Chapter 71: Tasianna's true reasons.

Chapter 71: Tasianna's true reasons.

Stream of numbing cold, freeze the very breath of the Goddess of Wind, Icicle Gale!

Jumping forward while shouting out H-H-Huuuuuuummmmmaaaaaannnnnn, Tasianna conjured up a cyan magic circle as she was about to launch the level three ice spell [Icicle Gale] at the person laying on the ground, fully intending to ravage them in a storm of ice.

Thankfully, as Tasianna hadnt max leveled her [Chant Revocation] yet, she still had to chant, giving Saori and me enough time to react to her sudden antagonism towards the human.

Saori cast [Dark Tendrils] to fully restrict our unusually aggressive companion while I shot out a [Fire Ball], reforming its shape into a shield using [Pyrokinesis] to block the activated [Icicle Gale]. Tasiannas spell sent a blast of wind and simultaneously froze it while it moved, creating something akin to a hail only with very, very sharp ice, launching itself at my flame shield and, luckily, melted before it could do any harm.

Tasianna, you must calm down, please! Saori called out in panic.

Tasianna struggled in a frenzy, fervently trying all she could to free herself from Saori's spell, NO! Let me go, Miss Saori! Stream of numbing co-!

Tasianna!, I shouted as I placed my hands on her cheeks and pulled her head to face my eyes. Looking at her with a bit of annoyance and worry, I strained my eyes and kept eye contact with her as if I was staring into her soul. Please, calm down, Tasianna. Look at the woman. Shes lying face-first on the dirt and it doesnt even look like shes conscious!

Turning her head to the side, I drew her attention back to the human, showing in what sorta state she was in. Ragged clothes that looked like they havent been washed in weeks, shoeless feet with plenty of scratches and grime, and dark green hair thickened with grease and flakes of skin. I couldnt see her face nor in what condition her body was in but as the scent of blood was faint on her, it meant that she wasnt in immediate dangerI guess.

Tasianna gave her a short glance before asserting her position to me, Please, unhand me, Lady Hestia! I must, I must do this for-

Do it for whom? instead of me, Saori spoke out from behind Tasianna who then told me to step aside for her to speak. Tasianna, we have spoken about this already. Hestia and I have a goal, and that goal includes assimilating into society, which includes human society. I am grateful for your help and I also understand that I am asking you for something difficult, but I have given my warning already, have I not?

Saori's aura felt as cold and ruthless as the one she just had when she wanted to speak with Tasianna, causing our fairy friend to shrink down from the sheer intimidation force. Cold beads of sweat began to form on her forehead as her eyes started appearing wet.

M-Miss Saori, I-I-, Tasianna struggled to speak, stumbling on every letter as she tried to respond.

However, Saori felt no pity and kept speaking, "No excuses, Tasianna. That was a near attempt of murder. Do you not remember what you tried to do for Hestia when she was consumed by anger, ready to attack the lizardmen due to them kidnapping the virigress cubs? Do not be a hypocrite.

It is true that I wanted to attack and kill Caszcur and the lizardmen when we first met. I was angry when I heard theyd attacked the family of Rajah, my former virigress pet, and were about to turn his two siblings into a meal.

Tasianna was the only one among us that wanted me to be diplomatic about it. Looking back, that was a mistake that I narrowly dodged 'cause of Tasianna. Reflecting on it, I made the correct choice to speak with the lizardmen first instead of deciding to be a murder hobo.

Which makes this scene so bizarre. Tasianna has her quirks but it never blemished her dutiful maid persona. The Tasianna from back then and the one standing before me now were completely different.

We cannot afford antagonizing humans every step we go, especially when we are in a town or city," Saori said with a grim expression. I have said this already, Tasianna, if you do not want to learn how to control your urges, then we will have a problem. I understand that your trauma is controlling you here but even my patience will grow thin if we must repeat this every day.

It would be a problem if she were to behave the way she did when she saw me as a human. I want to humanize when I sleep as I've found out that my sleeping posture has improved massively due to not having to deal with my horns and tail.

[Humanize Lv. 9] and [Humanize Lv. 10] are the only ones that removed a majority of my draconic features while also changing my race into human. I already had to deal with the fact that I would receive [Humanization (Major)] while also lacking the ability to use dragon abilities, I also didnt want to experience Tasianna acting uncomfortable around me.

You told me that you are doing this for your late mistress, Princess Schuri? Tell me, how would she feel if you kept going on with this pseudo-vengeance of yours that you are masking your trauma with? Are you not just afraid that everything will happen, again? You told us that Plesia is the Goddess of Honor and Order, correct? What you were about to do, cold-blooded murder, would have gone against all of that. Saori gave her frank analysis.

This might be a part of what those two privately talked about. I cant say much as I wasnt able to deduce that on by myself. I only knew that Tasiannas trauma was caused by her past experience of having lost the person that she last served, the youngest princess of the royal fairy family.

I was curious about this vengeance that Saori mentioned, but Ill have to leave that alone for now. However, I will have to ask them about this. This sounds pretty serious and, honestly, should be something that I know about. We are a party after all, right?

I personally have not experienced what responsibilities a maid has, however, I understand that you consider protecting somebody a duty, correct? You admitted that you are traveling with us now because of your desire to atone through serving Hestia, Saori continued. "Do you still want to serve her? Do you still want to travel with us? Then this moment here will be the start of your change. I can and will help you Tasianna when it is within my abilities, but you personally have to start accepting it."

I-I-Iyes, Tasianna said with tears streaming down her face. I do not want to be abandoned. Please, dont leave me, Miss Saori, Princess Hestia. I want to be useful and I want to know that these 87 years havent been a complete waste.

As Tasiannas anger began to subside, Saoris tendrils disappeared and released her, letting her body slump down in defeat. Still silently crying, she continued, I will change, I will change. I swear this on my faith to Plesia, the Goddess of Order and Honor, and Zephira, the Patron Goddess of the Faefolk.

With a quiet thank you, Saori turned her head around and gave a fierce snarl, as if she was letting out all her stress until now. With numerous whimpers resounding from the thickets and bushes, around six wolves scurried away from the area, terrified of Saori, a superior canine monster.

The signals are now reduced to oneonly the womans.

Considering this scene, she mustve collapsed in exhaustion after being pursued by them. Speaking of her, I was currently walking over to her as I was the cleric of the party. Saori understood this as there was no communication between us and she quietly kneeled down to console Tasianna.

Shes lighteither its cause of my high Strength oryeah, that is what I thought.

Her body looked thin, unusually thin. Her arms and torso werent only skin and bones, but it was clear that she had been malnourished or starving for a few days now. I was already able to smell it further away but coming closer, the intensity of her sweat and grime caused my nose to be overwhelmed by a serious rotten egg smell. I had to cast [Air Shield] around me to prevent having to smell that shitactually, she literally did smell like feces and urine.

Breathing? Good. At least shes not deadurgh, too bad I dont have some tic tacs for her

Do not forget what you just said today, Tasianna. Do not treat every human like that person. A trauma is harsh, but you must make an effort to overcome it, Saori remarked.

YesI will do my best, Tasianna said as she looked at the unconscious female human.

Now, enough with this talk! Saori clapped. Hestia, how does it look?

Inspecting myself now that I had everything on, I could only say wow! My clothing consisted out of two parts: the outfit, itself, and a glorious white mage cloak!

My outfit is mostly inspired from modern K-Pop outfits while keeping comfort and combat in mind. They had to look good but Saori knew that I will be fighting in them, too. Which meant no excessive accessories nor frills.

To the outfit itself, I was wearing a thin, white turtleneck to cover my whole upper body. With this as the base, Saori also added a stylish, grey form-fitting vest with a red short jacket. Finishing it was a red double-layered skirt with minimal frills to add a bit of cuteness.

My cloak was made with major inspiration from the white mages from the video game series Final Fantasy, which meant that it was completely white with a few red triangles at the hem. With a black ribbon to hold it together, I felt pretty excited to walk around with it.

He he, people from Earth might know the reference but I don't think the people on Peolynca will, which will keep my specialty a secretalso, this hood is large enough to accommodate my hornsand it feels so warm!

"Amazing!" I cried out once I covered the cloak over my whole body, feeling warm and fuzzy. "Wait, why do I feel so warm when I cover myself with the cloak? Wasnt it made with the mana from my holy spells?"

Saoris [Elemental Mana Weaving] allowed her to make colored mana strings according to the mana that she extracted it from. The thing is, if she were to extract it from our bodies then it would stay blue like always, however, as we know, magic circles have to be filled with mana. That is the trick behind getting colors.

During the spell casting step Activation, Tasianna and I create magic circles and fuel it with mana for usage, however, if we dont go through with Release, which is the last step, we can just let the circle hang around in the air. Saori would create mana strings out of them and use both [Mana Weaving] and [Sewing] to create some fabric and then the clothing themselves after she got enough.

It might be free, as it didnt cost us any money, but it consumed a fuck ton of mana for everything. This outfit here was just one of many, just imagine what an insane amount she had to take from me to create this primarily red outfit and this white cloak.

Oh, there is trick to that. Do you know about the color spectrum? I nodded to her question which prompted her to continue. Well, then you must have also heard about complementary colors and additive color mixing, right? Your fire magic creates red strings while Tasiannas ice magic is colored cyan. Red and cyan are complementary colors and if you mixed the two mana string types together, you get white mana strings. Due to them having both fire and ice mana infused in them, that cloak is actually pretty good at keeping you warm. I did add fabric infused with the holy element into them to reduce my usage of red.

Oooooh, sugoi!(Oooooh, incredible!), I called out as I jumped into the air, not having to suffer under the annoying effects of winter again! Due to my curiosity, I also used [Identify] on my cloak.

White Mage Cloak

A white cloak with red triangles created with [Mana Weave], consisting of mana from three elements. Protection is very limited without any enchantments, but it possesses a few natural skills due to its creation method

Skill

[Warmth Lv. 1]

[Cooling Lv. 1]

[Holy Resistance Lv. 1]

[Fire Resistance Lv. 1]

[Ice Resistance Lv. 1]

Well, I finally got [Ice Resistance].

Even after getting hit by Tasiannas spell a couple of times, I still havent gotten [Ice Resistance] so Im not sure what to feel about getting the skill through equipment. Well, I guess it is normal to do so. Getting equipment to cover for your weaknesses is not only a staple in RPGs but also in human history.

As my outfit is completely made from Saoris [Elemental Mana Weaving], every piece had [Fire Resistance Lv. 1] or [Holy Resistance Lv. 1]. Seeing all these skills imbued in my clothes begged the question on how they actually worked.

Are they additive or are they multiplicative? How do gear skills affect my own skills? Do override each other? There are still so many tests that our party had to conduct on them, as Tasianna didnt know the answer, but, honestly, that sounds like a ton of fun. It sounds similar to learning how skills interacted with each other; you know.

Or we could just circumvent everything and ask the next blacksmith or anybody with professional knowledge on it. Meh, sounds dull.

Alright, I personally think this one is the best-looking. It fits you extremely well if I am allowed to praise my own work, Saori said with a smile. Alright, if you have no more complaints, let us do Tasiannas now. I bet one of these dresses will suit your likes~

Mhmm.

Immediately hearing a foreign sound, the three of us dropped what we held and turned our gazes towards its direction, wary of all threats and ready for battle. However, instead of an enemy, what we instead saw was the awakening body of the injured woman, feebly raising her body with her emaciated arms.

Wh-where am I, wh-tailsbeastmen