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Yeoman stood over the frozen clearing in silence. The site of slaughter was exactly as how he remembered it. The demons hadn’t done anything to the corpses after he left; in fact, they were still frozen. How strong was the leader of Swirling Wind’s magic? Even after a week, the remnants of her spell hadn’t dissipated. The goblins were still frozen, their faces masked in confusion and fear. Their torsos were lying on the ground, separated from their still-standing legs. Yeoman wasn’t sure what he was doing here. Cody had given him a day and a half to recover his wits before the promotion mission. To refresh his frame of mind, Yeoman flew into the air, letting the wind take him wherever it wished, and somehow—due to fate or a lazy author—he ended up over the forest where the goblins had inhabited.
Yeoman walked around the clearing, his feet crushing the ice beneath him. He was surprised it had remained unbroken for so long. Perhaps wild animals knew how dangerous it was to approach a place that had been covered in magic. Yeoman knew it was dangerous, but seeing as his teleportation was on cooldown, he didn’t mind taking the chance. Besides, SSS-ranked adventurers were busy individuals, they wouldn’t spend their time waiting for a goblin king to return; at least, Yeoman hoped they wouldn’t. Their mission was accomplished anyway. Once the humans knew the demons wouldn’t allow them to forge an alliance with the goblins, they had given up on the task—something the demons should’ve realized as well. They knew when the humans had come up with the plan, so there must’ve been a spy relaying information to them.
A sigh escaped from Yeoman’s mouth as he stopped in front of a familiar face. It was Chieftain Long Toenail. The goblin had bravely gone to the humans’ territory with him to establish an alliance. The elderly goblin was even ready to die if things didn’t go well. For some reason, a request the goblin had once made came to Yeoman’s mind. If the elderly goblin happened to die, it wanted Yeoman to eat it. Yeoman stared at the frozen goblin. The self-inflicted wounds on its chest were frozen too, encased in a layer of clear ice. Out of respect, the goblin had mutilated itself, throwing its blood and flesh at Yeoman to celebrate his coronation. Shouldn’t Yeoman show the goblin the same amount of respect? In goblin culture, the dead weren’t buried; they were eaten, living on inside the bodies of their relatives. Yeoman wasn’t sure how long a goblin’s lifespan was, but he was pretty sure it must’ve been short thanks to diseases involving prions caused by cannibalism. Then again, goblins also had a short lifespan because everything hunted and ate them.
Yeoman didn’t know what to do with the goblins. At first, he wanted to bury them, but when he remembered Chieftain Long Toenail’s words, he couldn’t help but wonder if he should eat them. The goblins would want to be sent off by winding up inside his stomach, but Yeoman was still a human at his core. Also, for practical reasons, there was no way he could eat a thousand goblins, and if he ate the goblin babies, he didn’t think he’d ever get the images of that out of his head. Yeoman exhaled. He was a human, not a goblin. Funerals were for the living, not the dead. Yeoman nodded, having made up his mind. He looked around, searching for something he could dig with.
The alphabet rock came to mind. If he slammed it into the ground at an angle, it’d be possible to dig some deep pits. Yeoman went over to the center of the camp. The coronation ceremony didn’t happen there, but it was frozen as well. Evidently, the demons had attacked this place either before or after Yeoman had left. The alphabet had been washed off of the rock, leaving behind a white surface that was clean of moss. The few goblins that didn’t participate in the ceremony, the babies and the caretakers, were frozen in the little shelters surrounding the rock. Once again, Yeoman couldn’t help but wonder how the demons could be so cruel.
Yeoman shook his head and picked up the rock, avoiding looking at the frozen statues around him. He rammed the rock against the ground, pushing down on it, gouging out a line in the earth. Yeoman had never buried a body before, and he wasn’t quite sure how deep the holes had to be. Thanks to some cop shows, Yeoman knew some buried bodies were discovered in the woods due to something called the frost line, but he had never done any research on it. Yeoman thought about it for a bit before deciding it didn’t matter. If the bodies of the goblins resurfaced, something would eat them, and the goblins’ wishes would come true.
Yeoman dug a large pit and gathered up the nearby frozen goblins. He didn’t break open their skulls to dig around for any gene fragments. When he had killed the wyvern, the fragment had automatically entered his palm like a Proof of Murder. He suspected only the people who dealt the finishing blow would get the fragment, and since these goblins were killed by characters from the plot, there was nothing for him. Yeoman stood over the pit, hesitating to place the goblins inside. Did they require coffins?
“Hey.”
Yeoman whipped his head around. A small woman was standing in the air next to him. She had wings like a dragonfly, and a pair of deerlike horns jutted out of her head. Yeoman blinked. “A fairy?”
The fairy bobbed her head up and down, her orange hair brushing back and forth against her shoulders. “What are you doing with those goblins?”
Yeoman frowned. Fairies weren’t good news. They played tricks on people, and in The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons, they cursed people with minor inconveniences. A minor inconvenience was the last thing he needed. “I’m burying them.”
The fairy flew close. Then, her face scrunched up, and she pinched her nose while backing away. “Why?” she asked, her voice nasally. Her eyes were tearing up, and she flew a little further away from Yeoman.
“Humans bury the dead,” Yeoman said. His brows furrowed. “It prevents disease outbreak.” He hadn’t really thought about why humans were buried, but disease was probably the biggest practical factor. Religions encouraged getting rid of bodies and not letting them stew, most likely, due to disease prevention. Of course, Yeoman wasn’t a theologist, so he wasn’t really sure.
“But why are you doing it?” the fairy asked. “Why not someone else? Is this your job?”
Wasn’t this fairy a nosy little booger? Yeoman exhaled through his nose. “I knew these goblins. In a sense, they died because of me. If I don’t bury them, it wouldn’t be respectful.”
The fairy slowly nodded her head, her hand still pinching her nose. “Do you have to bury them here?”
Yeoman wondered whether the fairy was trying to get something from him, or if it really was just a curious creature. “I suppose it doesn’t have to be here. I can bury them elsewhere. Is this your territory? Should I bury them somewhere else?”
“Oh, no,” the fairy said, shaking her head back and forth. “I would never settle down somewhere this dreary. However, if you don’t mind, can you bury them east from here? Bodies are very nutritious, and things are usually eaten before they’re absorbed by the ground.”
It turned out the fairy did want something from him. “You want to use these bodies as fertilizer?”
“That’s right,” the fairy said. “You’re pretty smart for a goblin-bird-human-thing. That’s really weird: goblins are dumb, birds are dumb, and humans are dumb, so where did your intelligence come from?”
Yeoman ignored the fairy. It wasn’t really wrong. Well, Yeoman wasn’t quite sure how smart birds were, but they couldn’t be that much smarter than goblins, right? As for the bodies, the day was still young, but if he had to move a thousand bodies to a different place to bury them, there probably wouldn’t be enough time. “Do you have a way to transport these bodies?”
The fairy nodded and pointed at Yeoman. “You.”
Yeoman didn’t know what to say. “I only have about a day before I have to return home. I’m not sure if I can move them all.”
The fairy tilted her head. “I’ll give you a reward if you do it.”
Yeoman hesitated. “How far away do you want me to move them?”
“Oh, not too far,” the fairy said. “You can just move them to the base of that mountain over there.”
Yeoman followed the fairy’s finger. There was a mountain in sight. It looked pretty close, but Yeoman knew better. Depending on the size of the mountain, the distance could actually be extremely far. However, if the mountain was small, then the distance would be short. “What kind of reward would I be getting?”
The fairy giggled but didn’t say anything; she just looked at Yeoman with a smile. Her face was red, and it seemed like she was doing her best to hold in her laughter. It also looked like she was suffocating herself because her hand was still holding her nose shut.
“It’s a trick, isn’t it?” Yeoman asked. “The mountain is actually really far away, and once I’ve wasted all my time, you’d say there was no reward, or you’d place a curse on me.” How old did this fairy think he was? He wasn’t a child; he hadn’t been a child for a long time.
The fairy made a face. “You really are smart,” she said and nodded. “As a reward for not falling for my tricks, you can have this!” She flew forward and waved the hand that wasn’t holding her nose in a circular motion. A ring of light appeared, and a circular vine materialized within it. The vine ring hovered in front of Yeoman, and he held his hand out. The ring dropped down, landing on his palm.
[Obtained Fairy’s Ring (Cursed)]
[Fairy’s Ring (Cursed): A fairy encountered the worst thing she had ever smelled in her life, an infected human named Yeoman Smith. With the mana she had stocked up for several years, the fairy created a cursed ring to counteract the stench. The wearer’s scent will be replaced by an aromatic, flowery fragrance. Unable to remove once equipped.]
Yeoman’s brow furrowed. The item description clearly said it was a cursed ring, but somehow, he didn’t think of the effect as a curse at all.
“Hurry, hurry,” the fairy said, her voice still nasally from pinching her nose. “Put it on.”
Yeoman thought it over. He might not be able to take off the ring once he put it on, but he could always rip his finger off. Then, when the stage ended, his hand would return back to normal without the ring. The item description wouldn’t lie to him and withhold information, right? Although Yeoman didn’t really trust the aliens, he didn’t have any reason to doubt them. Yeoman could tell people were annoyed by his stench too, and there weren’t any side effects, so he slipped the green ring on. Roots grew out of it and dug into his finger like little worms, and the ring flattened against his finger until it was practically like a tattoo.
The fairy lowered her hand from her face and took in a cautious sniff. She exhaled out a breath before taking in a deep breath through her nose. “Much better! Much, much better! Whew, you have no idea how stinky you were before.”
Yeoman inhaled. He really did smell like flowers. It wasn’t an overpowering scent; it was like he was wearing a light perfume. How was this a curse?
Bzzz.
Yeoman looked down. A bee had landed on his arm. It crawled up and down before walking in a circle. It trod on the green fungus lines on Yeoman’s skin, following them before coming to a pause. Yeoman didn’t have any alien translation ability for insects, but he knew the bee was confused as hell. No wonder why it was a cursed ring. It seemed like smelling exactly like a flower had its downsides. A bluish-green blur flitted by Yeoman’s head, and a hummingbird bird came to a stop, hovering in front of his face. It tilted its head, staring at him while inching closer.
Yeoman’s expression darkened. Wasn’t this effect too dramatic? Within seconds of him putting on the ring, a bee and a hummingbird had already located him. A high-pitched whine assaulted Yeoman’s ears, and he turned his head towards the sound. Seconds later, a bat came into view. Yeoman had never seen a bat fly in person before, but after seeing one, he was not impressed. It flew in zigzags like a drunken bird, and like a drunkard, it colliding against Yeoman’s wing. The bat clung onto Yeoman’s feathers with its hindlegs and refused to let go. Yeoman’s eye twitched, and he looked around for the fairy, but she was nowhere to be found. Evidently, she had seen Yeoman’s expression and fled.
Yeoman couldn’t tell if he was lucky or unlucky. The ring was nice, even if it was cursed. It cured a minor inconvenience but created another one. Yeoman shook his head. He had wasted enough time. He placed the frozen goblin corpses into the pit he had dug and picked up the alphabet rock. He placed it on the ground near the overturned dirt and pushed, forcing the dirt back into the pit, flattening the ground. He dug a few more pits, burying the rest of the baby goblins. Once he was done, he lifted the rock over his head and made his way to the ceremony site.
A whole afternoon passed. By the time Yeoman was done burying all the goblins, the sun was on the verge of setting. The only corpse that remained belonged to the receptionist. Yeoman wasn’t going to bury her with the goblins. She deserved to go home, back to the town. He stepped on the ice around her legs, breaking her connection to the ground, and lifted her lower half. He scooped up her upper half with his other arm and jumped into the sky. Dozens of insects fell off of him, and a few bats and hummingbirds scattered. By the time Yeoman arrived at the starting town, the sun had already set. The guards at the gate would’ve stopped him, but he chose to fly straight to the adventurers’ guild instead. It was closed, but there was light coming from the window on the top floor, the guild master’s room, so Yeoman knocked on the man’s window.
The guild master was not pleased to see Yeoman, but Yeoman didn’t care. He gently slid the frozen receptionist inside before crawling through the window himself, slightly widening it by breaking the surrounding wall in the process. “I couldn’t just leave her there,” Yeoman said to the guild master, who was standing over the dead receptionist with a blank expression.
The guild master grunted. “She didn’t have anyone who’d miss her,” he said after a period of silence. “Her husband was an adventurer who died in the wilderness. Her only son took after his father, becoming an adventurer as well. He went on a mission and never came back; presumably, he died. After that, she got a job as a receptionist to help adventurers. She didn’t want anyone else to die, didn’t want anyone else to suffer the same loss she had.”
Yeoman was confused. The guild master knew the receptionist’s backstory but didn’t know her name? However, no matter how confused Yeoman was, he knew it wasn’t an appropriate time to mention it.
“In the end, she gave her life for her cause. She sincerely supported the goblins integrating with humans. Dozens of new adventurers die to goblins each year, and she saw a chance to change that.”
Yeoman wasn’t sure what to say, so he kept silent.
“I hope you can move on from this incident,” the guild master said, looking Yeoman in the eye. “I’m sure she would too. You’re strong. With enough time, you’ll become someone capable of influencing the world with your strength. If you’re feeling lost right now, looking for a reason to continue living, why not pick up hers? Help people. Save lives.” The guild master slapped Yeoman’s shoulder. “Don’t let your strength go to waste. Don’t lose your drive to alcohol.”
Yeoman hadn’t expected to receive a pep talk upon turning in a corpse. He wasn’t sure it helped much either. He certainly didn’t feel motivated to go out and save lives. However, the guild master was clearly trying to motivate him. “Thanks,” Yeoman said. He nodded at the frozen corpse. “I’ll be going then.”
The guild master grunted, frowning as Yeoman tore apart the window even more on his way out. The guild master looked at the receptionist lying on the ground and sighed.