The Homunculus Alice Darkrin
𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗿𝗶𝗻
I woke up from my 2-hour sleep, and myself a cup of coffee filled with liquid mana before going to my lab. A memory flashed in my mind about the two mysterious figures and a great fiery bird standing before me.
It was a rainy night, deep in the mountains with only the only light coming from a great fiery bird, a man, dressed in a white lab coat, spoke to the fiery being. "Please oh great phoenix, we beg of you to revive our child." The man proclaims before a deep yet magnificent voice responds to his plea. """"""I can, however, the natural order will be disrupted because of this so your lives shall be taken in exchange...are you able to pay such an exchange?"""""" The great phoenix questioned the two humans, dressed in white lab coats.
Without hesitation, they both speak while holding each other's hands. "Even at the cost of our lives." My father bravely responded and my mother bravely begged the great phoenix. "We beg of you please."
After a pause, the phoenix accepts their response, giving them two warm and brightly-colored feathers. """""".....so be it, take my feathers and use them as material for a summoning ritual however she will need a new body to use as a vessel, so use your bodies to exchange it for her own before your soul leaves it and as for your child, I commend you for managing to capture her soul before disappearing, however, I can feel her fading as time goes by, now go."""""" The phoenix said, urging them to leave quickly.
The figure of my parents looked at the phoenix with resolution. ""We will do it."" They both said however my mother asked a question before leaving. "But oh great phoenix, what is the cost for you to give such valuable feathers?"
The phoenix speaks again. "I am just a being who threads the line between being part of the natural order and defying it, and I am an intelligent being of this world as such I possess emotion, one of which being kindness and pity, do not take it more than that." The phoenix said kindly.
"I see, we thank you, oh great phoenix." The two hurriedly left, and soon they arrived at our home and rushed through our messy laboratory before setting up a massive magic circle, full of foreign letters.
A spirit form of my body tries to stop them but to no avail. I was a small transparent child, desperate to stop them but I was ignored.
And soon the time arrived. The couple threw one of the Phoenix's feathers into the middle of the magic circle while they placed themselves in the two outer circles and started chanting. ""Oh great phoenix, bless this child with your grace and bless her."" The Phoenix's feather starts to float and glow a bright yellow.
"no no no no no NO PLEASE, MOM, DAD!!!" I screamed desperately while crying.
""Using our bodies as vessels, we sacrifice ourselves to the mercy of the natural order to create a vessel of her own."" As they say that, part of the circle glows a bit more brightly and
both of them start bleeding from their mouth and eyes and soon my body starts to slowly appear in the middle of the circle while the feather and my parents start to disappear.
"NO NO NO MOOOM!!! DAAAD!!!" I screamed, they can hear screams yet they say nothing as they only stare at me and eyes of happiness but the ritual wasn't done yet so they continue to speak. ""For she is the more worthy of living while we are merely dregs in comparison, oh beings from the natural order, use us, the lesser beings to awaken a greater being.""
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" I screamed then there was a flash of white light. My mother turns to me before she disappeared. "Alice... Please-" She said before being cut off as her body was reduced to nothing.
Chugging the last of my coffee, I grabbed a sealed jar, and inside of it was a glowing feather.
"Please revive us...that's what you meant right mom, dad? that's why you left me this last feather right?" I said to her, wherever she is.
Looking at the calendar, I realized that today is the day that Himura will return for more lessons.
"Shit, I haven't cleaned the lobby yet." Putting back the jar, I headed back to the lobby of her lab and starts to clean in a hurry.
'Soon we will be reunited, just you wait.' I said resolutely.
*****
𝗛𝗶𝗺𝘂𝗿𝗮 𝗦𝗮𝘁ō
I woke up very early in the morning, I stretched my tired body before heading outside for my daily exercise. I passed by Alice's lab again, I noticed her cleaning the place with a bit of a miserable face.
'She's sad about something, must be about that business of her...I shouldn't meddle with it.' I said to myself while feeling my heart ache.
I soon reached the guard's training ground since I made it a hobby to join them from a distance in training to learn proper technique with various weaponry and some hand-to-hand combat while also learning how to exercise properly. 'If I don't train properly, sooner or later I'm going to get killed, and besides I would rather just kill myself than be killed by someone else.'
I looked around, trying to find someone.
"Early as always." A large and loud man called out to me.
"Captain Dral." I greeted him politely.
Captain Dral, the guard's captain and the strongest soldier of Bellken, wields a greatsword in battle but handles it like it's a mere short sword.
He approached me first when I first arrived at the training ground so naturally, he's the only person that I conversed with extensively.
"Jeez stop referring to me as captain, right now I am fighting instructor Dral!" He loudly proclaims while I look at him blankly.
"So you're clearly here for a reason, so say it already." He said, acting as if he hadn't asked me that yet.
"I want to learn how to use a sword." I wrote on my notepad.
"Sure, buuuut the women and beers can't pay themselves sooooooo," He said cheerfully while extending an opened palm.
Sighing heavily I gave Dral two gold coins. 'This guy has definitely taken bribes before but he is pretty useful so I should just let him be for now.' I thought to myself as Dral threw me a wooden longsword and began training me aka beating me up until I learned how to fight with it.
"Puah!" I crashed to the ground, panting.
"For a beginner, you're pretty good, you can handle it better than most recruits," He says, impressed at my performance.
An hour or two has passed ever since Dral began training me. For the most part, I couldn't even get him with a clean hit even once and only managed to scratch him here and there.
*Ding* *Dong* *Ding* *Dong* *Ding* *Dong*
The bell tower rang 6 times signifying that it was 6:00 AM then Dral speaks to me playfully.
"Welp nice training ya, remember what I said and what your daily practice should be." And then Dral soon left to go to the headquarters and I headed back to the adventurers guild.
"Oh hello, Himura." A somewhat mad Freya greeted me first thing after getting back at the adventurers guild.
"Morning Freya," I flipped a few pages back from my notepad and showed her my response.
"....morning," She responds, angrily while not looking at me.
'She's really devoted to her faith huh?' I thought to myself as I looked at her blankly.
Of course, Alcor snitched to Freya about my little activity last night and for a priest, what I did last night was unfaithful even to her religion.
"Whaduuup gang!" As always Astoria saves me from this awkward silence as Freya turns to greet her. "Good morning, Astoria."
They greeted each other and had our breakfast before going on another quest, a high paying one this time so I can afford Alice's lessons.
I arrived at Alice's Lab in the afternoon and started my lessons. For the next 3 months, I finally learned how to speak common although a bit crudely.
"Hell..o my na..me is Him..ur..a," I said, struggling to speak since common doesn't roll off my tongue.
"Good job." She said with a tinge of happiness and I responded weirdly. "Tha..nks?"
"Why does it sound like a question?" She asked me, confused.
'Well, I haven't thanked anyone in years.' I thought as I shrugged my shoulder in response.
"Still though I have to say you're quite a fast learner, most people take about a year to just learn how to speak it crudely but you." She compliments me before I humbly spoke. "Well I rea..lly wa.nt..ed to spe..ak."
"Well fair enough, you haven't spoken in months as far as I know." I nod my head and she spoke again. "Still though it's been fun, I never taught an adult how to speak before." She said, mocking me.
"Now go, I'm sure they'll also be surprised that you can speak now." Nodding my head again, I left the small lobby and went to the adventurers guild.
𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗿𝗶𝗻
Not even a minute after, Himura left, my smile disappeared and soon checked my coin pouch and counted exactly 60 gold.
"This should be enough." The time was late evening, I went to my lab and put all 60 of the gold coins into a smaller magic circle, and immediately the coins became something that looked like it was newly made.
"This should be the right purity of gold." I then went into the small furnace in the corner of my lab and started melting them all, knowing well, what I was committing.
'Still...I'm surprised Hellken coins actually have the closest purity to pure gold, no wonder this continent is one of the biggest.'
I left the coins to melt and headed to the lab's test chamber where there was a large magic circle bigger than the ones in my memories and on the outer circle were glowing orbs.
'Soul Orb. One of the best items to imprison someone's soul. I manage to buy them filled with souls for quite a high price in the black market, thank god for Himura providing the funds. In this case, I plan to use the filled orb as a sacrifice to summon the souls of Mom and Dad then capture them using the same but empty soul orb.' I headed back to my lab and turned to find two mannequins, a male one and a female one.
'The bodies are in good condition.'
Ever since I was resurrected, the natural order has considered me as a homunculus, a living being created using magic such as golems, and summoned creatures although resurrected beings are the same as them, beings like me still have a will.
My body was made out of my parents' bodies which made me inherit my parents' traits.
My frail petite body, bad eyesight, and smooth skin were from my mother's side while my great immune system, grey eyes, black hair, and a black spot on my collar bone were from my father's side.
I checked the remaining equipment and wait for the time to pass.
At midnight, I placed both mannequins side by side on the large magic circle and the phoenix's feather in the middle of that circle.
"ρꪶꪊᦓ." "ρꪶꪊᦓ." I chanted.
ρꪶꪊᦓ, a 4 worded spell. It combines two things no matter what they are which can either result in an abomination or a product that has already existed.
The usual glow of those soul orbs quickly becomes dim and the female mannequin was starting to be filled with a female soul while the male one goes to the male mannequin.
I then carefully poured the hot golden liquid in different spots, the two outer circles, the middle of the larger circle, and the runes.
Chugging my last mana coffee, I pour all of my mana and energy into the circle and the feather starts to float and glow, after that, I start the magic incantation, a type of magic that is longer to cast but gives better output.
"Oh, great phoenix bless these bodies with your grace and awaken them!" The feather glows brighter.
"Using these souls in exchange, I sacrifice them to the mercy of the natural order to awaken these bodies!" The orb becomes empty meaning the entire soul was in their bodies
"For they are the more worthy of living while these are merely dregs in comparison, oh beings from the natural order, use them, the lesser beings to awaken a greater being." There was a bright flash of light.
I opened my eyes to see two familiar figures.
"Mom? Dad?" I asked them
""Alice..."" I reached out for them but before I could touch the two figures, they both burst into flames.
With the light suddenly disappearing, I finally get a clue about what happened.
In front of me is the phoenix however this one moved a bit weirdly with separate parts moving just to float which I didn't notice.
Eventually, the "Phoenix" regained some of its colors eventually looking like an actual phoenix however it does not show its usual bright and dominating colors
"Please! I already exchanged their soul with something of equal value so why are you stopping me?!" I asked however it did not respond.
'I can do this, if that phoenix is summoned instead of my parents then it just means that it must have my parent's soul right? Yes, that must be right.' I said full of hope, I then poured more mana into the circle, but this time the phoenix was absorbing it.
The phoenix then glows brighter than ever yellow but suddenly Himura appears pulling her out which disrupts the mana flow.
"Himura? wh- why?!" I asked, with panic and anger but he didn't speak.
Without saying anything he grabs me by my hand and starts dragging me out of the lab but I grab into the wall with tears in my eyes. "Why?! Can't you see this is important to me?!" I furiously said to him.
With nothing he can do, he sweeps my legs and starts carrying me outside of the lobby, a bit panicked even though he was expressionless while I was hitting him as I lose all sense of reason. "Why!!!"
He managed to reach the front gate on his right before going left passing five buildings before arriving at the adventurers guild.
'WHY!!' I wanted to scream but my throat hurts too much so I stayed silent as my tears starts to dry.
He stops in front of the adventurers guild, panting, and then soon, I hear a massive explosion, northwest of Bellken.