RMGCFW — Chapter 120 - The Iorph Clan
With the packing done, the two set out.
In truth, there hadn't been much to pack.
The white-haired elf had fit all her daily necessities into a single small case.
Banxia pulled out the bone dagger dropped by the Great Demon Geist, scraped the feathers clean from the scattered chunks of shadow chicken meat, rinsed them in the nearby river, and stored everything away in his spatial secret art.
During that time, he also traded folk spells with Frieren, she gave him one for making ice; he taught her one that made food taste better.
Banxia spent five hundred years working the ice-making spell up to lv.3, then packed a generous quantity of ice blocks into his spatial secret art.
That would go a long way toward slowing the spoilage of whatever he stored inside.
[Current Demon Lifespan Held: 100 years.]
"..."
He couldn't even remember the last time he'd been down to this little.
No matter how much demonic lifespan he stockpiled, it never seemed to last. That was just the nature of the thing.
For now, all he could do was hope Xiaoyan revived, and came back strong.
"By the way, Frieren — do you know about the Clan of the Parting?" Bored on the road, Banxia struck up a conversation.
"The Clan of the Parting?" Frieren thought about it for a moment. The expression on her face gave the answer clearly enough.
"...Right, you probably wouldn't." Banxia continued, "The 'Clan of the Parting' is a name that only came about in the last century or two. They used to be known as the Iorph."
"Ah. The Iorph." Frieren nodded, clearly recognizing the name. "I think I helped them deal with a monster once."
"...You've been there?" Banxia stopped mid-step.
"Is something wrong?" Frieren asked, puzzled.
"Then you know where the Iorph are located."
"Yeah."
"So are the women really as juicy— no, wait, I mean, is the cloth their clan weaves really like the rumors say?" Banxia caught the faint suspicion in the white-haired old-timer's eyes and pushed ahead quickly. "I'm just curious. How about we stop by before heading to the royal capital?"
"I don't mind." Frieren didn't think too hard about it. "But you'd better not disrupt their lives. The Iorph are like the elven villages of old — isolated people, rarely in contact with outsiders."
"Naturally."
"Another detour... What a hassle..."
Faced with the old-timer's grumbling, Banxia conjured a glass of soda without missing a beat and started waiting on her hand and foot.
"Lady Frieren, I would go through fire and water for you..."
---
The Iorph were one of the few long-lived races on the human side of the world.
Around age fifteen, they stopped aging. With lifespans stretching into the centuries, they had come to be called the "Clan of the Parting" in recent times.
Day after day, for their entire lives, they wove cloth.
The fabrics of the Iorph were famous across the world, sometimes worth more than gold, and nearly impossible to get hold of.
It was said that wearing garments made from such cloth produced a strangely unique sensation.
That was the rumor most people had heard.
There were others, more obscure, that circulated quietly. But so few people knew them that they had gradually faded from notice.
That was exactly what Banxia had come to verify.
The two traveled along a narrow path for several days, pushing through a fog-drenched forest and climbing over a series of bare, rocky hills. The scenery grew more remote with every stretch, so desolate that even birds didn't bother stopping there.
Over those days, Frieren ate shadow chicken meat when she was hungry and drank soda when she was thirsty, without having to lift a finger for either. Her mood had improved noticeably.
Then one afternoon, the mist in the woods thinned. A faint thread of light filtered through the branches ahead.
"We're here." Frieren stopped.
"Really does take some effort to get to," Banxia remarked, stepping out of the shadowed forest.
The view opened up all at once.
A clear blue lake spread out before them, quiet and still. Sunlight dropped from the sky in golden threads, only to shatter across the water's surface into countless tiny fragments of light.
At the center of the lake sat a massive island, its white stone buildings rising in a tight cluster.
A stone bridge stretched from the bank to the island's edge, its surface furred with a thin coat of moss that had been accumulating for who knew how long.
Along the near edge of the island, several golden-haired figures moved slowly, and it seemed they had already spotted the two of them, because they were heading over.
---
"So it's Lady Frieren... It really has been a long time."
On the stone bridge, the Iorph who had been on guard a moment before relaxed visibly the instant they recognized the white-haired elf.
"Yeah." Frieren offered nothing more than a slight nod.
"We'll go notify the elder right away..."
The leader seemed long used to Frieren's manner of greeting. He stepped aside, cleared the path, and began guiding the two of them toward the island. The rest of the group broke into a quick jog ahead.
"And may I ask who this is..." The leader glanced at Banxia, his gaze carrying polite inquiry.
"Right, I still don't know your name." Frieren turned to look at Banxia as well, tone perfectly even, no trace of self-awareness.
"...Banxia is fine."
He was a little speechless.
They had been walking together all this time, and she didn't even know his name.
Though when he thought about it, he'd never actually told her.
"..." The leader gave Frieren an odd look.
Lady Frieren had brought this man all the way to the Iorph's hidden sanctuary without knowing so much as his name.
That was really quite...
He pushed the thought away. He was overthinking it.
Lady Frieren was a great mage who had effortlessly defeated a dragon a century ago. With her here, even if this man turned out to be some kind of threat, he wouldn't be able to cause any real trouble.
"Banxia, if you have questions, just ask him." Frieren stopped walking, her tone flat. "Once you're done, we can get on the road to the royal capital."
"...How badly do you want to be rid of me?" Banxia sighed. "And here I was, genuinely wanting to spend more time with you, Teacher."
Frieren said nothing. She just tilted her head into that blank cat-face of hers and looked at him.
"I have a feeling that staying near you is going to be a massive hassle."
"How could that be?" Banxia waved it off.
"Lord Banxia, is there something you wished to know?" The leading Iorph man's wariness snapped back to full alert.
He had assumed the young man was simply traveling alongside Lady Frieren. He hadn't expected that the one who actually wanted to visit the Iorph's hidden home was him.
"Ahem. Actually, I have some business I'd like to discuss." Banxia cleared his throat lightly. His real purpose wasn't something he could come out and say to their faces.
He could hardly stand in front of an entire clan and ask whether their women were juicy.
That would be completely degenerate.
Even Banxia had his limits.
"Business?" Frieren and the leader both looked over.
"It's like this. Down south, I'm a member of a merchant guild called the Xiaye Chamber of Commerce. I came to see whether we might be able to arrange a peaceful trade for some cloth with the Iorph clan."
➤ Next: The Repressed Clan