The Novel's Sidekick

Q: What does Oscar hate the most?

A: Himself.

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Even though they had not climbed too high, and there was no ice, the weather here was on the colder side. Julies didn't seem to have any problem, though. But it was not the same for Elinor. She was still in the school garment with hair tied on the back of her head, but since they had quite the luck with their search, she had no time to frown upon the cold or the stiff breeze blowing.

They had found a herd of red cudweed. Though the price of each strand of cudweed was the lowest on the list, only 4 tills per piece; they had found a herd of a few hundreds of red cudweeds altogether, even if they ignored the younger ones.

Elinor was picking up the red cudweeds when she heard Julies say:

"I guess this would relieve me from the pain for a week or so." His eyes moved towards the black cat that came with Elinor and was following her since they were moving into the wild. "Ain’t you gonna pet that cat?"

"Meow!" The cat wanted to know as well. It was the same homeless stray Elinor had fed when she met Scar on the bench. When they were borrowing the horses, it came out of nowhere and silently joined Elinor on the back of the horse.

"I do not have time or money to take care of myself. How can I bother with this stray?" Elinor said.

The cat meowed quietly with sadness. It was quite intelligent for a cat, though it was like all bones and fur, it was not entirely bad looking. Perhaps some amount of food twice a day would make it cuter.

"What are you sayin’, girl?" Julies said. "I heard from Boss, you have the highest talent in the magic department this year. You will be rich in no time."

"That no time is two or three years from now," Elinor said and pulled the root with much force. The sun was at the horizon, peeking through the mountains, painting a clumsy canvas of golden red in the clouds.

The cat rubbed its bony body against her legs as if it really wanted to stay with her. Even Elinor had to think about the pros and cons of adopting a cat. In her lonesome life, having a cat did not sound so bad, and then there was her issue with staying alone, but she still could not bring herself to take that.

"But, I think that cat is a lucky charm for you," Julies muttered. "How ‘bout this, if we find the golden vine of Azarth, which is, of course, the most expensive item on the list, you have to adopt the cat?"

Elinor did not answer at first, but seeing the high spirit of the stray, she could only nod.

The bald chap with the sunglasses grinned evilly, as if his evil plan had succeeded. "Now, would you believe me if I tell you I already found the golden vine before findin’ this?"

Elinor's lips stiffened, but she could not bring herself to hate this guy. Moreover, his personality reminded him of her brother, which troubled her even more. She sighed and pushed away the thoughts of her twin brother. Luckily, she had other things to occupy her mind, like calculating the price of the golden vines and other herbs, for example. 50 dynes for a metre long golden vine. Then there was that stone vine as well, though it was a lot cheaper.

She finished collecting the cudweed, and let the baldy lead her to the place he saw the golden vines of Azarth. Elior has never seen Azarth with her own eyes, but she read about it. It was supposed to be a parasite leaving off some other tree. Julies led her for half an hour into deeper of the forest, as the darkness intensified. When they finally stopped, and she got to see with her own eyes, she could not help but swallow.

"That's one high tree to climb," Elinor said, looking at the two hundred metres tall tree before her. Another of the moon appeared on the other horizon by the time.

It was all straight and higher than most of the trees in the surrounding area, with thick vines all over in grey and green, giving a gloomy vibe to the surrounding areas. The darkness seemed to loom there significantly more. Then again, the green and grey vine surrounding the straight tall tree that currently appeared as black made it seem so. Thousands of vines loomed enveloping the tree, giving a ghastly vibe to three. If only they could make it do with any vines. But what they needed was the golden vine of Azarth and to get that, they had to climb the tree and find it.

That quite troublesome job, searching between the thousands of the vines in the looming darkness that surrounded the tree.

"So, who's going to climb up?" Elinor asked again, looking at the shiny head of Julies. Only after asking did she find out, she was not supposed to be asking that.

"I found the tree, so you should do the climbin’," Julies said with a grin. “Can’t leave everything to this old Juls, can you?”

Elinor's face paled, and she looked at the tall tree again. She made a pitiful face at the very moment while Julies laughed out seeing that.

"I'm just joking. I know your frail body is not good for climbing, so just try to find any stone root of the vines if you can."

Elinor sighed in relief and saw the bald fellow preparing to climb up the tall tree. The stray was still with her, trying to get her attention, but she stared at the odd fellow with the sunglasses on.

"Are you going to climb up wearing those?" she asked, gesturing at the sunglasses. The sun was already about to set and the light was barely enough for them to make out. She was not sure if the fellow before her could see with the dark sunglasses on.

Julies looked at the golden-red afterglow at the north horizon and moved his eyes to the tall tree then. "Guess I have to put them off for now," he said and removed the sunglasses.

"Wow!" Elinor muttered at once, peering Julies' eyes. Those two eyes were big, sparkling in the purple glow and almost like a young maiden. Soft and beautiful, but there was something else in that purple glow that she could not bring herself to look away. It was as if it played some charm on her and she found the bald youth before her to be someone she could not forget ever in her life.

A frown appeared in Julies' eyebrows as he looked away instantly. Elinor finally got over her trance. She sucked in a deep breath and ran her spirit force in her body to even clear out whatever ethereal feeling she got from looking into those eyes.

"I ain’t wear this just for show," he said and did not look at her again.

Elinor was silent for a moment. "I thought you were just copying the president," she said. "But I can't lie if I ever saw any more beautiful eyes than that."

"If I could, I would let you have it," Julies muttered, sighing. "But I'm sure you ain’t gonna like it, either."

He got back to his business and was about to climb up, keeping his sunglasses in his pocket.

Elinor did not know what to say, stood there silently, watching the fellow climbing up swiftly on the tree. She could not help but sigh, too.

It was not just her life that was bitter and lonely. Even this guy who talked nonsense all the time with laughter and glee was lonely as well. Like her, the others had to deal with the cruelty of life just the same. Suddenly, the face of a raging boy with red hair appeared on her head. A stiff wind blew and swayed her white robe. She shuddered and brought her mind back to reality.

She had to find the stone root of the vines. So far, she has done nothing but laborious work. All the findings of the herbs came from Julies. All she did was help to gather them. Even so, there were few wild beasts, but Julies led her to the places without catching their attention. Julies is a delinquent, but she can't deny his skills.

The Azarth grows a lot of vines and only one of two of them turns golden each year. As for the stone root of the vines, it was only a little less rare compared to the golden vine. Bringing out a hand knife, she got to work.

Only the older ones of the vines could create a stone root, so she went further into the gathering of the vines, pulling and turning to see how sturdy it was. There were at least a couple thousand vines and one-third among them were rooted to the earth. It would take much more time for Julies to find the golden vine than for her to find any stone roots.

She moved, pulling and turning, then one vine came that did not even budge a little. She had to force all of her strength to make it even bend a little. A sharp smile appeared on her lips, as this should be the first stone root she found. She crouched down to unearth the root when a loud voice entered her ears.

"Girl," Julies shouted. "I found it, the golden vine, and it's big. This thing could go for a couple of hundred dynes if I am not wrong."

Elinor could not help but look up, though she saw nothing in the inundating darkness of the trees and vines. Looks like they would be able to return before the third moon appears in the sky. She moved her hand faster and found a stony lump after unearthing about two feet of the earth. That was the stone root she finally found. Cutting it out using a little spirit force, she was about to smile but her smile stiffened, hearing a scream from Julies.

"Shit!" She heard Julies scream again. "Girl, run quickly."

Elinor narrowed her eyes and heard the screams of Julies telling her to run away. She put her ears to work to hear some weird buzzings of some insects, as well as the sounds of Julies, moving swiftly from the tree. She moved away out of the looming vines, bringing the black cat with her, and saw what was going on.

"There is a huge hive of the hunter bee here," Julies screamed as he slid from vine to vine like a circus champion. One had to admit, the short bald youth was better than a monkey at this kind of movement.

"Whatcha doin’ girl, run away." Julies got lower to the level where he could see Elinor standing under the tree like a doll. He could barely put up any defence against his spirit force, as thousands of the hunter bees were after him. Yet this girl was still standing. Was she frozen with fear, or did she not know what these bees could do?

When Julies was about a couple of dozen metres above ground, she found Elinor was not standing in fear, but attempting something else.

Light enlightened out from Elinor's body. Every part of her body was brimming with the white glow of light and it only rose as Julies came down. She released all the light forward, blinding the bees that were after her. Even Julies had a problem with a special kind of eyes. The bees sang in chaos, and Elinor opened her eyes, releasing a slow breath.

"Hurry, we have to run," Julies said and pulled her arms. On his shoulder was the two-metre-long golden vine. "Your light ain't gonna be enough."

Just as Julies said it within a few more seconds, the bees came after them, buzzing in madness.

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