Chapter 4 - Moonblessed Bear
“There's one,” Auram pointed towards the west. “It's giant.”
Liesel nodded. It was morning again, and Auram offered to fly into the sky to look for a town, possibly a human settlement. “Thank you.”
“But it's far. Like weeks far.”
Liesel didn't think she could take the spirit's word at face value. Their sense of scale should be very different after all. For all she knew, what Auram considered weeks, for her, who'd need to hunt food, always find a source of water, and had to walk on foot, might be months. She hoped Auram was overestimating the distance.
Regardless, before they left for the city, Liesel wanted to find a source of water. She again asked Auram to look for it. Fortunately, it was southwest, so they angled towards it first.
A part of her was tired enough that she wanted to just lie on the mossy bed in the shade of the broken temple for the day. Of course, that would be foolish. Without food and water, tomorrow would be worse than today. At least, right now, she had the energy to hunt for something to eat.
In the end, Liesel decided to make her way towards the river. Having a spirit was great, at least in the forest without a map.
“Will you stay quiet the entire day?” Auram uttered after a while of flying in silence.
“Is there something you want to ask?” Liesel replied. She hadn't heard a single creature the entire time. That was odd. Not even tweets of the birds. She kept her sword drawn, just in case. The steel had a tint of black on its surface that seemed to be permanent. Fortunately, her Materiality was at maximum capacity.
“What do you want to do after your soul is fixed, and you have a Materiality Core?”
Liesel considered for a moment. “I never thought about such a hopeful yet hollow future. Now, it seems to be within my reach, but after… that's a little too hopeful. I don't know."
“You must've wanted to be something before, right?”
“A respectable title for myself,” Liesel said. “And a job that would be enough to… Of course, that never came to pass. I had a very different view of the Laks Empire back then. So those imaginations are better left with the past me.”
“If you don't have anything… How did you even survive against the Mindeater? Don't you need to be very strong, I don't know, will or something?” Auram frowned.
“Quite the contrary, our reality is. The will without the strength is a liability. A hollow husk with the dullest mind is more likely to survive against a Mindeater than someone with strong convictions and a desire to live.” Liesel said.
“Is that what you are?”
“I don't know,” Liesel replied. For the moment, she didn't have anything but her name.
“You need a psychic to fix your gloomy mind.”
“What do you want, Auram?” Liesel asked.
“I… I just want to spend my time flying around freely, I guess. You see, I am a spirit. We don't really have human goals.”
“That's curious,” Liesel nodded, “though I wouldn't say most humans have any aspirations beyond having a nice place to live and nice food to eat.”
Liesel might be part of that group. At the same time, she did join the Soul Seekers for a purpose beyond that life.
Auram was the one guiding Liesel, so she kept flying up every so often to keep them from losing sight of it.
Liesel's soul soared when she heard the flowing river. She filled the water sack. It was enchanted with purification magic. Injecting a tiny amount of Materiality purified it instantly. The Rand Company had not been expecting the expedition to be a day's endeavor, though the trouble on the first floor forced them to abandon most of the rations. In hindsight, it had been a day's adventure, but for all the wrong reasons. She didn't pick up any kind of ration from her colleagues' corpses either. She hadn't been in her best mindset.
She looked over at the spirit, who was staring at her reflection in the flowing water. “Do you drink water?”
“Not really,” Auram shrugged. “I can eat Materiality.”
“Oh,” Liesel nodded. “That's kind of nice.”
Liesel took off her hooded cloak and then the vest underneath it. She didn't wear armor. They were expensive, and secondly, she couldn't stand the constricting feeling they gave her, which was an awfully irrational way to think about it, but hey, she was the only one who survived, so she could pat herself on the back for being right.
She gathered a handful of dirt and picked out any sharp grains or thorns from it.
“What are you doing?” Auram asked like a child.
“Washing the blood off my face,” Liesel spread the dirt on her face. It was not pleasant by any means. She was using the dirt by the riverbank, but still she preferred it over the feeling of dried blood chipping from her face every time she spoke. Her shoulder wound had completely healed, but there was a patch of blood around it, too.
“Whoa…” Auram mumbled after Liesel washed off the dirt. “You look like a normal person.”
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“Thank you?” Liesel raised a brow. She didn't want to become too lax, though. Something might be lurking in the shadow of the forest.
Once her skin was dry again, she put on her clothes. “Let's go.”
“Are we going to the town?” Auram asked, flapping her wing.
“We can worry about that after I find something to eat,” Liesel replied.
They continued down the river, staying close to the bank. She hoped there would be fish down the stream. She could hear birds chirping after a little while when she was a little farther away from the Necropolis.
"Humans are weird creatures. Like you need water, and then you need other living things to feed on. And then you need Materiality to use magic. I mean no disrespect, but you all seriously need to reconsider your biological inefficiency."
Liesel surrendered without a word. Auram was proud for a while after that. The spirit couldn't stay calm for a moment. Either she kept talking about something as if it were her first time in the human realm, or she flew away to observe different insects or trees.
They found a small alcove in the river. It was shallow, but calm. Liesel spotted a few small fish in it, none that she recognized. They seemed safe to consume.
As she hurried towards it, Auram pulled a strand of her hair. "Wait," she hissed quietly.
Liesel stopped, looking back at the spirit curiously.
"There's something…" Auram pointed, but by then Liesel could hear a beast dashing towards them.
Through the tall bushes, a giant bear leapt out, growling.
"Go up," Liesel said as she spread Materiality into her limbs. Auram flapped her wing and vanished in a puff of smoke. Knowing that the spirit could teleport back to the Custodian's side anytime, Liesel felt a little relieved about her situation.
It seemed like a normal bear, only abnormally huge. There was a patch of white fur on its forehead in the shape of a half moon. Its claws shone, blaring an alarm in Liesel's mind.
As it swiped the claw in the air, the shining light turned into blades, rushing towards her.
Liesel wrapped the Materiality around her feet, Enforcing it, and stepped aside. The claw blades dug into the tree behind her, leaving deep gnashes.
[Materiality -2.3]
Liesel didn't know how to fight an animal. It was not a demon after all.
"Did I intrude on a hunting spot?" Liesel asked.
Roaring, the bear dashed towards her. As it reached her, Liesel Enforced her limbs again, burning Materiality would momentarily raise her movement speed. She stepped to the side, dodging the beast, and slashed her sword in a wide arc. It cleft through the side of its abdomen with ease, drawing blood like a tail behind the sword's tip.
The beast growled, swiping its claw at her. Liesel swung again, cutting at its elbow. It recoiled away. Snarling, the beast stood on its hind legs.
As it turned out, Liesel pushed a little more Materiality into her sword, which started vibrating. That should kill.
She lunged forward, the steel flashed in a cursed black glint, as it cut across its upper chest and belly. The bear fell on its back like a giant turtle, struggling to move. It was a little too big for Liesel to effectively kill it. She hated that she was putting it through unnecessary pain when she could've taken a slightly riskier approach and taken off its head in the first strike.
She circled around its body as it tried to climb back up. An Enforced sword strike sent Materiality coursing through the target's body, and that paralyzed the victim for a moment as it tried to fight off the wild energy in its soul. Liesel had time to be careful.
She stood beside its head and lifted her sword.
"Stop!" Auram teleported in front of her.
"I know, it might seem cruel," Liesel said, "But it's already injured. If I don't kill it, Auram, then it would die over the course of a week, while its wound rots and hunger consumes its body from within," Liesel said.
The bear was completely pacified after Auram appeared, though.
"It's fine," Auram said as she lowered herself in front of the beast. "I will heal its wound."
Liesel blinked. She lowered her sword.
[Materiality -15]
Liesel clicked her tongue; she had wasted a lot of Materiality. "It is not the last animal that tries to harm us. If you want to heal every animal I hurt, then you should heal it and then go back to the library."
"I don't," Auram shook her head, as she flapped her wings over the bear's belly. Dust fell from it that seemed to be healing the laceration. "It's special, you know. A moonblessed is a very rare breed of animal. It is a bad omen to kill them."
"What kind of bad omen?" Liesel asked. Now that she had spent a moment looking at its face, Liesel didn't think she had it in her to kill it anymore. It seemed like a dog, a rather well-fed and groomed dog. Having an image of a wild beast was somewhat necessary to land the killing blow. Of course, if it tried to attack her again, things would be easier.
"Well, a moonblessed is kind of like half spirit, so you can say it is my sibling."
"I wouldn't call every stranger that I meet my half-sibling, even when they are fully human," Liesel said.
"And killing moonblessed, I've heard, starts the Ashening Plague."
"That can't be right."
"I don't know. It's not just another wild beast," Auram argued. Her wings were losing their golden luster.
"I won't kill it," Liesel nodded. "But it is a wild beast. And are you sure you can heal its wounds? Your own body is losing much of its luster."
"That's just temporary. Glow is like… make-up in human terms. I don't really have a better use for Materiality in my body, well, except for this moment," Auram stopped glowing all at once. She still looked the same, but much more like a normal creature that could easily assimilate into the surrounding area like a butterfly from afar. From up close, Auram was more of a tiny human with wings, though. "A Moonblessed is, as the name suggests, an animal that is gazed upon by the moon goddess. They tend to have the potential to become more than just an animal after forming a Materiality core, I think."
"If it can be more, then it should learn fighting, and also who to pick fights with," Liesel chuckled. She still didn't feel comfortable turning her back on it. But she wanted to focus on the fish now, rather than an overgrown forest dog.
She took a step closer to the moonblessed bear, and it tried to scoot away. Liesel smiled. "Look. You are a useless bear. So, I have a proposition for you," she rested her blade on its neck. "You are going to be my steed. Or I will flay you like a fish."
It shivered when she hissed.
"Stop scaring him," Auram complained. "I will convince him that you want him to tag along with us."
"I don't," Liesel replied. "I want it to be a temporary steed, because my human feet are not fond of walking for weeks."
Liesel was pretty sure that whatever the bear someday might become, she had left a lifelong traumatic memory for him. She didn't feel bad about it. It attacked first. She went over to pick out the fish.
[Materiality +0.6]
It was sad that she had basically emptied half the pond to replenish her Materiality. But she was sure they could cook it all. Auram complained that they didn't need that much food, but Liesel argued she could recover her Materiality from the spirit's newfound pet. For someone ten times Liesel's age, Auram acted more like a child and a young teen. And Liesel didn't know what to think about a giant bear hiding behind a palm-sized spirit.
At least, Auram could talk to the bear on some instinctual level.
It was shivering when Liesel climbed on its back. There was nothing to hold onto, and once it started walking, she slipped off its rotund back. Liesel gave up. She couldn't stay on its top without digging her fingers into its fur, and that seemed unnecessarily cruel.
"We are going to need a makeshift saddle first," Liesel whispered. Things, however, were looking better for tomorrow.