Not (Just) A Mage Lord Isekai-Chapter 38 - Giving Candy

"So, you're a soul killer, huh?" Tresla said first thing when we walked down from the top of the watchtower. Her shadowed form stood out stark against the tower wall, the setting sun failing to paint her, despite the glow of the walls around her.

"You were eavesdropping?"

"Dropping the what now?" Tresla asked, a glint of red escaping as she turned her hood toward me.

"I… uhh, listening in," I said, surprised she didn't know the expression. “Do you not know that one?” I was pretty sure I'd said the Elinder version.

"Ha, just messing with you," Tresla said, throwing her stitched piece of leather at me. "Hard not to with ears like these," she said, tapping the side of her head.

"Guess I'll have to take your word for it. Unless you’ve changed your mind about removing the hood."

"Ha! You wish. You'd love to get a look at my ears, wouldn't you?" Tresla teased, her musical laughter ringing out.

“As if. You’re just jealous of mine,” I shot back, flipping my hair back while gesturing to my ears.

Tresla laughed.

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"You know, you're a lot less… formal when Inertia's not around," I said, setting the scrap of leather to the side before kneeling down to clear out the fireplace. A task I’d been meaning to help with, though hadn’t actually had a chance to practice with Inertia around. She had a tendency to dominate all fire related tasks.

"That's… part of our Stone Pact. Translating for her means keeping the meaning as close as possible. So if she’s talking a certain way, I gotta too. I get in the habit," Tresla explained with a shrug. "Not the worst thing in the world."

"Still kinda bunk. Where’s soul-killing rank?" I asked as I channeled mana into Torch to ignite the wood I'd jammed into the fire pit.

"Eh, defensive soul-killing is about as bad as giving candy to a baby," Tresla said, waving her hands widely.

“Defensive?” I asked, glancing over at her. Sure, it was the truth, but I hadn’t said anything of the sort.

“The old man heard what he wanted to hear,” Tresla said, patting my shoulder. “Hearing the truth is part of a Translator’s duty.”

I frowned as my fire failed to keep going once I let Torch expire.

“And how did you get that out of…” I asked, leaning down to blow on the fire like I’d seen Vaserra do once. I ended up with a face full of ash.

As I was wiping the ash out of my eyes, Tresla replied, “Wasn’t master Perth who won that little tussel, was it, Percival?”

I looked up at her, trying to see her face. But as always, all I could catch was a glimpse of red. She wasn’t giving me anything.

Before I could press her, I heard the sound of Calbern’s footsteps returning. When he stepped in, he paused, his gaze shifting between me, to Tresla, before finally landing on the fire pit.

I thought maybe he’d overheard Tresla, but if so, he gave no sign of it as he shook his head, drawing out a cloth and handing it to me. Then he gestured towards the fire. Letting him take my place, I stepped back and watched him rearrange the wood into a sort of crossed pattern, almost like one of those popsicle cabins we'd built back when I'd still gone to school.

As he worked, I recalled something Tresla had said. "So… Giving candy to a baby is… bad?"

Tresla stayed silent until Calbern stood, making a comment about needing more spices before heading back to Fang. Less than two minutes and he’d turned it from a pile of mulched wood into a roaring blaze.

"No. Well, maybe a tiny bit, if you're trying to give the parents a bad time. But that's the point. Gobbling someone else's soul after they tried to gobble yours first kinda means you didn't do anything wrong. By the divine threads, he plucked your soul out of the great beyond with the intention of destroying you," Tresla said, picking up the piece of leather I'd set aside and tossing it at me again.

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Having had her toss it at me twice, I actually looked at it this time. It wasn't just a piece of leather. It was a corded vambrace. It wasn't the best craftsmanship I'd seen in either world. In fact, it was pretty rough. But it had my Magecrest on it. And underneath that, spelt out phonetically in Elinder, was 'Perry'.

Which was when I realized how much worse Perry looked in Elinder than Perth. Especially the way she was holding it. "Wow. Maybe I'll keep going by Perth," I said as I ran my hand over the stitching.

"Ah, yes. That is indeed… unfortunate," Calbern said, inspecting the vambrace over my shoulder. When I glanced past him, the fire was blazing merrily with a pot set over it, dinner already brewing.

"What?" Tresla asked, snatching the vambrace out of my hand to inspect her work.

"Imagine those are Alvian characters," I said, unable to keep a smile off my face.

"Whose shadow are you walking within? Elinder characters don't look like Alvian," Tresla said, shaking the vambrace at me.

"When it's upside down?" I asked, gesturing at the vambrace once more.

Tresla stopped shaking it, then turned it upside down. Then she snorted out the most musical snort I'd ever heard. "Yeah. Fun. That's what I get for using stylized characters."

"Still, perhaps it would be best if you continued to go by Perth, master Perry," Calbern said, raising a single eyebrow.

But I could see the smirk hiding in those eyes.

"Maybe I will, servant Calby," I replied, earning myself a second eyebrow.

"Much fun as this is, how long for dinner? I'm starving," Tresla said, taking the vambrace over by the fire and pulling out the thread before I could pretend to protest.

I simply waved toward the fire, letting Calbern take the lead. Much as I might've tried to be self sufficient, I didn't want others to suffer for it. And any meal I had a hand in would lead to exactly that.

To my surprise, the evening was full of laughter.

I wasn’t sure how we ended up there, but it seemed my failed confession had broken down some invisible wall. For the first time since they'd joined me, it felt like me, Calbern and Tresla were friends, instead of…

Instead of whatever we'd been before.

I took first watch at Calbern's insistence. He swore that his night vision was superior to mine even with my Eagle Eyes, and Tresla had already passed out by the time we discussed it, earning her last watch.

Which meant I worked on my Astral soul again. I couldn't be sure if it was our earlier conversation, or if I was just getting better at it, but I made more progress that night than I had since I'd unlocked my second slot. Though when Calbern took over, I crashed hard.

Unlike me, Tresla wasn't useless with a campfire, and managed to produce a meat and bacon omelet, which she served on hard biscuits. Apparently Calbern had stocked up on our mundane supplies when we were with the Frost Riven's keep and I'd only found out at breakfast. He’d also kept some of the drake meat and eggs. Not much, but enough for Tresla to make the omelets she loved.

I wasn’t as entranced, but they were pretty good for road food.

"So, do we take Fang any closer, or should we walk from here?" I asked once we'd stepped out into the morning sun.

"It would not make sense to abandon all our supplies, master Perry. I will remain with Fang while you travel closer," Calbern said, his hand on Fang’s front wheel.

"Seriously, if you're going to continue using the master, I'd rather you kept to Perth. It's just too weird being called master Perry," I said, shuddering. "But that's not a bad plan."

"Very well, master Perth," Calbern said, inclining his head.

"What about you Tresla, do you want to back me up, or stay with Calbern?"

Tresla shifted in place, her gaze fixed in the direction of the village before her hood tilted towards Fang. Then she looked towards me, a glimmer of red escaping her hood before it went dark once more. "I… think you would be best served by approaching without me."

"Why?"

"Because, most do not react as well to a cloaked figure as you lot did," Tresla explained with a shrug.

"You're four feet tall. Who’s going to react poorly to that?"

"Many people, master Perth," Calbern said. "Especially the superstitious and small minded."

"They worked for a Magus Dominus. We literally do magic," I grumbled even as I smoothed out my robes. Notably, not any of the robes we'd been traveling in. Calbern had dressed me up properly in the only set of fancy robes I'd allowed him to pack for me.

"If people were reasonable, Sarpit wouldn't treat his 'sheep' so poorly," Calbern pointed out while inspecting my outfit one more time, adjusting the scarf, as though it wasn't going to get bent out of shape again the moment I took a step. Surprisingly, he'd been okay with me wearing the rough vambrace Tresla had made me, now restitched to say Perth on the outside. Probably helped that it was made out of Inferno drake leather.

"Fine. I concede the point. Still think it's stupid that it's valid."

"Me too. Usually I don't care, cause walking around with an eight foot, two tonne, war machine makes it a moot point," Tresla said with a shrug. "People tend to forget about me when Inertia's around."

"Ha, only when they first meet you, I bet," I said, squaring my shoulders. "Okay, I'm ready."

"Not everyone is like you and your sister, Perry," Tresla said, her normally musical voice sounding strangely flat, getting me to glance in her direction. Of course, all I could see was her cloaked figure. "May the threads watch over you."

"Indeed, master Perth. Good luck."

"Thanks. Have a feeling I'm gonna need it."