I Don’t Know but it Seems Like I’m a Deer!

Chapter 27: Who are you!



Once Georgine had been taken care Naru went back to Hakuya’s bar for some well-earned rest, she had spent the day enduring abuse from the girl and even had to use magic to save her from assailants.

Naru flopped into bed realizing how much easier it was to just be a simple barmaid. Even if the pay was less she could always tell Ymir to kick out unruly patrons. In Georgine’s case, Naru could only endure it. It wasn’t like she could simply leave Georgine, that would be tantamount to asking for death.

The next day Naru confronted Hakuya at midday where there was no one else in the bar.

“How do you know I would be able to defend that girl.” Naru accused him.

Hakuya continued to wipe down the counter ignoring her protests.

“Hey! I’m talking to you, listen to me”

“Mah, it’s really loud today isn’t it,” Hakuya said ignoring her again.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Naru said swiping the rag from Hakuya’s hand so she couldn’t ignore her further.

“Tch, annoying girl, she doesn’t even have a nice rack like that last one,” Hakuya muttered under his breath

Naru slapped Hakuya

He groaned in pain slightly

“Alright, I deserved that.”

He stood up and straightened his back from the bent posture he held while cleaning the counter.

“Come” He said gesturing for Naru to follow him.

Naru watched him suspiciously but it seemed like Hakuya didn’t have any ulterior motives. He eventually led her to the storeroom door where she had seen him enter with many visitors.

Naru followed Hakuya inside to room. It smells like mildew and a faint scent of soil.

Hakuya turned his head towards Naru once they entered the room. Unlike his normally easy-going face, Hakuya’s expression was stone cold.

“Why did you bring me here,” Naru said. The room was a dead end and there was plenty of other private areas to talk in the bar, Naru didn’t know why Hakuya chose this spot.

“I can tell you why I know so much, but that will mean losing an aspect of your freedom,” Hakuya said.

Naru took a step back.

“What do you mean…” She said.

“You’ve got ears hiding underneath that hat don’t you.” He said grinning.

Naru grabbed the top of her head instinctively, she felt her ears flutter slightly in surprise.

“… How do you know.” She said in a low tone, ready to attack Hakuya and make a run for it.

“Hakuya pulled a pair of keys from his pocket,

“I own this building you know. I can see you when you sleep.”

[Tch] Naru had been careless she had been under the assumption that Hakuya would respect her privacy, but it seemed like he snuck a look at her while she was sleeping.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to watch a girl while she sleeps?” Naru said.

“Ah, but you’re a deer aren’t you,” Hakuya said.

In that instant, mounds of earth shot up from the ground, breaking through the thin wooden floorboards and completely encasing Hakuya’s body except for his head.

Despite the attack, Hakuya seemed calm.

“Hmm, so you have earth magic too, don’t see too many blessed animals with two elements, not to mention that fact that yours have good synergy.” He said.

“Speak!” Naru shouted. Ymir was out of the bar right now running errands, and she could dispose of Hakuya quickly and make a run for it, but before that she needed to know why he went through so much trouble to bring her to this spot, or why he didn’t expose her sooner

“Now, Now, let’s not get too hasty here. I don’t have any intention of outing you. If I wanted too, I could’ve done it plenty of times right?” Hakuya said.

“What?”

Naru had been under the impression that Hakuya was keeping her identity a secret for an ulterior motive, but he was right that there wasn’t any reason for him to keep her on staff for so long.

Naru loosened the earth bindings slightly. That’s was a mistake on her part.

In an instant, Hakuya shifted slightly in the earth that encased him and Naru felt the magic surging through her chest cut off. The earth that encased Hakuya fell to the ground in clumps, and he was free. Naru saw him clutching a small black gem in his hand.

Naru adopted a fighting stance, ready to pummel her way out. Hakuya was positioned towards the door and blocking her path of escape. Magic deer were physically stronger than normal humans, so although Naru was physically a young girl she was about as strong as a full-grown man.

“Let’s just calm down alright. Can you at least let me explain myself?” Hakuya said, making no motions to defend himself.

“What did you do to my magic!” Naru growled.

“Ah, this thing?” Hakuya said holding up the gem that was in his hand. “it’s a magic absorbing gem,”

He crushed the gem in his hand it fell to the ground.

“They’re fairly rare but they are handy no?”

Naru eyed Hakuya, throughout this whole exchange he had not once attacked her.

Hakuya seemed to smile slightly.

“So you are finally getting that I mean no harm. Good, that means we can talk.”

Announcement

----Obsolete info----

I dunno how to say this, but I think I am going to take a writing "hiatus". Not because I hate writing, and I'm tired of it. It's the exact opposite. I don't have time. Cue Hamilton music "why do you always write like your running out of time". I've thought a lot about my motivation for writing in general, and I'm not really in it for the money, constantly updating chapters and finishing my web novels is probably something I'll do at one point. Since I've been a kid, becoming an author has always been a dream of mine, but when I write these chapters for RE.C.A.P and Deer I'm too tired to write anything else.  I want the first draft of something more substantial than GL, Isekai I like writing this genre, and hell I even spend most of my time reading it, but it's a dead-end. There is almost no chance a literary agent picks up RE.C.A.P(already sent a few test inquiries to see how they would respond). Deer is more likely to be picked up especially since, I plan on removing the book from the site once finished and "scrubbing the serial numbers", but even then, I know Deer really isn't my most polished work. It's really the second book I've tried to write and I've felt like I've improved from then. The only reason I don't update my prose is that I've already set the narrative prose this way and it's hard to change it without feeling like I am changing the tone of the book. 

Will I try to finish Deer at some point? Probably, maybe in the near future even once I finish my current project. (Honestly, I only expect this hiatus to last until I graduate college(early December) and I have time to write again). I know "hiatus" is sorta a dirty word in this community because people think it's the author abandoning a project, and I have that fear as well. That once I stop writing I will lose the will to keep updating. I can't make any promises to you, in truth, my ties to this website and series are superficial, and I'm sure you all are familiar with authors dropping projects without a word. I will say one thing, I want to see the resolution of this book as much as you all do. I wrote 10k words of this novel without showing it to a single soul because I wanted to write this story.

I hope that at this end of this I can tell you all I have a first draft or even that I have a literary agent. I am a pretty fast writer so I have no doubts that if I get a fire under my butt I will finish the first draft, and probably a second draft but the writing world is fickle and finding an agent will be more difficult. One day, I hope I can enjoy the fact I started on this website, and become well known enough that people seek out my work on here to see where I started. This is the first real break I've taken since I started seriously writing in February (because I was so unsatisfied with the ending of Maou-Sama No Machizukuri! and Arifureta lol). I didn't realize that the small "joke novel" I made on webnovel would eventually reach trending over 10 times on scribblehub, be viewed over 400k times, have over 1700 readers, and also give me a small amount of money. I don't have any delusions that I am a talented author, but I want to be one. I remember seeing an image of an athlete tweeting to themselves that they would reach the Olympics one day, they eventually did and wrote a tweet saying "I made it". I hope that in the very same way I can write a chapter saying that I made it as well. 

For my Patreon subscribers, I will update RE.C.A.P and Deer to 5 advance chapters + 1 apology chapter and then stop, then I will be locking my Patreon tiers. You can msg me if you want to keep subscribing but I will probably tell you to put that money towards charity or something.

It's been a wild ride. I hope to see you all in December.


Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.