LXVI: Soft Side

A fireball was sent hurling at Judith, or at least it looked like a fireball from her perspective. But then she found it wasn't actually a fireball, but something akin to a fire snot, which flung toward her for several inches, before losing momentum and falling to the ground with a puff.

Turning her astonished and shaken gaze away from the puff of fire that was now smoke, and placing it on Qui Lin. She saw a Recoil of the small flame zip toward Qui Lin. But before the flame could ignite itself on her face, Qui Lin had pulled the document in front of the flame, so it caught on fire in an instant.

Judith watched as the report began to burn. Not letting it burn for long, Qui Lin had placed it in a metal bowl, and then pushed it to a corner of the table.

"I guess I'll have to further see what you can do, Prophet of the West." Qui Lin had said to Judith, who was still mildly dazed. But when she came to, she let out a silent sigh of relief.

Interrupting them, was Qui Lin's Lergobeast, who had pushed the door to Judith's left open. The other side of the door revealed Qui Lin's elegant white bedroom where both she and her Lergobeast stayed during the night. Or to be more precisely, where Qui Lin stayed during the night, and her Lergobeast stayed almost all hours of the day.

"Fashu?" Qui Lin called out to him while standing up from her desk. She made her way to him with open arms and began to stroke his neck when she came within close proximity of him. "Why are you up? Are you hungry?"

Judith at this moment had forgotten the fear she felt just seconds prior, as she was now taken by this wonderful sight. Seeing the Crimson Goddess be the opposite of her usual self for once was quite a sight to behold.

Whenever it came to her Lergobeast, she was always so soft, so kind. Seeing this, Judith was brought back to the moment they entered the stupid captain's manor.

Upon entering, Qui Lin had brought her Lergobeast into the manor. And noticing his hoofs were messing up the floor with mud, she picked out a rag from one of the bags hung on his backside and began to wipe his hoofs personally, without asking for the assistance of any maid.

After which she had asked where he would stay, and after being told that they was a special room for Lergobeast's in the manor, Qui Lin refused and instead took him to her room, through a Vortex of course.

Judith always found this side of Qui Lin rather adorable and preferable than her dragon lady side.

'Maybe this Lergobeast should be around all the time.' Judith thought as she watched Qui Lin pet the mix between a rhino and a horse. Then, before her very eyes, the Lergobeast squatted, and began to defecate in front of them all.

Upon seeing this, Judith was instantly horrified, when she remembered her ordeal cleaning Qui Lin's house the day prior. And now...

"Haha," Qui Lin laughed a hearty laugh, "That's a very big one. Wouldn't expect anything less from a mighty Lergobeast like yourself." She said, then turned to Judith with a sinister smile on her face. "I think he's done."

***

It had taken far longer for Judith to pack the feces off the ground than she had thought and or remembered it would. Not only was it sticky, heavy and stubborn to clean off the wooden floor, it was also incredibly stinky, to the degree that Judith swore her life had been severally severally shortened for just inhaling a small amount of its odor.

But after she was done, she was told to clean up the mess Qui Lin made in her training room. And also anywhere else that was impacted due to her training. Which Judith couldn't be happier to oblige. She made her way to the parlor, where she began to clean out the broken pieces of the glass table, then the statues and so after.

As for the cracks on the beams, she would have to get people fit for the job to fix it. Luckily, she was given that much authority to do so. After she was done with the parlor, she made her way to the training room, and at once began to sweep up the pieces of shattered stone that littered the ground.

As she was preoccupied by the simple task of swaying her hands back and forth, she found her mind was a lot more giving, creating avenue for her to think. As she swept, she thought of her next course of action.

Or rather, her next series of action. Upon coming to this world and realizing it was hers to claim as a home, she had already decided on what she needed to do. Which was very simple, follow the events as was told in the story and manipulate it in her favor. But at the end of the day, what was her end goal?

After she had conquered this world, overcome all the challenges that were to come and become incredibly powerful, both in terms of actual strength and wealth, what else was there to do?

Not thinking for more than a second, Judith had already come up with the answer. "Help obviously." She had said out loud.

Yes, very simple and very plain, help. This had always been Judith's goal in life. Call her what you wanted, too good to be true, self-righteous, a fool even, but this was always what Judith aimed to do.

She knew what it was like to have nothing and no one, she knew what it was like to be desperate for help. She knew how it felt, to be hopeless. Which was why she had promised herself to one day help others who were in need.

So many may call her a fairytale, but there were just too many people who didn't care or didn't want to even try. And as a result of that, the world that so many hated, became that much worse.

It required a small change to make a big difference, and Judith, wanted to make that difference.

As she thought on all of this, she felt her eyes sting for some odd reason. With a sniffle, Judith cleaned out her eyes and grinned.

"If I can even survive this world in the first place." Judith said, remembering that she was not Sarah and that alone had automatically put so much out of her reach. But, even despite this, Judith was still going to try.