—–

“It will be a pain to lose such a capable fighter in our ranks though! But we got Darkbound now and Mercury, both are B+ Rank and are plenty strong, so I think we should be alright for now.” I said with a smile.

“I can really go anywhere I want now?” She asked in disbelief. I saw Lucifer, Partner, and Emeraldine smiling happily.

“Yeah, you can. I don’t really want to do the same they did to you when you were alive… I don’t want to restrict you or order you around, you’ve helped more than enough, dear.” I said, petting her head again. “Just make sure to take care of yourself, and don’t do anything reckless, okay? You’re a bit of a rowdy girl sometimes, be more cautious out there.”

“Thanks… I will be.” She said.

“But not now though!” I said, stopping Catarina who was so excited she even was thinking about jumping out of Lucifer’s back.

“Eh? But I wanna go!” She cried.

“Geez, you’re too careless! We’ll go back to the village and you’ll say your goodbyes to everybody first, and then, I’ll give you a new set of equipment, a lot of items to take care of yourself, and even a small companion.” I said.

“Companion?” She asked.

“Like… any Undead you want, I can make it for you.” I said.

“Like a pet?!” Catarina became even happier.

“Yeah, I guess?” I wondered.

“T-Then I want a wolf!” She said. “Big enough that I can use the beast as a mount!”

“Haha, alright.” I said. “A wolf it is.”

And like that, we spent the next hours chatting with Catarina. Emeraldine and Partner became more friendly now, realizing that Catarina was just teasing me and that her truest desire was to be as free as the wind. Perhaps a dream she have always had was to explore the vast world of Yggdrasil as she pleased. I also kind of want to do that at some point, but I am slightly busy right now.

When we arrived at the region where our village was, the cold snow began to fall from the sky, while the wind was getting colder and stronger too. It was getting pretty cold! But I am a ghost so I don’t really find or feel any difference. When we arrived at the front of our village, I saw many things had changed. The walls were now fully repaired thanks to my Undead working tirelessly for weeks and months, and the gates were tightly closed, so wild animals didn’t sneaked inside anymore.

Aside from that, the ruins in front of the village had been almost completely dismantled by now, and we were planning in reconstructing the houses from the base after we extracted all the rotting wood in them. Eventually everybody would have stone houses, but for now, we are all setting down with wooden cabins, which are actually warmer.

And the castle looked way better now as well, it has been mostly repaired by now by the effort of my skeletons and spider undead, and also it sems that dwarves have helped as well, so everybody had put their own effort into repairing everything and leaving things quite well and nicely.

When we reached the front of the gates, Lucifer’s enormous draconic form quickly made everyone cleat that we were back, the gates opened in an instant, as a group of people of all colors, shapes, and sizes, ran forward.

“Lady Maria, you’re back!”

“We have missed you for so long! It was so sad you never summoned us to request our aid!”

A paid of fiery ghosts emerged, their ghostly appearances would be quite frightening to anybody that were to see them, as they were Fire Ghosts, ghosts that were completely made out of fire.

But I knew these two goofballs very well, they were Silvio and Francisco!

“You guys! Been a while!” I said, as I quickly hugged them both. They got quite happy I hugged them. Their warm bodies was really refreshing to feel in a tight hug. The two also greeted everybody else and Catarina too, who had been summoned away without previous warning, making them worried she just got lost or escaped or something.

“So you ended being summoned away by Lady Maria! Such a privilege…” Sighed Silvio.

“Yeah… I am now rather jealous.” Sighed Francisco.

“You two dorks have nothing to be jealous about, it wasn’t anything good, we almost got crushed by a giant meatball. What’s good about that?” Sighed Catarina.

The Goblin Chief, the Goblin Elder, and Gofumin came right after them, rushing to greet us alongside most of the goblin population behind them.

“We greet our queen!” The goblins, who were very loyal to me, suddenly kneeled.

“You guys! Don’t kneel for me, that’s embarrassing…” I sighed.

“You can stand back up again then, guys!” The Goblin Chief said, as the goblins confusedly stood up. They really didn’t understand my humbleness sometimes.

“It is nice to meet you again, Lady Maria. How was your travel? We heard a few things from your familiars, there was a big battle, right?” Asked the Goblin Chief.

“Yep, it was arduous but we pulled through just barely.” I sighed.

“It must have been hard, you should res there for now and take it easy for the next few days.” He said.

“Yeah, I plan to!” I said. “Though… there’s a lot to do even here, so it won’t be that easy either, haha…”

“Ohooo! I missed those big ones!” The Goblin Elder looked at my chest with his eyes popping out. “T-They grew! I am sure they grew-GYA!”

SMACK!

Partner once more karate chopped the Elder like before.

“E-Elder!”

“Hang in there!”

“T-This is the third time this year…”

“Perverted old man!” Partner said angrily. “Does he never learn his lesson?”

“Hahaha… Go easy on him…” I sighed, as I saw Emeraldine healing the Elder.

“Auntieeee!”

An adorable little Goblin girl ran to my side- Wait, she wasn’t that small anymore.

—–