As expected of the eldest brother, Erin quickly regained his composure and strode towards Ciel, dumping the pile of firewood next to the campfire.
"Ciel, it's fine if you don't drain the blood and remove the innards, but even if you're hungry, you should at least cook it first…"
Like a cat caught stealing fish, Ciel flinched, dropping the bird.
"No! This is not what it looks like!"
\Cici, at least wipe the blood off your face before you deny it.\
Damn, even his sister was here now.
"No! I just felt something flow and my instincts told me to bite it!"
His flustered explanation was only met with worried gazes.
\...Did your rebirth scramble your brain even more?\
Erin frowned, grabbing Ciel's shoulders and spinning him around to check for any abnormalities.
"He's not running a fever…wait, what's this?"
He poked the back of Ciel's neck.
"What's what?"
Ciel touched the back of his neck.
He could feel a soft, feathery feeling protruding from the hair behind his ears.
He rubbed it.
"Eh?"
The soft, medium length white hair at his nape rapidly lengthened…no, those weren't strands of hair, but pure white avian feathers.
Translucent feathers drooped behind his head, swaying gently in the wind like a loose strand of hair.
Ciel grabbed the feathers, feeling them carefully—apart from being see-through, they were no different than a bird's feathers.
"What's happening? Was the bird poisonous?"
Theresa circled him carefully, thinking. The feathers didn't seem to adhere to a bone structure, but although delicate looking, they seemed to form the shape of two folded wings.
\Cici, try moving them.\
'Move them?'
Ciel arched his neck.
No reaction.
He tried again.
Looking at her brother, Theresa only saw a bobblehead violently twisting its neck.
Unable to take it anymore, Erin grabbed Ciel's neck.
"Maybe try something else?"
Ciel thought for a moment. Something else other than physical movements…
The warm feeling that had first appeared when he drank the blood was gone, but he tried circulating his mana.
"!"
The feathers twitched, lifting up to display their actual form—two pointed wings, with long tapered feathers at the tips.
Ciel flapped them a few times, inverting them back and forth—something a normal bird's wings would have to break to do.
"They're boneless, and seem to be formed entirely out of my mana."
\...If I recall, your biological mother, she was a fairy, wasn't she.\
The three fell silent.
Fairies were humanoid beings birthed from pure, natural mana sources that gained consciousness over long periods of time. Apart from their stunning appearances, what set them apart from other species other than their natural talent in manipulating the mana attribute they were birthed from was their sharp, pointed ears, and the fact that they always had wings sprouting from a part of their body, acting as a storage container for a fairy's attribute.
Just like Ciel now.
"So, it seems I'm sprouting wings because I absorbed enough mana from blood."
Well, his main attribute was blood after all.
Ciel concluded.
"So, how do I make them disappear?"
It was said that fairies could hide their wings at will. However, it was also said that they were born with them. Unfortunately, Ciel was a hybrid who just sprouted his wings by accident, and could do neither.
\What if you try folding them around your head and cover it with your hair?\
The wings quivered, before wrapping around Ciel's head like a circlet that only covered half of his head. After adjusting some hair, the pure white feathers blended in perfectly with his head.
\Perfect! You won't be able to dye your hair anymore though.\
"It's fine, I wasn't planning to anyway."
Ciel picked up the bird again, perking up.
"So… from now on, I'll be in charge of draining the blood before eating, ok?"
Facing his intentionally rounded blue eyes, no one could disagree.
…
Excluding that small hiccup, the trio's journey was quite leisurely, with barely any demons appearing—and the ones that appeared were weak, dying to Ciel's newest form of attack.
Biting.
With a troubled gaze, Erin looked at his family's youngest sitting on a rock, sucking on a black deer with abnormally large horns.
"Is this really ok?"
\You say that, but weren't you the one who killed the demon for him in the first place?\
"But… that's a demon. Aren't demons supposed to be contaminated? Is it healthy for a fairy to eat filthy mana?"
\Wasn't he able to purify the miasma in the volcano? I'm sure he'll be fine. In fact, he looks healthier.\
It was true, in a short span, Ciel had grown several centimeters, and even his hair and skin glowed with a pearly luster.
He was only slightly shorter than Erin now.
But…
Theresa looked at his bloody face.
\Cici, go wipe your face. You look like a cannibal who just murdered someone.\
"And you would know what that looks like."
\What?\
Ciel jumped up, handing the drained deer to Erin to process.
"Here's dinner. See you later! I'm going to take a bath, so don't follow me!"
He then quickly hopped cheerfully towards the stream they had been following, ignoring Theresa's angry shouts behind him.
Following the path behind some bushes, he stopped.
There was a suspiciously robed person squatting down beside the water, refilling their bottle.
Just as his gaze landed on the person, they turned around instantly.
"Ah!"
It was as if the person had just encountered a figure from their imagination, covering their mouth in shock and pointing at Ciel while shouting. Ciel, staring blankly at the finger pointed toward him, squinted his eyes and stared back.
"Hello?"
The face seemed almost familiar, yet it was hard to place.
"Ah, apologies. I didn't mean to point… do you remember me?"
"I'm trying."
Incensed, Beelzebub directly pulled down his hood, revealing his dirty blonde hair, pink eyes flashing.
"You don't remember me? After all you've done to me?"
Ah!
It was this cultist!
To his defense, it had been a while since they'd met—and Beelzebub had only revealed his actual face for a fraction of a second before Ciel had been dragged away.
Beelzebub spat angrily.
"I thought you guys would've died from the volcano. Well, this is better."
As a bow materialized into his hands, Ciel slowly backed away.
"Um, how about we talk this out? And to be fair, shouldn't I be the angry one here?"
"Because of you, I was scolded by the boss! And I was punished to reflect here! I haven't seen my brother in months!"
Learning from experience, Ciel didn't turn his back to Beelzebub again, instead, he decisively lunged forward.
Chomp.
"Ah! You crazy son of a b*tch!"
Unable to deploy his blood in time without any open wounds, Ciel had chosen the most primitive but most effective method of attack: Biting.
Though Beelzebub looked like a friendly neighborhood older brother, he had arm muscles befitting an archer, and like a ragdoll, Ciel was easily swung around in the air.
Not that it made him loosen his grip.
Although his body was wildly swinging around in the air, Ciel's thoughts were quite idle. After all, an archer can't shoot an arrow with one hand, and while he was a master mage, he was a non-combat operative focusing in ranged and covert operations, and his magic was only strong in concealment.
Though the novel was quite unreliable, this part had been proven by their past encounters.
Mm. However, his blood tasted quite rich, was it because he was a master mage?
"Ah f*ck! How are you drinking my mana?"
Feeling the mana in his body seep away, Beelzebub quickly slammed his arm into the ground, causing Ciel to loosen his grip, flipping neatly a few feet away.
Wiping his already dirty face, Ciel laughed.
"You know, you could've just punched me off."
Beelzebub humphed, touching his arm and wincing at the pain.
"It's common sense not to touch mangy strays. What if you have a disease?"
With a blood covered mouth, Ciel grinned, showing his sharp canines.
"Well, this mangy stray just bit you. You better check if you have rabies now~"
Beelzebub shivered, but his hands went to his bow.
"Crazy kid, go to hell!"
Biting his newly healed fingers, Ciel quickly turned around and ran sideways, in the opposite direction of his campsite.
He wasn't as weak as before.
Blood threads shot behind him, wrapping around the trees and shrubs on the ground before disappearing from sight.
"Not trying to catch me alive now?"
"My brother can work with dead people too!"
Ciel narrowly dodged a few arrows, tumbling around in an embarrassed manner. The good thing was that Beelzebub didn't seem to be well-versed in forest terrain either, and he was quickly lost among the thick foliage. Sweating quietly from the physical exertion, Ciel looked around, feeling strange.
'Doesn't Beelzebub usually travel with Mammon's specialized close combat puppets? Even if he's being punished, he shouldn't be left alone so easily…'
Ting.
He felt his blood threads wrap around something.
Sure enough, several stagnant mana presences appeared around him—a group of puppets had quietly surrounded him from above.
Behind them, Beelzebub smirked, the setting sun casting a warm glow on his dirty blonde hair.
"You sure ran fast."
"Well, so did you."
As a puppet leaped forward with a sword in hand, Ciel nimbly dodged to the side.
Mobilizing his threads, the sword wielding puppet froze. Spiderweb-like cracks formed around its limbs, however, paying them no attention, it continued to strain itself against the threads.
Seeing this, Ciel quietly took out his gun, focusing his mana into the resilience of his threads.
Tsk. What were these things made of? A normal human would've been cut to pieces by now!
"Damn. Aren't you ashamed of ganging up on a kid?"
Beelzebub flinched.
Well, it was indeed embarrassing. Here he was, a noble cardinal, mobilizing five Bishop level combat operatives to catch a kid that barely looked ten years old.
His brother had spent a long time gathering the materials to make those new puppets, and now one of them was already cracked!
Ciel smiled, a hint of coldness appearing on his harmless face.
This guy was still as easy to distract as ever.
Today was a good day—an isolated location, with only the two of them in the area.
It was a good day to get rid of a cultist early.
Behind him, thin strands of red loomed ominously on the ground, like snakes—but before they could strike, another voice rang out.
"Well, it is really embarrassing."
Ciel flinched, turning around, eyes wide.
His threads had already covered the area, how did another one get in?
The speaker was a lazy looking teenager, with curly platinum blonde hair—almost white, contrasting to his droopy pitch black eyes.
He didn't recognize this person.
Behind the teenager, Erin ran out. His eyes swept over Ciel's injuries, narrowing.
"Ciel."
Ciel was picked up and placed on his feet, and hearing the worry in his brother's voice, he scratched his head. Behind his back, his hand silently flicked the gun back into his ring.
"It's fine, most are minor injuries."
It was late summer, but due to the fact that he was always hanging around Azar, a moving air conditioner, when he had been carried away, he was wearing long sleeves, which were now torn from all the roughhousing, and he could see scratches here and there on his arms and legs.
Well, with his attribute, even if he had a hole through his stomach, he would be fine.
Though, it was a pity the clothes from Lanae were ruined.
Beside him, the two outsiders continued talking.
"Six adults, and judging from your attire, you all seem to be in some sort of shady business here. May I ask why you're chasing a kid? Did he discover some sort of secret you can't reveal?"
Beelzebub paused, thinking for a while.
It seems…not?
Well, he was placed here to reflect didn't he? He wasn't supposed to do anything right now.
But this kid did release all his captives…
But boss had told him they were going to halt operations here anyway…
Wait no.
He snapped back to attention.
"He bit me!"
Ciel didn't miss a beat.
"And you shot through my knees!"
Watching the two fight like kindergarteners, the teenager held up his hands.
"Just flesh wounds, and you both have harmed and been harmed, how about we call a truce? I'm sure people like you have better things to do."
Beelzebub: uh, actually..
His current status: *Grounded with nothing to do*
Ciel looked at his brother, who had crossed his arms and was currently staring Beelzebub down with a dead-eyed gaze.
Well, with Erin here, he probably couldn't get rid of this guy today.
Ciel looked up, the hostility wiped from his face.
"How about this? Today I'll tell you something fun to pass the time, and next time, I'll tell you something better?"
Distracted, Beelzebub tilted his head.
Well, he didn't have strict orders to catch this kid, so things were negotiable…
"That depends on what you tell me."
Ciel smiled.
Truce established.
Watching Beelzebub and his team back off happily into the woods, Erin still felt a sense of disillusion.
The cultists were driven away so easily?
No, what did Ciel tell him?
Ignoring his brother's curious stare, Ciel smiled, winking.
I'll tell you later.
Theresa, who had heard the entire thing, opened her mouth gleefully.
\He said—\
Ciel quickly brushed the dirt off his clothes and stood next to Erin, loudly interrupting the snitch.
"Thank you for helping us! May I ask your name?"
The boy smiled brightly.
"My name is Alex!"
Mini Theater:
Ciel: Didn't you say talking things out only happen when two people are equal? Why the sudden conscience?
(Refer back to chapter 20)
Beelzebub: …
Alex: Smiling.jpg