'I've used the excuse of observing the process of making the substitute medicine as an excuse to get away from the horde of people' Nesther thought, internally exhausted.
'Well at least I'll get a short break, Sky doesn't seem like the guy to talk much with if you don't talk to him first so I'm sure I can get some quiet time.' Neater thought a sigh of relief coming from her mouth as she approached Sky's location.
But as she approached, she didn't see Sky, but instead Skelea and Shirori.
Seeing Skelra who dumps random work that they often don't use and Shirori who asks too many questions and critiques her, a sense of urgency comes over her.
A feeling so sudden that made her want to immediately turn around and walk away but as she turned half-way, Skelra noticed her and called her, "Nester? What are you doing here?"
"I...I'm…"
"Oh, are you also curious about the method to make the new substitute for the antidote?" Shriori asked, cutting her off mid-way.
"Yeah, definitely," Nester agreed immediately.
'Saved by misunderstanding technique no.13th, "Speaking incomplete and vague sentences and waiting for others to fill the gap."' Nester thought, another sigh of relief coming over her.
She has been feeling a ticklish feeling towards Skelra which means that he suspected her persona which was a scary thought.
'I mean he's a ruthless bastard so I'm scared to even think of what he would do if he found out an incompetent brat had been ordering him and was in charge of the major decisions of the kingdom for the past few years.' Nester thought, a cold sweat falling from her head which went unnoticed by Shiori and Skelra.
"Well then come here, you can get the detailed explanation and the actual process of it up close and personal after Sky comes back." Shirori said, inviting her closer.
Hearing this invitation Nester threw all her plans of turning around, She didn't want to create any more gaps in her mask for Skelra to notice so after exhaling a deep sigh internally she walked over to them.
"I'll take that offer." She replied already in front of Shiori.
"…" Shirori Looked at her not breaking eye contact.
"Is something wrong Shirori?" Skelra asked Shirori, confused at what was happening right now.
"No, I just found it a bit awkward that she said that she 'accepted my offer' after calling coming close and right in front of my face."
"And what's wrong with that?" Skelra asked, sighing as if he already knew the reason behind it or the answer she would give would be a stupid one.
"Well I just think people say that before coming close but she did it in the reverse order making me feel awkward."
Hearing things answer, Skelra sighed again for what feels like the hundredth time as she looked at Shiori before he spoke, "Nothing's wrong with not following the usual actings of a normal person or in other words being a bit abnormal as least socially, It's not like she did anything absurd or disrespectful for you to justify giving her such a cold stare."
"My pardon Ms.Nester, I wasn't aware I was giving such a disrespectful attitude towards you." Shirori said, bowing down her head.
"Did you…jus- No, what made you say such an out of pocket thing and turn a complete 180?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you acting dumb?" Shelra said, a bit irritated, "It's the first time I've heard you ever address her as 'Ms.', and frankly you've criticised her often and I still remember the time you tried to ruin her reputation by spreading the rumour that she sent over 200 scouts to their death intentionally over the course of 7 months which was thankfully silenced by me." Skelra spoke in a more irritated tone pointing his finger towards her face.
'God, I hate this' Nesther thought seeing them argue over her.
"That was due to superstition or a false hypothesis I had crafted after misunderstanding many things that led to that conclusion but I have publicly apologised for that and have also been forgiven for it so please do not bring up such an old story now." Shirori spoke up, her gaze now focused at Skelra.
"Well even if we consider that, you showing this attitude when you've constantly criticised her before is definitely an abnormal behaviour."
"So? You've said and I quote, 'Nothing's wrong with not following the usual actions of a normal person or in other words being a bit abnormal as least socially,' especially considering the fact I didn't do anything disrespectful to receive such harsh words pointed at me."
Hearing this a sigh left Skelra's mouth once again as he looked away in defeat.
"Also I've been wondering if you'll ever apologise to Merick." Shirori spoke up, making Skelra feel a cold sensation as he turned back to face her, a cold seat dropping down from his head.
"I'll do it when I get time so stop bothering me with it will you!?" Skelra spoke with a chill still running down his spine.
'This dynamic of Skelra not particularly liking Shiori yet being afraid of her is still something I have a difficult time understanding' Nester thought.
"Wow, I didn't expect to see so many important characters watching me just make a simple meditation." Sky said with a tired expression.
"Why the long face?" Skelra questioned Sky.
"Well I gave the recipe for the medication but since they didn't know the measurements they just eyeballed it and one idiot almost killed another guy so I had to waste 5 minutes of my life just to scold an idiot and write the measurements." Sky answered.
"5 mins? Is that all it took for you to get such a gloomy expression? I thought you were more emotionally mature than that." Shirori said with her usual tone.
"Hey….are you trying to piss me off?" Sky asked, irritated at her constant criticism that she's been giving him ever since their first meeting.
"Now, now let's just stay calm." Nester spoke, trying to calm the tension.
"On that note, I've been wondering, when you went out to discuss something in the IGS, you could have gone to the nearest post which would only take 20 mins instead you took a longer path to another one of the post which was much further, around 2 hours away yet you still went there and when you reached there, conveniently to one of the first victims of the poison and at the moment where serious symptoms began to show." Shirori questioned, her gaze Turing cold.
'I simply wanted to use that excuse to seem diligent to Sky and still take a long deep breath and get alone time, I mean If I wanted to not go I could have easily sent the guard…' Netser thought, almost biting her lips.
To the eyes of others, they must have known that Nesther could have just sent a guard a letter containing what she wanted to say and get back to work in her office in a were moment so it would seem odd for her to go out and let Sky a person who has only been in this kingdom for a short while do work related and important to the kingdom, yet the more suspicious thing was her choice of a longer path and how it managed to play right into her favour.
"And not only that you managed to also identify the root cause and where the poison was lying and managed to order guards around to spread the information, thus limiting further victims." Shiori continued making Nester sweat even more, "mind I ask an explanation for all these?."
As Shiori stared into Nester's eyes that now turned dull and lost his lustre as if she had lost her good mood or as if she was disappointed in Shiori , Nester closed her eyes, her arms reached up and touched her covering one of her closed eyes as if she was disappointed in Shiori's doubt…or was it her inability to figure out the answer herself?
Seeing this Shiori was confused and as the silence lingered she felt uncomfortable as if she did something awkward in an important speech or a party.
'Am I missing something?' Shriori thought worried and anxious, but her face didn't show it, instead it was the ever still expressionless face of her dull eyes, her eyebrows staying fixed and her face remained neutral as a few eyebags were visible.
Shiori's eyes were cold unlike her thoughts and facing the silence and the stare Luminar was scared.
In fact the dull eyes that had no luster was due to Nester panicking and thinking she was done for causing her face and eyes to lose colour but her 'persona' made sure her emotions were being converted to something that was befitting of her own rules and character she made at least on the surface causing Shiori to feel as if she missed something.
'What should I do!?' Nester said wanting to bite her own nails but Persona stopped her from doing so in front of them.
As both their outward expressions remained the same and their Internal Affairs were in shambles, Sky spoke up, unable to handle this awkward situation, "Could you both cut it out already!?"
Hearing that both of them turned towards Sky who looked a bit Annoyed.
"Look you guys are mainly here to see my new antidote I made right? So just come here and watch it! There's no need to do a staring contest here!"
Sky's voice echoed in both their eyes as they snapped out of their own thoughts.
"Oh, sorry." Shiori was the first to speak up as she apologised.
"Well if you then help me make the antidote will you?" Sky spoke a bit more calmly now.
"But my main objective to come here is to-"
"For god's sake! Will you just help her?" Skelra spoke a bit irritated, "if you are causing trouble for the guy who literally helped many citizens and even some soldiers so that they can recover properly, shouldn't you also help him a bit at the least?"
"…" hearing this Shiori had no excuses and was dragged into work by Sky and both Skelara and Netaer watched from the sidelines.
— ✦ —
It had been an hour since they had started to walk in silence and now they were finally here at the water source.
As William dropped his backpack in the camp, he went out to see the water source that all the water the kingdom used originated from and as he went there he saw a huge pong with the faint sound of a waterfall in the distance reaching his ears. The pond was surrounded by mountains and was shining in the faint moonlight.
'Only if it was a full moon.' William thought imagining how much more beautiful it would have been if there was a full moon.
As he stared at the biggest pond he had ever seen, a concern came up in his head, 'How did this water source manage to get poisoned?'
He was no genius or even smart but he did think that poisoning this large source of water would be nigh-impossible.
'Better yet, how are we supposed to fix this issue?' William thought a cold sweat was dropping from his head.
"Hey newbie, are you doing good?" Bousthesh asked William who had been staring at the pond for a long time.
"Oh, yeah I'm good"
"Then come and help us over here."
"Sure." William replied, telling himself internally to just not worry about the solution they would have to take and instead worry about the current situation.
"Well what do you want me to do?" William asked Bousthesh.
"Just give those veterans a helping hand." Bousthesh replied lazily pointing his finger to a group of soldiers.
Hearing this William went there and approached the soldiers. There were about 4 of them, one had pure white hair while another had some white strands and the other 2 were wearing helmets making William unable to point any characteristics of theirs from their back.
As he approached them they turned to him hearing his footsteps.
"What's the matter?" The white haired soldier asked.
"Bousthesh sent me here to help you." William replied.
"Oh, I see then I just need you to separate these." The soldier said pointing past the pile of sticks and wood they had, some of them were wet and some were dry.
"Soem idiot put the wet and dry ones together so now most of them are also becoming a bit wet but we only need a small amount of dry woods to dry up all of them." He continued.
"I see and what will you be doing?" William asked curiously.
"Oh I'll be rehydrating these dried meats. Sadly these meat were dry aged so they aren't as good as the smoked ones." He said, showing William a stack of thin slices of meat that had turned completely dark and stiff, "want a taste? They are pretty rough though."
"But that's raw isn't it?"
"Juts eat it you if want, it'll be fine."
Hearing the soldier's affirmation, William took one of the meat and bit into it, it was thin but fought, his teeth sunk into the meat but couldn't tear it apart so he started twisting the meat until the piece he was biting into broke up.
The meat was pretty pale in taste with the exception of a hint of salt it was basically a flavourless piece of raw meat.
The meat was rough and hard to shew and it was also extremely chewy too.
After a minute of chewing his jaw started to hurt but he soon managed to shallow it.
While the taste wasn't amazing it wasn't bad.
If he had to compare it to something it would have probably been a really dried up piece of bread or in short a rough piece of bread that had all its moisture evaporated making it stiff and brittle.
That bread was not something that he enjoyed eating but it was something he could eat anytime due to its neutral taste.
As he was comparing the meat two of the soldiers stood up and went away leaving him alone with another soldier.
The soldier who had a couple white strands of hair looked at him and said, "there's a large pile of wood but it is easy to distinguish whether they are wet or dry so it'll probably take you less than 15 mins so don't worry."
Hearing this William wondered if the soldier in front of him misunderstood him in some way.
"I'm not worried about the workload." William replied.
"Ok" He replied, sharpening his sword on a smooth rock.
As William was about to continue the conversation he decided to leave it be for now and after taking another bite of the dried meat he began to arrange the wood keeping the dry wood on top of dry soils.
As he did such mind numbing tasks he began to feel bored and his thoughts wandered off.
'I wonder if I had enough afterglow in my body to form a soul's interpretation, what it will be…' He thought.
"Some power like the scary Rose or Captain Verrith's power would be pretty nice." He said.
"What's you talking about?" The soldier asked as he finished sharpening one side of the edge of his sword.
"Just wondering what soul's interpretation I would have if I had enough afterglow in my body."
"I see…well that depends, do you want an active one or passive one?" The soldier spoke, joining in on the conversation.
"What? There are different categories for the soul's interpretation?" William asked, a bit confused.
"Yeah, a passive one is like captain Verrith's, being active all the time and the other is basically like Merick's one."
"I'm sorry but I don't know about Merick's ability so I don't get that one but I do understand the example you used with Captain Verrith."
"I see…" the soldier said as he took out a clean towel to wipe his sword with, "I guess in simple terms, Merick's ability is to control the elements of the world to a certain extent."
"I don't get it."
"Let's use an example: If there is rock on the ground he can use his power to lift it or he can also control the wind in the air to cool himself better in the heat or if a precious gem gets cracked he can use his ability to control them to slowly fix the crack." The soldier said looking at the clean and shining stone in his hand, "let's say a sword got snapped in exactly two pieces, he can align the pieces together and slowly join them back together."
Hearing this William's interest grew more rapidly and his work efficiency dropped almost immediately.
"That sounds amazing" William spoke almost in awe.
"It is but it does have a weakness."
"Really?"
"Yeah, he can only control elements, not create them." The soldier said, sheathing his blade and taking out a small dagger and sharpening it.
"That doesn't sound all too bad."
"It ain't but it also consumes more energy than the standard amount for what it's worth.
"What do you mean?" William spoke up, almost stopping his work before he came back into his senses and kept his hands moving still keeping his ears peeled.
"Well the thing is, an active related soul's interpretation often requires energy to use or maintain, of course with some very rare exceptions. This energy is divided into 2 parts, both of which are consumed when using it." He spoke, wiping his daggers he sharpened, "They are: life force and our body's energy."
"Life force? So they'll die young if they overuse their power?" William said disappointed at this revelation.
"I mean I wouldn't worry too much about it." He said reassuring him, "In all of history every single person with a soul's interpretation recorded has had a long life, in fact the person with the oldest body, not age, was 47, he had an active ability and lived for a total of 174years give or take and he was in constant combat. Also it's important to know that the more afterglow you are born with the slower you age and the more powerful your soul's interpretation is, and he was recorded to have the 4th lowest recorded afterglow in a person with a soul's interpretation in the entire history of this island. To put it in comparison, Verrith has at the minimum 32 times more afterglow than him before it was consumed by his soul."
"So they are practically doomed to die from other things before they even look old?"
"Basically, but the problem with the energy consumption is the second part, the body's energy." The soldier spoke sheathing his knife back, "After the body's energy is consumed you'll be taken with an immense sense of hunger and if you continue to use your active ability, your fat will be consumed and then your muscles will be consumed but you'll already feel weak before that due to disappearance of most vitamin and mineral in your body before your muscle disappears and if you still insist on using your ability even after that, your body will start turning yellow and your blood will no longer be red as the iron in you body disappears you will feel lightheaded and have a sense of vomiting unable to stand up properly or even at all, then your visions will become blurry and the symptoms grows worse and worse until you die a horrible death."
"…"
"Don't worry you'll probably die either way if you get in a situation where you have to fight like that and considering the average power of a person with a soul's interpretation, I don't think you'll ever encounter such a situation…well at least normally."
"Man…I think it's best if you leave out these details if there ever comes a next time…"
"But how else will you know the consequences of-"
"You could have just said that you would die unpleasantly instead of giving all these details."
"Oh…"
"…"