Chapter 18: Mt. Ulawoon
The supreme-level Spirit of Fire had dropped the name of the Church of God’s Light.
Once everyone had settled down, they decided to move to a more suitable place for conversation. Not only were there a ton of soldiers suffering from burns, but the entire room was flooded from the mini waterfall that had drenched the flames. It wasn’t the ideal place to talk at length.
Arman, Ruri, Kotaro, and Chi sat atop a tapestry. Rin perched on top of Chi’s head. Meanwhile, Joshua, Ewan, and Arman’s aides all stood alongside the walls.
Thinking it was better for Beloveds to be together when dealing with a spirit, they also sent for Celestine, who opened the door and entered the room shortly after.
Celestine was in her usual, slightly revealing outfit that complimented her incredible figure. Once the Spirit of Fire caught a glimpse of her, his eyes widened and he shot straight up from the floor. He walked over to Celestine, took her hand, and took a knee.
“And what might your name be, O Beautiful One?” The Spirit of Fire flashed a smile so sweet it was hard to believe it was from the same person as earlier.
Confusion tinged Celestine’s face for a moment, but she deduced he wasn’t some sort of deviant considering the company he was keeping, so she answered in bewilderment, “My name is Celestine. And you are?”
The Spirit of Fire repeated her name like he was etching the letters into his mind. “Celestine... What a beautiful name for such a beautiful individual. I am the supreme-level Spirit of Fire. I am currently in material form, as you can see.”
Celestine was taken aback. She had been informed beforehand that the Spirit of Fire was here, but she most likely didn’t expect him to be in human form—especially when the other supreme-level spirits with Ruri were all in beast forms. Although, since Kotaro and the others were simply borrowing their bodies, it didn’t matter whether it was beast or human so long as it served as an adequate vessel. It wasn’t too far-fetched that some spirits would assume human form, in that case.
“Oh, so, you’re the Great Spirit of Fire. A thousand apologies for my manners,” Celestine said as she started to kneel so she could prostrate herself before the Spirit of Fire.
However, he stopped her before she could, saying, “That won’t be necessary, O Beautiful One. Come now, let us take a seat over there.” The Spirit of Fire escorted Celestine by hand over to the gathering spot. He wrapped his arm around her waist and sat them both between Ruri and Arman.
Ewan grimaced at the sight of the Spirit of Fire wrapping his arms all over Celestine, but Joshua was the only one to notice.
The Spirit of Fire was all smiles, and he treated Celestine kindly, which shocked Ruri. Of course it would; the gap in his attitude toward her and Celestine was as clear as day.
“Why does she get the warm reception?!”
“Quiet, brat. You and this beautiful woman aren’t the same. Know your place,” the Spirit of Fire bluntly said. It was so unabashed it was actually somewhat refreshing, to say the least.
Nevertheless, Ruri cuddled up to Kotaro, rubbing her face against his fluffy fur in order to console herself. “Ugh, the jerk! I hope he goes bald.”
“Don’t worry, Ruri. Fire has always been like this,” Kotaro assured.
“Unghhh, Kotaro~” Ruri whined.
“Uh, yes, mind if we get to the heart of the discussion?” Arman interjected, aiming to change the topic, albeit hesitantly. His remark seemed mainly directed toward the Spirit of Fire, who had become so preoccupied in fawning over Celestine that he might’ve just forgotten what he came to speak about. Apparently, the stories about the spirit being a ladies’ man were true.
“Lord Spirit of Fire, you mentioned the Church of God’s Light back in the throne room, but would you mind elaborating on what you meant?” Arman directly addressed him, finally drawing the spirit’s eyes away from Celestine.
“Yes, it was a millennium ago. After my visit with the Spirit of Trees in the Nation of the Spirit King, I came here to the Nation of the Beast King. Mt. Ulawoon produces power that fire spirits favor, so I’ve often used it as a sleeping place. I slept there for a thousand years but woke up once I noticed some sort of commotion. I had planned to keep sleeping another century more, but here I am.”
Everyone in their heart of hearts wanted to point out how obscenely long he slept, but none of them dared interject aloud for fear of breaking the flow of his story.
“Being jostled from my slumber already put me in the worst mood imaginable. And the Church of God’s Light ended up putting me into an even worse mood on top of that. They fiddled around at Mt. Ulawoon, absorbed the mountain’s powers with Spirit Slayer, and started making those soulless, walking corpses as well. Thanks to that, they’ve been strutting around the mountain like they own the place.”
“They what?!” Arman exclaimed.
This was the lead to the Church of God’s Light they had been looking for.
“The Church of God’s Light is in Mt. Ulawoon?” asked Ruri.
“They are. The Spirit Slayer they’re using is making it so the other spirits can’t stay there. More importantly, the presence of the dead there is a huge eyesore. That is exactly why I’ve come all the way here to tell you to get the lead out and fix things.”
“Huh? But I didn’t hear anything from the spirits about someone using Spirit Slayer or the Church of God’s Light being up there,” Ruri said. The spirits should have known she was looking for the Church of God’s Light, in which case, they would have told her if they found any clues.
“Did you explicitly ask them if the Church of God’s Light was at Mt. Ulawoon? Or if someone was using Spirit Slayer?” asked Arman.
“Well, no, I didn’t...” Ruri couldn’t ask something she didn’t know, after all.
“I swear, you’re pathetic,” Heat interjected. “You call yourself a Beloved, and you’ve made contracts with supreme-level spirits, but you don’t know a thing about spirits, brat. Lower-level spirits are like infants. Their interests wane by the hour, and things go straight into the back of their memories all the time. If you don’t explicitly ask them, they won’t give you any answer.”
“We normally have to limit the amount of voices we can hear as well,” Kotaro added.
“That’s right. It’s just too much to listen to all of their little chatterings,” Rin elaborated.
Kotaro and Rin’s explanation lay open a glaring hole in Ruri’s communication with the spirits. She had thought that if one spirit found something, they would share it among all of them. But that was a faulty assumption, much to Ruri’s surprise. Apparently, however, spirits had the ability to look into another spirit’s memories after the fact, so they could check at a later time.
“Mt. Ulawoon... Well, no one would be going there, that’s for sure. Perfect spot to do something in secret. These are the same cretins who claim all religions other than their own are heresy. They probably don’t care about stepping foot on a mountain we consider sacred ground. That was a blind spot we didn’t cover,” Arman said, looking extremely displeased.
Celestine was convinced as well, saying, “The rumors of the dead being revived came from around that mountain as well.”
“Now that we know where they are, let’s go there right now and apprehend them!” Ruri suggested, leaning forward. She was brimming with enthusiasm over knowing where the Church of God’s Light had been hiding after all this time.
“Now, hold on there,” Arman said, stopping her. “The mountain is huge. I’d like to ask exactly where on the mountain they are.”
Conducting a reckless search might raise too much suspicion, and then the suspects would run away. But if they knew exactly where they were, all Arman would have to do was send troops there to handle matters.
However, the Spirit of Fire answered with a rather blunt reply. “No clue.”
“Huh?” asked Ruri.
“I said I have no clue.”
Ruri stared at the Spirit of Fire with an expression that could only be described as dumbfounded. “Pardon? How can you have no clue when you just said they’re at the mountain?”
“I’m certain they’re somewhere on the mountain. I’m a fire spirit, however. I’m not suited for conducting searches.”
“Then maybe if we ask Kotaro or Chi...”
“I just said they used Spirit Slayer all over the mountain, did I not? With that in the way, it’ll be hard looking for them even with Wind or Earth’s powers.”
“And there’s nothing else you know? Like whether they’re to the north or south? If you could at least narrow down the scope a bit, that’d be great. Otherwise, they’ll likely get wise and run away right in the middle of our search.”
“I was asleep until just the other day, so how do you expect me to know that?”
“Geez, you’re useless!” Ruri inadvertently exclaimed.
The Spirit of Fire furrowed his brow in displeasure. “You’d best watch your tongue, brat. Who do you think you have to thank for knowing where the Church of God’s Light is?”
The Spirit of Fire was angrier than she expected, and it caused Ruri to shrink back.
“That’s right, Lady Ruri. You should not be so rude toward the Great Spirit of Fire,” the extremely spirit-religious Celestine said in his defense.
The Spirit of Fire had a lovestruck smile on his face, as if his anger from before had dissipated. He then held Celestine’s hand, his heart touched. “Your beauty is only matched by your overwhelming kindness. I’ve grown more smitten with you than ever. Learn by example, you bratty whelp.”
The Spirit of Fire was indeed every bit the lady lover the rumors stated.
As Ruri let out an exasperated sigh, something suddenly came to her mind. “That reminds me. What should I refer to you as? Spirit of Fire is a mouthful. Do you have a name like Kotaro and the others?”
“What, you want to call me by my name? You’re quite the impudent brat. Well, since you are the contract-bearer of my brethren, I wouldn’t be opposed to you referring to me by name, but unfortunately, I am yet named. And I’m certainly not about to let you name me upon request. But if it’s just a general nickname you’re after, then do as you wish.”
Although phrased in a very annoying way, he was essentially saying it was fine to call him something.
“...Uh, okay, then. How about Heat-sama? Kotaro and the others call you ‘Fire,’ so ‘heat’ isn’t too far off,” Ruri suggested. She added the honorific because she knew he would get annoyed if she addressed him without a title like with Kotaro and the other supreme-level spirits.
“An overly simplistic and feeble-minded nickname using some strange suffix? That’s all very befitting a strange brat such as yourself, indeed. Well, so be it. I will allow you to call me as such, but only as an exception.”
“Yes... Thank you, I guess,” Ruri said in resignation, realizing that this was just how he was going to speak to her and there was no changing it. Sometimes you just needed to know when to give up.
“Let’s get back to the subject,” Arman said, bringing the derailed discussion back on track. “We know they’re at Mt. Ulawoon, but without any details, we can’t mobilize any troops. And there’s a chance they might catch on to what we’re doing and flee before we can even catch them.”
“What do we do, then?” asked Ruri. “If we can’t go to the mountain to search, and we can’t use the spirits to look either, then we’ll never figure out where they are.”
“There is one way,” interjected Joshua, who was standing near the wall.
“You have an idea?”
“There are rumors circulating around town right now that our church friends will cure the sick and wounded.”
Those rumors likely came about due to Joshua name-dropping the Church of God’s Light the other day to distract the mob from the family Ruri and Ewan gave dragon’s blood to.
“The Church of God’s Light must be reaching out to people. After all, they’re in the business of looking for more followers.”
Arman seemed convinced. “I see. So, we have two options. We either catch them while they’re making contact and force them to divulge their hideout, or we tail them to find it. Still, we don’t know who they’ll reach out to or when.”
“Ruri’s got the spirits in the capital keeping tabs on town, so they’ll come reporting once they see them make any moves.”
“Why, you. Going off on your own like that...” Arman looked at Joshua, frustrated that the young man took action on his own, but he wasn’t necessarily angry. If he were any other dragonkin, Arman would have questioned why he was doing whatever he wanted in a nation other than his own, but Joshua was his nephew. Seeing as how he was family, Arman seemed willing to forgive this minor issue.
“Regardless, it’s a good plan, isn’t it?” Joshua said.
“Well, we don’t have any other options, it seems... Still, involving civilians in this matter is an issue,” Arman argued.
“In that case, all you have to do is slip some soldiers into the mix of people looking for the Church of God’s Light, right?” Ruri suggested. “If they dress in regular clothes, no one will ever know. And if they interact with one of them, it’ll be even better.”
Arman nodded in agreement.
“Also, we know they’re capable of raising the dead. I doubt they’ll come reaching out if we search for someone to heal the sick or injured, but it might be a good idea to search while letting it be known that our people are looking to specifically raise the dead. And I would make sure to instruct them to put on a sad act to really trick them, as well,” Ruri added.
“Yes, good point. I’ll make arrangements right away. I ought to recall the troops I sent out to search the area around Mt. Ulawoon while I’m at it. We don’t want them getting wise to us.”
The discussion was brought to a close. The only thing left was to wait patiently until the spirits reported in.
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