Chapter 23 – Black Harbor

I land on a small hill and let Levia down from my embrace so that we stand by each other. I still hold her hand though, the action I hardly noticed I started at some point, not like I mind it. And Levia also seems not to, since she is holding my hand tightly and doesn't let go.

We look at the large walls a kilometer or so to the front, the safety of Black Harbor. At first glance it's visible it is a much larger town than Riverside, if only by the walls that are made out of stone and around twice Riverside's height, close to ten meters judging from what's visible behind them. The walls are much wider and filled with more buildings of better quality and larger sizes. I would say the town is at least six times the area of Riverside, counting the farms of both towns in.

I can spot said farms with colorful crops on the southern slope shaped into huge stairs, with docks for flying ships in between, two of those actually staying in the town right now, and tall buildings in the center that seem to be at least four stories high. Most of the structures inside the walls are built out of dull, gray stone with dark red roofs and only those closer to the walls are built from wood, though I don't think they are homes and instead storages or stables. Looking at it from above I wouldn't hesitate to call Black Harbor a city, but I guess there is something that still makes it a town. Maybe just different standards.

"Where to first?" I ask Levia, still abiding the agreement for her to be in the lead, though so much passed from when I said that she might not remember it. Or actually, she is a Mechanical, so won't she have very good memory? Like a computer? I'll ask her later. Probably.

"I think we should go to Hunter's Guild give them the news?" She turns to me and says uncertainly.

"...Can you disguise yourself or something?" I look at her and ask, an idea forming in my head.

"Uh, I can?" Levia looks at me with a frown. "What for?"

"Then write a message and pass it anonimously. Just leave it somewhere in the Guild in plain sight or give it to a receptionist." I say. "Easier, faster, less trouble knocking to our doors later on." I see Levia's face brightening and she places her hand on her chin, thinking about something. I wait for a while and a moment later she raises her arm and produces a small, white sheet of paper. Or at least what looks like paper, because it's more likely they are nanobots... Yep, confirmed with magic sight.

She then smiles brightly and sticks out the paper in front of my face with somewhat expectant expression. I look at it and raise my eyebrows wide. "Interesting." I comment as I skim the content of already written message. Done quite fast I have to say, though large part of that is probably her being a Mechanical.

In short, whatever we told to Krom, the branch master in Tavensville, is compressed here into a few concise sentences.

"Nice, good job." I nod by the end. "And what abo-." I glance at Levia and suck in a deep breath as I realize the person standing on my side has absolutely nothing to do with how Levia looked before apart from the cloth covering her. If not for that and the fact that she is still holding my hand, I would have no damned way to know who she is.

The height remained the same, but her skin is tanned, hair shorter and light blue, ears long like those of elves and eyes dark blue instead of her usual violet. To top it off her face is only vaguely similar to original, a tad rougher and less refined, her chest and especially hips gained a lot in size and roundness and she seems to have dark blue tattoos on her forearms. Her general image is... well, different enough to be completely unrecognizable.

"Wow~." I say as she giggles at my reaction. "What about the cloth?"

"Uh, I can color it and wrap it differently, but..." She says sheepishly and glances at me with her face reddening. Oh, right, she needs to take if off more or less to adjust it or change it.

"Do you want me to look away?" I ask with a smirk.

"No, you can look." She replies smoothly, though not without a heavy blush on her face, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Lovely.

"Don't mind if I do." I say with a grin and watch her as the large cloth changes color from pitch black to subdued orange and Levia lets go of my hand and steps to the side a bit. She starts unwrapping it from her body, twisting it quickly and wrapping around her again, without showing much skin and no different from what I expect from her. In the end it's bedroom where I can see her take off her clothes, and I'll wait patiently till that time.

She does the job surprisingly quickly and in a few seconds I see a completely new person in a... fuck I don't know what's that. It's a cloth, but I have absolutely no idea how to describe it. It tightly wraps under her arms and around her breasts, exposing them a bit from upside, then as it goes down it somehow shows her belly, wraps around her hips tightly and its corner drops almost to the ground behind her as the remaining cloth hangs around her thighs loosely. It emphasizes her figure perfectly and leaves her arms bare, and to be honest she completely gives off the vibe of a nomad visiting big city.

"Wow." I say once again breathless, taking in her hot figure, completely unlike her normal one. "That's... something."

Levia places her arms on her chest in response and smiles bashfully, then almost jumps to me and grabs my hand, interlocking our fingers. Under sudden impulse I lean in and kiss her on her lips without warning, and I feel them to be much fuller, but also a bit rougher than before. I feel them twitching pleasurably and when I pull away I notice Levia just barely restraining a grin on her face as she looks at me warmly. Damn, it's so... surreal? Weird? I can't really describe it, but it definitely feels weird for my girlfriend to turn into a completely different form.

...Not like it makes me love her any less.

"I think... I kinda passed the real life test?" I say somewhat in thought.

"Uh, what?" Levia looks at me with reasonable lack of understanding.

"Your form?" I half ask, kissing her lightly on her cheek. "It doesn't matter. I love you." I say, putting my arm around her waist and pulling her closer.

"Oh." Levia says blanky, uncertainly, but smiles soon after. "Oh, well." She looks up at me and pushes me away lightly, squirming as I slide my hand over her hips. "Not now doofus, I love you too, but I've got a message to deliver." She says with a silly grin and mirth in her eyes and pushes stonger to peel me off her. I allow her to get out of my clutches with a tad embarrassed smile and she looks back at me.

"How do we do it?" She asks and explains as I raise my eyebrows in question. "I mean, you can wait here or we can meet up somewhere in the city. Uh, town." She glares in the general direction of Black Harbor.

"I'd like to see the ships, so we can meet at the docks. Just drop the message somewhere visible and go there."

"Sure." She nods and backs away a bit, but I pull her back quickly and turn her around, making her look at me with surprise.

I lock her lips in a light kiss and her eyes widen for a moment before she closes them and enjoys the feeling. I pull away a few seconds later and look at her with a wide smile, letting go of her hand at the same time. "For good luck. See you in the docks. Message me if there's any trouble." I kiss her lightly on her cheek again, unable to stop myself, and flare my wings, then beat them strongly and shot up into the air. I see Levia smiling wide and waving her arm lightly and start beating my wings, speeding up in the direction of Black Harbor.

I take a small detour and close in to the ci- town from the edge of the island and fly straight into the harbor, passing by the stone wall on my way and seeing the docks more clearly. They are built from wood, but the size of the whole trunks they used makes it strong enough to be as durable as typical stone constructions. There are whole five meters wide trees cut diagonally in half and placed firmly on the slope, serving as piers and connected with wide stone road. As the slope rises the street goes sideways, likely for it not to be so steep, with stairs on its side, up to the flatter part of the island where actual town starts.

Ironically, despite the fact that this town is called Black Harbor, the only water I see here is a small river, not even as large as in Riverside. I guess you don't need water for flying ships.

And speaking about ships, there are two docked and they are the main attraction for me since I want to know how they fly. I'm interested in that since it's probably something completely different than what we have on Gaia. Also, with a bit of luck I might be able to replicate the mechanism with demonic energy and get to float in the air intead of flying. It might be slower, but definitely incomparably more convenient in small spaces. Actually, I should be able to do that even now, but some methods to float different than nullifying gravity would be appreciated. And who knows when it might come in handy to know how ships work.

I land on the tip of one of the piers, startling the workers unloading something from the ship and causing one of them to trip and almost fall off the gangplank. The crate he is carrying isn't so lucky and smootly passes the point of no return, or at least it is supposed to before I will me flame to make a harmless whip and wrap it around the crate. I pull it to me strongly and catch it, then toss it lightly to the man standing in place with stupid expression. He barely catches it and scrambles away with embarrassed face. Heh, I wonder how much of it is caused by my looks.

I ignore the rest of the workers, including one who seems to run away in panic for some reason, and turn to the ship, focusing on my magic sense to see the insides. It's really usueful that solid materials are usually filled with mana in a different manner and amount than it is in the air, becaue it makes it possible to see using magic sight. Though I still need a lot of practice, and recognizing the material depending on mana filling it is still far above my capabilities.

The ship I'm looking at seems to be a purely cargo ship, with its hull bulky and almost rectangular. Note that it has no masts and in shape it resembles spaceships more than ships that are supposed to float on water, though its upper deck is open. It's around thirty meters long, and on that note, the range of my magic sight seems to have increased significantly since I last paid attention, now being close to twenty meters. I can see over half of the ship from where I'm standing and all that is storage space, be it on the lower or upper deck. And I can also see something on the sides of the hull that seems to be using mana, but I can't tell what it is doing at all.

I peel my eyes off the ship and walk along the pier to the front of the ship, passing the somewhat nervous workers finishing unloading the ship, and now I see something more interesting inside.

Apart from the living quarters on the upper deck there is a large room on the lower deck I can only see as engine room. The structure isn't active right now, so I won't get to know how it works, but I can see a huge construction, likely from metal, with a lot of pipes and a large bulbous shape in the center. At first glance it reminds me of a steam engine and gives off steampunk vibes, though I would need more time than I have to inspect it in more detail.

Time I don't have since someone important seems to be coming here for whatever reason. It's likely I'm that reason.

I look away from the ship and glance at two people walking in my direction with tense faces. One of them is a middle-aged woman with rough face and in somewhat simple clothes, but with two swords straped on her back. Veteran adventurer till proven otherwise. The other one gives off the fantasy mage vibe, being an elderly man with white beard and donned in a white robe with blue ornaments.

I raise my eyebrows at them as they approach an wait for them to speak since it's them who seem to have business with me.

"Hello, I'm the Hunter's Guild branch master of Black Harbor, Madella." The woman says, a bit tense, trying to give friendly impression.

"And I'm Malcolm of Mage's Guild." The wizard adds. I wiggle my eyebrows at the identity of my welcoming comitee. Not like I didn't think I would meet the branch master sooner or later, but I didn't expect for her to come to me and not vice versa. And the mage I'd assume is at least one of the more important people in Mage's Guild.

Well, time for introducion then. I turn my head to them properly and smile lightly. "Helia, Demoness. Unaffiliated."

They both nod and the woman continues speaking. "Nice to meet you. May I know what are you doing here in the town?"

"Right now I'm admiring a ship." I reply with a smirk, unable to stop myself, turning to said object, and I see the wizard man sucking in a breath of air, but visibly stopping himself from saying whatever got onto his tongue. "If you're asking what my plans are, you can consider me merely another hunter stopping in the town for a while." I look into Madella' eyes and narrow my own. "And may I know what you are doing here?"

"With all due respect, it's rare to see a demon that isn't hostile to us." Malcolm says. It's a bit funny that most of people here don't treat me like they would a Wayfarer and seem to treat me as a demon. "So forgive us if we treat you with caution. It's not that we don't trust you, because we don't see demons as evil or anything of the sort, but people won't take a demon in town very well and we'd like to see for ourselves who you are and what your presence here means." Well, again. Demon, not Wayfarer.

I nod my head in response to the wizard. "I understand. I can protect myself, and while I like to fight, the same can't be said about killing. I'd like to say you can rest assured if anything happens, but I don't think you'd take my word for it?" I ask with a hint of provocation in my voice.

"I don't think we can force you to stay put is something really happens." He replies with a wry smile. "Instead we would like to warn you that some people here are... hostile to demons. I don't think there would be someone foolish enough to attack you, but some people might try various things and I'd like to ask you to be lenient on them, as it seems we both would like to avoid needless conflict."

Wow~, this guy has guts. I'm almost certain he somehow knows how powerful I am and despite that came here to talk with me and ask for things. I can't be certain of course, but that's the only logical explanation, since they wouldn't come here if a random hunter appeared in town.

So I smile deeply, exposing my fangs. "Sure, but I have bottom line. Below that, and it will be death."

Both of them flinch visibly as I say that and a small feeling of satisfaction appears inside me. "We... realize that, and we don't expect you to endure past that." The woman, Madella, says slowly. "Thank you for your understanding." I nod my head.

"If there's nothing else, we'll be going." Malcolm says. "If anything happens, you can find us respectively in Hunter's Guild or Mage's Guild." He nods his head and turns around. Madella also nods her head and turns around and they walk away slowly.

Hm, the old man is probably the... branch master of Mage's Guild? I'm not sure if they also have the position of branch master there, but the function remains similar so I'll call him that for now. What I know is that if he was on lower position, he would rather say I can find their head there. Unless the head considers himself to be above me. In that case I would gladly prove otherwise.

I look back at the ship and smile lightly. Funny how they are treating me. Maybe not like their equal or superior, but they definitely were scared of me, and it's really satisfying in some way. And really funny in another, because, comparing to what I can and will be, I'm very weak right now, only a tad more than fifth of soul's base size. Yet it's no less true that I'm so strong. My magic sight told me that both Madella and Malcolm have over twice Geru's mana, the wizard even close to thrice, and yet they were simply weak to my magic sight. If I had to fight both of them, I might not be able to win effortlessly, but I would definitely defeat them without trouble as long as nothing unforseen happened.

Well, no matter. I turn around and walk lighlty to the second ship and notice it's a tad larger, but generally it's the same boring construction. There are no military ships here and it's no surprise considering that there seems to be absolutely no monsters attacking from the skies. It makes me wonder why are there almost no defences in the docks, not even a wall or something, since any invaders attacking with a ship would be able to get into town suspiciously easily. Maybe there's some factor I'm not aware of that makes any defences unnecessary.

Having satisfied my curiosity for now with nothing more to see without boarding the ships I look around and spot a secluded place closer to the farms. I walk there and lean on the cold stone, then bring out chat windows I didn't check with all the things happening. Fighting with goblins, Beisvart and Geru, then flying and at most importantly kissing and cuddling with Levia.

Catherine: Okay, so everybody died, right?

Daria: Yep.

Crimson: Obviously.

Vulcan: Yep, me too. I was killed by that damned horde when I was approaching the town.

That's what greets me as I open a the group chat. Well, imagine my surprise. Though, on second thought, it's not that strange for all four of them to die since they don't have to worry about death too much and they are not the type to run away from such event.

Hm, I don't think Vulcan's body was there when we were going out? No matter. Nice name, by the way.

The chat goes on for a long while as they talk where would the best place for rebirthing be. As a side note, it's called rebirth and not revival because the body is made anew, so the previous body has nothing to do with the reborn person. And since it's done in special temples and shrines that are mostly found in cities and large towns you get to choose where you get your rebirth, even if you're a demon like me.

Anyway, in the end they settled on Black Harbor cause it's big and said they won't wait for me since I'm not replying. Not like I can blame them. Judging from the fact that rebirth becomes available six hours after death, a mechanism made probably to discourage people from dying purposefully, they are either already in Black Harbor or will be there soon. Assuming they aren't having a break, but I doubt it.

Helia: Sorry, I was kinda occupied and didn't have a chance to reply.

Helia: I'm in Black Harbor with Levia. What are you doing now?

Surprisingly I don't wait even a minute for a reply from Catherine.

Catherine: Oh, nice! We're right now doing a request to get some money and we're out in the forest. I don't think you can join us now, but tomorrow would be fine.

Catherine: Levia is your girlfriend huh?

Damn, I can feel her sass so badly in that reply. Maybe that's for my smack yesterday. My hand is itching. Let's... hm... let's switch to the private chat for a while...

Helia: Yup yup, we've kissed and cuddled a lot today. Why do you ask?

The reply doesn't come for a long while and I grin imagining her reaction.

Catherine: Uh, okay. I didn't need that detail. Are you serious though? I mean, you denied it yesterday.

Helia: As serious as I can be.

Catherine: Oh. You mean you are girlfriends? Like, she sees you as her girlfriend?

I raise my eyebrows high at the underlying meaning and I feel a bit of irritation, but don't let it show since I know she isn't trying to suggest anything bad and it was most likely an accident.

Helia: I don't know what you're trying to suggest, but you would need David's harem protagonist to think you can kiss and cuddle and still be normal friends. And friends with benefits are as far out the picture as they can get, because Levia isn't this type of girl.

Catherine: Shit I'm sorry.

Catherine: Sorry about that, I get it now. I needed to reread it to realize what I wrote.

Helia: I thought so. On more serious note, we've just arrived in Black Harbor and I'd like to spend some time here and deeper in the forest to fight stronger monsters. Would you mind if we spent tomorrow on our own and played together next week?

Catherine: Sure, though I wouldn't be surprised if we met in town. Do you have any plans already?

Helia: Nothing in particular.

Catherine: You could join us in the evening in Black Swan then. It's an inn and pub in one, just by the main square.

Helia: I'll see. Don't expect us, but don't be surprised if we show up.

Catherine: Okay, see you later then.

Helia: Later.

I am just about to close the windows, but I notice another message from a chat unused for days, if not weeks. I open it and my eyebrows shot up in surprise as I read.

Father: Zenon, just wanted to let you know that Katarin's father messaged me a while back that your engagement with Katarin is cancelled. He didn't state the reason, but I don't expect for anything to come of it. The meeting tomorrow is cancelled as well, so you don't need to go out earlier.

Wow, a moment please. That's a lot to take in. Why did he even cancel it if he himself suggested it barely two days earlier? That would likely mean either Katarin being against it from the beginning and convincing him to abandon the idea or him getting to know something that made him change his mind. Hard to say, but there's definitely something fishy about it.

Well, not like I'm resenting him for it, nuh. If I get to spend more time with Levia, then I wouldn't mind school being cancelled or something.

Uh, that name though. Not like I can do much about it.

Zenon: Alright. I'll be out as usual at six then.

I write a quick reply and close the window, then open another one that started blinking a moment ago.

Levia: I'm done, changed my looks and going to docks now. Where are you?

Oh, fuck, I didn't even know I was so tense. With that single sentence I feel myself relaxing, the knot in my heart loosening and disappearing like it never existed, and new impatience squirming in my stomach.

Helia: In the docks, a bit to the west. Look for the ships and I'll be near.

I close the window, stand straight and look around for Levia with a small smile. I don't spot her anywhere near, but I... feel her closing in. Like... not an instict, not exactly a gut feeling, but I just know it. I walk up to the ships and look up the slope, and I notice a familiar figure skipping down the stairs, three of them at once, and looking straight at me with a wide smile plastered on her face.

She is in the form I first saw her in, with white skin, pitch black hair, and violet eyes, but her cloth is now light yellow and wrapped around her body in a way that looks less like rags and much more like a dress. It doesn't expose much of her skin past her arms and legs, wrapping loosely around her figure. It doesn't show her slim, frail build, but instead emphasizes small size and cutesy. Her hair is additionally made into a single ponytail that swings behind her as she jumps.

Fantastic. I grin at her as she aproaches quickly and jumps at me with a silly smile, spreading her arms wide. She lands on me heavily and I purposefully don't offset the impact with my Energy affinity. Instead I take a step back not to fall backwards and wrap my arms around her in a tight hug.

"It was stressful~." Levia whines quietly.

"But you did your job, right?" I ask into her neck and let her down on the ground.

"Yep." She smiles brightly, leaning back and looking at me.

"Good." I release her from my arms and start walking down one of the piers, pulling her with me. She's said something, but I didn't catch it. When we reach the end I scoop her up and place her on the edge, disregarding her small squeak, then promptly plop down next to her and lean on her chest.

"Helia?" Levia asks a bit uncertainly in a small voice, but despite that wraps her arms around me and places her hand on my head.

"I missed you." I say with a feeling of contentment and sigh deeply, inhaling a lot air and noticing a faint smell of Levia. It's... hm. A tad strange, and I'm not sure how to describe it, but it's a faint, calming fragnance, an embrace of darkness.

"How needy." Levia replies teasingly, something I barely notice.

"Mmmrh~."