The Developer Reborn As Archmage

Darya let Sarka handle the explanation because she was too tired. Seris healed her wounded knuckles while the mermaid watched everything, leaning back with a dizzy look on her face. Seris had spent most of her mana fixing everything wrong with her, but there was nothing to be done about the shock.

“…So, that’s what happened!” Seris clapped at some point during Sarka’s meticulously narrated story. “I almost had a heart attack!”

“Sorry about that, Seris, things happened fast once I jumped off the railing,” Darya said, patting her warm cheek. “Now we need to find a way out of this.”

Darya stood, gathering the lower half of her tattered outfit. The dress wasn’t made for combat, and she hadn’t slowed down enough to notice the damage.

“For all intents and purposes, we are trapped yet again!” Sarka said dismally. “How do we get out of this room without facing the orc’s guards?”

“What if they come in right now?” Seris asked, looking at the door.

Darya rolled her lips. The exit plan was up to her, and there was something that everyone was forgetting. Seris was correct, however. Darya hadn’t thought about the door yet. Drakva had other female servants and guards who would be very interested in getting on his good side now that they saw him injured and weakened.

“Seris, barricade the door for now. Do you have a spell for that?”

“I can bind it, but it’s a timed spell. Needs to be refreshed every ten minutes,” Seris said, taking out her wand.

“Do it. You’re in charge of the door. If anyone knocks, talk like one of the girls,” Darya said, gesturing at both lying on the ground.

“We can’t barricade ourselves in here forever, princess!” Sarka pointed out. “I can’t detect any other exit.”

“There has to be one. Someone like Drakva won’t design a room without an escape for himself.” Darya looked suspiciously at the hearth.

Couldn’t be that obvious, could it?

“How do we find it?” Seris asked. “Scanning spell? I’d have to look in a grimoire.”

“No need for that. I can do it,” Darya said confidently.

“Really?” Seris asked, beginning to wave her wand. Green mana burst from her forearm, twisting into vines. She flicked it at the door, and roots grew from the sides of the wall, penetrating the wooden door. “How?” she asked, moving to the door.

“Resurrection things,” Darya said. “Anyways. The exit won’t be a problem. There is something else you’re both forgetting.”

“Huh?”

“The Seer!” Darya said. The mermaid lifted her head, eyes widening. Darya ignored her for a moment. “Sarka, you forgot all about him. Things would’ve been easier if you had told the guards to bring him here as well. I guess we forgot to discuss that in the rush, and we didn’t even know if he’d be a prisoner.”

Sarka went quiet for a moment. He let out a few gasps, quickly assessing the situation now because of the missing Seer. “Princess, I will hang myself!” Sarka yelled. “I don’t—I guess I assumed it was more characteristic of the malignant orc to torture women in his chamber, and I only thought about you three when I was acting like him!” ‘

He really hates orcs!. Maybe because White Grove was a hotspot for invasions.

“No need to hang yourself over this,” Darya scoffed, patting her finger as if Sarka would feel it. “You were bleeding out. You weren’t even fully soul-merged. It’s just a mistake.”

“I can’t believe it. If the Seer were here, we could just be out of this room in peace!”

“No use talking about it now,” Darya said, clicking her tongue. She could phase through the dungeon to free the Seer just fine, but taking him out of the same tunnels where Drakva’s guards roam was another story.

“We’ll figure this out. For now, keep the door closed. I have to do something,” Darya said, looking around.

“Something dangerous?” Seris asked suspiciously. “Please don’t leave on your own again, princess!”

“Of course I won’t leave. Look at where we are. Remember when I said I’ll solve the money problem?” Darya asked with a grin, waving her hand at everything in Drakva’s room.

“By the light, I didn’t even look,” Seris gasped. She looked around as if this was her first time noticing where exactly they were.

Darya turned to the mermaid girl, paying her direct attention for the first time since she was healed.

“You, come with me. We'll do this together,” she said, extending her hand. The mermaid nodded, struggling to lean forward on her folded tail. Seris had laid her on her back. She had to turn around, reverse herself like a truck.

Mermaid problems on land. Guess I never thought about that.

She seemed to struggle with her own weight on her scrawny arms. Darya grabbed her around the waist and lifted her like a side pillow and carried her to the bed.

“M-missy, how are we going to escape?” she asked, crawling on her elbows.

“Of course. In case you didn't understand, this was part of my plan,” Darya said, patting her shoulder. The girl had a weird accent. It was in the ‘s’ sounds when she said ‘Missy’ each time.

“Master Lam part of your plans too?” she asked, gathering her hands to her stomach, sitting on her folded tail again.

“Yes. I need him for something important. Don't worry. We'll figure something out for him.”

“H-he came after me. We can't leave him, M-missy. Please can you promise?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.

“I can't, because I don't know how anything is going to play out,” Darya said bluntly. She wasn't a fan of lying to children, especially when it came to ones this big. It was hard to see the mermaid of this size as a child, even if she was. “But, like I said. I need him. So I'll do everything I can to get him before we leave.”

Darya crouched next to Drakva's extravagant bedside cabinet and began going through the items.

“What's your actual name and age? I never got to ask you.”

“Nerima, Missy. That's it. My brother and I don’t have family names. I’m thirteen soon!” she said, scratching her head uncomfortably.

Ah. So Sarka guessed the age pretty well.

“Nerima. Good. I’ll remember it,” Darya said with a smile.

“I-I don’t know your names, Missy,” Nerima replied, averting her eyes.

Darya cleared her throat. “I’m Darya Altazark. Princess of Karossa. The elf lady is Seris. A mage from Rhakali, and this is Magus Sarka from Goliante. He put himself in this ring a hundred twenty years ago.”

Nerima looked as if she had been hit with a bat. She blinked several times, head alternating between Darya, Seris, and the ring. “A-A princess from Karossa! All mother! I-I thought it was weird, and-and two high mages!”

She gulped, clutching the rags to her chest. “Wh-what d—how did Lurim? huh?” She gave up trying to ask the question halfway through.

“Like I said. We wanted to find a Merfolk Seer. Now we’re here because of your brother. Nothing else to it,” Darya said, grabbing a wooden box tucked deep in the cabinet.

“I can’t believe this!” Nerima swallowed hard. “P-princess, I’m sorry. I’ve been calling you Missy! I was disrespectful!”

“Don’t worry about it, Nerima,” Darya scoffed as she opened the box. “I’m trying to be a pirate these days. Call me captain if you want.”

“P-pirate?!” Nerima clutched her rags with a yelp. 

“Oh, I forgot you hate them. I mean, I’ll be better pirates than the RCMF. Like we take what we want type of pirates!”

“Th-they say my father was a pirate, old world. Wh-when the merfolk had a kingdom,” Nerima said, nodding eagerly. “He liked land folk’s ships!”

“Oh. Interesting. Did you ever meet him?”

“No,” Nerima said, looking down. “Only mother. Only until Lurim was born. We had to escape with master Lam.”

“Why is that?” Darya sifted through a thin layer of red fabric in the box.

“We weren’t safe with the Enarem anymore. Mother was related to the old kings, very distant, though. They didn’t like it when Lurim was born. Old royal blood and stuff…” Nerima said sheepishly.

Darya pulled out a decorative glass bottle with vibrant orange liquid. It had to be liquor or a potion.

[Inspect]

Item: Sunfire Bourbon

Category: Beverages/Liquor

Weight: 0.2 lbs

Worth: 1,290 Gold

Effect: +20 RES

Grants passive immunity to cold and related status effects.

Something Nerima said didn’t add up. Darya narrowed her eyes as she slowly twisted the gold-decorated cork. “Wait. You never met your father? But your mother had Lurim? How?”

“No one knows,” Nerima said with an uncomfortable smile. “Didn’t tell me. Or master Lam. Enarem banished her to Water Pillars for it. We had to leave because they were going to kill Lurim.”

“Very interesting,” Darya said, sniffing the fumes from the most expensive bottle of alcohol that she had found in Vainfall so far. She tipped a little bit onto her tongue. It was nothing like anything she had ever drunk on earth. The liquid momentarily numbed her tongue as the heat scattered through her veins. She felt fire on her fingertips, tear glands, and even on the soles of her feet.

“Whoa!” she said, corking the bottle. “Definitely taking that. Good gift for Fom, and me!” she said, rubbing her lips as the heat slowly dissipated.

Nerima looked at her, bewildered. “P-princesses drink fire water?” she asked curiously.

“Well, it’s just fire and water; there are no laws against it,” Darya laughed, tossing the carefully closed box at the bed. She moved on from the cabinet towards the nearest closet.

“Mis—Sorry, princess! You want me to help you with these things. What should I do?” Nerima asked, carefully setting the box upright.

“We’ll do this much faster. You stay there. I'll throw things into the bed. You pick the valuable things that we can carry,” Darya opened the closet. “What the!”

The closet was full of red dresses.

What kind of workplace relationship did the orc have with his girls? a harem? Or was he crossdressing in secret?

It was too late to answer those questions now. Drakva was dead in a puddle on the floor.

“Nerima, there’s a good dress if you want something better,” Darya said, tossing one of the dresses with a modest neckline onto the bed.

Nerima grabbed the dress with a sparkle in her eye. She touched the soft fabric and looked at the mossy, dirt-stained rags that she had on her shoulders. She looked around cautiously. Her eyes fell on Darya’s ring. “Man in the room, princess. I-ll—”

“Sarka, I’ll put you back on in a minute,” Darya said, grabbing the ring.

“Yes, princess. Whatever makes princess Nerima comfortable.”

“P-princess me?!” Nerima exclaimed as if this were a grave crime. “I’m no better than a fish!”

“Well, you do have royal blood. Mermaid princess sounds better than fish girl. Now you have a dress to match,” Darya said, putting the soulstone ring on the bed. “There. Magus Sarka goes to sleep inside the ring if he’s not on someone’s finger.”

“I-see!” Nerima watched the clouds swirling inside the soulstone freeze, and Sarka’s purple mana grew dimmer.

Darya took the red dress and prepared it as Nerima twisted on the bed, trying to pull the blackened rags off her. Circling the bed to get behind her, Darya helped her put her arms through the holes and tightened the laces on the spine.

“There you go. Feels better, right?” Darya asked, adjusting the frills down her waist.

“Yes!” Nerima looked down at herself with a smile for the first time. “Y-you’re a good lady, princess,” she said, her eyes turning glossy with tears.

Oh crap. Did I make her cry? What do I do?

Darya hadn’t intended to be a ‘good lady’. She hadn’t even thought about what a soft dress might mean to someone who had been wearing fishy rags for weeks.

Nerima grabbed her hand and rubbed her forehead against her arm. Her movements were soft, and she had her eyes closed.

This must be how Enarem expresses gratitude or something?. What am I supposed to do, though? Bump her arm with my head?

“Do you um, accept hugs?” Darya asked.

“Sirens only embrace humans when they lure them, princess! It’s not showing love,” Nerima said with a smile, tears rolling down her cheek.

“Ah, makes sense actually,” Darya said, squeezing her shoulder warmly. “We can work on normal hugs later. Wipe those tears.”

Darya put the ring back on her finger and returned to the closet, gathering some suspiciously expensive-looking wooden boxes to dump on the bed.

“I feel bad about not telling you something. If-if you—I thought you’d not save master Lam, if you knew,” Nerima said out of nowhere.

“You don’t have to tell anything you don’t want to,” Darya said over her shoulder.

“I feel bad, princess. You’re kind to me. You saved me and I—”

Darya tossed three boxes at the bed while Nerima gathered herself. She didn’t respond because she would’ve been lying if she said she wasn’t interested in knowing a secret.

Well, why stop her if she wants to?

“I’m a Seer too,” Nerima said, looking up at Darya with her teary eyes.

“What?!” Sarka’s surprised yelp made both Darya and Nerima jump.

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