Father Edwin’s forehead wrinkles smoothed away, his hands crossed over his chest, “Congratulations to Lady Lya on being reborn. We thank the swamp deity for this blessing, and we thank His Majesty for his kindness.”
Lya let go of the hem of the floor-length priest’s robe and quickly copied the priest’s posture, crossing her hands over her chest and nodding her small head vigorously, “Thank you, Your Majesty, and thank you, Knight Commander Alice.”
Chen Yu crouched on Alice’s shoulder, puffing out the small belly that showed no waistline at all.
“Don’t be too happy yet, the gel’s isolation effect isn’t permanent. If you don’t want accidents to find you again, you’d better not stray too far from me.”
Chen Yu’s little mental ledger clicked away.
After all, she was a holy shepherd, and she seemed connected to that Golden Core thing. It would be best to spirit her away from the Sun Church.
Father Edwin understood this inwardly. He bowed slightly, “Although the sun’s radiance has always watched over Lady Lya, she has never truly belonged here. A holy shepherd’s will follows the guidance of the heart. I cannot interfere with her choice.”
His meaning was clear: the church would not forcibly keep Lya. Whether she stayed or left with Chen Yu was entirely her own decision.
Lya did not seem to fully grasp the deeper implication of the priest’s words. Her attention had already been drawn to the faint light filtering down from the stairwell above.
When she finally stepped out through the heavy wooden door at the dungeon entrance and stood again in the Morning Star Church’s prayer hall, winter morning sunlight slanted through several stained-glass windows high above.
The sunlight was warm and generous. It wrapped her thin body in a cozy glow, dispelling the dungeon’s chill.
Lya squinted comfortably, tilting her pale face up slightly and letting the sunlight wash over her. Her expression was exactly like a cat that had found the coziest spot by the hearth, curling up lazily and basking in the sun, completely lost in simple pleasure.
After a long while she slowly opened her eyes, a smile curving her lips as she murmured, “Sunlight, an old friend I haven’t seen in so long.”
Chen Yu also hopped down from Alice’s shoulder and landed on a long wooden bench beside them.
Sunlight fell on his emerald-green gel body as well, making the gel even more crystalline and translucent. Against the church’s relatively dim backdrop, it gave him an unusually sacred appearance.
“Have you recalled anything from before?” he asked.
Lya froze for a moment at the question, then obediently shook her head, “No... my memories are still very fuzzy, like looking through a thick frosted glass.”
“I only saw broken images. There was a huge black dragon flying in the sky, its wings like storm clouds, and a glittering creature I couldn’t see clearly, but it felt warm, like... like you feel now.”
Her gaze fell on Chen Yu, glittering in the sunlight as if she’d seen an overlapping shadow from a memory fragment in him.
A black dragon? A glittering creature?
Olivia, the silver dragon, might know something.
Looks like he’d need to find time to return to Winterhold and ask.
But for now, the priority was to bring this talent into his fold.
“You... once visited a castle, a castle standing outside of time,” he intoned, feigning depth and speaking like one of those charlatan mystic vendors who play with crystal balls in the market.
Lya blinked in confusion and tried to think, her brows furrowing slightly, “A castle... I don’t really remember that. Does Your Majesty know your past?”
He’d taken the bait.
Chen Yu bubbled with delight, wobbling his gel to act like a sage.
“His situation is simple. He wandered through long stretches of time and met your friends. If you stay by his side, perhaps you can help him gradually retrieve those lost memories and learn everything that happened around him.”
Lya’s eyes brightened instantly.
“Really? Wouldn’t that bother you too much?”
This child was far too gullible—kidnapped and still worrying about bothering others, Chen Yu thought.
She was about as dense as Sekashi.
That made the next steps much easier.
He stuck out his little belly and said righteously, “Slimes are not afraid of trouble. We like helping those who truly need it. Lya, the Slime Kingdom welcomes your joining.”
Lya stared at that emerald-green figure in the halo, which seemed to emit warmth and hope, and something ancient in her heart seemed gently touched.
She stood stunned for a moment, then nodded vigorously, her smile radiant, “I like helping people who need help too.”
Father Edwin stood quietly to the side, watching the scene. He sensed the time for parting had come, so he stepped forward and crossed his hands over his chest again.
“Since Lady Lya has made her decision, the sun’s radiance will see you off and continue to shelter your path.”
Lya turned and loosened the robe she had been clutching, extending her arms to embrace the old man who had cared for her so long.
“Edwin, I’ll come back to see you, so don’t die too soon.”
Father Edwin was taken aback for a moment, then laughed hoarsely. His gaunt hand patted the girl’s thin back lightly, “Lady Lya, you jest. Besides a miracle like you who has been blessed by the deity, who truly can escape the fate of death?”
His gaze wandered to the sunlit courtyard outside the church window, where a few hardy holly plants grew and, further away, trellises for vineyards lay covered in snow.
“Perhaps in a few years, when I’m too old to carry the sacred texts or climb the church steps, I’ll lie in a chair in the vineyard and quietly enjoy the afternoon sun, waiting for you to return and visit with those noisy little ones from the orphanage.”
The church ran a small orphanage that sheltered a dozen or so children. The nuns and local worshiping women took turns caring for them.
They were Lya’s friends and often sneaked into the dungeon to visit and play with her.
“You don’t have to linger here. You never truly belonged to this place.”
“Now, with war and cold sweeping across the land and wounds everywhere, your strength is needed. Perhaps that is what the sun desires.”
They spoke low a few more sentences, mostly Father Edwin reminding her of mundane matters of daily life, which Lya listened to earnestly.
When it came time to leave, the priest’s robe proved too cumbersome and kept tripping her, so Alice simply stooped and carried her.
They bid Father Edwin farewell and left the church.
Lya rested her head on Alice’s shoulder and looked back to see the old man standing alone in the doorway’s light, waving slightly before his figure disappeared around a corner.
Outside on the street the sun shone brightly. Snow-covered roofs and icicle-laden eaves, soldiers and townsfolk hurrying past, the distant shouts from the training ground... everything was fresh and wondrous to Lya.
“So much sunlight...” she murmured, her eyes scanning as if they were not enough.
She pointed out a gray stray cat rummaging for food at the corner to Chen Yu; she cupped her ear at the smithy’s hammering sounds; she stared for a long time at a tough little weed pushing through the snow, revealing a bit of green.
She was like a child awakened from a long sleep, full of primal curiosity about the world.
They returned to the command office in Eagle’s Nest Fortress, originally the garrison commander’s quarters but now requisitioned by the Restoration Army.
It was a stone room with a fire burning in the hearth, military maps on the walls, and some captured decorative weapons hanging up.
Chen Yu lay back in a chair, thinking about finding time to return to Winterhold to question Olivia.
After all, she was an ancient dragon who had lived for who knew how many years and had seen much. She might know clues about Lya’s identity.
After Alice set Lya down, the girl was immediately drawn to the window facing the training ground.
She stood on tiptoe, hands gripping the sill, peering outside with curiosity.
On the training ground, a squad of Slime Knights were practicing combat. A few Metal Slimes rode swamp lizards, simulating charges and blocks.
Unafraid of physical injury, their combat style was usually intense. A single collision could send the opponent flying dozens of meters.
When a slime was knocked off and rolled on the ground, it would only wobble dizzily before mounting its steed again and continuing the drill in a loop.
Lya stared intently for a long time, her expression focused as if she could never see enough.
When Alice finished the reports at her desk and noticed Lya’s unusual fixation, she walked over and asked, “What are you looking at? Are those Slime Knights special?”
Hearing the question, Lya slowly turned her head. She blinked like she was forming her words, then said, “Slimes, they’re amazing. They have power hidden inside them, but they haven’t found their path.”
Chen Yu had been crouching by the hearth enjoying the warmth. At Lya’s words he hopped over.
“Their path? What do you think their path is?”
Lya again looked toward the Metal Slimes on the training ground, her brows knitting as though trying to see more clearly.
“The path... has lots of dark bad luck, piled up like mountains in front of them, making people want to sigh—hard to pass.”
“They’re still circling in place. Your Majesty, you’ve already gone so far that I can’t quite see your path anymore.”
Wait.
Could it be that being cursed with bad luck wasn’t entirely bad—maybe it allowed her to sense some kind of fate?
As he thought, his gel body habitually bubbled and burbled, and his mind turned rapidly.
“You mean the path they need to take to grow stronger, the obstacles they must overcome, like trials?”
“You can see these little ones’ trial paths?”
“Trial...” Lya repeated the word, sinking into a brief recollection. A look of dawning understanding crossed her face as she muttered, “I think that’s what they call it. The trials are heavy like dark bad luck, pressing on them, close yet somehow far away.”
“Your Majesty, can’t you see them?” Her tone held puzzlement, as if seeing these things was a perfectly natural ability.
Chen Yu bounced up and said solemnly, “Of course I can see them. I’m just testing your observation. Tell me, what did you see?”
“So that’s it,” Lya said, suddenly understanding. Her simple nature accepted Chen Yu’s words without doubt, and being tested made her take it even more seriously.
She turned her gaze back to the Metal Slimes and stared for a long time. Then, in a hesitant voice, she said, “I saw gold, very heavy and dark, like a mountain.”
“Mithril was glittering but very cold.”
“Copper from the mountains was reddish and flowing, and mercury was slippery and reflective... they were mixed together and also separated.”
Her description became more fluent, though the content grew more bewildering.
“They move like giants, enormous, standing in lava or in very, very hot places.”
Gold, mithril, mountain copper, mercury... living metal? giants? magma?
The description sounded mystical, no wonder oracles and diviners always enjoyed speaking in half-understood riddles—this stuff is hard to explain.
But judging by his sharp comprehension, the Metal Slimes’ Golden Trial appeared related to various metals, especially animated metal creatures.
Perhaps the trial even required going into magma to complete.
Alice, standing nearby, pondered aloud, “Some ancient records do mention that deep in metallic ore veins, elementals or magical creatures with metal bodies can be born.”
“They are called iron golems, mountain-copper guardians... Such creatures are not only rare but usually extremely powerful.”
Chen Yu felt his heart quicken.
All this time, aside from him, the entire Slime race—even the most powerful Metal Slimes—had been stuck at the Silver rank bottleneck.
The Slime race’s ceiling was embarrassingly low.
Although the Slime Kingdom had recently produced new variants like Shadow Slimes and Dragon Slimes, no second slime had yet ascended to Gold-Rank.
For slimes to reach Gold-Rank is much harder than for humans—not only are the trials difficult, but slimes often don’t even know what the trials entail.
If Lya’s vision of the trial path was true, it might become the key to breaking the race’s awkward ceiling.
Find the method to cultivate the first Gold-Rank Metal Slime, and you could map out a viable trial path for the whole species.
Oh no, he might really have struck treasure.
Keeping a calm face, he told Lya, “Very good. Your observation is detailed, and this helps us a lot.”
Then he turned to Alice, “Notify the kingdom’s adventurers. Gather any and all intelligence about active metal creatures and deep ore vein regions.”
Alice immediately acknowledged, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Lya blinked in confusion, not fully grasping just how much her vague description had influenced events.
But she could sense Chen Yu’s happiness, and that made her smile in return.
Chen Yu originally planned to fly them back to Winterhold with a sword ride to test the so-called trial, but Lya wanted to look at the scenery along the way, thinking it might help recover her memories.
With Louisa watching the southern front, he felt safe ordering Alice to prepare a carriage and escorts for the return trip to Winterhold.
At dusk, a closed carriage drawn by two sturdy northern horses, escorted by twenty royal guards, left Eagle’s Nest Fortress heading toward Winterhold.
The wheels creaked over the snow-covered road.
Inside the carriage were thick blankets and a small stove, making it fairly comfortable.
Lya changed into a cotton dress and a warm coat Alice had found for her; the clothes fit her much better.
She leaned against the window, watching the snowy scenery, forests, and occasional villages rushing past, her eyes full of wonder.
These long-missed landscapes stirred something within her; she felt as if she was remembering fragments.
Chen Yu sat on a small padded rack inside the carriage with his eyes closed, resting.
The journey continued in silence punctuated by Lya’s occasional soft exclamations.
Night fell gradually, and the escort lit windproof oil lamps, hanging them on the sides of the carriage. The lamp light threw flickering patches on the snow, like small guiding beacons.
Lya, tired of staring into the darkness, curled back on her seat and wrapped herself more tightly in the blanket.
She stole a glance at Chen Yu on the cushion. The soft glow from that emerald-green gel in the dim carriage made her feel an inexplicable peace.
She asked softly, “Your Majesty... how much longer until we reach Floating Winterhold?”
Chen Yu opened his eyes, “If the road is clear and no blizzard hits, about half a month. Sleep if you’re tired; I’ll wake you when we arrive.”
Lya nodded and obediently closed her eyes.
Perhaps because she was finally away from the dungeon’s oppressive darkness, perhaps because the removal of bad luck had made her feel safe again, or simply because of travel fatigue, she quickly fell asleep.