“WHEN I was working in my own country, I often climbed mountains such as these,” Marialite remarked, using her tremendous leg strength to make her way up a particularly steep mountain path without breaking a sweat. Looking at her, no one would ever guess she possessed such brawn.
Liffey was the first one to throw in the towel, wasting no time before pestering Celestine to carry her. Naturally, he ignored her completely.
“Impressive. No wonder you have so much stamina,” Sirius nodded.
“What about you, Lord Sirius? Are you holding out okay?” Marialite asked.
“Yes. Demons are far slower to physically tire than humans,” he assured her.
“…Apart from her, it seems,” Cornelia tutted, shooting an icy glare at Liffey as she staggered up the path.
“Liffeeeey? Are you okay?” Raven called out in concern from where he rounded up the party at the back.
“Ngh… I’ll be fine…” she groaned.
“She’s usually holed up in the workshop with me, so she probably doesn’t get enough exercise, y’see. It’s a waste of all that youth,” Celestine sighed gruffly.
“Then explain why you’re not out of breath! You’re hundreds of years older than me…old man…” Liffey huffed. Celestine simply replied with an impish grin.
Up until that moment, Snow had been carefully surveying their surroundings, but he suddenly began to struggle, wriggling free from Raven’s arms.
“Meoww!” he cried out, flying over to Liffey. Celestine studied him with amused eyes.
“Did you know that carnivorous birds identify creatures on the verge of death before making them their prey?” he chuckled.
“I dunno how you can laugh about that,” Raven frowned. “That’s your assistant you’re talking about, there. What if she really did get eaten?”
Snow opened his jaws and swooped down to latch onto Liffey’s collar—not her throat, thankfully.
“Wha—?!” she cried out. “What’re you doing?!”
“Hrmff! Mrrww!” Snow chirped, flapping his wings and slowly hauling Liffey up into the air.
“Wow, Snow!” Marialite praised him, clapping. “You’re so strong!”
Snow closed his eyes and flapped his wings harder, clearly proud of his efforts.
“Aww, thank you, Snow! I’m so glad you came,” Liffey grinned as she glided through the air.
“Really appreciate that, little beast,” Celestine nodded. “I didn’t intend to pass my work off onto you as well, but it’s good to have ya around all the same.”
Sirius and Cornelia turned to share a glance with each other; there was a specific word that didn’t pass either of them by.
“Work?” they said suspiciously.
“Mm-hm, that’s right,” he smiled. “Hey there, Saint—could ya hold this?”
“What a sweet little pigeon!” she marveled, looking over the small stuffed toy as Celestine placed it in her hand. It was about the size of her fist. However, it didn’t look like a normal pigeon; instead, it was pale green in color.
“Is this another one of your devices?” Marialite asked excitedly.
“Indeed. If you walk along with this in tow, you’ll be immediately teleported back to Celaeno Palace if you happen ta run into any danger. I reckon you’ll be safe with His Highness and the Hellcat around, but if on the off chance something were to occur…”
“Stop right there, Celestine!” Sirius bellowed. “What exactly are you planning?! You’ve brought us all the way up here, and now you’re giving Lady Marialite something to teleport back to safety?! What do you know?!”
“And what do you mean she’ll be safe with us around?! Safe from what?!” Cornelia yelled, pressing him for answers.
“Eeeeek!” Liffey squealed all of a sudden, pointing ahead of them as Snow carried her along. The color drained from her face. “L-Look…”
Among the darkness, some strange-looking figures came into view. They had branches for arms, while the bottom halves of their bodies were made of roots. Their forms suggested they were women, but their torsos were so withered and mangled that they were more reminiscent of corpses than people.
Hostility radiated from them as they became alerted to the party’s presence. Whether they were angry about being disturbed by trespassers on the mountain or whether there was some other reason for their displeasure, nobody knew. However, one thing was for certain: they weren’t going to just stand there and watch as the party walked past.
“Wow, those people sure look strange!” Marialite admired them.
“They’re the creatures that inhabit this mountain,” Celestine explained. “Unless we do something about ’em, this’ll be the end of the road for us.” He gave a pointed look at Sirius and then at Cornelia.
“Your Highness, Hellcat—you’re up!” he announced gleefully.
“How dare you? I’m not laying a finger on them until you agree to fight with us!” Cornelia demanded.
“Eh, I’m too old for that nonsense. I’ll sprain my back conjuring up a single blow,” he sighed gruffly.
“And climbing a mountain doesn’t?!” Cornelia scoffed in disbelief, her ears pricking up in anger. “Just look at your assistant!”
“Lady Marialite…” Sirius approached her gingerly, afraid of how she was going to answer. “Could it be that Celestine was the one to invite you here? Rather than choosing to come yourself…”
“That’s right! He said it would be a great learning opportunity!” she said with a dazzling smile. Sirius slapped both palms to his forehead.
That was when he fully understood the situation they were in. The reason Celestine invited Marialite was to use her as bait—so that Sirius and Cornelia would agree to come and end up doing Celestine’s dirty work for him. He was using them as his personal soldiers.
“Oh, I’ve had enough of this! We can defeat those things easy peasy! Let’s just get it over with,” Cornelia grumbled, rushing over to the group of monsters and shooting large, sharp icicles at them.
“Celestine, your research funding will be cut by ten percent this month!” Sirius barked as he followed suit, shooting balls of lightning at the monsters.
“I’ve already received plenty of funds from the Hellcat, so you’re free to deduct as much as you wish,” he grinned.
“Curse you!”
Surprisingly, the monsters fled and scattered in response to their attacks rather than trying to retaliate. Marialite studied their reactions curiously.
“You know…I think they actually wanted something from us,” Marialite suggested.
“Really?” Raven replied, nibbling at his bottom lip. “But they stared at us like they wanted to murder us…”
Still, with the monsters out of the way, they could continue their journey to the summit. Liffey was still low on energy, so Snow kindly continued carrying her.
“I only brought the beast to rope the Hellcat into coming, but we’re very lucky to have him, eh?” Celestine quipped.
“Meeeeow!” Snow cried out joyfully, seemingly pleased by Celestine’s compliment. Unfortunately, this also meant that his mouth fell open, leaving Liffey to tumble to the ground.
“Ack!” she yelped, dirt sticking to her back.
“Lady Marialite…please stay close to me,” Sirius implored her with a grave expression as he surveyed their surroundings. “The creatures from earlier are still roaming the area, watching us.”
“I wonder why that is…” she hummed in reply.
“To kill us, obviously,” Cornelia muttered. “Your Highness, perhaps it would be wise to raze this whole mountain to the ground before anyone can get hurt.” Judging by her haphazard plan, the watchful eyes of the monsters were beginning to bother her.
“Finally. We agree on something,” Sirius smirked.
“Nuh-uh, that sounds like a terrible idea,” Raven jabbed. “Do you guys have worms for brains or something?”
During their bickering, Snow had hauled Liffey back into the air, and she now had a good view of the party. That was when she noticed Celestine restlessly checking the pocket watch he was carrying.
“Why do you keep looking at the time?” she asked.
“If we don’t reach the summit by dawn, this will all have been for naught,” he said cryptically.
“Right…” she replied unsurely.