Niye lead Hirune back to the village and introduced her to them under the name of Siesta.
'Siesta?' Hirune raised an eyebrow at her.
She winked, "I mean, you don't plan to stay here forever but that's not going to stop them from worshipping you while you're here. May as well have an alias."
She nodded and followed after Niye as she showed her around.
Walking here was a bit awkward. The entire village was in the canopy of gigantic trees so they were all connected by rope bridges. These rope bridges having huge gaps in them to save material costs.
"So, I have a couple ideas on how you could leave. I'm not kicking you out of course, but you expressed how badly you wanted to leave as we walked here so I was thinking I should share them now."
Hiru nodded in return.
"Okay, so, what was it? Right! The first way would be for you to speak with the big A and get her to give you access to boats. By the way, the people here can't build boats or their arms will turn to liquid. The second way would be to kill the big A so that you can build boats, but you wan't do that at your level considering I can't do it either. And lastly, I could try to send you to another nearby island with all four winds."
"So why haven't we done that last option already? I could always swim back if it doesn't work."
"Where are you from?"
She raised an eyebrow, "Triste. But what does that have to do with this--"
Niye put her finger on Hiru's lips, "Shh! Because these waters are ten times worse than the Blood Ocean during a storm. They might even be as bad as the Boiling Ocean."
Hirune's eyes widened, "Wait... Isn't the Boiling Ocean the ocean that's rumored to have a witch in it? Wait! she's real?!"
"I mean duh, of course she's real. I'm real, Namulenza's real, Glykos is real, Bourea is real, and so are many others. But she's a special case."
"What's so special about her?"
Niye bit her lip, "Let's see... how do I say this? Alright I'll just say it! She's both a witch and a sea monster. That's why the horrors that can survive the Boiling Ocean don't attack her."
Initially Hirune simply nodded. Then she thought about it for a moment and her eyes sparkled.
"Wait! Do you know how someone could go down the angel route?"
Niye scoffed, "You're hard locked onto the witch path. You can't change that. You'd have to be born under some crazy circumstances to be able to have multiple paths."
She rolled her eyes, "Yeah whatever. Just tell me if you know how."
"Fine, fine! You'd have to do a bunch of good deeds. So many to the point that you're considered a saint for doing it, or one really big good deed. Personally, getting the sub-class of Death Angel is easier purely because it's easier to gently kill someone."
"That's all I needed to know. Thank you," Hirune said before promptly jumping off the rope bridge and landing hard on the ground.
"Dammit! Why won't these damn jaws work!" Hirune yelled with a voice full of pain.
"What are you doing down there?" Niye called to her from the rope bridge.
She tried to devour herself into some shrubs but ended up just covering herself in a thick black goop.
"Since when can you produce oil?" Niye laughed.
She shook her head and ran into the thick forest hoping she'd lose her as she ran. Once again she was attracted in a certain direction, though it couldn't have been the crater because she'd eaten all of the liquid in it.
Not knowing whether she'd run into danger or not, she ran in that direction.
After a lot of running she came across a large cave, the entrance resembling the maw of a wolf. She quickly looked around making sure that the witch hadn't caught up to her and walked in. This was where she was headed.
She still didn't know why she was attracted to these seemingly random places, but at least she got away from the witch.
Sitting down on a suspiciously chair shaped rock she looked around while catching her breath.
There didn't seem to be anything tasty that would bring her here this time. So what was it?
'Whatever', she thought as she sat back in the surprisingly comfortable stone chair and closed her eyes, falling asleep.
Or so she hoped.
No matter how much she tossed and turned she couldn't fall asleep on the cool stone. Not because the stone was rough and rugged no, but because everything that had happened after she and Mr. Comedians had parted ways was catching up to her all at once in this dark, empty, desolate cave.
Her breath got shaky as she closed her eyes tighter and huddled up to the stone as though seeking comfort in it.
"Where could you possibly be now of all times Namulenza! Please come back! I need you... I'm-- I'm all alone on an unknown godsforsaken island and now of all times you decide to go and vanish! That's so unfair!"
"Namulenza? Long time since I've heard that name," a voice echoed in the darkness.
Hirune opened her eyes, a tear escaping her eyelids and racing down her cheek. The tear wanting to get out of here as soon as it could as though it knew who this voice belonged to.
A red flame appeared in the middle of the cave. Now that the cave was dimly lit by the red flame Hirune could sort of make out the figure in the darkness.
They wore dark clothes, one's that nearly blended in with the stalactites around them with two sharp metallic horns sticking out of their outfit to either side of a crown around their collar. This figure also wore a purred cape, making them more difficult to identify.
The only clear thing about them was their bright red eyes staring right at her with an unsettling glee in them.
Hirune quickly composed herself and sat up straight, "Who are you?"
The figure stood up without moving their arms, constantly keeping them behind their back.
"I'm sure you've already heard my name at least once before."
"I didn't ask for a riddle I asked for a name."
"What if my name was Riddler or Sphinx?"
"You're not amusing. Spit it out."
A dark essence suddenly came out of the stone throne and strapped Hirune tightly to it.
"And how do you plan to do that when you can't use those precious jaws of yours?"
The figure said stepping into the light. A wide grin was planted on their face and their silvery gray hair greatly contrasted the light in their eyes.
"How old are you that you have gray hairs? A full head of them at that."
"And you were talking about giving you names when you can barely stay on topic. Also, I'm not old! I'll have you know I'm at a fine and divine 21,982! Would an old lady have these curves?"
She struck a pose, which allowed Hirune to see that this mysterius lady was handcuffed. And with handcuffs of the same material as the horns on her outfit at that.
"I'll let you know that's older than most. But you're right we're off topic. Again, who are you?"
"I'm weeping! Surely you jest," she said putting the back of her hand on her face and leaning back aggressively.
"I'm not jesting feudal lady. Who are you? This is the fourth time I've asked."
"Good at keeping track of things. You'd make a great secretary-- Ahem! Sorry, I'm Axia, I'm a little butt hurt Namulenza never spoke to you of me, AKA her trusly L.S.W.A (living shift weapon artifact)! Also you surely jest again, medieval times and the feudal system came more than 570 sumthin' thousand years before me."
""570 sumthin'--", That's just great you know. Doesn't change that you're a hag I've only heard of in name. Which came out of a witch that wasn't Namulenza."
Axia sighed, her mood going from friendly to harsh on a whim.
"Alright greenhorn let's get this over with now. You're going to be allowed to leave this island once you've earned yourself the ability to weild me. Unless you can do that I won't let you off this island."
"And why do you want me to be able to weild you?" Hirune asked scowling.
"Get that scowl off you're face it'll stay stuck like that," Axia warned before getting all friendly again. "Oh, ya' know! I just really wanna get off this island but I'm kind of stuck here until someone worthy of using me finds me."
"Why me though?"
"Because I can only answer to those with the devourer's essence."
"And how would I benefit from having you?" Hirune yawned.
"Did you just seriously ask that?!" Axia yelled, a perplexed expression molded onto her face.
"Don't seem too perplexed, it'll stick to your face," Hirune mocked.
Axia sighed, "I'm practically *the* legendary weapon! Also you couldn't even beat Glykos with all of Namulenza's strength and Glykos is the weakest witch in history meanwhile Namulenza is the strongest. You suck at this witch stuff so badly I had to remotely take control of your body to save you by the skin."
"Mhm, save me by the skin," Hirune just nodded and tried to force herself out of her restraints.
"Okay you still got killed because of me but at least Glykos was dealt with. Ellen shouldn't be a problem for you since she's your friend and all."
Hirune furrowed her eyebrows coming to a sudden realization, "Wait are you the reason why Ellen killed me?"
Axia took a deep breath and sighed, "You're usually more intuitive than this but I guess we all have to take a moment and be slow every once in a while."