Chapter 63 – Fountain of Light (1)
That moment, the fight against the human army and the fairies stopped for a moment and the fairies return hurriedly towards the center of fountain of light.
“Lily……what is that sham-fairy creature doing?”
The leader of the fairies of the fountain of light takes the lead of other fairies and flies off.
Unlike Lily those fairies are from the real fairy tribe and can fly with the two pair of wings on their back.
The sight of the light orbs flying through the trees and flowers of forest is so beautiful that even the people from this world with magic will also be deeply moved.
However, the true feelings of the the fairies themselves are worrying due to an emergency situation and their chest is about to burst from fright and anxiety.
“Just a little more—”
After passing through the forest, the fairies rush out towards the small fountain present in front of them.
This small fountain is the so-called “Fountain of Light”
Although the name has “Of Light”, in truth it is not radiating due to some effect from magic.
It is only sparkling due to the sunlight from the sky shining on the water surface. Too natural for such a majestic name.
But, in the vicinity of the fountain is thick density of magical power, so much that even a non-magician can sense it.
Due to that, this place that is located in the inner side of forest with a small fountain; it is truly a holy place with mystical feeling that can be felt through the mind and body.
And, standing in the middle of that fountain was ‘her’.
“Lily!”
In a really hateful voice, the leader of fairies called her name.
Lily has a body unbecoming of a fairy, in addition to it she is wearing clothes like a person, the black dress Kurono gave her, looking at her like that she gets angry.
“What are you doing here! You should know the situation right now!?”
Normally, she should have been fighting against the humans who were trying to invade here. She without a doubt emits hostility towards Lily floating elegantly in the center of fountain.
That is definitely not something to point towards the person she will fight together with.
Even though Lily is half magic beast, she also possess the fairies Telepathy ability, therefore Lily must have felt the animosity flowing from her and the surrounding fairies.
But Lily answers with a nonchalant face.
“Yes, it’s tough, the human bastards came attacking her in groups. I wonder will happen if they come her—-”
“Don’t speak anymore than that! There are somethings you can say and you can’t say!”
“This lands divine protection would be lost” even for fairies it was hard to forgive her for saying such a thing.
“Really, well whatever. Can you turn those humans back with just your forces?”
“Th, That is—”
“They have considerable amount of magicians prepared, and it doesn’t seem like the other party is not accustomed to fights. You can’t send them back in fear with just single shots, can you?”
“I know that much!”
“Un, you know right without me you will ‘LOSE’”
Lily words hit right at spot.
Though the fairies are blessed low in the mind department and they only play all the time, but even they have the intellect to judge to that degree.
“Tha, That’s right—Lily, I admit that we don’t stand a chance against those numbers of humans without you.”
“Un, so what?”
Lily grins, though it was without any ill intention, it’s enough to get the leader in a rage.
“What do you mean ‘so what’!? The fountain of light is in danger! So hurry up and fight against those annoying human bastards!”
“Eeeh~ what is with that sort of speaking? I doubt it’s the way to request to someone? That’s why you can’t make a living out of township shrine meeting.”
“Wha—-”
The fairies are at a loss of words.
“What the hell are ya sayin!? You an idiot to speak such sick jokes at a time like this! Hurry and fight, protect this place!”
“You’re annoying, shut up for a bit. Calm down and think how you fairies expelled me out of here when I was born. This might be a birthplace and holy ground to you but it ain’t of much importance to me.”
“What are you saying, isn’t the holy ground an absolute thing for fairies, are you really thinking about it!?”
“‘for the fairies’ right. The ones who expelled me saying ‘You’re no damn fairy’ are you guys, right?”
“That is—”
“Aa, well I don’t give a shit about it. It’s not like I have a complex for not being a pure fairy and I’m not even thinking about becoming one. It’s just that the half-human half-demon race me has different sense of values than you fairies……”
Lily once again smiles.
“And don’t you think that when asking people you have say ‘PLEASE’ with your whole heart?”
“Wha, What are……’please’ you say?”
“That’s right, isn’t that important, I also don’t want to fight for you guys like it’s natural. Look, it will be better if you bow your head fast, the humans are near, right? ”
The current Lily is in an advantage position and can sense the magical power of the Crusader in a considerable scope.
Even though it can’t be seen with naked eyes, but Lily can sense them shortening their distance towards the spring while being precautious.
Though the fairies don’t have the sensing ability on par with Lily but given the current situation they can’t say that her words are lies.
Normally, the fairies who don’t do much thinking, start racking their brains.
They are racking their brains between the choices of not bowing before a sham-fairy due to their ego or bow their head and save their birthplace, the fountain of light.
It’s obvious what is more important here, but the problem was bowing their heads to someone who was neither human nor fairy.
After a moment of silence, the fairies finally speak.
“……ase”
“Eh, Wha~t?”
Lily without changing her smiling face speaks in a lively voice.
“Please”
“I can’t hear clearly.”
““I request you. ‘please’ save the fountain of light!””
The sadness-filled voice of fairies, echoes within the fountain of light.
Lily after hearing that, replies with a bigger smile from before.
“Ufufu, Don’t want to♪”
In an instant, silence spreads as if the the time has frozen.
The leader of fairies, speaks with her face down and shoulder quivering.
“H,Ho, How can……”
“I just said it, that this place ain’t of importance to me.”
“Tha, That’s why we requested you, properly”
“Un, but I never said I would fight even if you requested me.”
Lily didn’t break her smile, in her eyes the happiness was overflowing.
“I will definitely not fight to protect this place, that’s why, give up already~”
Upon the colds words by Lily, the fairies finally understood her true nature.
“Wa, wait, how can you……”
“‘I don’t care even if we wipe out we will fight’ or so if you’re thinking you free to do so, I won’t stop you.”
“Wait!? Please, I’m sorry for everything! Please fight, PLEASE!!”
Without any shame and honor, the crying fairy clapped her hands as if to kill some insect.
The fairies of the fountain of light gathered here can only choose between either asking Lily for help or break down while crying.
After watching such expressions for some time, Lily speaks.
“Ah, right, you’re gonna be destroyed at any rate, so I’m gonna take the ‘Red Crystal Sphere Queen Beryl’ for myself as well, ‘kay?”
The moment after hearing those words, the time for fairies once again stopped.
The “Queen Beryl” Lily declared to take, is the reason the fountain of light is full of magical power and it’s the source of divine protection deployed on this land by ‘Fairy Queen’s divine protection.’ It is a magic item, no, an artifact.
The ‘Queen Beryl’’ is enshrined at the bottom of fountain in an altar.
That’s why, from that center the protection spreads in concentric circles and there is abundance of magical power in the surrounding area.
However, it’s not like if you place this Queen Beryl anywhere, it will make that place into a holy ground where fairies are born.
Unless there is ‘Ley Line’ filled with magical power flowing under the ground along with other magic-like conditions in union, the holy ground won’t be made, and without the complicated magic equation used by ‘God’ the effect of holy ground won’t be started.
In short, whether it be human or fairy, if they take the Queen Beryl from the altar, the complicated magic casted will stop and the holy ground will be destroyed.
If that happens, the magical power in the surroundings will eventually vanish and the fountain will turn into a natural fountain found at any place.
In other words, the fact she declared to take the Queen Beryl for herself, meant that she was going to destroy the holy ground by her hands, like throwing off the request from before.
“Lily! Have you gone mad!?”
“Don’t speak such rude things. The Queen Beryl is the perfect artifact for me to draw out magical power, isn’t it normal for me to take it if it’s gonna help me in future?”
Queen Beryl is not naturally the main item needed for the development of holy ground, but it’s just the key item that is needed.
If just the fairy queen hadn’t used it in creation of holy ground, it worth is only for it’s vast amount of magical power that resides in it.
Naturally, just because of that it is named as artifact, but it is something very important within this world.
“I won’t let you do that!”
All the fairies at once deploy the Oracle Shield and emit bloodlust towards Lily.
On the order of the leader, the several hundred elementary level Sagita will attack the slender Lily.
Naturally, Lily doesn’t even twitch while knowing it and speaks to the the fairies easily.
“Do you guys think you can win against me?”
Lily’s two pair of wings on her back start flickering, and she deploys her oracle shield.
Her barrier is more powerful and more bright than the barrier deployed by any other fairy, the difference in levels is obvious.
“Do you guys really think, you can stop me?”
Just like when Kurono uses the Bullet Arts, Lily suspends many white bullets in her surroundings.
These each white bullets, have the explosion power to blast off the fairies along with their shields.
Lily makes the exact number of white bullets as of the number of fairies present here.
“You see, I hate this place, I hate you all too. That’s why I will try to wipe out everything using this opportunity. But if you try to escape from here throwing away your pride and self-respect, I won’t chase you and won’t even shoot you from the back. Because you all also didn’t meddle with me when I left here, so I will also give you all that much of mercy.”
All the fairies start trembling.
Lily is serious, they can’t persuade her here, and have no means of stopping the humans coming after them.
They cannot protect the holy ground anymore.
All that left is, whether they will live or die.
“The reason I have been honestly protecting this place from monsters and letting you all live was because I wanted it.”
When Lily is away from the fountain she changes to the little girl form, and the resentment she had felt in her original form is vanished, even if it is not, the little Lily’s brain is not capable of thinking such complex emotions, otherwise she would be afraid of the cruel end the revenge would bring and had never gotten revenge on them.
However, if she had gone to fountain of light on the night of full moon, she could’ve massacred the fairies and destroyed the holy ground. In the end, she never did such thing and never thought to do it.
“Ah, don’t get wrong ideas, I’m just penting out my frustration of being expelled out of here. There isn’t any deep meaning behind the act itself and will neither have any in my lifetime. The only times I thought to protect this place and protect you people is only when I’m a child. The point is, that instead of making problems with you guys it was whole lot easier to not make any problems for you. But you see—-”
While speaking such, the fairies who couldn’t who couldn’t read Lily’s emotions till now due to a strong Mind Protect casted on her, suddenly broke and the emotions flowed into the fairies.
“I, have got a person I love now.” [ET: NOOOO~~~ my Lily!!!!]
That feeling had the image something hot, passionate and adhesion like.
Those emotions were like a slimey hot lava like feeling pouring inside the fairies.
Sure enough, the fairies gave thought to these feelings, and neither one of them thought that it was a pure hearted love struck heart feeling
“Since that person came, my sense of values changed, priorities changed, my world changed. You know my everyday became fun—-”
“……..That human”
The leader of fairies standing in front of Lily mutters.
When she recalls, she remember a filthy looking man stuffed inside an apple box fell from the sky inside the forest.
“Ah, now that I think about it, you were also there when I met Kurono. Ufufu, you now know the person I love, au, I’m so embarrassed.”
The appearance of Lily, hiding her blushed face and swinging her head, can’t look anything other than a love struck young girl.
And it is not the appearance the one would show who is trying to wipe out the fairies life and birthplace.
Due to the really out-of-place actions, the fairies can only feel weird.
“I and Kurono, will live forever and ever with each other. That was the plan but looks like some bugs interfered. You fairies who live away from the the society probably won’t know, that the human bastards that are coming here are the invaders known as “Crusaders” and have come from different continent. Being chased to the place I live, I also have the same feeling as you people. And, Kurono hates those human bastards in white uniform to death, he will definitely kill many of them. Ufufufu so coool~~.”
“Lily……what are you trying to say.”
Mixing up serious matter and the matter of the person she loves,the topic of Lily’s talk is derailed.
The fairies understand it without even wanting to, that, the Lily who has become in the young girl form can do logical reasoning but is not able to because she is infatuated with the man named as Kurono to a hell lot of extent.
“Ah, ehm, In short, the reason I’m taking the Queen Beryl is because it will help me in future, that is something I’ve decided by thinking about the future of Kurono and mine. First of all, by the hands of Crusaders the Irz village, no, the whole territory of Daedalus will be occupied. But the Crusaders won’t be satisfied with that, and will try to conquer the whole Pandora continent. Those bastards have come here to offer the Pandora continent to their so-called god “White God” just because he wanted it. From now on, no matter where we run, we will eventually run into them , at that time the thing called ‘my power’ is important, right? You see I will protect Kurono with this power until he massacres the Crusaders, only I will protect him!”
“……”
The fairies gave up speaking even a word now.
“I wish for Queen Beryl because I need power. Though due it your “Divine Protection” will be lost, at any rate it will be destroyed by the hands of crusaders, so you won’t reject my idea, right? On the contrary, I will am relieved that the thing I hate the most will be destroyed. Now then, my talk is over, so what will you people do?”
She bluntly asks, as the fairies by now must have decided their actions.
“I have told you this much, everyone will silently move out of my way, right?”
The only thing Lily told them was purely her feelings, she didn’t persuade the fairies at all.
But Lily, didn’t have any splendid determination, she only had the a twisted love bearing inside her, it was obvious there is no chance to persuade her by the fairies’ side.
From the start, the fairies can’t win against a serious Lily, that is something they understood instinctively, they didn’t have any choice in the first place at all.
Either escape from here, or ‘needlessly’ fight against Lily and die here.
They have already decided on their answer.
The fairies grieve and while crying, leaving the place one by one.
“That is good, you know, it’s not like you will die if the holy ground is destroyed. It’s all good if the fairies keep playing around the hills and fields around the area, like dimwitted brats, Ahaha ”
“—-Lily”
“Nh, you were still here?”
Many fairies have already escaped towards the horizon while Lily was seeing them off, but the leader of fairies was still standing in front of her.
There are 9 fairies surrounding the leader.
“Do you wanna die?”(lily)
Lily’s tone of voice grows deep, while, the fairies present are assaulted by bloodlust by Lily for the first time.
The fairies freeze in fear and don’t even try to budge a bit.
“I won’t forgive you! DIEEeeEEE”(fairy leader)
The fairies, at once release the attack magic towards Lily.
““Lux Sagita””
The chant-less lower grade attack magic of fairies, is their Extra magic.
Each fairy deploys 5 arrows, total of 50 light arrows deployed by the 10 fairies fly towards Lily.
DoDoDoN!
Great Flash and Explosions occur.
The Lux Sagita does not deals damage with the explosions, but it melts the target with it’s high heat and drills into the target.
Even so the reason Explosions occur because the arrows collide with the Oracle Shield of Lily which causes the two magical powers to clash and explode.
They also don’t think they will be able to defeat Lily with this, while predicting Lily’s attack, the fairies spread out on the command of Leader.
However, those actions are of totally no use.
The fairies do know that Lily is strong, but they don’t the know exactly how strong she is and what sort of magic she uses.
After all, they have never fought against Lily even once.
Even though they understand that launching 10 Lux Sagita at the same time is totally easy for Lily, but they don’t know that they all have automatic tracking that even Sariel couldn’t dodge.
“Kyaa!?”
The Lux Sagita launched by Lily fly in separate directions and easily follows all the fairies and pierces them.
Unlike the time she shot at Sariel, Lily lowers the power to the level that even if it hits the fairies it only smashes their barrier.
The fairies are blown off due to the impact and fall down towards the fountain one by one.
Lily while floating looked down on them as they fell and created splashes like frogs jumping in a pond.
“UUuu……”
The fairies only had their body wet due to water, but no one suffered even an injury.
They stand up from the water, and the moment they try to attack Lily
“GyAAAAAaaa!”
A sorrowful cry comes out.
Lily pierces the right palm of the leader at pin point with her extremely small arrow.
The fairy with the appearance of an antique doll and the size of her palm is just some centimetres.
The arrow pierces in a straight line, meaning there is no tracking ability added in it.
“Aaaaa, It hurts! It damn hurts!!”
The fairies come back to their senses, and run towards the leader writhing in pain.
Their aim is naturally, to use healing magic.
The fairies thought, that luckily the injury was not big enough to blast off the arm so it can be easily healed.
“It’s bad for all of you to not pay attention to the enemy, you know?”
Lily’s second arrow hits the fairy in the lead running towards the leader to cast healing magic.
The point the arrow hit, was the same as the leader the right hand palm.
The number of people crying and struggling on the water’s surface increases to two.
The fairies split in two groups due to an increase in the injured person.
“Total failures, even a rank 1 adventurer has better movements compared to you.”
Lily piercing at the same point two times meant that the speed at which the fairies were flying was enough for her to hit them at any spot without even using the automatic tracking ability.
Lily, with a disgusted face, shoots down the right palm of each fairy approaching the two injured people.
There were 10 fairies writhing in pain on the water’s surface even before they knew it.
“It’s like a child’s play, did you people really think of fighting me with that level? Hey, did you guys really think about killing me?”
Lily approaches the still crying leader and sits in a crouching position while floating.
“The next shots will be directed to your left palm, then your right leg, and then your left leg”
“Uuuuguuuu~~”
“Do you still intend to fight? If you want me too, I’ll shoot them all at once”
“Guuuu, I-I will kill yoooouuuu!”
“Then, I’ll shoot.”
A small flash of light flickered.
During the moment, just as Lily declared, a hole opened inside her left hand.
“Aaaaaaaaaa!!”
“Do you still intend to fight?”
“Uaaaaa, Wai–”
“Time to shoot again”
A flash of light flickered again.
A hole opened up on the back of her right leg.
“Ah—–”
“ “ Please stop !! “ “
Other fairies who floated in the surroundings, cried all at once.
“Did you guys really think I’ll let you guys die without tasting any pain?”
However, the light had already been launched from Lily.
“…….”
When the back of both her hands and legs were shot through, she leaked a voice of agony that didn’t seem to be her voice anymore.
As Lily heard the cries and shouts of the fairies telling her to stop, she remarked with an indifferent tone.
“When you can’t even use healing magic just due to the pain inflicted from the bullets, don’t even think of fighting, because of you people it took me needless time.”
Lily stands up as she stretched out her knees in the air.
And, turns her back on the fairies.
“You can fly, am I right? Then, go away quickly. Or, do you want to see the moment when the “divine protection” of this ground disappear?”
The fairies somehow carried the leader who was suffering more pain than them and took her way while leaking out a faint light.
“From the beginning, if she did what she had been told to, it wouldn’t have lead to this painful selection. Still, with this, my grudge against her for driving me out of here has been cleared up.”
Though it was not directed to anyone, Lily muttered something, then, she was wrapped in a fairy barrier as it became a dazzling globe of light. Following this, she began to slowly sink into the fountain.
She sunk inside the fountain to take the Queen Beryl enshrined inside it.