LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 26: Chapter 23
(This chapter was uploaded on Saturday 21/December/2024 8:00 PM, timezone GMT+3)
Hey, I tried with the AI art, shame on me for not being able to draw Shira myself, and was able to find something close to what she looks like inside my head. As for Henryk with a beard, he's capable of dealing with not having a picture of him spread around.
Here's Shira's face before the transformation.
Here's Shira's face after the transformation.
Of course, the eyes are supposed to be an amethyst purple and the abnormally elongated neck is actually shorter in reality. Her actual neck is normal. Also, imagine the nostrils tighter, as Shira was from a village that experienced a colder environment. Those kinds of people have tighter nostrils.
The AI refused to make her eyes purple, and I have been trying for over a month now. I'm going mad from how unnatural some things appear due to AI flaws. But what can I say when I didn't even draw it myself?
By the way, the new shape and length of her limbs is permanent, more on that when the story comes to it.
(Line Break)
('1), ('2), ('3), etc. means that there is some explaining for the thing in the chapter's footnotes.
"..." small moment of silence.
"Talking"
[Different Language Dialogue (Different from the language of the PoV)] (What language it is: Accent if necessary)
"He-" Someone was interrupted.
'Inner Monologue'
{Skills' names, chanting, spell keys and spells' names}
(PoV)
(Flashback, including the text)
Don't shy from commenting on typos and/or inconsistencies. That and/or suggesting a modification to certain things that didn't make sense to you.
I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.
(Line Break)
(Friday, 16/10/1058)
(Carillon's PoV)
I entered the mess hall and accomplished my ultimate goal of ruining Loki's breakfast. Her dissatisfied face was good enough.
And just when I started relishing in the feeling, there was this guy who looked almost identical to Henryk. But I doubted it was him. Henryk was allergic to anything woman. He would never be sitting like that with a woman and being suspiciously affectionate. Not to mention, he shaved his uneven beard every time it showed a hint of growth. But this man's beard is too perfectly balanced to be Henryk's.
I turned my head to the side to avoid locking eyes with him, only to witness true horror. Although she's bigger than any flying bird could ever get, that was most definitely Fey. I could recognise her, that chaotic menace with wings.
"NORMAN!" I heard the bear say, fully realising that he was Henryk. And when I looked at him, he was already in a crouched position and ready to sprint at me.
"Help?" I said instinctively. My fate was pretty much sealed at that point.
'That's Henryk for sure! And I want nothing to do with him right now! I mean, I spent 5 years searching for any traces of his! But still! Not for him to chase me down like some prey! And how did he know it was me this quickly?!'
Seeing no one intending to help, I ran. I could hear his thundering footsteps coming after me, accompanied with the flapping of wings.
'I-I... What have I done to deserve this?' I ran away silently, bottling up my indignation.
"NO RUINING THE HALLWAYS!!" And in came Loki's desperate screaming.
'Screw that! My life's much more precious!'
I turned left, intending to go through the manor's more complicated parts. I ran the risk to pass through the women's side of the building, but I'll be given the pass with my cute face. Henryk on the other hand, he'd be killed by the women when they know.
"Come here!" Henryk said excitedly.
'His voice's deeper than before. He might have spent only a few years here, though. He still didn't have any white hairs... No, that's not the important thing at the moment! Why does he sound like he's enjoying himself?! AND WHY IS HE NOT AFRAID OF APPROACHING THE WOMEN'S QUARTERS?!'
"Mister Walking Spoiler~!" Oh... OH... Fey's in on the chase!! I can hear her wings flapping closer than before. Any remnants of my vain hope that the sound of her wings being an illusion crumbled, getting stepped on by Henryk and blown away by her wings afterwards.
I ducked into a hallway to the right. Seeing a statue, I grabbed it without stopping and threw it at Henryk to slow him down. To my horror, I saw him grab the thing effortlessly and put it down before closing the distance between us.
'The monster's not a fresh level one!!... NOOOOOO!!" I screamed my true feeling aloud, them being pure denial of my situation.
"Why are you running?! WHY ARE YOU RUNNING?!" Henryk asked me, and I'm sure he did that with the vilest of intentions. He even imitated the pitch and the tone of that meme!
'Why are all my memories of interacting with him painting me as the bad person? I... Have I corrupted him? Am I suffering the consequences of my past life's actions?' I lost myself to thought as I pulled a room's door open. It did little to delay him, but it left me enough time to gather myself a bit. 'Forget most things I may have, but my life I must keep. Let's focus on running for now!'
"And why shouldn't I?!! You'd wring me like a towel!!" I said as I noticed something. Fey wasn't there anymore. And then it hit me. Rather, I should say, "And then she hit me". Fey tackled me.
While we were running, and especially when I lost myself to my thoughts and went on auto-pilot, Henryk got closer to the turns he didn't want me to take. And to maximise the use of 'chase' resources, he instructed Fey to circle to the other way to intercept me from the front.
"Omph!" My thoughts were confirmed when I slammed into her feathery chest head-first.
"Mister Walking Spoiler~! Fey says hello~!" Fey said as she took out her tongue. The mere sight of which scared me on a deeper level for an unknown reason.
'It... may be one of the memories I lost...' I surrendered to my fate as Henryk grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me off my feet for Fey to lick.
"Not the tongue barbs?..." I said weakly, not knowing what I meant by it until I saw the full thing. There were an impressive pair of barbs facing inwards growing out of Fey's tongue, perfect for stabbing into things and dragging them into her throat.
(3rd person PoV)
After Fey was done greeting Carillon, she said that she will go back to eat with Tiona.
"Man! That was refreshing!" Henryk said joyfully, a hole in his heart filling back in. "We should do it more often! Right, Norman?" He turned his head to the little man he carried like a sack under his arm.
"I... I'd much prefer you call me by my new name, Carillon Cranel" Carillon said defeatedly, limply surrendered to his fate.
"And, why's that? Is it because you feel like you treasure your connection to the resident bunny?" Henryk said as he stopped in his tracks.
"Yes, that's the case. I treasure my bond with him" Carillon said while still looking away from Henryk.
"You, you clearly remember me, but I can tell at least this much. You only remember me, but don't act the same way you did before, not entirely" Henryk said with a crawling sense of dread. "You, you aren't the same, are you? Maybe you became a fusion of two souls, where your personality and most of your memories are forgotten? Even though some of your reactions are the same down to the smallest of twitches?"
"Can you stop analysing me? It feels as if I was walking downtown naked!" Carillon said with great discomfort. 'I remember him analysing not making me uncomfortable. But why now?'
"Fine, then. I'll try my best to treat you like a new person" Henryk said as he put him down. "But I need to ask you this one thing" He said with a sigh as he started walking with Carillon following him.
"What is it you want to ask?" Carillon asked as he started fixing his clothes.
"You still see me as your cousin, right?" Henryk said. He stretched both hands as he walked.
"I... don't know... really..." Carillon confessed. He scratched his cheek as he continued. "To be honest, a part of me wants to be the same guy you were familiar with, as you are all that I remember of my past life, while the other part of me wants to start over" He said, feeling uneasy.
"Is that so?" Henryk said as he started rubbing his chin. He got an idea. "Why not reintroduce each other, then? While we know each other well, it seems that you have spent much more time living in this world than I did. Starting over doesn't look that bad of an idea"
"You gave in? That fast?" Carillon said in surprise. "Weren't you stubborn?"
"See this?" Henryk said as he groomed his beard a little.
"Oh..." Carillon realised what Henryk pointed at. "While I spent a long 14 years here, I only lived it as a teen, never becoming a proper adult. You, on the other hand, grew up a bit..." Carillon's realization was put on a hold when he caught on to something. "But why did you act like a young adult?" He glared at Henryk, to which he received a blank stare. "What?!"
"I'm a young adult, Carillon. I'm still 21, 4 months before I become 22 on the 5th of February" Henryk said.
"But how did you get to fixing that messed-up beard at such a young age?" Carillon stared very intensely at Henryk's beard.
"Magic!" Henryk said as he elaborately made an imaginary rainbow above his head. "I ain't gotta explain shit!"
"Yeah... right... magic..." Carillon dead-eyed Henryk as his back hunched forward in dismissal.
"No, seriously, it's with the use of magic" Henryk confirmed it seriously this time, making Carillon go ram-rod straight in surprise.
"Really?" He asked Henryk, eyes wide in disbelief. "What level are you even at?"
"Transmigrator privileges" Henryk said, raising his fists victoriously while looking forward.
"Then what about me?!" Carillon was baffled, puzzled, mystified, bemused, bewildered, perplexed and confused. Add another layer of confusion for good measure. "But how?! Why you but not me?!"
"Forget that. My magic could be applied to many people, for many different things. We could both abuse its easily exploitable nature" Henryk said.
By now, they saw the mess hall's double doors.
"Before we return, can you tell me why you told me that so easily? I just told you that I'm not the same person you knew" Carillon asked, a pit of fear forming in his heart. He looked slightly away, fearing that Henryk would reject associating with him once he realizes the point.
"Let's say that I have only a few people I could trust with this now, and that you're on top of that list until you done did something worth dashing you off of it" Henryk said.
While walking towards the door, Carillon could not help but stop Henryk.
"You know, I could always betray you!" Carillon asked in distress, his fears growing and thumbing in his chest.
"I know you won't, Chocolate Teapot! Also, I wanna know about the life you led so far later, over a cup of tea!" Henryk smirked. His smirk mellowed into a more relaxed smile with a softer look in his eyes. "I should teach Fey to say this one" He said endearingly as he opened the doors. Once he closed the hall's doors behind them, ignoring Carillon's incessant complaints, he returned to the table he shared with Shira. What followed was Shira being introduced to Carillon properly.
(Later into the meal)
"But to think this philophobic man, by choice might I add, has managed to snag himself a beautiful wife like yourself. I wish I was there to witness the moment" Carillon sighed before he got a knuckle upside the head. "ow... that hurts..." He whined as he put both hands over the spot, already feeling a bump forming.
"Don't call me that in front of her, Carillon. She might get the wrong idea" Henryk said quite aggressively, still holding his fist clinched. "And, she was the one who snagged me, not the other way around"
"What does that word mean? Philophobic?" Shira tilted her head slightly.
"Th-mph... MMMFPHFMMMF!!!" Carillon was not allowed to complete that sentence, or even start it for that matter. He started flailing, attempting to free himself from Henryk's restraint.
"Henryk! I want to know!" Shira insisted as she tried to help Carillon to be set free. Henryk eventually let go.
"A philophobic is generally what we call someone who has philophobia; the irrational and, often time, unfounded fear of falling in love or forming emotional attachments at all, of any kind" Henryk said. What he did not concern himself with was to make sure nobody heard him. Loki was choking on a particularly small bit of food after what she barely heard.
'A married man with that kind of fear?!! WHAT THE HECK?!!' She was gasping for air once the bit of food was dislodged, her mouth agape.
Riveria, having helped Loki by brutally smacking her back, started entering what the familia members silently agreed to call her 'Mother Hen Mode'.
"And you... don't have that anymore?" Shira looked at Henryk with a mild questioning gaze. "You seemed like a normal person to me, for someone who didn't deny having that kind of fear"
"That's due to 2 reasons, mainly. The first one is this-" And there he goes, whistling and annoying people who were peacefully eating breakfast. And at his call, Fey glided her way towards them.
"Papa~ Did Papa call Fey~?" Fey turned her head sideways, unknowingly making Shira's heart pop out of her chest as she gasped in utter horror.
"Don't worry. Her head can probably turn a bit more before it snaps. And what I was referring to was her presence. I had to raise her alone, you see" Henryk said as he started combing Fey's feathers, fixing the angle of her head in the process.
"Papa did well~! Fey's alive~! Fey loves Papa~!" Fey said as she leaned into his hands.
"Both of her parents died" Henryk felt a certain rigidness in Fey's underlying muscles. His heart twisted a bit, sharing some of her pain. "Her father died while out hunting while her mother sacrificed the last of her life to keep Fey's egg warm, which helped me find it before it was too late. Maybe it's because we shared a few things between us, I couldn't help take care of her against my fear of getting attached to her" Henryk brought Fey closer and hugged her.
After some silent consoling, Fey recovered her cheerful spirit. She shook violently to help her feather be fit snuggly together better.
"Papa's da best~!" Fey said as she flopped on top of Henryk, making him forget his surroundings in favor of hugging her massive figure.
'It always amazes me how avian skeletons are so weirdly structured. Oh gods, their long necks frighten me whenever my hands sink into their feathers. Good thing they don't snap easily, even though they're this thin' Henryk thought, feeling both a sense of relief and another of recurring concern.
"Henry, what's the other reason, then?" Shira asked while absentmindedly stabbing her claws into her food and eating it as if nothing was unusual about what she just did.
"Just a minute!" Henryk raised a finger in case his words were too muffled. After he got Fey to get off him, she went back to eating with Tiona.
(Option#1)
"That simply boils down to me having learned how to control my emotions or just cast them aside coupled with my philophobia being only a mild case, and not at all extreme enough to render me incapable of overcoming it myself" Henryk said, wiping a bit of food from Shira's cheek, making her freeze.
"And what if I told you I want to see you without you actively controlling your emotions?" Shira asked before clamping her mouth and looking guilty.
"I will, one day" Henryk said as he patted her head with a hand while he unclamped her mouth with the other.
"I gotta go see my brother now. See you later, Henhen" Carillon said, forgetting who just caught him and how he did it. Before taking even a single step away from his chair, Carillon was grabbed by the arm and thrown to the ground.
Henryk pinned him there and grappled his neck to make sure he couldn't escape.
"Since you remember that name, you should also remember what my reaction to it is, right?" Henryk said dully.
"... No?..." Carillon's eyes uneasily turned away from his captor. 'How could I forget?! What'd he do now?!' He was internally panicking.
"Fey! Mister Walking Spoiler needs some more licks!" Henryk hollered.
"Wha~?! No~! Fey wants to keep playing with Tiona~!" Fey ignored Carillon afterwards, all in favor of playing with her new friend.
'Is it because both are easygoing girls?' Henryk wondered why they clicked together so well, so fast.
"Henryk, has Fey just ignored me? Am I less important than a friend she just met?" Carillon said. He was unsure since he forgot Fey as well, unless it was an interaction involving Henryk.
"I think she did?" Henryk said, just as confused. 'People from the village kept avoiding her because she looked the most dangerous among us. Maybe it's because she finally got a friend who wouldn't care about her being dangerous or not?'
"Just go, Carillon. We also need to get some things done" Henryk said as he let go of Carillon.
"Are you going to the dungeon anytime soon?" Carillon asked. As he was getting introduced, he was told that both Henryk and Shira still didn't step into the dungeon yet. He was curious. "Maybe after being done with your lessons with Riveria?"
"A few days later, perhaps" Henryk said, waving his hand to urge Carillon to go help his twin brother.
"You and your meticulous preparations" Carillon said, appearing as if he was belittling Henryk, which Henryk replied to with a huff.
(End of Chapter)
Greetings, dear readers
I need to tell you a few things. I won't go into great detail, but know that I experienced an emotional shock that made me reset my way of thinking to an extent, messing up my motivations. To counteract that, I want to return to how I started with my second fic, the less serious version of this story.
Now, not to confuse you, I wasn't talking about the storyline but about the writing and uploading schedules. As I wrote more, I came to write a chapter at a time before uploading it. Rarely did I upload more than one chapter at a time anymore. But, looking back, I was a bit more comfortable when writing up to 3-8 chapters at a time before editing them for upload.
The conclusion here is that I will change the upload schedule from only on Saturdays into starting at Saturdays for any given batch of chapters and being one chapter/day, until the stock of chapters prepared for that batch run out.
Anyway, what do you think of this chapter?
Oh, that bit about Henryk and Norman being cousins? I just didn't reach the chapter that reveals it in the less serious version of the story. It was always in their background setting, waiting for light to be shed on it. Does that make their current relationship complicated in your opinion? How so?
Fun fact, Carillon's name comes from the musical instrument that has multiple bells in it. It is derived from the fact that he is Bell's younger twin. An additional Bell, so to speak. With multiple bells, we get a carillon. Though, we lack 21 more bells to truly get a carillon, thus Loki's comment on it being a fake name, since he is the second brother of two and not at least the 23rd of 23 or more brothers. But to be honest, it wasn't all just that. Carillon, deep down, still holds onto his name as Norman, marking his new name fake to any god's lie-detection, as his mind recognized that name before the name Carillon. So, it's more of a combination of the two reasons why Loki called his name as Carillon Cranel fake. Is this explanation plausible?
The next chapter, and some of the following ones, will take place in the library of the manor. I hope you are lookin forward to them.
Be well, ladies and gentlemen.