‘How?’
Isis discovered a new sensation. One she had absolutely never come close to feel in her entire life.
The feeling of being completely wasted.
And she hated it.
The loss of control was simply awful. As a divine beast, she was used to having absolute control over her thoughts and body.
Even when she was fighting a hard battle while controlling an army of undead, she was still stable.
But now she was feeling a slight buzz and her mind became so slow she felt like she became stupid.
‘Do mortals really like this sensation?’
How the hell did she become drunk in the first place?
Alcohol was considered a form of poison by the organism of Divine Beast and as such was automatically purged.
Even deadly poison could hardly go past their defense. Much less some weak alcohol that barely registered as poison. As such they could not get drunk.
Sitting face to face with Isis, Nent let out a chuckle as she gulped the content of her glass in one go.
She had warned Isis to be careful but the girl didn’t listen. Nent was more than happy to let her face the consequences of her disregard.
"I made a deal with Hydra once. He created a special kind of Poison that temporarily weaken the immune system of Divine beast and allow the Alcohol to infiltrate the blood. Sadly, this wine never went into large-scale production."
Neither Nent nor Hydra were crazy. The wine was indeed good for consumption and Next was sure that it would have been the best of the best.
For people as old as them, there were very few things they hadn’t tried. So a new feeling such as ‘becoming drunk’ would have been a great interest to everyone.
Nent was sure that with this she could have brought enough money for the phoenixes to become very rich, even if she had to split the interest with Hydra.
Sadly, the two of them had to fight off their greed and close down the factory. This wine could never be sold.
The wine itself was absolutely safe. Hydra was a true master in this domain and knew how to handle poison. But the effects of lowering the defense of the immune system were simply too dangerous. It was a moment of weakness few could afford.
There was also the fact that Divine beasts were already dangerous enough when sober. So one could imagine the danger when drunk.
What would happen if a King ranked monster went into a drunk frenzy and destroyed an entire kingdom?
Neither Hydra nor Nent wished for something like this to happen. So outside of the initial batch, there was no more of this alcohol.
“Why…Why do you drink something like this?”
Isis groaned as she felt her eyes grow heavy. Her speech was a little slurred and she had a hard time putting her thoughts into words.
“Why?”
Nent looked down at the crimson in the bottle with a smile.
“I guess because I want to be drunk.”
Her voice was calm but the smile on her face could not hide her sadness.
Nent had not been able to close her eyes for the last few days.
It was simply too much for her.
‘I killed him.’
She was of course thinking about Drei, or rather, Hansel.
The truth of the matter was that while she fought him, Hansel had chosen to explode himself and was then stopped by Anubis.
She had in no way killed him.
But this did not matter. During the war, she had made a choice and it was to end the life, or unlife of her old friend.
Did she regret it?
Not at all. She knew that it was something necessary.
The world that Drei wished to create could never see the light.
So she acted.
So she turned her back on her best friend.
‘I never thought it would hurt so bad.’
Nent could not sleep. Whenever she tried to, Hansel and Gretel would appear in her dream, asking them why she betrayed them at the moment when they needed her the most.
So she decided to drown herself in alcohol.
‘How pitiful.’
Nent was not so weak that she would let this keep her down. She was sure that she would be able to handle this sooner or later.
She just needed more time.
“Perhaps a century or two will be enough?”
“Two centuries seems like quite a long time.”
“You will see. One day you will realize that a century is nothing but a moment in our long life.”
Nent looked up as Sol approached and sat next to the now-sleeping Isis. She had lost the battle.
He looked at the bottle with suspicion and it didn’t take long for him to understand what was happening.
“Is she drunk?”
“Dead drunk. She even forgot that she could simply purify the alcohol with her holy flame.”
Nent chuckled merely. Clearly lightly buzzed as well but she was still in total control of her mind.
“You tricked her.”
“I just wanted a partner to drink with. Drinking alone is pretty sad you know?” She simply shrugged.
“Why did you not call me?”
“Heh…So the Dragon Emperor finally has time for poor little me? I am so honored I could cry. Hahaha.”
“....”
“....”
Silence stretched between them. One that was finally broken by Sol, as he took the half-filled glass of Isis.
“You are drunk.”
“Indeed I am.”
“Then let’s get drunk together, shall we?”
“....Why not?”
Under the light of a stars, a beautiful woman gave a lonely smile as she lifted her glass.
But she did not drink everything in one go like before and simply sipped on it. At the end of the day, she did not wish to act so uncouth in front of him.
“So, why did you grace me with your presence?”
Sol ignored the sarcasm behind her words and nursed his drink. The slight buzz was something he quite relished as it slightly reminded him of his year as a university student.
“Nefertiti and Nepthys are here.”
“I know. But what does it matter to me?”
Nent was unusually blunt now that she was drunk. The usual Nent had the habit of hiding her thoughts behind her words and action. Making so you could never really guess what she was thinking.
‘So Isis is the sleeping type while Nent is the type that speaks words she would regret later.’
“Nefertiti is your granddaughter.”
“Heh…Sol, after living with us for a few months now, you should have realized it clearly, right? The weight of the thing called ‘family’ is very small for us Divine beasts. We only act based on what interests us the most.
The same goes for you. Were you not this talented, Tiamat would have never given you the time of the day. So, do not talk about family, please. That thing is simply worthless.”
Sol nodded, in no way enraged by her words for they were the truth. In fact, he found this situation highly interesting.
‘I wonder how she will act when she purges the alcohol from her system and remember her conversation now.’
This would certainly be a sight to behold.
(AN: Isis, Kiyohime, Nefertiti, Nent. Those were the main girls of book 2. I think I did a better job in developing them than I did with the main girls from Book 1. Perhaps it’s because my skills slowly grew as I wrote. Still, to this day, Nent is still my favorite character in Book 2. It was the first time I wrote a morally ambiguous character like her and reading comments about you guys guessing whether she would betray or not was really fun. Now it’s time to heal her pain and then have fun with everyone. Vol 10 is slowly coming close to an end. Vol 11 main theme will be Lilith and Lilin.)
