SWNOVELXO Chapter 1591: Worried Parents
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The Oasis Spirit, a mysterious entity that existed within the Oasis, a Spirit said to be more ancient than the Oasis itself, had descended here, and became its guardian. Some said it was a minor deity, while others said it was a powerful divine spirit that favored elves or half-elves. But only a few had seen them, and not even the whole members of the village knew how they even looked like.
The chief, the former priestess that gave away her title to her daughter to protect her through the Oasis Spirit's Protection, and she said she had spoken directly with the Spirit, a privilege that only a few Oasis Druids and the Priestess had.
"The Oasis Spirit?" Agua wondered. "So if I leave, she'll take away the protection? But I really want it… Without it, I am not as strong anymore."
"You are very strong, but the Protection has a special power, it helps you survive," her mother said. "I want it to remain as long as possible… So for that, we'll have to talk with the Oasis Spirit, together… Perhaps the Heroine and other Spirits could join, this could make the talk much smoother."
"I-I see…" Agua muttered. "But… would she be willing to give it to me?"
"I don't know… It's all ultimately up to her, we can only pray and request her things, but all of it depends on her goodwill, and if she deems us worthy or not," Agua's mother said. "It's too late now, and you should rest. We will prepare a Ritual to call for her, the Oasis Druids will join us. It'll take some time to set things up though… a few days, one or two."
"I-I see…" Agua nodded. "I'm sorry guys…"
"It's fine! Just stay here, don't worry," Silvia said.
"We never intended to drag you out or something," Justicio nodded.
"Okay then, so we'll have to talk with this Spirit… If I can be of help, sure," Aquarina nodded. "Let's do that later then. We'll come tomorrow to check on Agua though. Does this mean she can't leave the territory for now?"
"She could leave, it isn't as if its going to disappear…" said her mother. "But it might be better to do this, because I am fairly sure that if she leaves for long periods of times, days, or weeks, it will fade away. The Priestess duty is to protect the Oasis after all, if she leaves the territory of the Oasis Spirit and the Jungle, then they will be no longer fulfilling their duties."
"Ah, so that's how it works…" nodded Agua. "Well, it's alright. Oh, Aquarina, can you give me my part of the rewards?"
"Was about to do that!" Aquarina nodded, quickly opening her Shadow Inventory. "Here, we hunted quite a lot. From what we agreed, Agua gets a part of it. So we'll leave the corpses here, and also the gold coins we found, and other resources we picked up and that she helped gathering."
Eventually, the entire village gathered around once more, a pile of valuable materials, giant monster corpses, and even gold coins emerged, shocking everyone.
"I-I've never seen such massive crustaceans before! Are they down there in that dungeon?!"
"Their shells have crystals? No, wait, spirit crystals…!"
"They seem very strong, how did… I suppose the heroine and her friends are incredibly strong."
"This metal and these spirit crystals… it's amazing!"
As the people gathered to praise Agua, her mother nodded.
"Well done! I didn't expect this many rewards out of all of this," her mother said.
"The meat of these lobsters is very delicious and mana and spirit energy rich too!" Agua said. "I think that everyone should eat some for dinner! It'll even make you a bit stronger."
"R-Really?"
"But these are your things, Priestess…"
"We are not worthy of your generosity, young Priestess…"
"Is this really okay?"
They were a bit worried, but Agua nodded gently.
"It's okay! I'm fine with it," Agua nodded. "Also the Ritual needs a lot of spirit materials for offerings, right mother? The more offerings we give to the spirit, the happier she becomes. So I suppose we could offer some of these."
"O-Oh… I'm sure she would love them, yes," the chief nodded. "V-Very well then… But these many materials… We should still keep most of them, dear. I think I could make you some accessories with them. To protect you more."
"Oh, thank you mother," Agua smiled.
"Alright then, we're on our way back!" Aquarina said. "Justicio's too worried, this brat… let's go! And see you tomorrow then!"
"Yeah! Thank you for everything, Aquarina!" Agua waved her hand, as Aquarina and her friends left atop Leviathan.
Once back home, Aquarina's friends quickly ran back to their houses one by one, dropping off Leviathan, while Aquarina quickly reached her house, her two parents waiting for her in their living room, sitting over the sofa while looking slightly annoyed.
"Hey! I'm back!" Aquarina said. "I bought a lot of stuff- Aaah, you're angry, huh?"
"You know what hour it is?!" her mother roared angrily. "Aquarina! It's past midnight! It's like three in the morning! Where the hell were you at?"
"We were very worried, young lady…" sighed her father. "You promised you would have dinner with us."
"I-I'm sorry!" Aquarina cried. "I just went inside a dungeon and had so much fun, we fought two bosses and ate a giant lobster! H-Here, I got you so many souvenirs! Don't ground me!"
They noticed Aquarina opening a portal to her shadows, dropping a bunch of stuff, surprising them due to the sheer amount of incredible treasures she brought along.
"O-Oh…" her mother muttered. "huh, so you found a dungeon in the oasis then?"
"Huh, that's new," her father said. "Since when did you learn to do the Shadow Realm Inventory technique? I hadn't even taught it to you yet…"
"Oh, that? I merged my Abyssal Embodiment with my Storage Ring permanently, allowing me to merge the space of the ring with my shadows! Pretty neat trick, right? There's no upper limit now!"
"Wow, I never thought about doing that myself, well done," her father nodded, praising her.
"W-Wait a second, you aren't supposed to praise her, honey!" Nepheline complained. "Anyways, you're grounded for coming late and worrying us sick! Go back to your room right now! We were a second from going after you."
"What? I'm grounded?! At my age?!"
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