Chapter 19 – The Lonely Arston
Arston carefully checked the unconscious spirit lying on his bed, relieved to find that the girl's chest was still rising and falling. Her body still felt cold to the touch, but the marking on her right neck had disappeared.
"Thank God she's not dead. Otherwise, all that effort of roping her to be my lab rat would have gone to waste. What kind of spirit faints anyway? But it seems healing spells work for spirits, I guess? What an odd rule we have here..." Arston pondered the recent happenings.
He waited for a while, but the unconscious princess showed no signs of waking up. Therefore, he went outside to begin his exhausting routine.
As he stepped into the living room downstairs to open the door leading outside, he felt a pair of eyes watching him. He turned his head to return the gaze and saw the doll version of the unconscious girl upstairs. The doll, dressed in a pink sleeping gown, seemed to be facing him. Arston moved to the side, checking if the doll's eyes followed his steps.
To his relief, the doll's clear blue eyes remained fixed on him.
"I swear, I felt someone's gaze. It must be just me being too worried about my lab rat. But I think I'm being a bit cruel to her nevertheless. Hold on, I've seen this situation before in a horror movie with that dumb orc of a girl..." Arston muttered to himself.
He moved closer to the doll of Renica and observed it from top to bottom. However, to his disappointment, the doll just sat there, unmoving even after he pinched its nose.
"Haha, I'm just being too paranoid, or... am I?" Arston whispered to himself.
He continued monitoring the doll, stroking its hair, blowing a breath on its face, and even holding it upside down. Still, there was no reaction.
"Dear, what are you doing? Oh, you're playing with the doll? How cute..." Irvina asked as she entered the living room, about to sweep.
"Huh? Oh, yes, Mom. It's quite pretty. Can I have it?" Arston asked, trying to hide his embarrassment.
"But didn't you find anything scary, weird, or out of place yesterday?" Irvina recalled her husband's story about the doll.
"What do you mean, Mommy?" Arston tilted his head to the side.
"Nothing, dear. Of course, you can keep it. Just don't do anything funny with it, okay?"
Arston could feel his mom's failed teasing from miles away, but he innocently nodded and said, "Okay, Mommy. I'll take care of it well," receiving a disappointed look from Irvina.
Ignoring his mom's failed teasing, Arston went back upstairs to put the doll in his room while jeering at his mom, "Hahaha, sorry, Mommy, but you're still too green if you thought you could tease this son of yours."
Arston placed the doll on top of his table, facing the glass window. He then resumed his interrupted routine and closed the door.
Moments after Arston closed the door, a pair of pale blue eyes moved around, scanning its surroundings and stopping on the larger version of itself lying on the bed.
Once he reached his training ground, an empty field next to his home, Arston began casting spells from his arsenal, repeating each spell twenty times in a row. He started with the basic healing spell, followed by compressed water bullets, ice spears, earth spikes, air blades, and more. However, he was forbidden from casting fire-related spells since he had nearly burned his faraway neighbours' lawn, resulting in a severe scolding from Irvina. It was an overreaction on her part, as he had only set some wild grass ablaze, which he promptly extinguished with massive water balls.
After completing his routine, Arston was about to start over when he remembered the translated notes he had made with the now unconscious girl from the purplish-covered book. He decided to go back upstairs and bring the notes down for further study.
Midway, he overheard a discussion between Irvina and Lenfort and couldn't resist eavesdropping.
"Honey, I saw Arston playing with the doll you dubbed cursed earlier," Irvina said.
"What!? How did he get his hands on it?" Lenfort asked, alarmed by his wife's revelation.
"I was about to put the doll somewhere else, but little Arston already had his hands on it," Irvina lied, not even remembering the doll's existence until she saw her son playing with it.
Lenfort was about to ask his wife to retrieve the doll for safekeeping when she continued her story.
"But I asked Arston if he saw anything weird. If you count this time, I've already asked him twice, and both times he said he didn't see anything and didn't even understand what I meant."
"Really?"
"Yes, that's not what I'm trying to say, darling. Hehe, I think Arston is quite lonely. Why don't we give him another sibling?" Irvina brushed off her husband's worries while caressing his chest.
"Holy sh*t, it's still the afternoon, and I'm not lonely at all," Arston exclaimed in his mind.
"It's still noon, dear. The kids might get disturbed," Lenfort declined his wife's suggestion.
"Humph, but you owe me tonight," Irvina complained.
"Of course, my lady," Lenfort agreed, caressing his wife's cheek before leaning in for a kiss.
"Well, I guess I'm not going downstairs for tonight. Huff... Aunt Laura wasn't mistaken when calling her friend, a pervert," Arston thought as he made his way to his room.
Arston opened the door to his room and discovered that the doll was no longer sitting on the table but was now lying face down on top of Renica's chest.
He grabbed the notes from the table and went back to his routine, thinking that the foolish princess had woken up, taken her doll, and gone back to sleep.
Meanwhile, in the yard next to the two-story house...
"Hmm, some of these spells are just too complicated. It must be that silly girl's bad translation. Look at this nonsense. How do you even pronounce this? Ugh, what was I expecting from a four-year-old? Some of these are even impossible to translate into English!" Arston complained about the barely readable stack of notes.
"Huff... let's just continue with my usual sets. It's probably better to wait until she wakes up for real."
Arston practiced what he knew so far, pushing himself to the point of near exhaustion. He then walked back to the room adjacent to the stairs and saw Renica still sound asleep on his bed.
"Hey, hey, wake up, sleepy princess. It's almost lunchtime," Arston shook Renica's shoulder gently.
Renica slowly opened her eyes, yawned, and asked, "What happened?"
"You have the energy to grab your doll from my table, yet you didn't bother to think about what happened?" Arston replied.
"Huh? My doll?" Renica questioned.
"Yeah, your mini version," Arston pointed towards the miniature replica of herself.
Renica shifted her gaze and finally noticed the doll her mom had made for her. She picked up the doll, holding it close to examine it. It was just as she remembered, a literal small version of herself.
"When did you bring it up?" Renica inquired.
"I don't know, maybe hours ago? Anyway, how are you feeling?" Arston asked.
"I'm feeling fine, I guess. Just a bit tired and maybe hungry too."
"You should rest some more. I'll get your lunch," Arston suggested.
"But..."
"Relax, I won't pick anything that I wouldn't eat myself. Are you feeling any different on your neck?"
Renica remained silent for a moment, trying to process the information.
"YOU!!! YOU LIAR!!!! IT HURT SO MUCH!!! I FELT MY NECK BURNING, AND THEN IT SUDDENLY FROZE!!!" Renica shouted in anger.
"Calm down, your highness. Just take a look at your neck, mainly the right side," Arston calmly replied.
"AND WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO SEE MY OWN REFLECTION!?" Renica yelled, still furious.
"Hush, don't yell so much. Your voice is not suitable for shouting around. I prefer your timid voice better," Arston said with a mischievous smile.
Without waiting for a response, Arston manipulated the water vapor in the air, forming a 1 cm thick water curtain measuring 50 cm (1.6 feet) in width and 30 cm (1 foot) in height. He then removed the air pressure surrounding the water curtain, instantly freezing it.
"Look, I don't obsess over my own reflection, so there's no mirror here. Just use this makeshift one," Arston said, presenting the icy mirror to Renica.
Renica cautiously approached the mirror and saw her reflection. It was the familiar girl she knew, but the black marking she had seen for the past ten years had reduced slightly on the right side of her neck.
"How is it?" Arston asked, observing her closely.
"Thank you, Arston," Renica said gratefully.
"No problem. I'll be going down for lunch. Just stay here, alright? I'll be right back."
"Got it," Renica replied.
Arston brought some beef jerky dipped in the same sauce as the morning veggies and a bowl of seasoned rice for Renica's lunch. He repeated the same for dinner, picking foods that he liked and bringing them upstairs for the still-recovering princess.
As the clock struck midnight, Renica, who was forbidden from going downstairs by the sleeping Arston, played with her kitten doll for a while but soon grew bored. She started reminiscing about her few joyful moments from her fourteen years of life when she heard rustling sounds. Initially, she ignored them, but the rustling grew louder and more distinct. She opened her eyes and turned her head toward the source of the sound.
To her surprise, she saw a small figure of herself sitting on top of the bed. It had a pair of long fangs protruding from its mouth, which were not there before. The figure crawled closer to the sleeping Arston's neck, then stopped and looked back at Renica. It blinked its sky-blue eyes once, then opened its mouth, preparing to bite the boy's neck.