37 Fun!

Thoth gathered himself fairly quickly, he didn't expect to see Aura in different clothes, so he was caught off guard.

"Ahem, sorry, I was deep in thought for a second," Thoth responded, earning an understanding nod from Aura.

"Yeah! I heard a lot happened while you were out." Aura considered mentioning Shalltear but decided not to do so.

Even an idiot could figure out she was talking about Thoth, with his conveniently timed arrival and the knowledge of the Platinum Dragon Lord being spread around to all residents of Nazarick, it was so obvious that even Shalltear could have figured it out.

...Well, maybe it was not that obvious.

But still, she shouldn't stick her nose into his business, especially if it was personal enough to make him cry. Being mind controlled, twice no less, was no doubt an uncomfortable feeling.

Aura motioned for Thoth to walk inside, which he did, she then closed the door behind him.

The inside of the tree is divided into floors, the first is a large living space with sofas, seats, and toilets off to the side in a separate room.

There was no semblance of order to be maintained here, the place was a mess, most likely because Mare was too busy outside and hadn't returned in a while, leaving his sister to create as much chaos as she wanted with no one left to clean it up after her.

Pillows of various colors were all over the place, various things hung from the ceiling forming a makeshift obstacle course, one which looked rather difficult by normal standards. Aura could probably clear it with ease though.

Gods, how bored has she been in here?

Anyway, in the middle of the room, a large fancy wooden staircase could be seen which led to the second floor and then continued onto the third floor, where Aura and Mare had their rooms.

"Make yourself comfortable!" Aura said as she headed to one of the upper floors where the kitchen most likely was.

Thoth didn't argue and sat down on the couch when he suddenly heard Aura shout from the kitchen, "Do you want some food?!"

Thoth shouted back, "Uh, sure!"

Aura came down the stairs a few minutes later carrying two sandwiches in her hands.

After giving one to Thoth, she happily sat down and started munching on her sandwich as Thoth did the same.

Thoth also bit down, and the sandwich tasted incredible, as all Nazarick food tends to do.

The two enjoyed their meal in silence, and while they were doing this, a very confused and slightly angry true vampire loli was running around the tomb trying to figure out where the hell Thoth disappeared to.

Mumbling something angrily to herself, Shalltear Bloodfallen ran around the various floors while Thoth and Aura were sitting in comfortable silence, at this rate, it would take her an hour or so to find them if she ran around as fast as she could.

She sighed in a very exaggerated manner. Why was being nice so tiring? She just wanted to stalk- Er... Keep an eye on Thoth for his own good!

'Yeah! No strings attached or anything! Ignore that weird nice feeling you get whenever you are around him!'

Shalltear then nodded to herself and did an "Umu" as lord Ainz would also no doubt do after utilizing his ingenious mind.

Nonetheless, she soon realized she had no way to track Thoth down, so, bothered by her failure, she began to head to the 6th floor to vent to Aura again.

She had no idea that's exactly where her target was the entire time.

As Shalltear changed course and began walking to the 6th floor with a depressed aura, Thoth and Aura could be seen jumping through the tall trees of the 6th floor.

There was no way Aura, being a very energetic person, would remain in the house, so she offered Thoth to run around outside, Thoth agreed, of course, anything is better than awkward silence and doing nothing.

As they raced through the streets against each other, a race that Thoth would be winning if he wasn't in his purely human form, Aura spoke up with a serious look.

"You know, I heard that you are really pushing yourself for Nazarick." Thoth raised an eyebrow at this.

"Of course, anything for the supreme beings." Thoth didn't actually care about serving them, he just wanted to be on the winning side. And even though he recognizes that his backstory manipulating him, he also genuinely likes each resident of Nazarick, even the ugly and evil ones.

Aura nodded, "Yeah! I would kill myself for them without hesitation, but..." Aura seemed to struggle with picking the right words for a bit, "Agh screw it!" She gave up rather quickly and just simply said things as she felt, "If you need someone to talk to, I'm here for you okay?"

Thoth was taken off guard by the sudden gesture, though sadly, the things troubling him he would forever have to keep to himself. For if he revealed them, his head would end up on a spike. With Aura herself helping everyone else impale him.

"...I appreciate that, thanks." Thoth simply gave her a kind look and a nod.

"Oh, it's no problem! Though I must say, you are really easy to distract." Aura then gave a mischievous smile as a vine suddenly caused Thoth to trip over and fall to the ground, giving Aura the edge in the race.

Thoth, not willing to lose this silly race, immediately sprouted his brilliant white wings and soared up into the tree line.

With his wings, he accelerated forward and caught up to Aura, who laughed.

"That is cheating you know!"

Thoth gave a theatrical response while also acting like he was in a terrible drama, raising his wrist over his forehead dramatically, "Oh no! Whatever will our princess do now?"

"She will beat your ass in this race that's what!" Aura said with a big toothy grin.

"She will try!" Thoth corrected her immediately.

Of course, the two-level 100 beings stomping and running around at full strength were causing a bit of damage to the trees and were making the earth quake, poor Mare felt a huge migraine come over him as he realized he would have to clean up after his sister... Again.

"Seriously... Big sis needs to calm down..." Of course, he said this with no backbone in his voice as the... "Submissive" boy would never disobey or go against his sister. Unless the supreme ones demanded it of course, then he would do it without hesitation.

Such a case is an extreme scenario however, other than in the worst-case scenario, he would never challenge Aura, that's how Bukubukuchagama intended for them to be.

He had returned not long ago, roughly 2 minutes after Thoth showed up and made his way to the tree, so he barely missed him.

As Mare thought this to himself, he noticed Shalltear walking towards him, the vampire was clearly disappointed in something and had a bit of a sad vibe to her.

"H-Hello Shalltear!" Mare greeted, Shalltear simply responded with a "Hey."

"Do you know where Aura is at the moment?" Shalltear asked, not noticing the bright wings in the distance due to looking at Mare.

"O-Oh, um... She is over there with Thoth right now." Mare then pointed to a point in the distance, where Thoth's wings could be seen poking through the tree line with their glow.

"Thanks!" Shalltear said as she sprinted over in that general direction, not even waiting for a response from Mare.

"Y-You're welcome..." Mare mumbled to himself as Shalltear ran as if her life depended on it.

With Aura and Thoth, the two of them were still racing, however, Aura was proving a great challenge for Thoth in his human form.

Of course, with his min-maxed stats and extra boost to mobility from his wings, he was now slightly faster, but the thick foliage made it difficult to use the wings to their full advantage as he had to be mindful of them and their surroundings, meaning Aura could use her smaller size to jump between the tree branches nimbly.

Feeling the urge to get back at Aura for tripping him, he slammed into her side with one of his wings just enough to knock her off balance, sending her tumbling onto the floor.

What he didn't expect was for the dark elf to grab his wing and drag him to the ground with her.

The two tumbled to the floor until both of them stopped rolling in the dirt, leaving them lying side by side.

"Damn, I wanted to get revenge," Thoth said while taking deep breaths. He is not anywhere near tired but he is affected enough by the race to take deeper breaths.

"Yeah, deserved honestly! Though you really should have expected me to bring you down with me." Thoth nodded.

"Yeah, I forgot what a little gremlin you are, my bad."

Aura laughed "Okay! Do you wanna get roasted by me?"

Thoth shook his head "Nah, I prefer medium rare."

Aura laughed a bit as Thoth stood up and offered a hand which she took.

Suddenly, Shalltear appeared through the forest line, causing the two to look at each other with concern.

The reason for said concern was the vampire's appearance, twigs and leaves covered her hair while she panted, tired from running around at top speed for roughly an hour straight.

Thoth simply pulled out a bottle of water from his inventory, which Shalltear took with a "Thanks."

After downing the entire bottle in one gulp, the true vampire gave Thoth a bad look.

"I had to look everywhere for you! Where did-" She was about to ask where he disappeared off to, but after realizing that was a stupid question, she cut herself off.

"...W-Whatever! I just wanted to make sure nothing happened, you disappeared out of nowhere!" Shalltear nodded while Aura and Thoth simply glanced at each other.

This chick can not lie or make excuses, can she?

Thoth won't even mention her "stealth" capabilities.

"Uhuh, anyways, the two of us were just racing, you want to join in?" Thoth offered, which caused Shalltear to pause.

She really wanted to, but she should have her patrol start in a few minutes...

"...Okay, but I have to go soon!"

"No problem!"

Thoth felt his wings grow out of his back as he prepared to count down.

"Okay! On three."

Everyone prepared to run.

"Three!" Thoth shouted as he ran, immediately getting a head start much to the protest of the two behind him, who then proceeded to work together to ensure Thoth didn't win, which he accepted.

He didn't care about winning that much, but this...

...This was fun!

-x-x-x-

I haven't uploaded anything in a while, sorry about that.

From now on, expect one chapter a week.

THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS! patreon.com/MarAuthor

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