Chapter 499 - The late bird gets the Sprite

Although Zerei’s school was going to be an important stop, Astelia first led everyone to the Vasperian administration, where she had people call for Agran, Cardinal and Shaily, so that Sofia could fix their memory. Surprisingly, none of them were available, but Astelia learned that she had received a summon from the Vampire Queen, so she had to bid farewell to the group for now, though they promised to go all have a meal together before Sofia decided to leave again.

Somehow, the rest of the morning turned into a shopping trip after that. 

One of the main stops was at a renowned Vampire tailor to take Bookie’s measurements, and in general to extend everyone’s wardrobe.

Sofia sold a lot of blood and other things she had collected during the trial, and bought stuff for Zangdar like a lot of colorful books and artworks, to break the monotony of the white and gold bone furniture, as well as a variety of seeds for plants that did not need sunlight.

It was to be noted that Pareth was the one carrying Remia ever since the group had left Zangdar, and the Dryad still had yet to give any sign of waking up despite getting plenty of sunlight.

It was a lot of fun just roaming the roads of the Vasperian capital, as the young country was still in active development, and a variety of new shops and establishments had opened in one short year of absence. Notably, the Red Winds Empire’s Adventurers’ guild had opened a branch there, almost entirely staffed by Vampires, as a diplomatic move to build good relations with this new power on the human continent.

The group’s stroll through the city finally led them to Zerei’s school, aptly named : ‘Zerei’s school’. It was not a very big place, not from the outside, at least, looking like essentially a two-story city house in the middle of the capital, but Sofia knew that Zerei had plans and authorizations to build a rather large underground extension underneath. 

Bookie pushed the door open, activating a ritual circle that produced the sound of ringing bells, and everyone entered the school, making its entrance quite crowded. The entrance hall was just a tiny room with a couch and a desk, decorated with various ritual circle schematics framed on the walls.

A voice came from another room, “I’ll be here in a minute, yes!”

Zerei finally came running after a while, looking the same as always in her colorful traditional avian attire. 

“Welcome! Oh! Plenty of known faces. Hi, hi, yes! Do you like my place? Oh, and Astelia isn’t here. Is she not done with her trial yet?” Zerei asked as she came to greet everyone after leaving a few things she had been carrying on top of the desk.

“Asty had official things to deal with, she might still come in a bit if she finishes that early,” Sofia answered.

Zerei stopped when she looked at Sofia for the second or third time. “Wait a minute. Something is wrong. Would you happen to be the person I forgot about, yes?”

“You realized that fast?” Sofia asked.

“Well, you have a soul-engraved ritual. I don’t remember selling that technique to anyone yet, no, and I trust my friends not to leak it. That leaves a single very obvious possibility. Besides, I remember Pareth perfectly well, and how closely he is guarding you in particular even now is not lost on me.”

“Still sharp, Zerei. To explain briefly what happened, someone from within the system rebelled, and they deleted all my data, including people’s memory of me through their scribes…”

Zerei held her temples at the notion, “Damn Scribe will be the death of me for real, yes…”

“Don’t blame your scribe, it’s not like they had a choice, come here, hold my hand and the system should be able to use that to restore your memory,” Sofia explained with a kind smile.

Zerei looked at the others for approval, and seeing that even Ihuarah and Alith silently nodded, reached out to hold Sofia’s hand.

The change in Zerei’s frustrated expression was immediate, “I can’t believe I had actually forgotten! This is horrendous, yes! How could the system let that happen?!”

“At least now it’s fixed. I’ll take my revenge for it eventually, don’t worry, oh, and I think Cinthia had a message to you from curse?” Sofia said, turning to the absent-minded orc lady busy reading text on an invisible screen.

“That was quite frustrating, yes. Imagine forgetting the name and face of your savior. Shaily especially was even more impacted, yes. That being said, it was clearly a rushed job, yes. Our memories of everything else surrounding Sofia were unaffected, making it very clear that someone was missing,” Zerei explained as she guided the group through her small recently-finished school. “Oh, and here’s the spell-testing room, yes,” she said as they entered a large underground room. 

“Lots of students already?” Alith asked, seeing as they had seen no one other than Zerei herself in the entire building.

“Not many, no. But the few I have have good prospects, yes.”

“All Vampires?” Saria asked next.

“Surprisingly no,” Zerei denied, “though most are Vampires, of course, we have a lizard beastman too, he’s a very nice boy, yes, very good with curses!”

A lizard beastman… Like Nicet, then? “What about Shaily?” Sofia asked.

“She comes to train here often ever since she returned from the trial. She’s not formally my student, no, but you know… As a trainer, my track record for the second trial is pretty good, yes?”

“If you consider Alith and myself to be your first two trainees then that’s a good average, yes…”

“Well I hope to get Shaily to at least the 99th floor, yes!” Zerei declared with confidence in her voice.

“Didn’t you fail on floor 96?” Sofia questioned with narrowed eyes.

“This is that and that’s that, yes! Shaily did very good! She even got a specialization too,” Zerei said with a giggle.

“What did she get for her trial?” Saria asked from the back.

“Heheheh, you better ask that to her by yourselves, yes,” Zerei answered, barely able to contain her laughter.

What could be so funny about Shaily’s trial?

A voice came from the ground floor above the group, muffled by the distance, “Zerei? Did you forget to lock the door again?” 

Sofia clearly recognized Shaily’s voice, though it was ever so slightly deeper than it used to be.

“Speak of the basilisk…” Zerei said with a hint of derision, “I’m in the training room! Come say hi to the guests, yes?!” she called out.

“We have guests? Coming!”

A tall and voluptuous Exidian woman came running down the stairs, her long white hair trailing behind her.

Holy shit! SHAILY?!

Did she grow that much in a year and a half?!

It was unmistakingly the same Exidian teenager that Sofia once taught her custom Angel’s bolt to, her tiny curved horns were still the same, but she had otherwise gone from looking like a young teen to a full blown adult in the blink of an eye. 

Shaily opened her mouth to greet everyone but she stopped midway, her eyes opening wide in shock, she pointed at Sofia.

“It’s you!”

Sofia teleported forward past the group and reappeared right in front of Shaily, grabbing her extended arm.

“It’s me. You’ve grown a lot,” Sofia said with a smile as a violent shiver traveled through Shaily’s body.

“Sofia!” Shaily cried out in shock.

“That’s right, sorry for the memory issues, couldn’t help it but at least now it’s fixed.”

“You’re crazy!” the Exidian woman accused.

“Can’t deny that, not what I expected your first words for me to be, though.”

With that, Shaily burst into laughter. “Sorry, it was the first thing that came to mind. You deserve it too, it’s your fault my trial was so hard!” she complained jokingly.

“My fault?” Sofia repeated, intrigued, finally letting go of Shaily’s arm and taking a step back to give her some space.

Zerei couldn’t contain her laughter any longer, laughing by herself in the middle of the training room under the concerned gazes of the rest of the group.

“Your fault! Do you have any idea how crazy I felt when I woke up in a crypt, as a level one, bleeding out from my arm above a polished skeleton?!!”

Sofia instantly felt cold sweat running down her back, “Ahahah… You’re joking… Right?”

Shaily’s eyes were locked with Sofia’s for several seconds, then as Shaily’s lips curved upwards into a smile, a small system window appeared for Sofia to read.

Name : Shaily Ormoncleth

Age : 18

Class : [Sprite Regulator]

Level :  143

Oh fuck.

Author note:

Hey!

I see a funny opportunity here, but you fine people are the ones funding this story, so, I hereby present you with a choice:

Either we can continue the story as normal, and go straight into getting more essence -> the sorrow temple arc

OR

We can do a fucking full-speed drift and put that on hold for a few weeks, while we spend the next 10-25 chapters on the side story of Shaily's first trial as Sofia getting kidnapped by the church and ensuing shenanigans.

You have until tomorrow to vote, the choice is yours.