquaintance from a thousand years ago? She could barely go a decade. However, since it was payment, she nodded. The message might have some hints too. “I’ll do my best, but no guarantees.”

“Thank you. The message is… let’s see…” The flugel sank into thought. “How about, ‘I’m sorry for not being able to keep my promise. Good luck?’”

“…got it. And who is the recipient…if she’s still alive?”

“Hahahaha! There’s no way she’s dead. But actually, I take everything back; you don’t have to deliver the message. You said that it’s been a thousand years, so there’s no need to remind her of a long-dead acquaintance like me. But between you and me, she’s a certain little vampire that’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”

The flugel’s eyes became colored with a loving light and before Camilla could ask any more questions, she waved her hand, and the world went dark once more.

When they next woke up, they were sitting next to each other in a water-top pavilon that rested in the middle of a quiet underground lake.