Esstrey moved quietly for a being se, mainly attributed to her unique way of movement over terrain. A small stream of water is always betweeail and the ground, holding her upright while she moves forward. In her arms, she carries two kobolds, one sleeping, while the other keeps tripping over her own words in an attempt to praise her. On the sleeping kobold is a blob of blood, doing its best to imitate angry pag.

  "Why won't you tell me what element I am?" Sofia sps Esstrey's ears, making them twitch a bit.

  "Because it would serve you no purpose, we ck the materials for you to actually folloath, and as long as that's true suowledge is a liability." Esstrey ighe tantrum thrown by Sophia, and simply keeps moving in the dire that the scious kobold told her some food and blood would be.

  "I 't eveify myself! It just says [Hidden] for all my traits! Why did you even figure me to your mystery element if you didn't have enough of it? Did you set me to [Time]? [Space] maybe? Hell, it could even be [Metal]." The little slime is trying to measure Esstrey's pulse while mentioning all kinds of different elements not only used for slimes, but trying to read the pulse of a blood mage is about as effective as one imagine.

  "It's called pying the long game, how long have you been alive again?" Sofia simply pouts at that, and faces away from Esstrey while crossing her imitation of arms.

  After some time of only Mirya's i babbling, the group finally arrives at the kobold vilge. Esstrey asks where food is kept, and Mirya mao vey that the granary is in the ter of the vilge. Esstrey makes her way through the vilge, with kobolds watg her every move. None dare move against her, and not just because she's carrying two possible hostages. The sole kobold standing guard at the granary is shaken awake by the sight of the massive mermaid in front of him, and he weakly points his spear at Esstrey.

  "Here, hold these." Esstrey puts the two kobolds in the arms of the guard, who colpses uhe weight of the two weakened kobolds. As she ehe granary with Sofia, the vilge gathers around Kuda and Mirya.

  "Mirya you live! Is good!"

  "I not seen Kuda this tired since sleep curse!"

  "Mmmm... newer smells like fish."

  The chieftain of the kobolds makes his way through the formed crowd, and looks furiously at both Kuda and Mirya.

  "Yht witch here Kuda? Granary is important that it isen!" At the chieftains words, kobolds stop lookied and start looking more hostile towards the shack the huge mermaid disappeared in.

  "Foolish chief! Great one isn't witch! Great one is mighty dragon born, child of serpent!" At Mirya's words, the kobolds begin to bicker among themselves ihe newer had not only cured brood mother, but was also reted to the dragons?

  As if timed perfectly, Esstrey leaves with aire stalk of mealroot in her jaws, she easily shreds the mealroot as if it doesn't also double as tough rope. The slime that was with her has signifitly grown in size, but still seems a bit sluggish. Sofia looks warily at what must be half the vilge having gathered in front of their food stockpile to ambush who raided it, but she looks to Esstrey before making any moves. Esstrey for her part simple looks amused at the dispy in front of her, if it was an ambush they had already failed.

  "The state of affairs of your stockpile of food is rather sad, you won't survive if pigs are difficult even once you know." Esstrey's words are meant to be a ent to throw them off-bance, but ihe kobolds whisper between themselves.

  "Food hoard... not big enough?" One brave kobold mentions toward the titanic being.

  "...Yes, I suppose you could refer to it as a hoard. It's rather pathetic, if I'm being ho." Rather than be saddened by Esstrey's words, the kobolds all look to each other pletely ecstatic.

  "Newer is drake-kin! Kobolds will grow hoard big again! Foods! Golds! Trophies!" The words spread like a mantra, and sooire vilge is scrambling about while sc the entire s for everything edible. If the kobolds have this kind of vigor all the time, they would be a great power on the basis of being the most industrial ra existe doesn't take long for the first fing parties to return with all kinds of edible and inedible pnts that looked vaguely like the mealroot Esstrey was mung on a moment ago.

  "Great serpent, my fourth partner sick with coughs. Would great one sider g him?"

  "Great serpent! My foot hurt! Please make stop!"

  Pleas for medical aid quickly e in, along with kobolds food, arey eats her way through the s with impressive speed. She didn't know how starved she was until a moment ago, and she feels the parasite within taking a greater share than before. Was it holding back? It mattered little, at the rate that the kobolds were colleg you would think someone would have called for a revolution. If the kobolds wanted her to fix the ailments of their kin, that was something she could easily do.

  Esstrey started dragging kobolds into the granary turned hospital one by one, g disease was trivial with Esstrey's exceptional trol over blood, and g wounds was simply a matter of using some of the potions she had acquired in bination with her blood magic. Disease is easily solved by promoting the produ of white blood cells and guiding them within the diseases, while injuries were only there because the kobolds cked the capacity to cure it in the first pce. They did often show an oddly high aptitude fic.

  Things would have kept going smoothly if it wasn't for the arrival of a coach carrying the sigil of the local duchy.

  Prickly