ㅤ
January 1, 2026 at 8:00 AM
ㅤ
Klarth never thought anything bad about Arche. Until Origin bound their lives with a red thread. More accurately, a burning rope. Origin made a "merciless" condition: with his power, they would do nothing but good. Regularly. And its power could only be used by two people. Moreover, the pact with the spirit forbade separation for long, otherwise the power would dissipate. So they had to live in the same house… a grumpy, lazy "old man" who had mastered the art of summoning spirits, and a reckless, noisy girl, a master of inducing migraines.
Without knocking or asking, Arche burst into Klarth's room, where he had surrounded himself with books and scribbled sheets of paper. She happily asked:
"Where's my cutie?"
"…What?"
Klarth was taken aback. Despite all his desires, he didn’t look like a cutie, and he and Arche were clearly in a different relationship. However, the nimble girl wasn't rushing toward him at all, but toward the demonic lizard in the cage. Noticing her blazing gaze, both pet and master were horrified. Klarth barely managed to run up, shielding the cage with his body.
"Don't even think about it!"
"Well," Arche whined. "It'll grow one back anyway, are you that stingy?"
"It won't be a joy for a gremlin to grow a tail for you!"
"As if it's any more fun because of you," she muttered discontentedly, remembering how one time, when Klarth was drunk, he ran out of snacks, and "crispy grilled demon tail" sounded so appetizing. "You fried it so deliciously, but you didn't let me try it…"
"That never happened!" Klarth protested, blushing with shame.
And he would have been glad to expose Arche's lie, but it was on that day that Gremlin Lair came to live with him, and how exactly, Klarth did not remember. Klarth couldn't even try to guess where he'd missed the mark in his summoning. And he tried! The demonic beast needed either the miasma of the other world or life force to survive. Where will he find so much miasma for food? Even though the biting "cutie" didn't need much.
Arche was luckier with her "pet". Artemis became attached to her. He was completely bored when Klarth "stole" Luna from him. The fairy proved to be helpful and hardworking, even showering her with compliments, so Arche was happy to leave him. The fairy himself soon regretted it, but didn't show it: he had nowhere else to go anyway.
"Give me the tail, don't be greedy! I need it for something. I want to concoct a truly witch's potion!"
"You don't need any special ingredients for that, just water and a saucepan!"
Arche continued her futile attempts to reach what she desired, but Klarth, though not particularly strong physically, was still stronger than the girl mage. And this could have continued indefinitely if Origin hadn't suddenly appeared to save the situation. Gremlin was even ready to offer a prayer to the spirit, although the only person he could recognize as his master was Pluto, a diametrically opposed entity.
"Khm," Origin had to tactfully draw attention to himself, as everyone except Gremlin had ignored him.
"Ow…" Klarth and Arche blurted out in unison. They remained standing, locked in a clash, but no longer pressing their foreheads together, having lost all their strength.
"What's today's date!?" Klarth rushed to the calendar in a panic.
"By evening, the agreed-upon time will expire," Origin said, saving Klarth the trouble of searching for the worn piece of paper. "Before then, you must perform at least one good deed. I advise you to begin immediately."
Origin vanished as suddenly as he had appeared. Klarth and Arche exchanged glances, then immediately leaped up, each searching for their half of the ancient parchment. Having found it, they met in the basement, where a large cauldron awaited them. Klarth quickly piled some wood from a full woodshed under it, and Arche blasted them with a fireball. They quickly began to recite the spell:
"By the power, hail and hearty,
of an earthquake on a roll,
prove these parts be part and party,
of the one and only scroll.
Formula of brightest light,
if it's you, then show your might!
Join what once was rent asunder,
to the sound of flames and thunder!
Ready? Set! Origpunsch!"
But then both of them fell silent in indecision, completely forgetting to discuss what specific goodness is lacking in this world today.
'Mana?' Arche spread her hands, mouthing the words so as not to, Origin forbid, disrupt the spell.
"May there be mana in abundance —
Never run out anywhere!"
Klarth began hesitantly, and Arche, confident but just as awkward, picked up the slack. Somewhere off to the side, Artemis sighed, watching them, sitting with his cheeks propped up in his hands.
"In every cell, in every home—
There is no concept of 'need'!"
"We'll fill the worlds to the brim,
Like a cauldron in a basement!
So simmer, Origpunsch,
And the firewood we'll give you!"
The two managed to finish together, fumbling for words and trying not to contradict each other. After the last word, a pillar of flame flared up, hiding the cauldron behind an impenetrable wall. Klarth and Arche eyed it suspiciously.
"What do you think," Klarth said, not taking his eyes off the unnatural flames, "what's the catch this time?"
"…I don't know," Arche said with difficulty. "But I feel sick…" She collapsed on the floor immediately.
"Hey!"
Artemis also fell, but no one paid attention to him. Except Luna, who instantly surrounded him with a barrier, unable to intervene herself. Having spat on the couple — literally, for he was already tired of them doing good worse than any evil — Artemis rushed to his hated comrade in misfortune.
"We have a problem, Tailless!" Artemis, like Arche, burst into Clart's room. But he stopped abruptly, not finding Gremlin in the cage. "Are you even alive in there…?"
Instead of answering, Gremlin Lea caught Artemis with his long, sticky tongue. He couldn't swallow only because the victim was doing everything in his power to get stuck in his throat. He had to spit him out.
"Ugh!" Artemis expressed extreme disgust, afraid to touch himself, covered in demonic drool. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"Sorry," Gremlin answered shamelessly, "reflexes."
"Herod!" Artemis cried, nearly crying, losing all hope of unsticking his wings. "As if those two idiots weren't enough… They've done some 'good' again!"
"…With 'good' like that, the end of the world won't last long — for both of us," Gremlin grumpily agreed.
The mana even penetrated the demon world, practically purifying the miasma, causing Pluto to sound the alarm. Not only demons, but spirits couldn't cope with such an abundance of it, collapsing from overdose, as did mana-sensitive elves and half-elves. Even the mighty Luna had enough strength to create a barrier for only one small creature. And Yggdrasil couldn't absorb the mana into the new seed so quickly either.
"Dry up," Gremlin crawled toward the exit. "We need to get a hint from Martel quickly."
"If someone hadn't gotten fat, we could have flown the old-fashioned way… Have you tried eating less?"
"How can I even eat less?!" Gremlin was indignant. "He barely feeds me at all…"
"Is that why you put everything in your mouth?" Artemis scolded him.
"No," Gremlin replied calmly. "It's just habit."
"Oh, you…!"
The path to Yggdrasil was never accompanied by silence. Artemis often cut the air, and Gremlin only quietly egged him on, amused: negative emotions were to his taste. And so they arrived.
Martel looked bad. Gremlin even dared to doubt she'd be able to squeeze out anything coherent. Artemis merely hissed, waiting and listening. Barely audible, Martel whispered:
"There's more smoke than fire...
When the wood is damp…"
Martel didn't waste any more power on words, concentrating on somehow stabilizing the flow of mana, protecting the world from destruction.
"Looks like we have even less time than usual this time," Artemis worried.
"And why didn't this Origin of yours unite the houses of these two fools closer to Yggdrasil? Every time we have to waste time on a useless trip back and forth…"
"He united them wherever they were drawn. Be thankful those shell-shocked ones didn't live somewhere overseas to begin with. That would have been 'fun' for us!"
They rushed home at breakneck speed: Martel's condition motivated them.
In the basement the fire continued to blaze like a wall — you couldn’t get close to it. There were no logs left in the small woodshed.
"Where did all the wood go?" Artemis panicked. He'd thought they'd just wet some and throw it under the cauldron, but now… "Klarth couldn't have actually thrown it all in."
"That's unlikely. He's busy with your mistress right now, trying to bring her to her senses. And you can't just throw more wood on a fire like that."
Gremlin thought, looking into the flames. His vision was far sharper than the fairy's, but even he had trouble making out anything. However, he managed to discern the outline of the embers. And suddenly, out of nowhere, a fresh log appeared.
"There must be more firewood somewhere," he concluded.
"In the yard!" Artemis realized.
The woodshed was full. And as if to confirm Gremlin's assumption, a tongue of flame suddenly appeared and devoured one log right before his eyes, immediately disappearing.
"…How do we get it all wet?" Artemis struggled to overcome his shock. "Throw it into the river?"
"Will the flame catch firewood from the river?" Gremlin expressed doubt. He imagined the flame to be smarter than his unwitting colleague's mistress. "And what if the current carries them too far?"
A familiar light flashed behind the open door: the same light with which Origin usually appeared in the mortal world. But this time he wasn't there. But the rain began to pound the roof like a downpour.
"Roll it out!" Gremlin snapped.
"Break the roof!" Artemis chimed in.
The rain was nothing less than a blessing from the higher powers. Artemis and Gremlin wasted no time, working together in unison until they succeeded in tricking the flames, leaving only the damp wood to consume.
Smoke billowed from the basement. The house seemed to cough, but it was only the two unwitting familiars who had imagined it—Klarth had simply pulled Arche out. Coughing, the girl came to. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet and looked around. Gradually, her vision became clearer. With it, her fear returned.
"A-a-ah! Our house!"
"Stop!" Klarth was already afraid for his books and research when Arche's torrential flood washed away the entire first floor and flooded the basement.
'Please, don't let it reach the second floor!' he pleaded.
"You idiot, there's no fire! Just a damp log! Are you trying to deprive us of the roof over our heads!?"
"Why didn't you tell me right away?! You slowpoke! I tried to save our house!"
While the two argued in the rain, giving themselves a cold, Artemis and Gremlin sighed wearily, lazily gazing at the soaked house, the remnants of smoke emitting from it. They had to somehow return to their places before their owners noticed them. However, halfway there, Artemis froze and began to tremble.
"Now I have to clean all this up… Sister Luna, have mercy!"
ㅤ
