Transmigrated as a Ghost

Around three hours before daybreak Marcus woke up from his slumber.

He had decided to sleep for only a little while since there was something that he wanted to do when the fewest number of people would be out and about.

‘She looks as peaceful as ever.’ Marcus thought as he gazed down at his wife.

She had a fairly big grin on her slipping face and had quite the grip around her pillow.

Carefully Marcus got out of the bed to make sure he did not disturb her. Luckily Mrazivý stayed dead asleep.

‘Time to get into character.’

In an instant Marcus’ form changed and shifted, and he had once again taken on his guise as Irene.

He wanted to restore the missing fingers on Treasa’ left hand but knew that doing so as Marcus would cause some complications or need a lengthy explanation he was not willing to give.

Yet as he exited his cabin by phasing through the hull of the ship and coming out on the other side, he abruptly stopped.

An amazing sight was sitting before him right now and one that he had not been expecting to see.

‘I had heard that when the ocean is especially still it looks like glass, but this really is something.’ Marcus thought.

Other than the wake of the ship the ocean around them was completely still with nary a ripple through it.

The wind was practically nonexistent, and it seemed that the tides had abandoned the area they were in.

This created the illusion that Marcus was staring out at an endless field of glass, and it was only even more impressive with the numerous stars that were being reflected off of it.

Nevertheless, after he had gotten his fill of looking at the beautiful sight, he continued on his way towards his goal.

He wanted to hurt up and heal Treasa and went about finding her.

‘Luckily she has one of the strongest presences on board, so all I have to do is run through the area until my life sense gets a hit.’

Flying through the corridors in his ghost form Marcus systematically searched the ship until he found Treasa.

To his luck, she was currently alone and was keeping watch at the stern of the ship.

“Whoever is there, come on out. I do not much like being sneaked up on.” Treasa said when she noticed Marcus’ presence.

Of course, this was not because she felt him while he was in his ghost form, but because he had become tangible from outside her range of perception and approached her naturally.

“It has been a long time Treasa; I just wanted to come and say hello to an old friend.”

Walking out of the shadows Marcus made himself known, and Treasa went wide eyed when she saw him.

Naturally he did not look any different than when they had last met, and she was easily able to recall one of the people she had fought a boss monster with.

“Irene! What are you doing here!?” Treasa said in an excited and confused tone.

She was happy to be seeing some she knew and was close to, but also unsure how she had missed Marcus’ presence.

Her sense of smell was impeccable, and even on such a large ship if they had crossed paths even from afar, she should have picked up on his scent.

However, while in different forms he left a completely unique scent, and she would never recognize who he was simply by smell.

“Oh, I am just one of the passengers here to enjoy the ride till we reach the resort. I noticed you onboard as well and decided to come and see you once you were alone. Do you have a little time to talk and catch up?”

With a reluctant look, Treasa looked back out into the ocean.

Technically she was on watch right now and fulling her duties as a hired guard.

Even if no one found out that she had shirked her duties to speak with a friend, she would feel bad about it.

“Here, allow me to watch with you. We can speak while keeping a look out. If anything happens, I will help out. So, there is no need to worry.” Marcus said reassuringly.

With a slight smile Treasa agreed and beckoned Marcus to stand beside her. She knew he was reliable and more than strong enough to pick up any slack on watching out for enemies.

“So, I heard that you left Lethallan around three years ago now. What have you been up to since then?”

Starting the conversation off naturally, Marcus decided to close the gap between them and get reacquainted by speaking of their experiences.

Treasa, showing great enthusiasm, began relaying the adventures she had been on since their parting in Lethallan.

To start, it was mostly just her continuing to run the dungeon as usual, but when she reached level sixty, she began to feel listless and wanted some new experiences.

This led her to head to the capital and use the teleportation circle there to head over to the continent to the west of Borealia.

Thus began her adventures in a new and unfamiliar place.

“There was much to see and do. So many new things, good and bad. In a kingdom ruled by other beast people I ended up attracting the attention of a warrior noble who wanted to take me as a bride and had to fight my way through him and his soldiers. In another, the guild called me in on an emergency quest to deal with a band of brigands that had overthrown the rule and order of a city. And of course, I made my way into plenty of new dungeons and explored them.”

During the entire time Treasa was incredibly happy to divulge everything she had been through, but never once touched on how she lost her fingers.

Naturally Marcus wanted to know but held off asking right away.

pa(nd)a no vel Instead, he decided to tell of some of his won adventurers first. Though he did make sure to leave out anything that was too sensitive.

“Sounds like you have had quite the wild time yourself. But to think that you are able to work with amethros now. You certainly have come a long way since I last saw you. At that time, you were still scrambling to get your hands on just adamantine.”

“Yeah, that seems like quite a long time ago. Now I have a pretty good stock of adamantine. Though amethros is still a bit hard to come by.”

For until the sun began to rise up, the two of them simply talked and caught up with each other.

They had objectively not spent all that long together in Lethallan but in the confines of the dungeon and pushing through many fights together tended to bring people together quickly.

Eventually as the sunrise began to reflect off the water, Marcus decided to ask about Treasa’s missing fingers.

“So, what happened with your hand? I know you have been trying to steer clear of the topic, but it is not something I can just ignore.”

Pursing her lips together, Treasa had a conflicted look on her face, but soon let out a sigh and began telling Marcus what had happened.

“I got this injury when I was betrayed. I had teamed up with some other adventures and was on a mission when they tried to capture me.” Treasa said with an angry and sorrowful expression.

“Apparently as I found out later, they made a lot of money illegally selling high ranking adventurers they had detained as slaves. They liked to target loners like me who were just looking to join a temporary party. However, I was more than they bargained for and the poison that tried to use did not get through my resistance. It was a brutal fight and one of them managed to cut off my fingers. Still, in the end, I came out alive and they are all dead, so I suppose it is a small price to pay. It at least taught me to be more careful about who I partied up with.”

Treasa was putting on a brave and handed expression, but Marcus could tell that she was quite shaken by the experience.

Though who wouldn’t be. Suddenly having people you trusted to watch you back turn on you and try to sell you would be a frightening experience even for someone as strong as Treasa.

For a few minutes Marcus gave her words of comfort and eased her away from the dark mood telling the story had brought her to.

Then, when he felt the moment was right, he asked her about her prosthetics.

“I see you have had some replacements made, but what about having your fingers restored? Have you tried to find a healer or purchase a lesser elixir.” Marcus asked.

Unlike him most people did not have a regeneration skill or the healing powers necessary to grow lost body parts back. Truly, if he did not, his journey would have already ended many times over.

“No, it would be stupidly expensive either way. Healers that are at the level capable of restoring lost appendages are few and far between and cost way too much to simply heal this. Same with getting a lesser elixir. It could take a while to find one that is up for auction somewhere, and then I might not even have enough to buy it. Getting a prosthetic that only cost a few thousand gold was a better alternative.”

“Okay, then if money was the issue, would you like me to heal your fingers for free?”