Chapter 0.4.1

As soon as Trafe vanished out of existence, an empty bottle suddenly replaced his position, with their conversation suddenly ended, Nayb was somehow relieved. He picked up the empty bottle then threw it across the sandy beach, with how Trafe was talking, Nayb's experience told him that Trafe might bring back something unexpected. So throwing the bottle in a safer and empty place should do the trick. 

Since Trafe won't be returning anytime soon, Nayb dragged his left leg across the rocky stones, he spotted a small cave beside the cliff. Being out in the open somehow made Nayb feel too vulnerable, for what it's worth, he really missed being out, he hadn't seen the sky for so long that seeing the two large objects in the sky was sort of unreal, absurd even.

“Red and blue huh, destined for each other, but can't be together. Just like the two I know of”

With a sigh, he entered the small cave, it wasn't that high off the ground. The howl of wind and the soothing sound of sea waves echoed throughout the cave. The moons lit up the entrance, but it wasn't enough to engulf the whole cave. Nayb closed an eye down, searching for any sign of life. He is a good tracker, he slowly trek into the darkness. With every step, the surroundings drew darker, but Nayb went on, eventually opening his left eye when he couldn't see farther. A needle like twinged stab the back of his neck, he paused, a familiar feeling, a constant feeling. 

He quickly crouched down a large stone near the cave wall, the feeling was still there, getting stronger, something knows he was here. He slowly moved back, but the feeling won't go away. He stood up, ignoring the pain in his leg, whatever he was detecting was surely getting close, the shaking ground was a definite hint for that. He felt like an idiot for going here, was he really that keen on going to places like this. The shaking grew rugged, it was definitely after him. He stopped trying to run, the thing that was chasing him was surely faster than him, so he stood still on his position, he focused on his mana, even without a weapon, or with an injury, he could still put up a fight, He didn't try on focusing on defensive spell, instead he opt on concentrating for an offensive one, but without a defense, it could spell the end of him.

He closed his eyes, relying on his mind instead. The rumbling got stronger, he ignored the shaking feeling, he was waiting, he needed to wait for the right moment before he—THERE!

Something hit him, from his right shoulder down to his feet, it wasn't sharp, but a hundred teethlike grind at him, a rotating set of death, created for shredding everything on its path, it wasn't fast, but the dull revolving set of teeth ensured it would torn anything to pieces—

“[Retaliate]!”

Nayb painfully shouted his spell. The worm-like creature stopped to a halt, its rotating jaws suddenly going in the opposite direction. The worm shrieked to death halfway through its body before the spell could even finish retaliating the whole body.

Nayb fell to the ground with worms still clutching him, he yelp in pain as he tries to pull the worm off his body, his spell did more damage to him than the wormas the jaws rotated backwards. He couldn't even feel half of his body now. But that was the least of his problems, as two more worms crawled up in front of him, larger than the dead one, he could also see that their teeth were sharper to.

“Great, so fucking great” He muttered before closing his eyes…

---

He closed his eyes, he needed to focus, he had done this a thousand times, but relaxing his mind made things easier, he searched inside, like looking for a particular star at night, a small and dimming star. but the thing he was looking for wasn't a star, so he tried to remember, its weight—light, with a  long narrowed neck about the size of a knife handle, the bottom part was a round and hollow container, it was holding liquid inside when he last checked, but it was empty now, he was sure of it.

So Trafe looked for the bottle in his mind space, he needed to make sure that the bottle was in an open space lest he find himself squished in a tight container, it wasn't hard for him to grasp how it works, if the mental image of a particular object he was sensing were glowing on long intervals, then that particular object might be in a smaller space, the longer the interval, the smaller the space it's occupying. 

Stolen story; please report.

So when he finally found the bottle with his mana anchor, glowing with no visible interval, he activated his spell—[Materiality Shift],a maelstrom of blue light only he could see pulled him to its center, he felt himself being tugged in, like being roped and pulled, a whirly and nauseating sensation he feels every time he used the spell. He tried to open his eyes, only to be blinded by the surrounding infinite streaks of lights passing around him. He stared for what he felt like minutes before an object passed through him, a bottle. His real eyes flew open. Only a second had passed, all the sensation vanished as soon as he felt it, like a misstep when going down the stairs. 

His eyes were blinded again, but this wasn't caused by his spell, He wasn't expecting this place to be this bright. After his eyes adjust, he didn't anticipate seeing a centaur here at this hour.

The centaur was in front of a chest, casually humming as he—she? definitely a he, as he transfer the contents of the chest  to a smaller bag, probably enchanted.

Trafe crept behind, picking up a broken piece of bottle, then he remembered the spear he marked last night, he then marked the bottle as well, pouring as much mana he felt required. He focused on the spear in his mind, swapping two objects are simpler than swapping himself with an object. But swapping live objects or beings was the hardest. If he wanted to swap person A with person B, he first needed to touch and mark each one, then he himself would need to swap with person A, then swaps with B, then swap with A again. It's both physically exhausting and mana consuming for him, so he usually just does that when he deem it genuinely needed. He continued to get closer, he could already smell the rusty and sweaty odor of the centaur, just a little more, he readied his spell, swapping his bottle with a spear if needed. He pointed the bottle behind the centaur, concentrating his mana, he leaned it at the centaur's back—

“ARGHHH! It's not what it looks like—Oh! your that pebble guy!” 

“Huh?” Trafe got confused by that, the centaur wasn't even trying to unsheathe his sword, more worried being caught, he eyed Trafe's empty bottle and pointed.

“You ah, looking for some of those? Here! and ah,sorry for yelling at you, others say my voice is way louder than two minotaurs mating, haha! You're the adventurers who took out this sorry lot huh? Are you Gold Rank? How did you even manage to enter the ship? I heard Captain Firefly was  a very suspicious scum, he doesn't even let his ship go near any land—Hey are you okay? Do you need a potion?”

The minotaur only stopped when he saw Trafe was kneeling while holding his head.

“Sorry about that, just got a little dizzy, you talk a lot you know?” Trafe said after his dizziness went away. 

“Oh! my bad, my friends say—” a waving hand interrupted him from talking again.

“I need a health potion, not this one” Trafe said while pointing at the stamina potion which the centaur was offering. “And weren't you guys chasing us a while ago? Why are you being friendly now?”

Trafe was getting a hard time processing what the centaur was ranting about, he got a feeling they might have mistaken them from adventures, but that doesn't explain the friendly vibe he got from the centaur.

“Well you see—you should probably sit down first, you might get dizzy again or anything”

The centaur helped Trafe to sit, as he explained, Trafe learned that this Firefly guy who he just killed was not really fond of [Mages] or even [Adventurers]. So when the centaur saw Trafe back at the beach, more exactly, when Trafe and the other guy vanished before their eyes. Their [Commander] more or less concluded that they were probably adventurers, they didn't even tried to fight the [Riders] something the [Adventurers] would definitely do.

“And ah, sorry about your friend back there, you see, the boy Kali, the one who attacked your friend. He's still new to this ah, patrolling thing, he just got his class last week, and was just too eager and was probably nervous on his first night out” the centaur, who's name was Mrakr said. “The city guild would compensate for the injury of your friend! Speaking of which, why didn't you guys just tell us that you are Adventurers? that could have saved all of us the inconvenience, heck, this ship wouldn't be here by now” 

There was no suspicion from his voice, that made Trafe want to tell the truth, but if he admitted that they weren't adventurers as the centaurs claim, they could be imprisoned, fined or anything that could potentially detrimental to them. He was going to lie his way out but remembered something.

“Can we talk about this tomorrow,my friend really need the potion, so uhm, how about this—”

---

“Hey Nayb! look what I got!”

Trafe didn't really need to shout, as evident from what he brought back, it was huge and as wide as four houses.

“Now we wouldn't need to find a house, and this thing has everything we need!”

Trafe continued to shout, not even daring to look at Nayb. He only stopped when Nayb didn't answer back, he usually has something smart to say. He looked for Nayb, but he didn't see him. He saw the cave, then he threw the bottle he just emptied. 

When he swapped with the bottle, he immediately noticed the carnage, five—seven large things were on the ground, some were even half buried. There could be even more of this things, as Trafe noticed some sort of mouth and circular heads lying about farther away from the large ones.

He heard something shuffle, prompting him to hide behind a large worm twice as high as him, he then proceeded to pick up what seemed to be a sharp rock. He glanced back to where the sound came from—

“Ohh! hey Nayb, what're you doing here?” Trafe asked while grinning, sounding more jealous than worry 

“Ahh—nothing, just ah, looking for a place to sleep” Nayb replied

“Your leg's all heal up! I guess you won't be needing this then!” Trafe said, not noticing the horns shrinking back on Nayb's head