"I searched it! There was nothing but dirt!" Sparky yelled back, sounding unapologetic. "It was an eyesore! I cleaned up the trash for you! You should be thanking me!"
"You just vaporized any potential metal scraps we could have salvaged to reinforce our own axles!" Klaus argued with his voice rising as he pointed an accusing finger at the crater. "Do you have any concept of restraint, or is your default setting just war crime’?!"
"I am an elemental hazard!" Sparky shrieked, kicking him in the collarbone. "You knew what you were configuring when you built me! If you wanted a maid to sweep the floor, you should have turned me into a broom!"
Klaus let out a long sigh as he brought his large hand up and violently rubbed his face.
Arguing with a creature made entirely of concentrated erratic energy was a completely losing battle.
She was exactly as bratty, destructive, and unhinged as her elemental nature dictated.
"Whatever," Klaus muttered, waving his hand dismissively to cut the argument short. "Just... sit there and don’t blow anything else up without my explicit permission. We have actual work to do."
He turned away from the fairy and gestured to the demi-human maid. "Come on, Mirela. Let’s go evaluate our actual ride."
Mirela nodded, jogging slightly to catch up to his long strides.
Together, they walked across the deep crunching snow of the massive outer courtyard, heading toward the far perimeter near the towering stone monoliths.
They were walking toward the remnants of Lord Varhem’s main carriage.
As they approached, Klaus felt a strange, surreal wave of nostalgia wash over him.
It hadn’t even been that long ago... maybe a week or two but looking at the carriage made it feel like an entire lifetime had passed.
They had been charging toward the Endless Tower in a blind panic, fleeing from the monsters and the freezing cold.
As they had crossed the threshold of the courtyard, the spatial barrier had activated, sealing the place off from the rest of the continent and the barrier had come down like a colossal invisible guillotine blade.
Because they were halfway through the boundary line, the iron-reinforced oak vehicle had been perfectly, cleanly sliced directly in half.
Now, with the purple spatial dome entirely dead and its energy rapidly fading into transparency, the absurdity of the carriage’s condition was fully visible.
It looked like a museum exhibit.
Half of the carriage... the front cabin, the driver’s bench, and the front axle was sitting safely inside the courtyard on the black sand.
The other half, which was the rear sleeping quarters, the back wheels, and the supply trunk, was sitting completely outside the perimeter, resting in the deep snowpack of the Winterlands.
The cut separating the two halves was impossibly clean with a very flawless bisection through the wood, the iron, and the leather seats.
"It’s a complete mess," Mirela murmured with her goat ears drooping as she inspected the clean cut. "Master, the main load-bearing chassis is completely severed. Even if we push the two halves together, the wood won’t hold the weight of the supplies without buckling the second we hit a bump."
"It would if we tried to patch it with regular nails," Klaus agreed, his silver eyes completely unbothered as he scanned the damage. "Good thing we aren’t using nails."
He turned around, looking back toward the center of the courtyard.
"Anya!" Klaus called out, his deep voice carrying easily over the wind. "Get over here. It’s time to do your thing."
The six-year-old Shinigami didn’t run as she floated.
"Alright Papa..."
Her pristine blue dress fluttered gently as she glided effortlessly over the snowdrifts, coming to a halt directly in front of the bisected carriage.
She tilted her silver head, her ancient purple eyes scanning the flawless spatial cut separating the two halves of the vehicle.
"The structural severance was caused by a high-density spatial barrier, I already know that though." Anya analyzed. "The physical matter was not destroyed; it was simply separated on a molecular level so the restoration falls well within my current operational parameters."
"Show me," Klaus smirked, crossing his arms.
Anya stepped forward as she stood directly between the two severed halves of the carriage, her small pale hands resting at her sides.
She closed her eyes.
A sudden intense drop in atmospheric pressure washed over the courtyard.
Anya raised her hands, her palms facing upward toward the sky.
She didn’t scream a spell name, but she began to utter a small melodic beautiful chant.
The words weren’t in any language Klaus or Mirela recognized... they sounded like the ancient, echoing whispers of the underworld, vibrating directly against their eardrums.
VWOOM!
A massive swirling pool of luminescent, dark violet Shinigami magic erupted from the little girl’s feet.
The dark mana flowed outward like a creeping mist, completely enveloping both halves of the bisected carriage.
Klaus watched in absolute, quiet awe as the reverse-entropy effect took hold.
The heavy, iron-reinforced rear half of the carriage, sitting out in the deep snow, began to violently tremble.
Then, entirely defying gravity, it lifted a foot into the air. Guided by Anya’s microscopic spatial manipulation, the massive chunk of wood and iron floated forward, perfectly aligning itself with the front half sitting in the courtyard.
CLACK! CRUNCH! GROAAAN!
The sounds of heavy timber physically re-fusing filled the air.
It was a breathtaking visual. Thousands of microscopic wood fibers, torn leather threads, and sheared iron particles rapidly slammed back together.
The dark violet magic acted as a supernatural welding torch, completely erasing the cut.
The heavy iron chassis bent and snapped back into a solid, continuous bar, groaning under the immense pressure as the oak floorboards wove together without leaving a single seam.
Anya lowered her hands with her chant fading into silence as the violet mist dissolved into the freezing wind.
With a solid sound, the fully restored carriage dropped back down onto the snowpack.
It was completely whole.
The chassis was unbroken, the cabin was perfectly sealed, and it actually looked darker and significantly sturdier than when Lord Varhem had first bought it.
"Incredible," Mirela gasped, stepping forward to run her hand over the side of the oak cabin. "There isn’t even a scratch on the paint."
"The structural integrity of the transport vehicle has been permanently restored, Father," Anya reported, turning around to face him.
Her voice was perfectly flat, though her purple eyes shone with an undeniably proud glint. "The spatial bindings have fortified the wood beyond its original mortal specifications."
"You’re a lifesaver, kid," Klaus grinned, stepping up to inspect the vehicle.
He walked around the back of the carriage, giving the heavy chassis a firm, testing kick with his combat boot.
It didn’t budge an inch as it felt like kicking a solid brick wall.
However, as he rounded the back left corner, his grin faded slightly.
"Well, almost perfect," Klaus noted, pointing downward.
The carriage was completely whole, but the back left wheel was entirely missing.
During the time the carriage had sat severed in the snow, a pack of scavengers or the brutal elements of the Winterlands must have completely destroyed or carried off the heavy wooden wheel from the rear half.
The iron axle was hovering in the air, completely bare.
"Ah," Anya murmured, stepping up beside him and staring at the empty axle. "The restoration requires the original physical matter to be present within the immediate vicinity. The missing rotational component cannot be summoned from nothingness."
"We can’t drive without a fourth wheel," Mirela frowned, her ears dropping. "The weight of the supplies will snap the axle if it’s dragging in the snow."
"Relax," Klaus said lazily, rolling his broad shoulders. "We improvise."
He didn’t need to send Sparky on another suicide mission to find a piece of wood.
Klaus walked a few feet away from the carriage, stepping into a particularly deep pristine white snowdrift.
He crouched down, driving his large, calloused hands deep into the freezing powder and he scooped up a massive pile of the dense Winterlands snow, packing it tightly together between his palms until he had formed a large, crude sphere of ice.
He set the heavy snowball on the ground near the bare iron axle.
"Master, snow won’t hold the weight of the carriage," Mirela warned gently. "The friction will melt it in five minutes."
"Normal snow would," Klaus agreed, a confident smirk spreading across his face.
He placed both of his hands flat against the top of the packed snow sphere.
He closed his eyes, tapping directly into the thudding reservoir of his divine core.
Klaus could have used his newly acquired [Soul Configuration] skill to perfectly construct a flawless permanent wheel.
But as he ran the mental calculations, he quickly realized the limitation of his power.
Soul Configuration wasn’t creation magic... it was biological and spiritual restructuring. It only worked on entities that actually possessed a soul.
He could configure a wolf, a guard, or a lightning fairy, but he couldn’t use a harvested human soul to build a wooden tire without creating some kind of horrifying screaming flesh-wheel and he wasn’t about to drive a carriage resting on a wheel made of human suffering.
That was just bad taste.
So, he went with brute force.
VWOOM.
Klaus flooded the packed snow with raw highly concentrated white Soul Mana.
The volume of energy didn’t melt the ice... it drastically altered its physical properties. The white mana sank into the snow, forcibly compressing the molecular structure of the ice until it was denser than solid steel.
The crude sphere rapidly flattened and widened under his hands, glowing with an intense white light as Klaus shaped it with his raw magical intent, carving out a perfect circular hole in the center.
When he pulled his hands away, the light faded, leaving behind a perfectly formed indestructible wheel made of divinely reinforced ice.
"Problem solved," Klaus announced.
He grabbed the heavy freezing ice-tire, lifting it effortlessly with his newly acquired divine strength.
He shoved it onto the bare iron axle and it slid into place with a satisfying sound, locking perfectly onto the carriage frame.
Mirela stared at the glowing ice-wheel, absolutely speechless.
She reached out, tentatively tapping her knuckles against the tire.
It didn’t feel like snow... It felt like she was knocking on a solid diamond.
"The structural compression is fascinating," Anya noted, leaning down to inspect the tire. "The internal mana density prevents any degradation and it might outlast the wooden components of the carriage by several centuries."
"I’m a man of many talents," Klaus smirked, dusting his hands off on his trousers.
With the carriage completely restored and fully operational, all that was left was loading up the salvaged goods.
Klaus turned around, looking back toward the center of the courtyard where the heavy oak supply crates... filled with dried meat, heavy furs, and alchemical oil were sitting in the snow.
They were heavy, easily weighing two hundred pounds each.
Klaus raised his hands, fully preparing to summon his glowing white soul tendrils to carry the heavy crates over to the carriage in one smooth, effortless motion.
"Alright," Klaus started to say, his voice rising in command. "Now we need to take the crat—"
"I’ll get them!" Mirela shouted suddenly.
The demi-human maid didn’t wait for his order.
She completely bolted past him, her boots kicking up a spray of white powder as she sprinted toward the crates.
Her tail was wagging furiously behind her with her goat ears perked completely upright with pure eager excitement.
She wasn’t just trying to be helpful; she was actively, desperately trying to prove her worth to him.
After spending the entire night being broken down and flooded with his divine mana, her physical stamina was completely overflowing.
She felt like she could lift a mountain, and she wanted him to see exactly how devoted she was.
"I will assist with the spatial organization of the cargo!" Anya chimed in.
The little Shinigami didn’t float this time.
She actually picked up the skirts of her pristine blue dress and ran through the snow right behind Mirela, her purple eyes shining with rare childlike enthusiasm.
After days of heavy trauma and dark magic, the simple, mundane act of packing a wagon felt like a genuinely exciting adventure to her.
They reached the crates before Klaus had even fully extended his arms.
Mirela grabbed the heavy iron handles of the first crate, hauling the two-hundred-pound box off the ground with shocking ease as her newly fortified muscles were not even straining.
Klaus stood near the back of the carriage, completely frozen in place with his hands awkwardly raised in the air.
He stared at the two girls as they eagerly began lugging the heavy crates through the snow, completely ignoring his magical preparation.
On his shoulder, Sparky let out a high-pitched mocking cackle of pure amusement.
"Looks like they don’t need your glowing tentacles, Boss!" Sparky laughed, kicking her tiny boots against his collarbone. "You’re obsolete!"
Klaus let out a long, heavy sigh, completely dropping his arms. The raw Soul Mana fading from his fingertips back into his core.
He couldn’t even be mad.
Watching the fiercely loyal maid and the child working together to pack their wagon brought a strange sense of warmth to his chest.
Klaus shook his head with a smile breaking across his face.
"Hey!" Klaus yelled, his heavy boots crunching loudly as he jogged through the snow after them. "Wait up! Don’t load the heavy ones in the back, you’re going to throw off the suspension!"