The Novel's Sidekick

Q: What is the most potent power against the corrosion of Dark force?

A: Purgatory and Spirit of Restoration.

- - -

The sky housed the stars, and three moons glittered in brilliance, along with the luminescent stones decorated all around the festival squares. Two of the older ones were yet to appear, though the five would not converge together today. The people at the festival were not seeking the moons today, but enjoying the festival with full spirit, creating the cacophony that I hate the most.

This certainly doesn't appear to be a mediaeval world. Not for today, at least. I was tired just from the stares of the surrounding people, though for once, I enjoyed giving cold eyes to shut them off.

In truth, they were not in the wrong, but it was my little baldy who had not stopped his delinquency even a little on the occasion of the festival. I even felt he was doing it more to show how good the life of a delinquent was—so that I would get back to the old days.

How good it will feel to take things by force and yell at the owners if they say anything. Certainly, it looked tempting, but no thanks, it was not for me.

Julies made a fuss at every shop we went into, and at last, I had to give him the icy stare to shut him up. As much as he was unruly, he abided by most of my commands. All in all, he would be a good underling to have if he shut his mouth most of the time and stopped yelling at everything.

On the other hand, Eran was more silent. I reckon 80% of the conversation was covered by the baldy; I was about 15%, and the rest was Eran.

It had been a couple of hours since I was here with my two underlings, and so far, we had seen almost everything this festival has to offer, though I could not say that I enjoyed it.

It was mostly me and Eran running after Julies, so that he wouldn't cause more mischief. Surprisingly, I found Eran was not much of a delinquent. I knew the big guy looked frightening, but soft and gentle on the inside. The book did not go into details about these few characters, like Eran. People appeared to have mistaken him for a delinquent based solely on his appearance.

"Boss, look," Julies said and gestured to where a group of girls were walking.

I looked and found it was the group of Yasmine and Yeriel. There were a few others, but I did not recognise any of them.

They seemed to notice my gaze as well, and all of them smiled at the white-haired maiden before taking their leave. Even Yeriel left, giving her a sweet smile.

"Boss," Julies said with reluctance. "We'll get going as well."

"Hey." Before I could say anything Julies left, dragging away Eran with him. I could not help but shake my head and gazed at the fair maiden coming towards me.

Yasmine smiled and walked forward towards me. Her white hair was resting on her shoulders, glistening in the light. A breathtaking presence indeed. A similar white gown hugged her slender body from the long leg to the narrow waist to the supple chest. She had silver earrings and a silver pendant on her neck. In one sentence, I couldn't take my eyes off of her.

I can't say she did not put on makeup, but she looked like an otherworldly fairy to me. Perhaps I was lucky to be transmigrated as Scar. Though my impression could be biassed, I could not take my gaze off of her as she came towards me with slow steps.

By the luck of Ishar, she's beautiful.

Her hair swayed along with the stiff wind, and her eyes twinkled as she said, "I went to call you."

"You look beautiful," I complimented, and she tried to hide her blush.

"At least you have noticed," she said, and stood next to me, escaping the face-to-face view. "But I can't say the same to you. Are you sleeping well? You have dark patches under your eyes, and your face looks weary and tired."

"It's alright," I said. "I’m just studying a bit." And having trouble sleeping after the near-death experience with the ghoul. Well, now that I think about it. I had certainly seen death, even for a blink of an eye. My spine turned cold at that very instant and shuddered.

Other than that, it was really alright. For many hours after midnight, I worked on the books on the basics of art, and for a couple of days, I even forgot to sleep.

But all in all, it was alright, considering I could be termed an Insomniac-coffee-drinking monster. The other problem I had was waking up early in the cold. What I can say is that I was never really an early riser. On that note, this world has no alarm clock, and though the pendulum clock rang, it was so damn quiet that I missed the morning practice for a couple of times. I reckon I will need a couple of months to build up the tendency.

"That's good to hear, but you need to take care of your body as well," she said. "You will be under more pressure this year if you want to grasp both branches of spirit art. Stay away from alcohol as much as you can."

"I'm taking care of it," I said, smiling at her. "I have not touched alcohol the last two weeks."

​ "Hmm?" She looked at me piercingly to see if I was telling the truth. Her eyes never left mine, and I tried not to flinch. This girl had already endured a great deal because of her scars. I didn't want her to be concerned about me even after she left.

"You are lying." She said.

My lips pressed hard, and I thought I'm not too good at lying. "Well, I did drink, but it was far less compared to before," I said. In my defence, there were few leftovers at the dorm, and my throat was sore. "I only drank once or twice." Undoubtedly, I was not drinking in depression, and certainly, this was an enormous improvement over the old Scar.

She continued to stare at me for some time before looking at her feet, as if she held some disappointment in me, or it could be just my guessing.

I wish it was only the latter.

"Yasmine," I called, and did not know what to say. Honestly, it was not my fault. That bastard, Scar. I forgive all your crimes, but why did you hurt this girl so much?

"Let's put those aside," she said, and held out the two paper lanterns—I didn't even notice. Well, I did notice, but I ignored it, considering how charming Yasmine was.

"You did not have time to wish for your mother yesterday, so I brought these," she said and gave me one of the paper lanterns.

Usually, on the night of the five moons, the people of the Mahenar empire pray for the wellbeing of the deceased. But yesterday, with all the things going on, from the vampire attack to the nightmare, I, and the others as well, forgot to light the lantern.

"Let's go," she said and held my palm. "The river will be vacant today."

The river was about a ten-minute walk from there, and the entire path was packed with people. For a change, they did not stare at me like before, but at the gorgeous maiden in white beside me. I did not know if I should be happy about this.

There were people dancing in the stage wearing various costumes as a rather ear-catching music was played. Too loud and too festive were the words to describe the music, but it does have a feeling of dance into it. Fast rhythm in the chorus with drums enthralling it further. Certainly, a song of battle, and matched well with the sword dance.

"Wait here a second," Yasmine said and left me towards a shop near us. While my eyes drifted towards the stage.

Dancers were dancing on the stage, but this dance was something different. It was practically like a battle dance. One man in a bare upper body danced with a flaming sword while the others were impersonating demons, wearing all kinds of hideous costumes, with colour on their faces and horns on their heads.

They battled within the dance while the bare-chested man defeated all the demons.

If I'm not wrong, this was called the Demon Abominating Dance, or Roghara as it was called in the old tongue, though I reckon there were other names for it. It was beautiful to watch, even with my eyes, which were not meant for art.

Unfortunately, their representation of the demons was wrong. At least they were entirely wrong about the Saider.

"Let's go," Yasmine came, buying whatever she needed, and nudging me.

We walked again in the crowd under the star-filled sky. I somewhat felt a little pride to go on like that with such a beautiful girl.

The river was not as vacant as Yasmine said it would be, but we did manage to find a vacant bank after walking for five minutes further. By the way, the river is called Yeriel, and yes, the Yeriel at the academy was named after this river. Some fun facts about the story: It was one of the thousand questions I answered to get here.

We walked hand in hand, though we had no fear of slipping down the slope. The grass was soft and cold as droplets of water had already formed from the mist. The mist was hovering over Yeriel, playing along with her own rhythm and wind.

We exchanged glances and crouched down near the water. I brought out the paper lantern Yasmine gave me and lit it up by bringing a little flame of Purgatory. But for the well-wishing and praying, I did not just do it for Scar's mother, but for my mother as well. She had cardiovascular disease, and left me when I was in high school.

Fortunately, I did not turn out like Scar. Well, our situations were definitely different. Scar blamed himself for his mother's death, though I'm not sure how much he was actually responsible for.

I did not get an explicit reference to this in the book, nor in the few memories, I got from Scar. I could not help but bite my lip while blowing the paper lantern into the water.

Yasmine did the same, and I saw tears dripping from her eyes. She was reminiscing about her elder brother, who died on the battlefield when she was barely twelve. I clasped her palm, and she wiped the tears from her eyes.

I wish they were really well wherever they are now, even if two of them were characters, and I do not believe in God or heaven.

_______________________