Chapter 36. Soul

With her warm and soft body pressed tightly against his, Ken slowly opened up his eyes as Clare called out his name softly.

“Morning Clare, happy birthday!”

As Clare turned to face him, Ken wished her a happy birthday as the two shared a passionate kiss. Over the past two weeks, Clare had slowly desensitized to Ken’s presence and had gotten much more comfortable with being intimate with him as the two spent every night for the past two weeks alone.

After two weeks of spending most of his days with the girls, it was obvious to Ken that Clare wasn’t being truthful when she said Cecilla was only joking when she confessed her feelings for him and Cecilla had also spent most of her days with Ken trying to get him to pay attention to her while also trying to learn more about him.

While Clare has always getting annoyed with other girls trying to get close to Ken, he noticed that she seems extra concerns when it comes to Cecilla and when he asked why she is so aggressive with her disapproval of Ceceilla, he was told that since Cecilla was supposed to be Xandrian’s eventual wife, it’s a bad look if rumors gets around that she was too invested with another man.

Feeling like it was a good explanation, Ken stopped pressing on the subject but after spending more time with Cecilla, he had really come to like the elf girl and to see her sad expressions every time her future was brought up, Ken couldn’t help but feel like he should do something for her and try to help Cecilla get out of this dilemma.

After the pair got ready, they left the room and went to the dining room to have some breakfast.

“Morning Mary, Sarah!” Ken greeted the two servants with a smile while asking them to make him some of his favorite breakfast dishes.

“Ken! Are you really leaving tomorrow? You should stay with us the whole break!” Chloe complained as she walked into the dining room with Cecilla following closely behind.

“Morning Chloe! Morning Cecilla! Are we going anywhere fun today?” Ken asked excitedly as the girls had showed him many interesting and fun places over the past two weeks.

After the day at the amusement park, the girls took him to the port the next day to check out the massive fleet of battleships docked and ready for any conflict even after two thousand years of peace.

Not too far away from the military port, the trading port was not any less grand. While it lacked uniformity, the ships, boats and vessels of all shapes and sizes littered the dock and the huge bay.

Ken and the girls spent a fun-filled day at the port watching the incoming and outgoing ships while also enjoying the many shops and traders that scattered around the dock with unique and exotic goods to sell from all over the world.

The day after, they took him to a private beach with pure white sand and beautiful blue ocean and sky as far as the eyes could see. While the beach was private for only the royal family and their guests, due to the large number of wives, concubines and offsprings the king had, Clare was not pleased with how many people were at the private beach.

Doing her best to keep Ken’s eyes from wandering around, the four had another great day playing in the sand, trying to surf on the waves, enjoying delicious food and Ken even got to ride on a merhorse around the ocean racing against the girls.

Similar to other types of horse that merged with different creatures or elements, the merhorse lacked legs and had a fish-like tail and looked extremely similar to seahorses but much larger in size and were great fun to ride and race on.

As Cecilla promised, they took Ken to the pegasus farm on another day where Ken was impressed by the magnificent looking creature. twice as large as your average horse with a pure white coat and large white wings.

Getting a chance to ride on one and flying through the air with an eagle eye view of the world and looking down on everything and having unlimited freedom was an experience Ken would never forget.

“How much does a pegasus cost?”

“The ones bred at this farm are from the best pedigree in the world and a young foal would cost between 150 to 200 gold depending on the gender and a fully mature one can cost up to 500 to 1000 gold coins.”

Hearing the cost from the breeder, Ken sadly gave up his dream of ever owning a pegasus but nevertheless, the day was filled with good times.

With the size of the city, the rich culture and modern history and sheer wealth of the nation. There was so much to see and do that every single day of the two weeks, the girls showed Ken something new and took him to a new area and it made him realize just how big the world is and how much one can enjoy life with wealth.

“Sorry Ken, with the ball tonight, all the bigwig elves and many other important nobles and royals from all over the world will be here so we will probably need to spend the whole day getting prepared and dressed for the event.” Clare answered, clearly annoyed and wanting to spend her birthday with Ken but due to her status and the ball being hosted in her honor, she could only do as she was being told by her father.

When Ken offered to stay around and just chat with the girls, Clare told him to just go and have fun alone and that he would get super bored and regret it if he just watched them getting their hair done when he could go explore the city instead.

“Just don’t go around chatting and falling in love with random cute girls!”

“Geez Clare, stop it! I don’t go seek out girls you know. But if a cute girl starts talking to me then obviously I will just go with the flow.” Ken replied playfully.

After Ken and the girls finished their breakfast, Clare and Chloe followed the two servants and left to have their dresses selected while Ceceilla began to head back to her own wing.

“Hey Cecilla, if you need any help or anything let me know okay?”

“Just pray for me that Xandrian rejects me again and my father releases me from this shackle so I can love the one I want to love and be with him.” Cecilla replied while staring at Ken with pure sadness in her eyes.

“Hey, if things don’t work out just elope with me!”

“Enjoy your time exploring the city. You should go visit the museum by the central garden in the business district, there are some pretty cool artifacts and relics from thousands of years ago.” Cecilla offered feeling slightly better from Ken’s words.

Taking Cecilla’s suggestion, Ken headed out to the garden and decided to head for the museum.

“Morning Franklin! Can you take me to the business district where the museum is located? Cecilla told me it’s a pretty cool place to visit.

After two weeks and getting to know Ken rather well, Franklin the personal butler for Clare’s wing was more than happy to oblige to his request and soon, the pair was under way to the business district of the city where the museum was located.

“Master Ken, we have arrived at your destination.”

“Come on Franklin! How many times do I have to tell you it’s just Ken.”

After wishing Ken a fun trip exploring and providing him with a bag full of coins which Ken graciously took knowing that the Yelwraek have way too much money for this bag of coin to be missed, Franklin left for the rest area as Ken walked towards the impressive building.

Being the curious young man he is, Ken couldn’t help but look all around the massive castle-like building wondering excitedly what sorts of interesting things he would see as he headed for the ticket window.

After paying his entrance fee, Ken eagerly walked towards the gated entrance where his single time entry spell activated the turnstile and as he got in, the engraving placed on his hand disappeared.

Not sure which way he wanted to go first, Ken’s eyes wandered around excitedly as he walked straight into someone who was in front of him.

“Sorry! Whenever I get too excited, I just lose track of my surrendering. I thought you were further ahead of me. Didn’t mean to run you over.” Ken apologized while helping up the girl he almost ran over repeating a familiar incident.

When the girl reached for his hand, he noticed her hand was covered with scars and stitch marks and taking a closer look from behind, he could see heavy scarring and stitch marks running all the way down her neck.

When the girl turned around to face him, even during the middle of the summer month where it’s quite hot and very humid here at the port city, the girl’s pure black dress covered her entire body from head to toe and barely showed any skin.

While her body was almost entirely covered up and from what little Ken saw it was covered in scars and stitches but her face from neck up was flawless and absolutely that of a beauty.

“You are Ken right. I have seen you at the tournament, what brings you to Yelwraek?” The girl asked calmly.

“My lover lives here so I’m here visiting. I will be leaving tomorrow though. Amazing place for a country bumpkin like me. Are you here visiting too or do you live here?”

“How many lovers do you have? I had seen you with quite a few different girls. I am here visiting with my father. He is going to this royal ball tonight and I am just wandering around town to kill time.”

“Your father must be a big shot to be invited to the ball. What’s your name?”

“My name is Rose Gilliam, and you still haven’t answered my question. I am curious how many lovers do you have?”

“Gilliam? Could your father be Sylvester, the 4th ranked hero?” As Ken started counting all the girls he loves, he stopped at six, wondering how he should feel about Indra and not sure if he should count Cecilla due to her situation.

“Yes, you are correct. Sylverster is my father. Do you really have this many lovers you need to think about for this long?” Rose asked as the two started walking around the museum looking at different artworks, artifacts and many other interesting things that’s put on display.

“I mean, six girls I love wholeheartedly and they love me back. One I have grown to love recently and I think she also loves me but she is in a pretty awkward situation. And one more girl I think likes me more than just as a friend but I don’t really know how I feel about her.”

“I am impressed that a self proclaimed country bumpkin could make this many girls fall in love with you.”

“I just got lucky, no skill needed. If your father is a lizardman, why don’t you have a tail? Oh, I absolutely hate his fighting style.” Ken asked, more curious about the girl after finding out who her father was.

“I am technically a homunculus. My original body had long perished and everything except my head are parts my father gathered over the years and put together to turn me into what I am now.”

“Sorry but what exactly is a homunculus?”

“You said you hate my father’s fighting style, right? A homunculus is an artificially created being and basically, I am a higher form of the skeletons and zombies my father summons to fight for him.”

“Artificial as in you aren’t real? The more I talk to you, the more I don’t care about what’s here in the museum. You said you are just here to kill time right? why don’t we go to a bakery or an ice cream shop and I can treat you and we could have a nice long chat.”

“You aren’t put off by the way I look?” Rose asked while pulling up a sleeve to show her entire arm covered in stitches and scars.

“Come on, I don’t care what you look like! I am super interested in you and wanting to learn as much as you are willing to share! Sure, for a lover, I’m super shallow and am only attracted to super beautiful girls but other than that, I could care less what race or how someone looks.”

Agreed to Ken’s offer, the pair left the museum and walked to the garden nearby. Finding a nice bench to sit on, Ken ran off to get some food from a nearby food cart and came back happily with a bunch of food for the two to share.

“Did you know the museum used to be the old royal castle and this was the royal garden before the city grew too large and powerful and the king built a new palace?” Rose offered some knowledge as Ken returned.

“That was a pretty interesting fact but not nearly as interesting as what makes you artificial and what exactly happened to you and how it turned into the way you are now.”

“When my father was still young and studying at the academy, he fell in love and I was eventually born. I was born with physical defects and extremely sickly and doctors said I won’t live past the age of 5.

I am sure since you are attending Dragonspire that you knew space magic is the 5th basic element and my father was extremely gifted at space magic unlike most who couldn’t even grasp the concept.

But even with his holy level healing magic, my disease could not be cured but his constant attempts did extend my life far beyond what it should have been.

Do you know what the pinnacle of space magic is?”

“I’m still a beginner and couldn’t really understand the concept of space magic yet but I would assume something like teleport is the pinnacle with how powerful it is and how expensive it is to get an artifact imbued? Or is it healing magic?” Ken answered, feeling like even with all of his dedicated studying, he knew so little about the world.

“To most, teleport and healing would for sure be the pinnacle but what my father was able to understand was something far greater. Soul magic. He realized that all living creatures have a soul and was able to master a spell that allowed him to extract the soul from one and fuse it with something else.

When I was about to die, he extracted my soul from my dying body and preserved it. Since my body was useless and mostly defected, he simply discarded everything below my neck and my current body is parts my father was able to buy from various sources and assembled together.

While I might look like a monster, at least with this current body I can move around freely compared to be bedridden since birth in my original body.”

“That was the craziest story I have ever heard! How was he able to come up with something so abstract? I know space magic is the most difficult to learn due to people’s inability to imagine and conjure something they could not see or feel. But a soul? Where did he come up with such a wild theory?”

“My father’s magic is nothing compared to what this world had become. Can you not think of someone else using soul magic? Let me give you a hint. The skeletons and zombies my father created are fused with the souls of animals and that’s what gives them the ability to move and act alive when they are just corpses.”

After thinking about all the information he was provided, Ken could only think of one possible event.

“The Great Reset?”

“Yep, you are pretty smart aren’t you. The hero that caused the Great Reset was able to forcibly fuse the souls of living humans with animals and nature to create what the world is today. The sheer amount of magic power they had is not something we could comprehend or even come close to understand today.

I am the only human soul my father had ever successfully extracted and even with all the animal experiments he had done, the success rate to extract a soul is extremely rare and for the soul to actually fuse with something else was even more extraordinary.

Many nights I stayed wide awake and wondered if I was real. If the memories I had from my previous life were fabricated by my father and if I am just a disgusting doll created to satisfy his curious nature.”

“Nothing about you is disgusting. While I don’t know the full story and all this advanced magic talk is far beyond my understanding. One thing I know for certain is that if you can question your existence, whether you are the same person or not, you are definitely alive now and should live your new life how you see fit!”

“You know, I was dormant for almost 200 years with my soul extracted and my body preserved. My father was finally able to get my soul to fuse with this body a few years ago and since I regained consciousness, other than my father, you are the first to treat me like I’m a person and not a disgusting science project that has gone wrong.”

“Taking it from an expert when it comes to judging a girl’s beauty. Your face is absolutely beautiful! Your long black hair is gorgeous, your red eyes are mesmerizing like a snake trying to hypnotize me and I guess that’s your resemblance to your father but he definitely hit the jackpot with a daughter with your complexion.

I won’t ask and don’t want to know how your father was able to get those body parts to create your new body but I would take a functional body over a useless one myself. Sure it doesn’t look pretty like your face, but at least it works right?”

“Maybe your lovers aren’t all that if you think I’m not a hideous monster.” Rose laughed for the first time since her rebirth.

“Hey! I am glad you are having enough fun to crack a joke but just so we are clear, my girls are all drop dead gorgeous!”

“Thanks for listening to my ramble today. It’s the first time I had the opportunity to chat with anyone other than my father and he isn’t exactly the talkative type or someone who cared about anything but getting stronger with his magic. I am glad I decided to come to Yelwraek with him today.”

As the two continued to chat, the sky began to turn dark as hours passed while the pair was deep in conversation. Since it’s Clare’s birthday today, Ken decided it was time for him to go and buy a cake for her and said goodbye to Rose.

“I hope you have a great night Rose. It was fun talking with you and I have learned a great deal as well. Not sure when I will get a chance to talk with you again but don’t be a stranger and come say hi when you come to the tournament with your father.”

“I hope I will never ever see you ever again so I don’t fall in love and get rejected because of the way I look.” Waving goodbye to Ken as he ran off, Rose murmured to herself quietly.