Despite Alka’s eagerness to hunt down the divine warrior and challenge him again, it was pretty clear that she needed some time to adjust to her new body. Controlling her new limbs seemed to be a particularly difficult task with their strange new joints to take into account, and at the moment Alka couldn’t do so much as stand without Vin and Shia supporting her.

  After the ritual was deemed a success and Madam Trebella gave them the all clear, their group retreated back to the house they’d been lent, where Scule had promptly passed out practically after walking through the door.

  Remembering how badly the Rogue had been vibrating from holding onto his passive for so long, Vin couldn’t really blame him. If anything, he was impressed Scule had managed to remain conscious long enough to cheer Alka on and retrieve his bag.

  While Scule slept with Reginald curled up around him, Vin and Shia fought back against their own exhaustion to chat with the newborn Slayer after helping her take a seat.

  “How does it feel?” Vin asked, stifling a yawn as he watched Alka continue to open and close her fists, seeming to marvel at actually having physical hands once more.

  “Strangely enough, almost the same as being a ghost,” Alka admitted, utilizing the strange ball joints of the golem to rotate her hand an entire three hundred sixty degrees. “This body clearly wasn’t built with the intention of mimicking a living person, so I still can’t feel anything like hot or cold. I can sense pressure however, meaning I can tell when I’m actually touching something, which is amazing!” Even as she said it, she ran her fingers along the wall of the house, her green eyes flaring as she did so. Alka no longer had a face to express emotions with, but Vin got the distinct impression that the ghost was smiling on the inside.

  “I’m so happy you’re back Alka,” Shia smiled, her eyes still red and puffy from all the crying she’d done after realizing the ritual had been a success. “You’re not allowed to scare us like that ever again, understood?”

  “I’m certainly not intending to die a third time,” Alka snorted, turning to look at them. Her carved, unmoving marble face was a bit strange to look at, but Vin wasn’t about to say anything to ruin the mood. “Honestly, I can’t thank you guys enough for all that you’ve done for me. I’m still blown away at the fact you managed to escape the divine warrior in the first place after I got taken out.”

  “Yeah… We got lucky,” Vin admitted, remembering the lizardman’s insane speed. They’d already filled Alka in on everything that had happened while she’d been out of commission, and the Slayer had agreed almost immediately with Vin and Madam Trebella’s assessment that the divine warrior had to have dumped just about every last attribute point he had into dexterity.

  “The real question is, how are we going to take him down,” Alka mused, flexing her marble fingers as she thought. “We’re almost certainly going to need to set a trap of some sort. But before we worry about any of that, there’s a more important matter we need to take care of.”

  Holding out her hands, the golem’s upper body twisted unnaturally, her legs not moving in the slightest as she turned toward Shia. “Shia, my sword please.”

  Nodding, Shia picked up Blossom and willed the leaves to shift aside, revealing the two pieces of Dancing Leaf. The two small branches securing the sword pieces reached out, gently depositing each one in Alka’s waiting hands.

  The Slayer stared at the two halves of her supposedly indestructible sword, her green eyes flickering as she took them both in. Despite her unmoving face, Vin could tell without a doubt that she was mourning the loss of her most prized possession.

  That sword wasn’t just a weapon. It was a symbol of all she’d worked for and the future she’d intended to bring to the people of her world. After a few seconds of silence, she shook her head, letting her hands drop and placing the pieces lovingly on the bed beside her. Turning to look at the two of them, Alka sighed.

  “I need a new weapon,” she admitted, as if even the words pained her despite her new body’s lack of pain receptors.

  “Alka, don’t you think you should slow down just a bit?” Shia asked, giving her a small smile. “You only just got your new body. Maybe it would be best to just get used to walking around and having a physical form again after all these months before worrying about anything as involved as fighting.”

  “I’m a Slayer, Shia, I can’t not have a weapon,” Alka said, her eyes dimming in what Vin quickly interpreted as the ghost’s new frown. “Me without my weapon is like Scule without Reginald, or Vin without his magic. It’s a part of me, and I honestly feel more naked having a physical body without my sword than I did as a ghost with it.”

  “We can check with Madam Trebella in the morning and see if they have any decent weapons lying around,” Vin offered, trying not to get the Slayer’s hopes up. He hadn’t actually seen any infernals walking around with anything resembling a weapon other than a shovel Agne occasionally used for particularly stubborn roots, but there was always a chance the Witch had a few stored away for whatever reason.

  Vin was a tad hesitant about placing themselves any deeper into the Witch’s debt than they already had, but Alka was right. Seeing her without a weapon just felt wrong after all this time.

  “I suppose I’ll have to settle for some random piece of sharpened iron,” Alka sighed, stroking the wooden grain of her broken sword. “Swords like this don’t just grow on trees, you know.”

  “Alright, if you’re feeling good enough to crack jokes, I’m going to bed,” Vin said, rolling his eyes. “Wake me up whenever the next emergency happens.”

  “No promises,” Alka said, one of the glowing green balls making up her eyes vanishing completely for a second as she tried to wink.

  Shaking his head, Vin couldn’t help but smile as he left Shia and Alka to their conversation, snagging one of the open beds and finally letting his exhaustion overtake him. Within moments of his head hitting the pillow, he was out cold, dreaming of the Goddess pulling him aside and talking with him once more.

  ------

  “What do you mean you don’t have any weapons?” Alka asked, clearly in disbelief. “What kind of village doesn’t have a single weapon?!”

  “If Malzar keeps letting you people in without asking me, the boy’s going to spend the next month sleeping outside,” Madam Trebella frowned, not even bothering to get out of her chair. “I told you, our warriors specialize in hand to hand combat, utilizing our claws to great effect.” As if proving her point, she held up a hand, wiggling her fingers and showing off the wicked claws each one ended in.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “I get that, but come on, you don’t have even a single sword lying around or anything?” Alka asked, throwing her hands up. “You said you had travelers wandering through your village before the divine warrior put a stop to all that. Surely one of them left behind a weapon or something, right?”

  “Would you have left one of your weapons behind?” Madam Treballa asked, dismissing them and going back to her paperwork. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy at the moment leading my entire village. Go check in with our Blacksmith. He’s made plenty of kitchen knives and owns a hammer or two. I’m sure he could make something particularly pointy for you to stab things with if you ask nicely.”

  “Kitchen kn-”

  “We’ll do just that, thanks for the suggestion,” Vin said, cutting off the irate golem and physically dragging Alka out of the room. The fact that he was even able to drag Alka away instead of just hoping the ghost would stay out of trouble was an interesting change. Once they’d left the manor, he sighed, glancing at the grumbling golem.

  “We’re already in enough trouble with Madam Trebella as it is,” Vin said, remembering the open-ended promise he’d made her in order to help with the ritual. Apparently, Alka had made a similar promise back when she’d spoken to the infernal about binding her to something the first time, meaning both of them were dangling from the same hook.

  “I know, but come on. Not a single weapon in the entire village?” Alka repeated, staring at him. “I think she’s just screwing with us.”

  “Well why don’t we go check in with the Blacksmith and find out,” Vin offered. “Even if what she’s saying is true, you could fight with knives for a bit until we can find something better, right? You mentioned that you trained with all sorts of different weapons.”

  “Yeah, I can fight with knives,” Alka sighed, glancing up at some large bees buzzing by overhead. “They aren’t my preferred weapon by a long shot, but they’ll do for the short term.”

  “Great! Then let’s start with that.”

  Ignoring Alka’s continued grumbling, Vin led the two of them over into the village proper. Unlike Shia, he hadn’t spent too much time within the main village just yet, having preferred to relax on the outskirts with Agne and help with her garden the last time they were here.

  Contrary to their appearance due to their half demon heritage, most of the infernals were a fairly reserved people. Few came up to greet them as they looked for the Blacksmith, and most chose to ignore them unless they walked up and asked them a question directly.

  At first, Vin suspected it was because he was a human. He didn’t know much about the infernals or why they were living out here in the middle of the woods, but he’d gathered that it sounded like they were hiding from other people. It wasn’t until he caught a few of the timid whispers that he realized what was really freaking people out.

  Frowning as he picked up another hushed conversation, Vin glanced at the marble golem walking beside him, seemingly oblivious to the fact that people were parting around her like they were a pair of sharks swimming through a school of fish.

  The fact of the matter was that Alka’s new body stood out. The white, marble-like material was hard to miss, and the odd ball joints just added to the golem’s alien nature alongside her unmoving facial features. Add in the fact that she wasn’t even wearing clothes or anything, and Vin wasn’t surprised that she’d quickly become the talk of the town.

  “Alka, do you want to put my cloak on or something?” He asked, watching another infernal point a clawed finger their way. It wasn’t like Alka was indecent or anything, as the golem didn’t have any discernible genitalia and looked neither male nor female. But he figured a good first step would be putting some actual clothes on her new form.

  “Hm?” Alka asked, clearly having been lost in her grumblings about weapons. “Oh yeah, I guess that would make sense.”

  After wrapping his cloak around her, things seemed to quiet down a little bit, and they began to attract less attention. By the time they made it to the Blacksmith, they no longer seemed to be the focal point of everyone’s attention, and some life felt like it had returned to the village.

  To Vin’s surprise, they found an unexpected face standing outside the Blacksmith’s workshop, staring intently at the bright sparks coming off the heated metal with every swing of the infernal’s hammer.

  Stifling a groan, Vin plastered a smile on his face and walked up to their acquaintance as Alka went in to talk to the Blacksmith.

  “Hi there, The One That Paints In Red. What are you up to?”

  Blinking its large eyes, the trogum turned to peer at him, seemingly surprised he knew its name.

  “This one has discovered a new source of red for possible future paintings,” it spoke into Vin’s mind, one of its antennae’s cocking to the side as if it were confused. “What is that one’s name?”

  Ah, right. Quickly putting the runic formation together, Vin silently cast Familiar Pheromones, curious to see how the trogum would react. After staring at him for a few seconds, the trogum’s antennae shot back up, and it blinked once more.

  “The One That Smells!” It exclaimed, earning a sigh from Vin as it remembered him. “This one apologizes for not recognizing The One That Smells at first.”

  “No worries,” Vin said, glancing at the roaring furnace and heated metal. “Hey, I don’t want to upset you or anything, but I don’t think painting with fire is going to work out very well or anything. It’s kinda dangerous.”

  “That is okay. Even if this one cannot paint with the fire, the red feels good to look at,” it said, returning its gaze to the flickering flame. “Is The One That Smells finally ready to bring this one to the sea of red?”

  Mentally cursing, Vin tried to keep a smile on his face as he remembered the promise they’d made the lone trogum after stumbling upon it out in the forest. Before dying, the dwarven brothers had been in the middle of bringing him back to their home located within the center of a volcano. In order to stop it from screaming and get directions to where the divine warrior was, they’d agreed to help it finish its journey.

  “Listen, The One That Paints In Red… I don’t-”

  Alka chose that moment to storm out of the workshop, slamming the Blacksmith’s door behind her. Spotting Vin, she stomped over to him.

  “None of those knives would last five seconds in actual combat,” she growled, shaking her head. “And based on that Blacksmith's limited skill, I’d be better off fighting with a particularly thick stick than anything they could make for me. If I can’t get a real weapon, I need a real smith at the very least.”

  Vin stood there, staring at the angry golem as a sudden thought occurred to him. His gaze flicked between the trogum still staring through the window at the red-hot fire, and the irate Slayer struggling to find a decent weapon. Thinking back to the dwarven journal they’d read, a smile slowly formed on his face.

  “Alka… I think I know where we can find you a weapon.”

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