“… It’s too quiet.”
Even if I were to consider everything strange that had happened as a non-factor, the castle was deathly silent for a place that should have been hurriedly been making preparations for breakfast or wiping the hallways clean.
There hadn’t even been a maid to visit to wake me up, I had gotten out of bed of my own accord.
… What a disaster. For the last month I had been forcing the head maid to send people to wake me up in order to spite her for the one time she complained about my carefree lifestyle.
Shifting out of my magnificent thinking pose, I pulled my legs up onto the chair, wrapping my arms around them while facing my head downwards to my knees.
Some people might call this a fetal position. I call it a tactical withdrawal to re-evaluate my available courses of action.
“Ahhhh, all that hard work of rebelling against head maid is gone now that I’ve gotten up on my own!”
My bemoaning of wasted effort would have probably gone on if [Interface] had not pinged an alert.
<<Skill [Plush Maker] learned>>
Huh?
I immediately sat up and inched to the edge of my seat to pull up the main screen of [Interface]. This is done by swiping all fingers except for thumb and pinky downward by the way. Of course everyone should know that, it’s one of the first things children are taught alongside walking.
It’s apparently troublesome to teach little kids the proper hand sign from what I’ve heard from the maids. Panne tells me both Myles and I had no issue at all learning it, but she had a dangerous glint in her eye. We probably caused her a great deal of trouble.
A transparent light blue screen promptly appeared from where I had swiped down. [Interface] has no actual substance, being something similar to a projection of light. To be clear though, it’s not light though. Some researcher in one of the capital cities theorized it was a visualization created from the azure flow inside of a person’s body, but there’s apparently no way to test that without endangering someone’s life.
That aside, my status looked pretty okay. Health points are full, which is always a good thing. What I was more currently concerned with was the new skill I had obtained, [Plush Maker]. Dragging the skills tab out of the main screen to open a new window, I found the new skill quickly. Probably because there are hardly any skills in the list to begin with.
<<Skill [Plush Maker]: A skill that allows one to create higher quality plush objects faster. Craft skill guidance allowed>>
My hard work trying to make that plush cloud paid off then?
“No, this is just wrong.”
An apprentice to a woodworking master would spend countless hours watching him working and creating their own creations. It would only be after several years of this that the apprentice might get the skill. By that time, the apprentice would have been able to make quality work even without the skill.
That isn’t to say the skill wasn’t helpful at that point though. My desk still had the materials for making another plush on it so grabbing fabric in one hand and stuffing in the other, I began to wrap the white stuffing in the likewise white fabric. Then taking a needle from the sewing kit, I prepared to attempt yet another stuffed cloud.
<<Activate [Plush Maker] guidance? Yes/No>>
“Yes.”
Responding to my answer, small blue pinpricks appeared on the fabric in my left hand. A ghostly image of a finished cloud appeared and small arrows directed me to where to join the edges of the white cloth.
Following this outline, my hands began to sew, add stuffing, and cut excess fabric as if I had always known what to do from the start.
…
<<[Plush Maker] object Cloud Plush added to craft list>>
“I-It looks like an actual cloud!”
I hugged my newly made plush while once again returning to my tactical positioning with the one difference of cloud in my arms instead of my legs.
No wait, this isn’t the time to be happily hugging a stuffed cloud. On top of the blue sun and mysterious changes outside the castle, I had just obtained a new skill which should have taken years of effort.
Something strange was definitely going on and I was caught in the middle of it. Reminded of the odd quietness of the castle, I sneaked over to the door and tentatively peeked into the hallway outside.
“A suit of armor?”
Right beside my door as I creaked it open was a gigantic standing figure covered in metal plates. A rectangular sword lacking a pointed end was held in both hands with the blade facing downward. The shoulder span was easily twice the width of my own shoulders and the top of my head only reached the neck of the suit.
It wasn’t a glamourous armor as it lacked adornments and embellishments. Actually, it looked rather plain despite it being so large. Nonetheless, it would have been comforting to know there was a guard, especially such a large one outside my room what with all the strange happenings going on.
“But…”
“It’s missing a head…”
Throwing the door wide open, I stepped towards it and got up on my toes to try to look inside the armor. Alas, it was too tall.
Returning to my feet while looking around once again, I noted there was no one in sight. To add on to that, something weird had happened once again.
“Is that a tree?”
The hallway was greatly altered, changing from a rectangular pathway to a large circular floor. The inner circle of the floor had been removed and the trunk of a tree could be seen growing through it. Around this incision were railings which I grabbed ahold of to find out that the tree grew even higher, reaching up to more floors which our castle never had. Turning my gaze downward, the roots of the huge plant were in the earthy ground one floor below.
Was my room the only thing that been untouched? I would have gone on to ponder this when I noticed a familiar figure on the floor below.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeey, Mr. Lambell!” I shouted.
Cyrus turned his head hearing my shout, but just beamed a smile at me and waved. It looked like he yelled something back, but I couldn’t hear him, the ground floor being so far away from where I was. He seemed to be waving for me to come down though. Following that brief exchange he turned his back to speak to… a woman?
Unlike Cyrus’s choice of official looking black attire coupled with his dark blue scarf, she wore just a wraparound covering her ample chest and shorts, the two together showing off her bare midriff and legs.
“Uwaaa… She’s showing so much skin.”
I’d known some of the town girls were experimenting with shortening their skirts, but this was over the top. Did she just lose her sense of shame somewhere?
Continuing on, covering her back appeared to be a fur pelt of some sort. She didn’t wear a scarf like Cyrus, so she wasn’t part of the [Scarves], but sitting on her ponytailed head was the top half of some animal’s skull with dirty white horns protruding from either side of her head.
She could be an adventuring acquaintance of Mr. Lambell. That would explain the… odd choice of attire and also the similarly strange head accessories. It was apparently the way of hunters to fashion their equipment from the things they killed, making use of the bones and pelts. They were a rare sight in Viyor since there weren’t any particularly large or unique game in the forests.
At that moment I was traversing a long stairway on the inside wall of what I have now deemed a tower, leaving the strange armor by my room behind. Watching the exchange between Cyrus and the woman, he suddenly pulled out a thick fist sized pouch from inside of his uniform handing over to the woman. I was close enough now to shout and get their attention, but I kept quiet.
Keeping my eye on the pouch, she opened the small bag to reveal what appeared to be a white substance inside. Grabbing a tiny amount, she placed it inside of her mouth. Apparently confirming whatever it was, she tied the pouch to a belt where other various bags were. Then she tightly hugged Cyrus lifting him off the ground.
“Ah, AH! Lessen up on the strength Beni! It’d be good if you didn’t kill me here.”
This was the guy my sister loved. Really. This Beni girl must have been seriously strong to make a scarf flinch though. Adventurers sure were a lively sort though. From this higher vantage point, Cyrus apparently noticed I had reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Beni, tap out. TAP OU-“
Releasing him, Cyrus fell to the floor, his legs buckling then failing him as he fell onto his bottom and gasped for air while clutching his sides.
“Oooh, my ribs…”
“Don’t be such a wuss, it was just a short hug.”
“A short hug? I swear you’re trying to kill me. I might even have broken a couple of ribs!”
“Nawh, you couldn’t have broken any ribs. If you did, there would be a more crackling breaking sound. Yours just creaked and groaned from pressure.”
“Gah, does that mean you actually broke someone’s ribs before?!”
“Well…”
“You know what, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”
Beni just shrugged and rolled her eyes as if to imply asking in the first place was a silly notion. Cyrus had been using his short breaths to strike Beni back with verbal attacks, but he now calmed and started to take deep breaths.
“Right so… princess Miya… meet Beni… Beni… meet princess Miya…”
Is he going to be alright?
“A pleasure to meet you,” I greeted as I lightly picked the edges of my dress and lifted them wide while bowing to present the drape of dress.
“A good to honest princess ain’t she? Nice to meet’cha!” said Beni with hands on her waist while smiling.
“With introductions… out of the way… I’m off… then…”
Wow she really did a number on him.
“Hey wait Cyrus! Explain everything! Why is the sun blue? Where did the castle town go? Why is there a tree growing in the castle? Where is everybody? Why-“
“Find out… yourself.”
Foaming at the mouth, Cyrus fell backwards as if he had fainted. As his head was about to hit the ground, it passed through his shadow with the rest of his body following suit until he had all but disappeared, all traces of having been there gone.
“That’s just like him you know. Dodging out of the way when there’s work to be done.”
“Is that so…?”
Disappearing into one’s own shadow, I had heard there was an azure art which let you do just that. But I had only read about it in some of the eastern texts we had gotten from foreign far reaching traders. The book was more like gossip in a newspaper, talking about the mysterious practices of people working in the dark toppling tyrants.
Why would Cyrus know such a thing?
“I look forward to our budding relationship then!” says Beni beaming brilliantly at me.
Arms outstretched, she is walking closer and closer to me bearing with her one thing. Death.
I have to make friends with this leg flashing, midriff baring, pelt wearing, animal skull sitting on head, horned woman?!
Recastdev 