Chapter : 37
* * *
“Loosening up is the most important part.”
“Okay…”
After returning from meeting the king, Charmaine was spending her days in much greater comfort than before.
Hoping nothing would go wrong before their safe return, she kept her promise to supervise Jasper’s sword practice.
She deliberately adjusted her schedule to match Jasper’s wake-up time, coming out after the sun had risen. Yet, Jasper, though stretching, still swayed with sleepy eyes.
Charmaine let out a quiet chuckle.
“You’ve got to wake up properly.”
“I’m awake!”
Jasper widened his eyes and mimicked Charmaine’s movements.
“Alright, let’s start with stretches again. One.”
“One!”
“Again, one.”
“One!”
The child’s spirited voice rang out loudly for a long time.
Afterward, they shared the breakfast Alonso had brought. While minding the shop, Charmaine occasionally gripped antiques to replenish her life force.
Unlike the first few days after waking in this body, she now kept her vitality and mana constantly full. If it even felt abundant, she’d take the chance to craft teleportation stones to use instead of teleportation magic.
This body had limitations on teleport distance and frequency, so she planned to craft as many teleportation stones as possible whenever she had the mana to spare.
She was starting to think she might have to go to Rintvel in person to assess the general situation.
A few more days passed like that.
Then one day, Alessandro came waddling into the shop with his hands behind his back.
“You’ve been diligently opening the shop these days? Looks neat and tidy too, I see.”
Charmaine couldn’t hide her joy and stood up.
“Sir.”
“Still no progress with your memory, huh.”
Alessandro muttered while glancing around the shop.
“Yeah, keeping things tidy like this makes it feel like a proper place. Way better than when it looked like a haunted house.”
Charmaine smiled and scanned the area around Alessandro. No sweet potatoes today?
She thought his hands were behind his back because he was holding a basket, but he really was just standing like that.
Perhaps sensing her silent yearning, Alessandro spun around and barked,
“There’s none! No more sweet potatoes for you!”
Charmaine drooped her shoulders, deflated.
Honestly, she felt wronged.
Ever since returning from Soro Forest, she had been sending half the roasted sweet potatoes Alessandro brought through Bucky to the forest—to build rapport, even a little.
So she never got to eat a full one herself. And now she was told to stop eating them altogether?
It felt like her greatest joy in this place had come crashing down.
‘I shouldn’t have shared that half the other day…’
Charmaine smacked her lips regretfully.
“You’re not hurt anywhere, right?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Any customers lately?”
“…None these past few days.”
She used to get at least three people a day, but recently she hadn’t seen even one.
Maybe some had come by while she was out. Maybe she’d left the shop unattended too long.
“If there are no customers, find something else to do. Or you’ll fall asleep again like last time.”
“Fall asleep…? May I ask what you mean by that?”
Charmaine followed closely behind Alessandro as he inspected the shop.
He suddenly turned around.
“You really don’t remember anything, huh.”
Alessandro explained that Charmaine had to keep collecting new memories.
Memories once seen lose effectiveness and can no longer sufficiently replenish life force. Delaying the work out of laziness had once caused her to fall into a deep slumber.
As she had suspected, Alessandro clearly knew that Charmaine wasn’t human.
“What happens if I fall asleep? Do I… die?”
Charmaine asked seriously.
“You’ll have to be taken to the altar, that’s what. Die? Why would you die? It’s not like you have a body that dies. Do you know how hard it was carrying you last time? I almost broke my back!”
‘He carried me? With that tiny body? And…’
The altar.
Only one came to mind.
Charmaine had never been there, but she knew its approximate location.
“You mean the altar to the west, right?”
“Of course. There’s only one. Anyway, get moving before you end up like that again. Stay busy.”
Charmaine nodded and replied she would.
And silently, she decided: she had to go to the altar soon.
“By the way…”
“What now?”
“May I ask what you meant by ‘a body that doesn’t die’?”
“…”
Alessandro looked up at Charmaine with a blank stare.
“You said you didn’t want to become a vengeful spirit, didn’t you? If your head’s really spinning, just go to the altar. You always did when you wanted answers.”
“Ah, a vengeful spirit?”
“Not that I’d let it happen.”
Having looked around to his satisfaction, Alessandro headed for the door.
“A-Are you leaving?”
Charmaine scampered after him again.
Alessandro waved lazily behind him.
“I’ll send the kid to bring you some sweet potatoes, so just wait.”
And with that, he vanished.
Charmaine smiled as she looked at the door he had disappeared through.
But her smile didn’t last long.
So even all these antiques weren’t enough to rely on?
And yet she didn’t have the courage to go advertising beyond the alley.
‘And I have a mountain of things to do…’
As Alessandro said, if she wanted to avoid falling asleep—or becoming a vengeful spirit, joke or not—she had to run the shop steadily by day and move at night.
Charmaine lifted her hand and brushed the shop’s wall.
* * *
That evening.
Charmaine closed the shop on schedule and began preparing to head out.
“You sure you’ll be okay without going to Miya’s place?”
“Yeah. I’m going to practice writing today. And write in my diary too.”
Jasper waved a notebook and pencil.
“How many days behind are you in your diary?”
Jasper’s face flushed bright red.
“…Two days.”
He hated writing so much that he even delayed his diary. But when Miya tried to take him to the flower shop a few times, he suddenly became interested in practicing penmanship.
Though he hadn’t been asked to move flowerpots, he grumbled about how annoying it was being taught about flowers he didn’t care about.
“I’ll set up a protective barrier before I go, so don’t open the door for anyone you don’t know.”
“Charmaine, will you be back late?”
Charmaine put on her hood and checked the clock.
It had just passed 6:30.
“I won’t be long.”
“Okay, be safe!”
Charmaine ruffled Jasper’s hair and stepped outside.
* * *
The western altar.
Once every ten years, a ritual was held here to ward off curses and pray for abundance.
In Elium, it was called the Salid Altar, or simply the Western Altar.
Though it sat in a location where one could see the royal palace just by turning their head, Charmaine felt as if she were staring at the ruins of a war.
The dried-up fountain, where no water had flowed in ages, and the coarse stone wall encircling the area gave that impression.
At its center stood a large rectangular building used for the rituals—and nothing else.
The surrounding land was barren, with not a single blade of grass, as if this place alone remained cursed even after the rest of Elium had been freed.
‘They say it’s been preserved exactly as it was during the first ritual.’
It felt as though, without the ritual, all of Elium might wither like this.
The doors of the altar, which only opened once every ten years, were—predictably—shut tight.
Charmaine slowly approached them.
Gr-r-r-rk.
The heavy doors, tightly closed, parted on their own as if to welcome her.
With a solemn gaze, Charmaine stepped inside.
The interior of the building was dim.
Charmaine placed her hand on the wall as she walked forward.
“Ah.”
Suddenly, a sharp pain sliced through her finger.
“Ouch.”
She grabbed her cut hand with the other—it was wet. She didn’t need to look to know she was bleeding.
Drip. Drop.
The warm trickle sliding down her wrist made her wish she had brought a handkerchief.
And then—
Without anyone touching them, the torches lining the walls flared to life one by one.
In an instant, the space was flooded with light.
And that wasn’t all.
From the parched cracks in the stone floor, deep green sprouts began to burst forth, spreading rapidly.
A powerful life force surged forth, even blooming buds, creating a path that stretched toward the center of the altar.
“This is…”
Charmaine stood dumbfounded, mouth agape at the sight.
The inner altar, a circular platform shaped like the one outside, was now covered in lush grass, transformed into a garden where fairies might dwell.
Was this the power of the fairy race that once worshipped the god Salid?
Snapping out of her daze, Charmaine looked down at her bleeding hand.
The blood between her fingers had already crusted over.
‘Traitor!’
A sudden shout thundered in her ears.
