Church bells rang, signifying the descent of the sun. Orange and purple blanketed the sky. It was 6 p.m.
Crashing waves could be heard as a man rose from the shallow waters of the Aurizian coast. On his back was a corpse it was a creature full of holes, with tendrils limping down. It was a creature not easily described by words, yet it existed.
Behind him, several others followed, rising from the sea, each of them either dragging a corpse on their back or dragging them by their limbs.
Today was a successful hunt, thought Cillian, as he too walked toward the land, dragging two corpses along with him.
It's been a little over a month since the incident, and so far, things have been going well.
The ritual was a success, and Eleanor has recovered without a hitch, physically, at least. She became a regular member of the gathering with the moniker "Little Lady Oberon."
Oberon, also known as the King of the Faes.
Although Oberon is a real character from an old Shakespearean play, Cillian doesn't know shit about 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' he just got the name from a famous gacha game in his past life.
It's something that Cillian made up, a bedtime story to lull her to sleep every time she's having a hard time.
This has been the usual nightly routine for Cillian and Eleanor in the days following the incident, as she can't sleep at night and keeps having nightmares about that horrid day.
It's reached the point where Cillian had to make a prayer to his honorific name for her to pray, using the influence of his domain along with some runic engravings on her bed, and the fact that they have the same authority helped a lot.
Thankfully, though, the nightmares are not as frequent anymore, as the last time she had a nightmare was two days ago.
Poor kid...
In any case, after the emergency gathering, Cillian and the little lady here had continued traveling to the south, and after less than a week, they arrived at Aurich.
At the same time, the Knights of the Round guild had started their siege on the ruined settlement.
The other players, catching wind of the unusual movements of the guild, decided to follow them and eventually joined in to grind levels too.
Yeah, fuck those Infernal Order bastards. My goal was only to stall them, but with hordes of players after them now, I doubt they'd get a single human NPC life.
They're not the only ones leveling up, of course. Since they were not following the main road to avoid the Orthodox Churches, they encountered quite a bit of abominations too.
After a few days of grueling travel, having to eat unseasoned abomination meat and sleep on the domain, the originally planned ten-hour stagecoach travel to Aurich had concluded.
The things after that went by like a blur. Cillian got into the city, which is at least three times bigger than Lennitz. He went to the government office to register as Eleanor's guardian, and he rented an apartment near the port.
It's a small apartment with one room, two beds, a small kitchen, and a communal bath downstairs. Cillian's been paying seven zen notes for it.
It's not quite the slums, but definitely lower-middle class, bordering poor. In any case, there's a Church of the Abyss nearby too. Cillian asked if she would like to attend Sunday school, but she doesn't seem very keen on it.
In fact, she doesn't even want to be near any Orthodox church for some reason, though she doesn't miss any prayers to Sir Null.
In the end, Cillian had no choice but to homeschool her. And by homeschool, Cillian just gave her books to read.
He could enroll her in a public school, but Cillian won't stay in Aurich for long. At most, he would probably only stay here for another month until the patch for version 1.1 comes out.
While Eleanor is not having nightmares as frequently as before, she's still a kid who just went through a traumatic experience. She won't even go outside at all, hence the books.
Can't help it. After all, life's tough, and Cillian currently works on a bunch of odd jobs and bounties set by the Merchant Guild.
In addition, Eleanor is not dumb. Although she's very nonverbal at the moment, she's very smart and mature for her age. Her intellect is further boosted by her ascension, which is very helpful for Cillian, as he can leave all the household chores to her instead.
After all, no ordinary person can ascend into sainthood at such a young age.
kururin also contributes to the finances of the company somewhat by sending donations to the nonexistent 'Church of Null' whatever that means.
She probably just wants to get more relationship points with me... Oh well, cash is cash. Being a single dad is tough!! Though, rather than a parent-daughter relationship, it's more like a master-apprentice relationship.
Which brings us to the current situation: it's currently half past six, and right now Cillian is on the way home from the sea. Today, he killed two low-tier seabornes by himself.
It wasn't that hard for him, as he's fighting in shallow waters. The real horror comes from fighting these abominations from the sea, more so now, as it's currently late spring, and from spring to summer is the time when seabornes are more active.
The Hunter Guilds all around the coastlines would issue a bounty for them, giving as much as five zen coins or half a note for a single low-tier or infected-level seaborne.
It's a joint effort among the Abyssal Church and the Hunter's Guild. With a tacit understanding, the church will take care of the big fish in the sea, while the small fries that slip through will be handled by the guild on the coast.
For the past few weeks, this has been Cillian's go-to quest. Good monetary reward with tons of EXP is just too good for him to pass up.