She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man Vol. 2 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Color Gallery

  Title Page

  Table of Contents Page

  Copyrights and Credits

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  EX: Cats, Underwear, and Firsts

  Afterword

  Creator Profiles

  Newsletter

  Chapter 1

  THE AFTERNOON seemed calculated to inspire optimism.

  Birds wheeled through a cloudless sky, soaring aloft on invisible air currents. Below, the lush green top of a primal forest blanketed the landscape for as far as the eye could see. As the spring breeze blew through the forest, it carried the scent of new growth and life.

  To those traveling the road beneath the dense canopy of leaves, breaks in the foliage shone like stars on a dark night, and pools of dappled sunlight fell on the forest floor around their feet. Occasionally, a sunbeam would shimmer like a meteor on a starlit night.

  In the middle of the road was a gentleman in a military uniform standing alongside an adorable girl done up in gothic lolita chic. They stared at the side of their carriage, stunned looks on both their faces. A gentle breeze caressed Mira’s cheek and sent her long silver hair fluttering. Her face began to turn pale as she took in the reddish-brown smear on the side of their carriage. Garrett stood with lips pursed, eyes fixed on what was lying on the ground.

  The road was level and wide enough for two carriages to pass each other with room to spare. The visibility was good despite the dense nature of the surrounding forest.

  Still…things like this occasionally happened.

  With growing irritation, Mira forced herself to look at the form which lay before them. A rag-clad body sprawled motionless on the roadside. One of its arms had been torn off and sent flying, to land somewhere ahead of the coach. The rest of its limbs were in a tangle of impossible angles and dislocated joints.

  A clear case of a body hit by a speeding vehicle.

  “Well, you’ve really stepped in it now,” Mira said gravely. She regretted not recommending that Garrett attend some sort of remedial driving school before they left the palace.

  “J-just a moment, Miss Mira! He came out of nowhere! I didn’t have time to stop!” Garrett fumbled for any excuse he could find.

  It was true that the forest itself was so deep and dense that it could have easily concealed man or monster. But while the highway was dimly lit beneath the canopy, it wasn’t nearly dark enough to miss someone walking along the roadside. Garrett should have been able to see clearly from his perch on the coachman’s seat.

  Mira let his excuses wash over her as she stared mutely at Garrett. For a moment, her eyes seemed to flicker with pity, and then she gave a small nod and walked down the road toward the severed arm. Garrett returned the nod and breathed a sigh of relief at having an ally, despite how bad the situation looked for him.

  Accidents were accidents. The incident would have to be reported and there would be an investigation, of course. At least he had Mira in his corner. As he considered what to do about the corpse, his eyes drifted from the main part of the body over to the torn-off arm. And then a bit farther past that.

  “Miss Mira, how far are you going?!” Garret called. He’d assumed she was heading over to collect the arm, but she’d gone well past it and showed no signs of turning back.

  “I told you that I was leaving this mess to you, didn’t I?”

  “You said nothing of the sort!”

  “I nodded. And you nodded back. Right?”

  “That’s what that meant?!”

  It appeared that the pair weren’t yet familiar enough to communicate via body language.

  “What seems to be the problem?” An unfamiliar voice interrupted their bickering.

  Turning, they saw a sturdy-looking man clad in metal armor. Behind him, a dozen or so meters back, sat a carriage that looked like it belonged to a merchant. As Garrett realized the interloper was a hired bodyguard, he looked up at the forest canopy with a humorless grin. He had no doubt that news of this accident would travel through the merchant’s information network in the blink of an eye.

  His goose was well and truly cooked.

  As the shock of the accident and sudden encounter with other travelers wore off, Mira stared at the guard with a tight smile plastered to her face and hoped she wouldn’t be implicated as well.

  Taking in their expressions, the man frowned and looked down at the body by their feet. Then comprehension dawned and he locked his gaze back on Garrett.

  “I see, we’ve been having trouble with this sort as well,” he offered sympathetically before letting out a nasty chuckle.

  The guard walked over and turned the corpse over with his boot. Underneath the body’s rotting, bark-like robes, they could make out a skeleton of weathered bone smeared with rust-colored clay. Instead of skin and flesh, the body was composed of clumps of earth and dead vegetation. Not a drop of blood had been shed.

  Garret blew out a massive sigh of relief, and Mira chuckled as though she’d never thought otherwise.

  “It looks like a zombie, but they shouldn’t be out at this time of the day.” Garrett eyed the body on the ground with suspicion. While the forest road was shady, sunlight still flowed down past the outstretched leaves of the trees.

  “Hrmm, indeed,” Mira said, putting her finger to her chin and nodding as she walked over to a sunbeam breaking through the canopy.

  “You two must be new around here. Otherwise, you’d already know.” The guard’s gaze switched back and forth between Mira, Garrett, and the carriage. “These weirdos started showing up about a month ago. They’re weak and harmless…so far. But we don’t know what’s been causing them, so better safe than sorry.”

  The guard went on to explain some of the recent events that had been plaguing the local area. Zombies roamed freely at night, but oddly enough, there were no accounts of any attacks on humans. Still, they damaged crops and fields as they trampled across the countryside.

  During daylight hours, they’d lurk in darker areas of the forest. Other travelers along the road had similar accidents to report.

  “Anyway, the local government formed hunting parties to clear them out a couple weeks ago,” the guard said with a sigh before knitting his brow in distaste. “The pay was good, so I joined up. But…they don’t put up any resistance. It was really unsettling.”

  He glanced down at the zombie lying on the road and gave it another light prod with his boot. “They don’t attack people; they don’t fight back. I wonder what they’re after?”

  “It’s definitely out of the ordinary,” Mira muttered to herself as she and Garrett joined in staring at the strange corpse.

  For even a novice adventurer, it was common knowledge that undead monsters such as zombies wouldn’t appear until after the sun had fully set. Outside of a dungeon that never saw the light of day, those monsters were only seen during the night.

  “Nobody seems to know what they are or where they came from,” said the guard as he helped Garrett move the corpse to the side of the road.

  With that chore complete, he bid them a fair j
ourney. The two continued on their way, hoping to banish the whole creepy incident from their memory.

  As the summoner known formerly as Danblf, one of the Nine Wise Men of Alcait, Mira had a wealth of knowledge when it came to the rules of Ark Earth Online. None of them squared with what the guard said, or what she had seen lying on the ground at her feet. This development was an unwelcome distraction from her mission to search and locate seven of her former comrades and compel them to return and defend their kingdom.

  Three days had passed since they left the capital at Lunatic Lake. Mira was still getting used to traveling by coach, but found that she greatly enjoyed the local cuisine when they stopped at taverns and waystations along their route. Each kilometer they traveled brought them closer to her destination—the C-Rank dungeon called the Ancient Temple Nebrapolis.

  As the western sky began to turn the deep scarlet of dusk, they passed through the main gates of Karanak, the City of Requiem. In the main square stood a stone monument dedicated to praying for the peaceful repose of heroic spirits who served in wars long past. While there were many dungeons in the surrounding area that brought adventurers to the city, it was surprisingly quiet this evening. It seemed almost gloomy, even.

  Mira was idly gazing at the few forms moving about the sparsely populated street when she tumbled out of her seat. The carriage had suddenly drawn to a halt.

  “Good grief, Garrett! What now?” Puckering her lips, she glared out the window.

  Just past the horses, she caught sight of Garrett’s bowed head as he looked at something in the street. A body was sprawled on the avenue before the carriage.

  Not again! Her eyes widened and her cheeks twitched.

  “I’m terribly sorry, are you hurt?” Garrett offered a hand and the body lying on the ground slowly began to move.

  “Oh, no, that was my fault for just jumping out like that.” The old man lying on the cobblestones looked up and accepted the vice captain’s proffered hand, using it to pull himself to his feet.

  Despite not having a hair on his head, he seemed to be in surprisingly good health for a man of his years—in fact, his physique was on par with someone half his age. It seemed that he’d been distracted and failed to notice their carriage until he’d already stepped into the road.

  Thankfully, the hooves of the horses came nowhere near him, and he appeared to be in good health. As Mira looked him over with a sense of relief, it occurred to her that he’d probably have been fine in any case, given his level of fitness.

  “You seemed to be in quite the hurry; is everything all right?”

  “My grandson hasn’t come home yet, so I’m out looking for him. You know how strange the nights have been lately.”

  “Huh…? Oh! You mean the zombies we’ve been hearing about?”

  “Yep, them’s the ones. That’s why I told him to be home before the sun sets. It’s got us all spooked.” His voice carried a twinge of sadness. “No casualties yet, but I suppose it’s still worrisome.”

  That matched the story Mira and Garrett had heard from the guard. But just because the zombies hadn’t attacked anyone yet, it didn’t do much to quell the anxieties of parents and guardians. After a bit more chitchat, the old man apologized again and headed off toward the child’s usual haunts with a parting bow.

  “I thought the city felt a bit melancholy. Normally, the kids would be out playing before dinner,” Mira said as she glanced about the quieter-than-normal city streets.

  “They must’ve been told to be home before sundown.” Garrett had returned to his position on the driver’s stand. He scanned the area before flicking the reins.

  He paused when his eyes passed over Mira and was struck with a sense of irony. She was a cute child—anyone would call her adorable—and yet he didn’t feel the slightest concern about her walking about the city streets at night.

  A few minutes later, the sound of the horses’ hooves striking the street echoed softly as the coach entered the driveway of a large, three-story hotel. A little farther on was a wooden carriage house, where Garrett pulled into one of the stalls. As he stopped, the stable manager stepped up to take the reins.

  “Welcome. Will you be staying with us tonight?”

  “Indeed, we will.”

  “Very good, sir. We’ll take care of your horses while you get settled in.”

  As Garrett offered his thanks, the stableman filled out a claim check and passed the slip of paper to the vice commander before taking a step back and bowing.

  “Well, Miss Mira, I suppose we should go check in. Shall we?” Garrett gracefully leapt down from the driver’s stand and swiftly had the carriage door open before Mira had even risen from her seat.

  “Sure,” she replied, studiously ignoring his flourish as she stepped out of the coach.

  Together they walked in the direction of the lobby, passing a large chunk of marble situated next to the entrance. The slab was adorned with a lantern, and the name of the establishment was carved ornately into the stone.

  Garrett opened the door, ushering Mira into a lobby that would put most high-class hotels to shame. At the front desk, uniformed employees took care of the guests’ needs in a quick and calm manner. The main window looked out on an enclosed garden, where children ran about between neatly pruned trees and flower beds in the twilight.

  But a group of adventurers dressed in fine armor and robes seated in the chairs by the window lent an otherworldly atmosphere to the scene. The blend of Western-style hotel architecture with sword-and-sorcery patrons was slightly jarring.

  “Well, now, isn’t this lovely?” murmured Mira as she took it all in.

  It wasn’t quite as fancy as the palace in Alcait, but the state of cleanliness, the conduct of the staff, and the casually elegant décor wasn’t far off from the accommodations at Lunatic Lake.

  “This is the finest hotel in Karanak,” said Garrett in a soft voice as he watched her gaze around the lobby. “We’d have to go to the capital to find a finer establishment.”

  “Sounds expensive… I don’t have all that much on me.” Mira put a hand to the black pouch at her waist and furrowed her brow. The waist pouch had come from the bag given to her by the palace maids, and it perfectly accented her two-toned outfit. Inside was the sack of coins that she’d received as a reward for defeating the Lesser Demon—the sum total of all her cash, since her prodigious savings vanished when the game became real.

  “Fret not, Miss Mira. King Solomon is covering our expenses on this journey.” Garrett grinned before murmuring quietly to himself, “I’ve always wanted to stay here.”

  “You’re unbelievable.” Her tone was exasperated, but Mira couldn’t help but smile as well.

  While Garrett took care of checking them in, Mira wandered the lobby and looked about at the furniture and paintings that decorated the space—completely unaware that as she admired the furnishings, others were making their own secretive observations of her. This was a top-flight hotel, and it served high-ranked adventurers who were experts at making sure their attention went unnoticed.

  With the formalities completed, an employee led her to her room. All of the best suites were occupied for the evening, but they still managed to find a room for her that would have been considered the crème de la crème at any ordinary inn. Nevertheless, she wistfully recalled her quarters in the tower of Evocation and wished she’d had more of a chance to enjoy her own bedroom. She consoled herself by thinking of Garrett, who was staying on the lower floor in one of the standard rooms.

  As Mira explored her quarters, she found a note had been placed on the table. Opening it, she found details regarding the various services offered by the hotel. She could ring a bell by the door to summon room service, and she was invited to take meals during scheduled times in the hotel’s dining hall. The note also informed her that she could check her room key with the front desk when she departed in the morning and she could pick it back up upon her return.

  After skimming through the note, M
ira turned to the large grandfather clock in the room. It was almost six in the evening. The sky outside her window was nearly pitch-black with just a faint vermilion glow far on the western horizon.

  Hrmm, time to relax, I think. I’ll get back to the grind tomorrow.

  With an exhausted sigh, Mira withdrew a drink from her inventory and flopped down onto an overstuffed sofa. Several days of travel by carriage had left her drained, and the luxuries offered by a high-class hotel sounded like the cure to her troubles. She flipped open the room service menu and rang the bell without even glancing at the prices.

  ***

  The next morning, she entered the dining hall and found Garrett, who had just finished enjoying his post-breakfast coffee.

  “Good morning, Miss Mira!”

  “Hrmm, morning.” She nodded in greeting as she looked over the breakfast menu before her. Then her head shot up as a thought struck her.

  There had been a lockbox secured in the carriage, and she had no idea what was in it.

  “By the way, what are you doing after this?” She eyed Garrett suspiciously. “I’m sure you didn’t come all this way just to escort me.”

  “You are correct, Miss Mira.” Garrett lightly waved a sealed letter in his hand. “I have other matters to attend to at Fort Karanak.”

  “Oho, is it about that box that shared a seat with me?”

  “Just so. It’s a formal missive, if you will…” Garrett looked around the room and chose his words carefully. “Regarding the little incident we were tasked with a few days ago. The box contains a summary of alerts, joint-defense information, and orders for future measures.”

  “Hrmm, I see.”

  The incident in question was the attack on Alcait by a number of Lesser Demons. Mira had been wondering what the fiends’ end goal was but had decided to leave that riddle to Solomon. She had her own fish to fry at the moment. Speaking of which…

  “By the way, would you know where the Mages’ Guild is?”

  Garrett thought for a moment. “Let’s see. To get to the Mages’ Guild, take a left out of the hotel and just head straight for a little while.”