>Having reunited with my subordinates, my next destination was the nest of Mo En. Before that however, the issue with Harlow still has to be settled.
If I had to describe his problem, it would be that he faced the problem all son-in-laws face. Habona wanted Majosha to stay with Harlow in the demonic werewolves" nest while Manasha would not budge about having the couple live with the medusas.
This was a difficult situation to resolve. Normally in such a marriage, the female side would follow the male side which means Majosha should stay with the werewolves. However, Manasha had vehemently made the point that Harlow was simply too weak and so he should stay with them instead.
A strong wife with a weak pretty face of a husband...it was a pretty disgraceful matter when one thought about it...well, I guess furry face would be more appropriate for Harlow.
This stalemate nearly caused the two older sisters, Habona and Manasha to come to blows as both sides bickered with no signs of a compromise in sight. Thankfully, the pair were each restrained by their younger siblings. Finally, the matter was settled with the mediation by the senior werewolf.
They agreed to having the couple rotate between the clans where Harlow would first stay with the medusas. After a period of time, the two would then come over to the werewolves" nest.
However, this wasn"t the end of this matter either. With the schedule worked out, the two older sisters got into another heated argument over the couple"s future children. Even though their child would definitely be a medusa, Habona was rather accepting of this fact and had already counted her future niece as a part of the werewolf clan. She adamantly laid her claim on their future child who had not even been seminated.
Naturally, Manasha didn"t agree to this, after all, what right did she have to lay claim over the child? Majosha"s future child would definitely be a medusa. She had only borrowed Harlow"s seed. If this lady"s sister wanted to give birth to a child, it didn"t have to be your brother"s seed! Anyone else would"ve been fine as well!
Such an unyielding statement...if she had said this in the human world, I guarantee a river of blood will flow right after.
In the end, the old werewolf had to step in once more to mediate. The matter ended up being set aside for now.
A while later, the agreement between the two in-laws was finalized.
As Harlow prepared to leave for his new home, he stopped to discuss a matter with Habona. The two siblings barked to each other in the tongue of the werewolves, throwing me a glance from time to time. From the looks of it, Habona didn"t take too well to his suggestion but finally acquiesced with a nod after his determined persuasion.
All in all, the entire discussion about their child custody rights only took about an hour. Compared to the furious back and forths between a human couple, this could only be described as expedient.
With matters settled, it was truly time for the lovebirds to depart. He momentarily stepped away from the loving embrace of a smiling Majosha to bid his farewells to me.
"Master Mo Ke, I"m immensely grateful for your a.s.sistance, if it wasn"t for you, both my sisters might have been ensnared as well. As a sign of my grat.i.tude, I have a gift for you."
"Gift?" He actually wanted to give me a gift...sounds interesting. It shouldn"t be some bone or half-eaten jerky, should it?
"That"s right, it"s a token of my appreciation for helping me and Majosha." He spread out his empty palms and continued in a slightly helpless tone. "However, the item isn"t with me at the moment so you will have to wait for my sister to give it to you."
"Ah, in that case, thanks for the gift." Knowing that I was about to receive a gift thrilled me. No matter what it was, a gift was still a gift and naturally I was more than happy to accept it. I respectfully thanked him for his generosity before asking: "About that, may I know what it is?"
He blinked his eyes playfully and said: "Haha, you will find out soon enough. Don"t worry."
With this final bit of business done, the pair bid us farewell with a wave of their hands before disappearing around the corner. Soon after they left, Habona came up to me and gave me a tap on the shoulder, signalling for me to follow her.
I eagerly followed her, anxious to see what Harlow"s gift to me was.
After a short walk, we pa.s.sed through a conspicuously large gathering of werewolves and came to a corner of the maze guarded by a team of werewolves. Right in the middle of these werewolves was a black pole stuck into the ground.
Hmm...black pole?
As I closed in on the item, the ident.i.ty of this black pole became clear to me. This was no black pole! It"s a sword!
Or perhaps it"s a blade?
Habona walked up to the unidentified weapon and easily pulled it out of the ground. She gave it a couple of reluctant looks before tossing it to me: "Catch."
"Ah…" I caught it reflexively. It was heavy. Roughly ten to fifteen kg in weight.
I slowly drew out the weapon to find an eye-catching blade that was tinted pitch black. As the last bit of the blade left its sheath, the first impression I had of its entirety was that it almost looked like a large katana except that it wasn"t as curved as one. However, this didn"t mean that it was completely straight either.
It was roughly two meters in length and only had a slight curve to its body that made it look a little like a single-edged blade.
It had a very fine edge. While it was a bit much to describe it as a cicada"s wings, the thickest point on its body was merely 7mm. I wasn"t able to determine its const.i.tuent material from a glance and so decided to give it a cursory touch. The moment I did so, I felt a jolt in my body as I was suddenly struck with a sense of lightness.
"This…" Is this the legendary enchanted weapon I heard so much about?
"Shadowfang, an epic enchanted weapon." She said with a hint of grief in her eyes. I could tell right away that this was a upsetting subject. "It was my mother"s weapon."
"Your mother?" I paused for a moment before stupidly saying: "Her relics?"
"...she"s not dead…" Her face froze as those words left her mouth. She didn"t elaborate any further.
Not dead. From the looks of it, she wasn"t in the clan either. That could only mean two things: she had either left the clan or wasn"t in this maze entirely. No matter how I looked at it, the latter seemed a lot more likely.
Strange...based on its length alone, Shadowfang doesn"t look like a weapon suited to demonic werewolves...shouldn"t Habona"s mother be a demonic werewolf as well?
In spite of her visibly sullen face, I decided to touch upon this sensitive topic once more: "I thought that demonic werewolves didn"t like to use weapons?"
"..." She gave me a furious glare. Just as I thought she was about to eat me, she suddenly turned to the side and gloomily forced out a sentence: "My mother is a pure werewolf...she tends to avoid her wolf form…"
(Pure werewolves or original werewolves were those who normally looked like a human except at night where they would shapeshift into a wolfman. Demonic werewolves were a subspecies of these werewolves.)
Phew...I"m so glad she didn"t hit me.