Jack opened his office door and walked into it. He then proceeded to his black desk to take his seat. Leslie once again went to the couch to lounge. Verruca took up one of the chairs in front of Jack's desk. With her huge frame, she dwarfed the chair. Jack found this comical but made no comments.
"While We wait for the Grand Minister to make his way here, Verruca, We should discuss the defense of the kingdom." Jack folded his hands and laid them on top of his desk.
[Ah, down to business... This is The Holy Witch King I know.] Leslie was pleased that Jack went straight to business. She was slightly worried that Jack would talk to Verruca, again about more personal affairs, in Leslie's opinion, actual affairs, and more so, he called her by name only just now...
"Before that, I would rather ask about the soul extracting Holy Hymn you used on Jordan Grimnight," Verruca asked casually, as she crossed her legs. If she wasn't a muscle chick she would look petite with this way of sitting, Jack still found it to be cute. He just couldn't see how her cute face matched her large body.
"It's a spell I came up with." Jack came right out with it; he didn't feel this was anything big.
"You... You wrote it?" Verruca was slightly disturbed.
"Well, yeah," Jack answered, nonchalantly.
Verruca looked over to see Leslie, who held a face of shock. Leslie had also turned her face to see Verruca. They both stared at each other for a moment.
"What's the matter?" Jack could tell something was odd, but couldn't figure what from their reactions.
The two turned their gaze back to Jack, and it was Leslie who spoke first, "How long have you been working on this new spell?"
Leslie had some Cultivation, but it was only at a master rank. This was enough, though to know the basics. Writing spells was a long and difficult process, no matter the school of magic. Most spells were completed by Trail and Error, and a few by sudden enlightenment.
Jack felt that something was off here. He knew it concerned the spell, but he wasn't sure what part about it was a problem. [Was it because I took someone's soul?]
"I'm not sure..." Jack said this, and Leslie and Verruca were about to sigh with relief, but then... "...about a day before court."
Their mouths hung open, large enough that an egg could fit into them. It never occurred to Jack that writing spells were a difficult process, for any race. The races of the world might know the words to write the spells, but they did not understand the syntax logic behind them. This was the same thing as knowing English, but not how to use it in C++ programming. A better example would be to ask a random person from Jack's last world to write a new program for a calculator from scratch. How long would it take for them to write this new program?
"What?"
"This can't leave this room..." Verruca said, after recovering.
"Well, I didn't plan on shouting it to the masses... but I must ask... why?" Jack was puzzled.
"I know you lost a good portion of your memory, but this... you shouldn't have told us this." she went on.
"Why?"
"You may be the most dangerous being in the entire continent. I am sure this is why you didn't tell us before... You may trust us a bit too much..." Verruca finished and looked over to Leslie.
Leslie smiled bitterly; this had become a habit, as of recent. She had just asked Jack to hold no more secrets... Was this one of the secrets he said that would harm him and the kingdom...
"...I... See?" Jack was slightly confused, he knew that all the Holy Hymns he read were written like garbage, but this was something new.
"Ok, then We will keep this in Our office," Jack said our office as in all of them, but Leslie and Verruca heard this as his royal office.
"I guess I shouldn't show you my newest Holy Hymn, oh well..." Jack trailed off... He was playing on the very thing he had seen many times in all the media he had ever watched... the curiosity of women!
"...What does the Holy Hymn do?" Leslie asked she wanted to know. Verruca simply didn't want to admit she wanted to know, and now that Leslie volunteered... Let her.
"Oh, just something about the Holy Light and how it can be amazing." Jack didn't say anything and played his little game.
"Ah, so the Holy Hymn does some kind of amazing thing?"
"Always..."
"Sooo, can you show it?"
"I'm not sure I should..."
This banter of Jack's and Leslie's went on for a few minutes until Verruca couldn't take it anymore. "JACK, SHOW US THE HOLY HYMN, STOP ROAMING THE BONEYARD!" Roaming the boneyard was the equivalent to beating around the bush.
She had actually stood up out of her seat and had an annoyed but excited expression.
Leslie was shocked... Jack had already told her his name?
Jack was shocked... because he didn't expect the cool-headed Verruca to be so curious. What Jack didn't know was that she was only like this because it was Jack.
"Alright, alright, feast your eyes," Jack said as he soon hummed out his Holy Hymn, turning over both his palms to face up. His shoulders made a shrugging motion... "Phelneee."
Soon two bright lights fired up from Jack's palms and burst in the air at the high ceiling of the office. In the shower of sparks, the firework display made, the bits of light fell all around the room like it was snowing lightly.
Leslie and Verruca were looking at the light display, thinking how pretty; however, they didn't expect that this was just the setup.
As the sparks landed on the black stone flooring, and carpet, the light spread out coating the floor. From the patches of light, arose small stalks that soon bloomed into beautiful flowers. As the light spread across the ground the light produced lush golden grass, and the flowers that had finished blooming appeared like gold lotuses.
Leslie and Verruca felt like they were in a fantasy world. The Underworld did indeed have flowers, trees, and grass, but they were all twisted versions of the life above in the Overworld. Flowers were always in dark shades, and with gnarled thorns. Trees were always scarce in Deagoth, but the ones they had were knotty and rotting. Grass did grow near the Skull of the Sun God, but it was always spotty at best.
Leslie finally spoke after her oohs and aahs, "It's so pretty."
Verruca then commented, "What does it do?"
Jack looked over his spell work, it had worked exactly as he wanted it too. He knew women liked pretty things... and figured undead were no exception, thus he made this Bright Flower Explosion Hymn, for just that.
"It looks nice, and I get to say that everything the light touches is mine," Jack replied
Verruca sat down while looking at the glowing flowers, and ignoring Jack's second comment asked, "How long does this last?"
Leslie had reached out to touch one of the gold lotus and found... It was solid!
"Oh, about six hours." Jack didn't put much power into the Holy Hymn.
"Just how much power did you use in your spell?!" Verruca was alarmed.
"I'd say about five percent." Jack had gotten familiar with using his Cultivation from before when he extracted Jordan's soul. At that time, he had consumed about twenty-five percent of his power. It was a very difficult thing to forcibly take someone's soul, but Jack had made a perfect spell. This meant it used less power.
Leslie had picked the golden lotus and was playing with its petals. "Why did you make this?"
Jack made an audible sigh, so it could be heard, "To please my women."
""Whose your women."" Leslie and Verruca spoke in unison.
They both looked at each other, and then back to Jack. He was just making an off the cuff comment, but realize he goofed. Jack racked his brain... [Time to use anime logic!] Jack mentally exclaimed...
"Well, you both are. Am I wrong?" Jack asked. He didn't plan on a harem. In fact, a harem was a great idea in stories, but it was really a bad idea in reality. Jack had started to take his unlife as being reality, unbeknownst to him.
"Hump" Leslie snorted.
Verruca didn't say anything but stared down Jack. "Maybe Leslie is, but I don't remember agreeing to this." Verruca was bitter at heart.
She had Jack to herself for years, but now she felt she was cast aside, even if she knew he did this without memory... Why didn't he wait to recover before taking a consort? Why not me... Verruca had many questions, even if some of them were answered by Jack previously, the questions didn't get answered as she wanted them too. She felt like Jack wasn't the same as he used to be like he was a different person altogether. She didn't want to blame Jack, as she felt this was the backlash from the conflict with Neolith and Jakahn. This was one of the reasons she had pushed to leave for a battlefield. Ever since the entombment of The Holy Witch King Verruca threw herself into the many battles and conflicts at the borders of the kingdom, all in an attempt to forget about Jack being entombed.
"At the end of the day, it is your choice. I will never force you." Jack said with a sad tone. He was hoping he could bring this to an end quickly. It was a good thing he didn't have a flesh and blood body because he would have been pouring sweat this entire time.
"Let us get back on topic. Neolith is coming with ambassadors, and this can only mean that they have bigger enemies than Us." Jack changed the topic.
Leslie and Verruca became solemn as the serious business had finally started. Jack found this funny, as he wanted to start this way ever since Verruca came to talk.
"Either Jakahn is becoming a problem for Neolith or... Dragon's Jaw has finally decided to end an eyesore." Verruca spoke, in a mysterious way.
"Tell me about Dragon's Jaw. I don't... remember much about them."
This time Leslie spoke, "Dragon's Jaw is a large nation at the lower border of both Neolith and Jakahn. While Neolith has had a... strained relationship to say the least with them, Jakahn seems to be great allies, but in truth, there is a feud with Dragon's Jaw."
Jack pondered for a moment, "So what, Jakahn stole something from Dragon's Jaw in the past, and now they hate each other?"
"So you remember?" Leslie asked.
"No, it makes sense... Wait... Is that what is actually wrong?"
"Well, yes. Jakahn's royal family and guards Cultivate the Unholy tome of Bat's End. This was originally discovered and owned by the royal family of Dragon's Jaw. At the time, one of the handmaidens of Dragon's Jaw stole it and gave it to the then King of Jakahn. She later married and became Queen of Jakahn."
"So are they still around?"
"No, this was just after the end of the Lich King, when everything was in Chaos. This feud started around ten thousand years ago. The current King of Jakahn is said to be the great great grandchild of the Hand Maiden Queen." Leslie finished.
"The Unholy tome of Bat's End... What makes this so great, I wonder?" Jack asked.
"This Cultivation manual has six levels to it. All six are shared by the royal family, but only the first three are shared with their warriors. Those lucky enough to make it to the elite rank of Bat Warriors get rank four. The manual gives them abilities to meld into the darkness, use sound to locate, and to a limited extent to fly, before the Emperor rank." Verruca answered this question, as she studied her enemies in depth.
[Fly before Emperor rank... Wait... If I make it to Emperor rank, I can fly? I wonder If I can make a spell to fly... Wings, maybe?] Jack was thinking to himself. It was a dream of most of mankind to fly one day, and Jack who grew up on anime and movies loved the idea!
Knock, Knock, Knock... The sound rang from the door of the office. "Come in."
Grand Minister Lucius opened the door and took one step inside the office before freezing in his tracks. [What in the abyss is this?!] Lucius gaze found the floor and room covered in gold grass and flowers. He clearly saw Leslie playing with a gold lotus, and even Verruca had pulled her large feet from her boots and was playing with the gold grass with her toes...
Jack hadn't seen Verruca pull this off, but Leslie had. She had thought to do it herself but didn't feel it was proper. Leslie didn't make any comment about Verruca doing it, because she wanted to do it herself.
"Did I... Did I come at a bad time?" Lucius cautiously asked.