Surrounded by all these expectant Fairies, Michael did as Vivi asked and told them all about the Nation of Reborn. First of all, he told them that it was located deep in the South of Kings region, in the infamous Parched Lands.
Gasps sounded out through the Fairies.
"Really?! How is it possible to live in a desert?!"
"Is that true? And there's thousands of people living there?"
Vivi and her five other Fairies nodded furiously, remembering the memories that they saw when they consumed the emotions of the merchants.
"We saw it! Demi-humans and humans living together in a fantastic city, with buildings of metal rising up!"
"There's lights in all these buildings even at night! It's like the stars descended down to this desert."
"Shush everyone! I want to hear more," Vivi said, obediently sitting down in a lotus pose. "Tell us more, Mr. Reborn. Are there really beasts of metal zooming at speeds faster than horses?"
"That's not possible!"
"How could that be?!"
The other Fairies simply couldn't believe such things. Lifeless metals shouldn't be moving at all, much less speeding faster than a horse!
"They're called automobiles and…"
Michael continued telling them all about the Nation of Reborn, and slowly but surely, the entire village of the Fairies sat down in front of Michael and listened to his stories as if they were watching a movie.
This was perhaps the first time that any of them would be interacting with a human face to face. After all, they only knew about human culture through consuming their emotions,
Not only that, but the unique circumstance of Reborn greatly piqued the interests of the Fairies, with gasps and exhales of surprises coming out of their mouths periodically, especially during the part when Michael told them about their cooperation with the Dwarven Kingdom.
"You're friends with those dwarves?!"
"We haven't seen them even from memory! We only know about them through our books."
The only species that were more isolated than the Fairies were none other than those Dwarves. The fact that Michael became allied with them was a feat that was even more impressive than him defeating the Mushroom King.
Speaking of the monster, the Mushroom King was also silently hiding behind the tree and listening to his stories.
"See guys?!" Vivi said, addressing the entirety of the Fairy village. "Reborn is able to give people such new and novel emotions that we have yet to taste!"
"I can see how people have large amounts of emotion for Reborn!"
"I want to see it for myself!"
Michael found his opening. The reason why he wanted to talk with the Fairy in the first place was because he wanted their permission to construct the Golden Road.
With their powers and their mastery over this pocket dimension, he could see them making the construction project ten times harder than normal. So, it was imperative he got their assistance, or at the very least their approval.
"Why not just go see it for yourselves?" he asked them. "I'm building a Golden Road that will connect this forest to the Nation of Reborn. It will only take less than a month of travel—even less if you use our automobiles and our trains!"
The Fairies were not the adventurous types. In their entire history, they had always stayed in the comfort of their own pocket dimension where they were the most secure.
However, the prospect of seeing the Nation of Reborn for themselves was at the very least, a tempting idea to do at least once in their life.
"No thanks," Vivi said, turning her head away. "But…this road of yours is very interesting. It means that people will travel more to this forest right? Then this means that there's more emotions for us to consume! Yehey!"
The other Fairies realized the side effect of Michael's Golden Road and started to thank him for this gift.
"More humans? Hooray!"
"Maybe I'll taste the emotions of a Rebornian to see how they feel!"
"Me as well. Mr. Reborn, you wouldn't mind, right?"
The Fairies looked up at him in anticipation.
"Before I answer that, how and why do you consume emotions from humans?"
Vivi showed an exhausted expression. She was clearly impatient and wanted Michael's answer immediately. Unfortunately for her, Michael wasn't going to agree to something he didn't understand.
"While you humans consume food to create energy, we Fairies consume emotions, plain and simple," Vivi answered.
"What happens to your targets? Do they lose anything? Does it hurt them?"
"No," Vivi said. Even the other Fairies immediately refuted Michael's assumption.
"That would be barbaric! We're not monsters!"
"We only consume emotions and nothing else. It doesn't hurt humans or else they would have hunted us down."
"They don't even know we consumed their emotions."
Michael was very glad to hear that. These tiny and cute creatures would immediately turn into a horrifying monster in Michael's eyes if it turned out that they were somehow eating a part of a human's brain as they consumed their emotions.
And according to ChatJK4, they were telling the truth.
[There is no recorded instance of a human getting hurt by a Fairy's consumption of emotion.]
"So, this means that you won't disturb our construction work, right?"
Vivi nodded. "Of course, Mr. Reborn! From now on, our Fairies won't touch your people working in the forest!"
"Can you really make this decision without Virian?"
The elderly Fairy looked to be the leader of this whole village. It would be rude if she weren't aware of this new cooperation between them and Reborn.
"Pshh," Vivi dismissed. "She's just an old Fairy. We don't need her permission, right guys?"
Michael wasn't inclined to believe Vivi, but the rest of the Fairies nodded their heads to corroborate her words.
"So, do we have a deal?" Vivi asked, flying over to Michael's hand to shake it prematurely.
"Wait," he said, taking his hand back. "I have one more condition: you'll have to stop helping the Bastard Bandits."
Upon hearing this, Vivi showed a look of complete and utter betrayal. She fell on her knees and despaired on the ground.
"It's as if you're asking us to sever our arms and our wings. We can't do that!" she said to Michael.
"Why is it so important that you guys cooperate with the Bandits?"
"Fear!" Vivi proclaimed. "The feeling of almost dying, the feeling of dread as a monster stalks behind you…those are the feelings that give us most life! We cannot function without it, and the Bandits give that feeling to travellers all the time! They're an easy way for us to eat sustenance!"
Even the rest of the Fairies nodded their heads in agreement. They explained to Michael that Fear was like meat for humans. It gave the most benefit to their physical bodies, making it essential to their everyday diet.
Those that do not consume Fear would find their strength and their magic slowly depleted over time.
Now, this was a problem for Michael. At first, he thought that just any strong emotion would be enough for the Fairies. But unfortunately, they needed to consume the feeling of near death, which only the Bandits could give them freely.
"We won't get rid of the Bandits. Nu uh! No way!" Vivi said, crossing her arms.
"What if I built you a rollercoaster?"