[Shrubley, the Monster Adventurer] Chapter 115 - Downsized

“I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” Shrubley said, looking at the ramshackle mess before them. “But wasn’t your castle a little larger last time?”

“I swear Shrubley, if you weren’t so innocent, the things I would do to you!” the Countess snapped, overtaken by fury.

“Nooo,” Cal whispered miserably. “I secretly always knew he would win her heart!”

“You foolish skeleton!” Miranda roared, picking him up by the ribcage and putting Cal upside down in a nearby spindly tree.

“Eeeee!” Cal screamed.

“Shrubley is muchly right, yes-yes,” Slyrox said, pointing at the shack. “Is not very chilly-chilly anymore.”

“What did it look like?” Konko asked quietly, who had not been with the party during their initial travels.

“It was supposed to be a castle. A redoubt of unimaginable power. A dark fortress that had withstood sieges that would’ve broken most cities!” the Countess roared.

Grumbling, Sose paced around the utter disgrace of an abode. He stopped at various spots along the perimeter, frantically digging at the ground with his paws and sniffing intently, searching for where the awesomely dark castle went.

The oppa lifted his muzzle to the moonless night and let out a little mournful howl.

“That man, that horrible man! Oh… he’s in for it now.”

Shrubley meanwhile set up the [Autotent] nearby without another word while the Countess stewed and Sose looked desperately for any sign of the actual castle.

All the little oppa managed to do was dig out enough of the support for one of the sheets of rough wood holding up a side of the shack to collapse, causing the whole thing to fall into a tumble of debris.

Miranda screamed with rage, and with a swipe of her hand, made it disappear.

“But… why?” Konko asked.

Miranda turned all her fury on the girl, who shrank back and fell down before the awesome terror that she beheld. Seeing the fear in her face, Miranda pulled back on her powers and forced herself to calm down.

“I am sorry,” she said, offering a hand to pull Konko to her feet. “I am not mad at you.”

Konko trembled like one of those ridiculously small, pampered hairless dogs popular among the upper class in the Inner Ring.

Miranda motioned to where the shack had been. “It should have been a castle to terrify and inspire. However… it is–was, I suppose–tied to my fortune. It was the easiest way to sustain its massive power and use. Money can often be a means of supporting mana in a roundabout way. You’ll see more of that once we enter the Outer Ring.”

“So… you are poor now?” Shrubley asked as the tent finished setting itself up.

“Shrubley,” Sose snapped. “Sometimes the things you say come across rather cruel!”

The Countess’ eyebrow twitched. Rather than lash out at the little monsters, or the poor frightened girl again, Miranda picked up her oppa and pet him a little too aggressively to soothe herself.

Shrubley gasped. “They do? I apologize! I have recently learned that I am poor as well. Who would have thought? With nearly 15 silver to my name too! But when I went to the Guild to get my money changed, they said 15 silver was not very much. They said I was not even a quarter of the way to a single gold coin!”

“That’s true,” Miranda said. “I had access to vaults full of gold coins…” She pet Sose a little harder. “That utter fool of a man. He cut me off. That must be how he did this.”

“So we… cannot afford rooms anymore?” Cal asked, still stuck in the tree. “Also, a little help anyone?”

Nobody wanted to anger the Countess any further, it seemed, but Shrubley being Shrubley, he went to help while everybody else watched and tried to process what had just happened.

Though Cal was much too far up in the tree for Shrubley to grab him, it turned out that he didn’t need to. Shrubley merely raised a wooden hand and the entire tree limb Cal was hanging from bent down respectfully until Cal slid off and into Shrubley’s arms.

“Thank you,” Cal said, pulling leaves and twigs out of his bones.

Shrubley nodded.

“So the imprint powering your magical castle is fueled by currency hidden away in your vaults and… wherever else noble vampyrs put their things,” Konko said. “And the Count has restricted your access. I didn’t know the man had a death wish.”

“More or less,” Miranda said, sitting down hard on a nearby rock. “I can still access some of my personal vaults, but not without great effort and when I do it…” She shook her head. “If he is truly trying to cut me off, he’ll be able to do it each time I access a different vault. Eventually, I’ll have to return to the manor to set things right.”

“Then we will just need to use the tent to camp in and fulfill contracts in order to fund our progress!” Shrubley said optimistically.

Nobody else seemed to share his view. Even Smudge gave a less than enthusiastic, “Pyuu…”

“So no more elaborate 7 course meals?” Slyrox said.

“Pyuu…” Smudge’s outlook took a nosedive.

“No more… on tap milk barrels?” Cal gasped.

The Countess shook her head. “None of it. We’re entirely on our own for now. It won’t be until we get to a major city in the Outer Ring that I’ll be able to use a letter of note to draw from a personal vault. We’re stuck with what money you all have on you.”

Sose let out a howl of dismay. One that Smudge copied.

“Anyway,” the Countess continued. “We’re on our own for now. Since we don’t have my dining hall or the massive fireplace to warm ourselves or cook our food, we’ll need to set up a campfire.”

Cal was already gathering bits of wood and setting them up with the help of Slyrox, who muttered to herself about all the food she was missing out on. Ever since her health had recovered, the koblin had turned into a bit of a glutton. She wasn’t used to being able to keep decent quantities of food down.

Shrubley rolled a few large stones into a circle around the fire to sit on and then fenced the dry tinder with a ring of smaller stones. “Safety first,” he said when Cal gave him a curious look. “Fighting forest fires starts with us.”

Cal looked around but didn’t see a forest. There were a few trees, but they were so far apart and there were so many rocks between them that he couldn’t imagine a fire breaking out and doing much damage.

“Do you have any supplies?” Slyrox asked Miranda.

“Just what I need for myself, and Sose,” Miranda said. “Food wise? No. I didn’t need it. I could have summoned my castle at any point or drawn on the money in this pouch connected to my vaults.”

Just to prove her point, she pulled out an opulent velvet pouch with gold stitching and upturned it. Nothing came out. “See? Nothing. All I have is what I keep on my person.”

“I will go forage,” Konko said, relieved to be of use. “I have a lot of practice at it.”

Shrubley got up. “I am also skilled at foraging. I will go with you!”

Konko struggled not to panic. She felt like her very life depended on her reaction and ability to persevere with some degree of competence. She felt the Countess’ eyes drill into her shoulder blades. She didn’t dare turn around and betray the fear on her face. “O-okay.”

“Pyuu!” Smudge rolled after them, much to Konko’s horror.

The very two Awakened monsters she had tried to hurt.

“Looks like Smudge wants to help too,” Shrubley said happily. “I will show you how to find delicious food, Smudge, just you watch! Nature is bounteous if you know where to look.”

Together, the three went off into the night to look for food while Cal lit the dry tinder with a simple bolt of fire from his fingertip.

“What will you do?” Cal asked the Countess once Shrubley and the others were gone.

“About my husband?” She rolled Sose onto his back and pet his soft furry belly. He shut his eyes, beginning to calm down. “I don’t know. We’ve had our ups and downs as any married couple can attest. I did not think that he would have done this or else I would have better prepared myself against it.”

“I suppose you should not have expected your partner to betray you,” Cal said gently.

“Slyrox will smish-smash his clacky-clacks when she eye-peeks him next!” the koblin muttered darkly, poking a stick into the roaring fire.

The Countess looked up with a grin. “I think he’s going to have his hands full with Shrubley. He certainly doesn’t deserve my sympathy anymore.”

“Why does he want to hurt him?” Cal asked. He had thought the Count was a good man and a respectable vampyr who made a simple—if foolish—mistake. “Didn’t we save him? Why does he hate us?”

Miranda looked up at the stars. “He is… a proud man. He is not a bad man. I want you to understand that. He is misguided, hurt, and angry. No doubt he expected me to stay by his side and soothe his wounded pride. My decision to leave so soon after such a colossal failure likely was the final straw.”

“You deserve more than to be his accessory,” Sose said quietly. “You are incredible, mistress, and your potential was wasted! No more, I say.”

“I have spent a little too long nursing and caring for him,” she agreed. “I feel we are due some time apart. I don’t think he’ll be stupid enough to show his face while I’m around. Not after this. I would beat him into a bloody pulp and he damn well knows it. No. He’ll go after Shrubley.”

“But you can’t be mad at Shrubley… he’s… he’s Shrubley!” Cal said.

“I am sure if anybody can, that man will find a way,” Miranda said. “He is remarkably single-minded, but he’s also a typical vampyr. He thinks in the ways that the old guard did, because he always wanted to be a vampyr.”

Slyrox sat up. “Count was not born vampyr?”

“No,” Miranda said with a sigh. “He was born just a man.”

“Did you…?” Cal asked, then chickened out halfway.

“No. If I had, I would have proper control over him. His sire is somewhere else, probably doesn’t even think about him anymore. If I knew where they were or who it was, I might be able to talk to them, vampyr to vampyr, but I’ve never cared enough to look and now…?” She shrugged. “They could be anywhere in the world. It was long ago that I met my husband. If they were dead, I would know because he would turn back into a human, so that means they are still out there, but that does me little good now.”

“The Count could become human…” Slyrox was subconsciously whittling a stake. She looked surprised to see it in her hand.

“That’s not a bad idea,” Cal said, picking up a piece of wood himself.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Miranda told them, taking out some supplies she had managed to get from Talvar before they left. “His rivalry is with Shrubley. He thinks he stole me away.”

Cal choked a little.

“Not like that! But… perhaps if it was, he would not be so mad. Dalliances he can get past. We both have our… quirks.”

“It’s difficult wrapping my skull around that,” Cal admitted.

Miranda shrugged. “People don’t need to be perfect. You just need to find somebody you are happy with, so long as you’re not hurting each other or somebody else, what’s it matter?”

Slyrox made a rude gesture with several sticks together. “Yes?”

“No,” Miranda told her. “Definitely not like that.”

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Cal said, lacking a fundamental understanding.

“But this is more severe than that. He sees Shrubley as my gateway drug to adventuring again. He never did like to explore the world. He prefers to stay on our lands–my lands–and gain power the slow and steady way. He wouldn’t mind being stuck at Steel for an eternity, but I do. Shrubley reminded me of that. I had lost sight of breaking through Steel. I won’t lose that again.”