Azure_Fog HAHAHA no cliffhanger for you. You’re welcome.

Chapter 16 — Enter INSANITY

Editors: PROCRASTINATOR & GREETER

 

[Ei’s POV]

 

Oh boy… How am I going to explain my regeneration to Luna? Well, we have bigger problems.

 

『WELL, LOOK WHO WE HAVE HERE.』 

 

The magic circle from before, which is now a bright red, explodes creating a massive amount of black fog. From the fog, two red eyes emerge. What appears when the fog clears can only be described as a hellish chimera. It has the head of a black wolf, with a mane of vermillion squid-like tentacles. On its back, which is that of a wolf still, it has two pale and dark green dragon wings. For a tail, it has the tail of a rattlesnake, except the rattle has been replaced with a large mass of spikes. It’s easily two stories tall.

 

The pressure from the mere presence of this creature is like if gravity multiplied tenfold. Luna even stopped glowing. Also, her eyes were glowing. That was cool.

 

『An elf, a great spirit, and a vampire. What an interesting cast of summoners.』

 

… Well I guess I don’t need to explain my regeneration anymore… but this could still be quite troublesome. Also the intimidating aura has calmed down.

 

“Eh? A vampire!? There’s more of these cultists?!” 

 

『Silly elf. The vampire is right next to you.』

 

“Eh?! There’s only Ei? Wait, Ei is a vampire?!”

 

“I’ll explain later. This guy is going to destroy the world!”

 

“...”

 

『Hmm… You smell like ENTITY.』

 

Wait… what?

 

*ping*

 

… Really?

 

『This is interesting. Well, if you have the favor of ENTITY, I guess you are not a bad person. Perhaps I will be unsealed someday soon then.』

 

“Wait! What are you talking about? Who’s this ENTITY person?! And aren’t you going to destroy the world?!”

 

『Contrary to what those idiotic cultists thought, I am an ally of ENTITY. In your terms, the God of Creation.』

 

““????””

 

『Fine. I’ll give you a history lesson. There are two major factions of what you would call “gods”. The ENTITY faction and NULL faction. The ENTITY faction wants to keep the world as is, the NULL faction wants to destroy it. There is a bit of nuance to it, but that is it.』

 

“...”

 

“Well, we’re supposed to stop the ritual? And I don’t see any way for you to just disappear… *sigh* This is going to cause several headaches isn’t it?”

 

『Oh? That is not a problem.』

 

The massive chimera becomes enveloped in black fog and after it clears a woman(?) with short black hair, red eyes, a black fur draped over their shoulders while wearing pretty much your stereotypical pirate outfit. Black jacket, red and white striped shirt, black pants, and some leather boots. They even had a cute hat with a skull and crossbones on it.

 

“Eh? You look like a woman now!? But your voice was so masculine?”

 

“Gender means nothing to Entities like us. No Entity has a gender. Also, I have always wanted to be a pirate. It seems interesting.”

 

Luna seems a bit baffled but I think she gets it. Well, either way, bringing back a person should be easy to explain away. I mean, there were jail cells.

 

“How do we know you aren’t tricking us? Your name is INSANITY right? Isn’t that a bad thing?”

 

“Why don't ya stop ignorin’ ENTITY then? I’m sure they’d tell you, little vampire.”

 

“Why did you start speaking like that all of a sudden?!”

 

“You got a bone to pick with it?”

 

“Aren’t you supposed to be a god or something!?”

 

Well, I’ll leave those two to their arguing while I read what ENTITY said.

 

Be careful of those hands, you can’t block them. They are made of anti-mana.

 

A short first message. I guess it was because we were in combat.

 

INSANITY can be a bit… insane… at times, but they are a good entity. If Luna is fine with it, consider having them join the party. Also, if you want to know why they are on my side, it is because without a world there would be no chaos.

 

“Are you two done arguing?”

 

“No!” “Little elf here is the one provokin’ me.”

 

*sigh*

 

“Okay, then. Luna, what do you think of having INSANITY join us for adventures?”

 

“You want to bring a god with us!?!?”

 

“Do you have a problem with that?”

 

“They are a GOD, Ei. What part of that do you not understand?!”

 

“Hey! I told you I was sealed. I can’t do all the cool stuff I used to. I’m only barely more powerful than you three now. Besides, your party composition makes no sense already. You have an elf, a vampire, and a great spirit.”

 

“You know what! Screw later, I want Ei to explain herself now!”

 

Luna drags me off around the corner of some barely standing ruins from our battle.

 

“Ei! Why didn’t you tell me you’re a vampire?!”

 

“Because you would probably hate me then? Aren’t vampires supposed to be a bad thing?”

 

“Yeah, but you’re my friend! Also, you do realize I’m like 140 years old right?! I know that not all vampires are evil!”

 

I hadn’t considered that… to be fair Luna looks to be in her mid 20s.

 

“...”

 

“Also, you do realize that sunwalker vampires are said to be considered ‘good’ by the gods and blessed?”

 

… Well I did get blessed by ENTITY sort of.

 

“Please just tell me next time something like this happens! We’re supposed to be friends! Ei is Ei, vampire or not!”

 

“...”

 

I don’t know how to respond to this.

 

“*sigh* Truth is, I was told the world hated vampires…”

 

I activated my vampire transformation. Now that I think about it, isn’t it more like deactivating human transformation? I also unleashed my full aura. I think Luna can handle it; I mean she did earlier.

 

“You’re a vampire lord on top of being a vampire?! EIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

 

“Well… I guess? I’m barely a month old… And also, you are hiding things from me too!”

 

“Oh… right… Vadina, come out.”

 

“So, thou wert the vampire lord we cameth across a few days past?”

 

“Eh?! That was Ei?”

 

“Yep. Here, watch this.”

 

I used my inventory to quickly swap into the “red assassin” gear. I need a better name for that…

 

“EEEHHHH???”

 

“Anyways, nice to meet you Vadina. I’m Ei. Although, I believe we have met before. You were that crane, right?”

 

“Indeed. Thou mayest not want to keep INSANITY waiting for long. The Entities art quite powerful if mine memory serveth me. It wouldst be wise to not anger them.”

 

““Wait, you know of the Entities?””

 

“I have existed since the dawn of time. The Entities hadst once walked Andromeda.”

 

““...””

 

INSANITY was waiting for us.

 

“So, you’re back. Better friends now, eh? I see that your spirit is floatin’ around now. Nice wings too, little vampire. Not as nice as mine though.”

 

“I suppose you could say that. Anyways, Luna, and Vadina, are you good with them joining?”

 

“Yep.”

 

“I seeth no reason not to.”

 

“Wonderful. I see the world once again after 20,000 years!”

 

“Ah… one other thing INSANITY. Do you have another name to go by? Your name has a certain… aura to it.”

 

“That’s part of all the Entities! And, yea I do. Call me Kurui.”

 

“Kurui it is then. Let’s go.”

 

Wait… isn’t that just insanity in Japanese? (A/N: yes)

 

I wonder what would happen if I were to appraise Kurui?

 

Entity: Kurui/Ȋ̴̧͍͠N̵̘͑ͅS̴͚͑́A̶̞̽͌Ń̷̲̲͝I̵͍͈̿͝T̴̀͜Y̵̭̬̓̎ (Entity, 52,386y) 

Condition: Good 

Status Ailments: Sealed

Noteworthy Skills:

Info: It’s not nice to appraise everyone, ya know? Privacy is a nice thin’ to have. Ah… can’t blame ya for being curious anyways. -INSANITY

 

Kurui smirks at me as soon as I finish reading… What the hell…? I guess that was to be expected. (P/N that was weird…)

 

 

We exited the now very destroyed residence of the cardinal. There were guards waiting right outside the door. Amazing.

 

“Halt! Who is this third person you brought?”

 

“A prisoner we found in the dungeon inside.”

 

“I see. The Earl will see you now. Follow me. Bring the prisoner you found with you.”

 

We followed the guard through the town, gaining us a few odd looks, but we made it safely to Acantilado’s manor.

 

“So, you have returned. Who might this other person be? Gabriel, you are dismissed.” (Acantilado)

 

“A prisoner we found in the dungeon.” (Ei)

 

“I see. I would like a full report on what happened inside the cultists’ lair.” (Acantilado)

 

“We started by raiding the visible house! There were some potions and books, I think Ei has them! Then, we found a secret passage!” (Luna)

 

“A secret passage? Interesting. Ei, I will show you to the store room later. You may put the potions and books there.” (Acantilado)

 

“After that, we found a dungeon. Kurui, the person we found, was the only living thing in the dungeon. The rest of the prisoners had been turned into skeletal thralls.” (Ei)

 

“Those skeletons were pretty problematic, but we took ‘em down!” (Kurui)

 

“I see. Continue.” (Acantilado)

 

“So, after that, we ran into this weird skeleton mage guy! He was probably a priest or something? But first we had to kill his puppet. Once we got to him in actuality, we got transported to a weird void!” (Luna)

 

“After that, we barely managed to kill off the priest and the sacrifice, which halted the summoning. It made a pretty big explosion though, so there’s not much left of the site.” (Ei)

 

“I see. Here is the completion request form. You may leave, Ei, follow me.” (Acantilado)

 

Luna and Kurui left the manor, or I presume so at least, while Acantilado led me to a store room.

 

“Place all the books here.”

 

I took out all the books and potions and put them into a few nice piles.

 

“Thank you for your excellent work. I would have thought it would take more than a handful of days to take care of those pests. If you are around and I need help with something, I will consider your party once again.”

 

“Thank you, Acantilado. Well, I’d best not keep Luna waiting.”

 

“Very well. Until we meet again.” 

 

 

“Celes! We’re back!” (Luna)

 

“Eh? You didn’t leave for anything?” (Celes)

 

“Ah… nope! We had a designated request! Can you process it?” (Luna)

 

“Sure. … It’s from the Earl?!” (Celes)

 

“Yep… Also, can we register a new member for our party?” (Ei)

 

“Yeah… give me a second.” (Celes)

 

“Alright, fill out this form. I’ll include this request under you as well.” (Celes)

 

“Thanks, little fox!” (Kurui)

 

Oh… Did I forget what foxes were earlier?

 

“Can you please not call me that?” (Celes)

 

“Sure thin’ lassie!” (Kurui)

 

“Do you have to call everyone little?” (Ei)

 

“But isn’t everyone younger than me?” (Kurui)

 

“I guess…” (Ei)

 

“Just work on filling out the form!” (Luna)

 

After a bit we got Kurui registered as a member of Moon’s Shadow and got the request filed. I guess we don’t really have anything to do for a month…

 

“Oi! Moon’s Shadow!” (Jouh)

 

“Eh? Guildmaster?!” (Luna)

 

“Those merchants you decided to escort are leaving tomorrow. They said they moved up the time tables after the earthquakes. If you can’t make it, that’s fine, but they said they’d pay double.” (Jouh)

 

“We’ll do it. Right little elves?” (Kurui)

 

“Eh? When’d you get a third party member?” (Jouh)

 

“Just now! And yes, we’ll do it!” (Luna)

 

Huh, I guess we aren’t doing nothing for a month. (P/N downtime is hard… but escort time!)

 

Azure_Fog A bit short, but the arc is over. (The chapter was too…) Next up, the royal capital. Perhaps we’ll meet someone new? I’m definitely not partially stealing a character concept from Chrono Trigger to add to my webnovel…

Please leave feedback, any misspellings/typos, and impressions in the comments :)