Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean on Stampeding Bison, during tea party between a certain rich girl and a certain royal sheep girl...
"Huh...I just had the strangest thought...what if Xiao Liu was a dog?"
"That...weirdly fits him."
"Agreed, now have you had any luck in figuring out what these souvenirs we got from Logos and Pathos do?"
"Well...sort of. I actually forgot I was wearing it when I was cultivating one day, and..."
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Now back to the candy store...
"Rodenia, could you let me down please?"
"Huh? Oh! Of course, coach. Wait, coach? When did I learn that? Why do I like that word in reference to you?"
"I...was going to say that I was surprised that you were able to handle that so well. But I realized that would’ve been a dumb thing to say to the kaijin lord."
"Please, just call me Zhen Liu. Lord title is reserved for the kaijin and my enemies."
’Aight, Kit told me that the guy was named Leon, the girl was named Isa and the two of them were essentially low level missionaries for some kind of benign cult...hmmmm.’
At an initial glance, Leon and Isa looked like the stereotypical missionary couple that one could find in most fantasy stories.
Now that Zhen Liu had a good look at these two companions of Rodenia’s though, he could safely say that they were completely harmless.
Neither of them had an Aether ranking higher than an Acolyte, and neither of them appeared to be the fighting type anyways. He was a bit worried about the iconography on their persons, a snake medallion with three colored stones embedded in a trinity formation, but Logos and Pathos assured him that Kit’s assessment about them being benign was accurate...mostly.
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’Alright, what’s the deal with the snake medallions? My memories say that particular emblem belongs to a harmless religion, but they also say that religious organizations have a tendency to hide their fangs...or inquisitors…what’s the deal with this one?’
=Judging from the design of those pendants...these two are priests-in-training for the Order of the Tri-Colored Serpent. One of the more orthodox religions and sects that operate predominantly on the Stampeding Bison Continent.=
∆The Tri-Colored Seprents? Man, I haven’t heard of those guys in a long time.∆
’That reaction....former allies? Enemies?’
=Little of both. One of your predecessors, the Devout Heretic, spent a lot of time traveling the world into learn from the myriad of religions that cover this world. He said that it was his way of making up for all the years of ignorance and death he sowed in a previous lifetime...or something of that natural. It’s been awhile since that time...=
∆The Order of the Tri-Colored Serpent worshipped, you guessed it, a Heavenly Tri-Colored Hydra,∆ Pathos interjected out of boredom. ∆The Heretic and their prophet got into a bit of a beef on the nature of the divines.∆
=Fists got thrown, words were flung, but it ended with them eventually becoming friends. That and there was a battle involving an enemy faction calling themselves, "The Grand Sky Hall", but again, that was a long time ago.=
’I feel like you two gone off a tangent there...so these two are harmless?’
∆=Since they’re basically holy men in training? Yes.=∆
’Aight...hey, guys? Y’all want to meet your wayward sibling?’
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"Wait, before we continue talking...," Zhen Liu trailed off as he took off some of his accessories and gathered them into his palm. "Come on out guys!"
"They weren’t joking! He is the kaijin lord!"
At this moment, Zhen Liu summoned all the kaijin he had in his person.
Nepherage, Frosttusk, Hurricroak, Razorstella, Spring Brawler and Screamira appeared one after the other and moved to meet their wayward companion. Needless to say, Rodenia was excited to meet them.
"Oh my god! I have cousins!"
"Cousins? That...is actually a fairly accurate term," Hurricroak admitted.
"I have so many questions, like...what are we exactly?"
"That...is a complicated question," Nepherage answered. "We can try and explain though."
As the kaijin welcomed their lost mutant sibling into the fold, Zhen Liu redirected his focus to Leon and Isa. The two priests-in-traininf, however, were still looking rather shocked that Zhen Liu had summoned even more kaijin. Or to be more precise, they were shocked that Zhen Liu had summoned kaijin in the first place.
As amusing their faces were at this moment though, Zhen Liu needed them to focus so that he could get answers.
A quick verbal "hey" managed to snap them both out of their dazes.
"So how did you two get involved with Rodenia exactly? I asked Kit, but they told me to ask you two. Saying that Rodenia made it unnecessarily flashy and with a lot of sound effects. Granted, I am also curious as to why a pair of religious types decided to travel with her all the way to Roaring Tide of all places."
"Oh! That is actually an unbelievable story...but after what we’ve seen here, it’s probably very believable..."
Leon and Isa proceeded to regale Zhen Liu with how they met Rodenia and began to travel with her.
Starting with the story of how she saved the two of them from a horrible fate by literally falling from the sky after a crazy beam of energy fired out of Spider Hell.
Zhen Liu knew exactly what they were talking about, but didn’t say shit as he wanted to know about what happened after that moment.
"After that day, well...the trajectory of our lives changed dramatically..."
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The two of us had no idea what to make of her, at first.
They don’t exactly teach you what to do when giant, four armed insect women fall from the sky in church after all.
But we tried our best.
"Hey, are you alright?," Leon asked after gathering his courage a bit. "That was a pretty nasty fall you just took."
"A fall? When did I-oh shit, I did fall! Well, that explains the crater I’m in right now. Let me just...oh my gods, I have arms?! And legs?!"
"Why does she sound shocked at having limbs?," Isa whispered to Leon.
"I don’t know but she seems friendly...maybe she has what Father Orlean had after he got hit in the head with that watermelon, remember? He lost his memory for about a week until he got hit with a brick?"
"Oh yeah... you’re not thinking of hitting with her a brick, are you?"
"What are you two whispering about? Is it about food? I think I would like food."
It took the couple a couple of minutes but they eventually found some spare bread and dried fruits to give to the mysterious insect woman. She seemed to enjoy both, commenting that it was the first time she ate either.
"Man, that stuff was tasty! First time I’ve ever eaten human food...huh, why do I know what that means?"
"Good to hear, I think?"
"Uh...excuse me, miss...miss..."
"Huh? Oh! Is this that name thing that the spiders talk about sometimes when they’re arguing with each other? Humans have those too?"
"Uh...yes," Leon answered, not sure on what else to say at this moment anyways. "My name is Leon and this is companion, Isa. What’s your name?"
"Oh, so that’s what you were doing...I don’t have one."
"You mean you forgot it or...," Isa asked and trialed off in order to give their mysterious friend a chance to answer.
"I mean I don’t got one. Technically, I wasn’t sentient until about...ten minutes ago? Hell, I just realized what a minute was right now. Time is a funny concept!"
Leon and Isa were absolutely flabbergasted at their new companion, given how she was simultaneously naive and knowledgeable all at the same time.
In a weird senses they were reminded of a small child that had somehow managed to absorb the entire contents of an encyclopedia, but wasn’t able to properly process the knowledge in a coherent way.
On the one hand, they didn’t exactly have any obligation to help this strange insect woman than they already have, but on the other...it felt wrong to just leave her out in the elements without doing something within their power.
As such, they decided to start with the obvious: a name.
"So...you don’t really have a name?"
"No, but I think someone was supposed to give me one...not sure who though..."
"Well then, how about we give you one. A temporary one at least. Until you find the guy who’s supposed to give you one."
"Really! New foods and a new name! What a brilliant day!"
"Right then...how about..."
And it was in this moment, our adventures with Rodenia began.
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...That pun of a title is the worst thing you have ever written in the history of forever and always.
|Did...did you seriously use one of these to make fun of my ability to title chapters?|
|Shut-wait a minute...was that a Swan Princess reference?!|