COI C252

The mourning never ends. Languages neither remember nor recognized to Haw’s ears. Many say that ignorance is blissed. How about idiocy shows no empathy? This is what the world is to the dead. The living can’t interfere the dead. The immortals are, but he left himself puzzled if he continues to pester about it. The dead though, they are not free. More so they are bound to the daemos whom they were enslaved or willing to follow. A dangerous concept who dared to try to look into it. The Dexter Guild did. Or maybe they weren’t. Now Haw is here, trying to do the same.

Empty glasses with special corks and other seals to contain this such samples for the guild. Lady Coheld won’t approve such action. There is an exception. The notes he received from his old guild. Repair Boy gives it to him along with the researcher who continue examine the city’s condition. These instructions are too telling that they already known about the East Coast. Are they still watching over their rival guild? Or did someone is on the expedition before this happen?

A small piece roll of paper on his fingertips, he slightly, carefully unrolled it and a substance appeared in a powder form. He opens one of the empty glasses and poured a pinch of it. Then he collects the samples into the glass then quickly sealed it. The substance floats in the air and lights come up and forms electricity sparks out of it. It gradually forms a rod and looks like as if it generates power on the tip of it inside. This is the first time he couldn’t grasp the formula he is doing.

He checks the notes again as the final instructions to what to do with it. It says as he read it out with a whisper

“. . . Warning: Never used it on the deamos kind”

It was useless information. The glass with a sealed on his hand shows unsettling power generating from it. He was instructed to make it. If this is not allowed on the daemos, then this meant it will never be used outside of this place. This complicates him as it looks like it is a time bomb where his hand feels the electrocution on his skin.

Later he made more batches as he held five of them in all. The first one is already reaching at full light. It turns into a molecular singularity. The seal is expanding showing codex writing he couldn’t interpret. Codex, other than Dexter Guild’s secret message. This one is less numbers and more letterings. He forgot why he was supposed to be. The original mission, he was supposed to be with Tabitha and the team. But he knows she needs Juela to keep her sane. However, these batches must be delivered to them.

The enemies watch their own being treated as lab rats. They are trapped in their bodies as if Haw is the demon as like other demon did it before. This ceaseless agony forced them to get rid the chemicals washed all over them. One of them is recovering. Its body is still deformed and still able to kill him if had a chance. Where the sun light turns dark, the light blue turns darker as Haw no longer sees farther away. It is their perfect time. Slowly and steadily to crawl beneath their deformed bodies, reaching closer to Haw’s feet.

Haw keeps focusing on his potions trying to figure out how to get it over to them. The monster strikes, and Haw grabs its body while wounding his arm. Then he swings it to his crafting table and put into the small hole. The monster is feasting his blood trying to regrow it into a new limb. But it was baited, Haw wasn’t bleeding as he hid on his arm is animal blood. The monster’s limb grew rotted flesh, not fresh enough to make a new one. The monster that placed on the small hole spurts out slime in red, like a fountain.

The small hole had turned into a forsaken magic circle. The monsters see what symbols and stood silence of its presence. In true fear, they see the symbol of the magic circle. It is as demonic as it had become to be. This one is different. Like how did this man ever know how to make this kind of magic? The silence in an instant. They know what happen if they mourn again. Haw turns the next page of his notes. Preparedness is key, and he must follow Tabitha’s orders as requested.

“This is a rescue mission. Do whatever it takes to save my people, except traumatizing them. Alright Everyone?”

Then said “Yeah”

Inside the caves, the first cry for help in a recognizable language. Silfa takes the front as the two, Tabitha and Juela come running behind and watching their backs. The tunnels are as tight as it can be. Tabtiha is using her cards to pushes the rock formation into a clean path. It is small, and enough only them to get through. Juela turns back and see McS4 and R-cord are having trouble to catch up.

“Hey, we can’t split up at this crucial moment, Tabitha”

“Don’t worry about them. They’ll make it”

Silfa agreed “Yeah, I can’t use my magic scroll to help them sneak anyway”

As they reached to the next corner, they found three tunnels before them. They quickly stop trying to figure it out where they are. Silfa runs to the tunnels and try to hear the cry again. It was silent. She stomps her feet on the rock as it crumbles including the ground as well. The sneak magic scroll is able to block the noise leaving Tabitha almost felt it as she is also furious about it.

“They couldn’t be that far. We definitely heard them”

Juela tries to calm her down “Take it easy, Silfa. They are been down here for so long. They are probably left”

Silfa was so close and calls out to Fae-chan “I am sorry, but can you figure which of these caves should we go?”

Fae-chan points down where they stand and said nothing. Juela checks where it is pointing and do some little tracking. She places her hand on the ground and begins to dig a little. There is none, but she wasn’t done yet.

“Hey, can any of you two could lend me something to dig with?”

Silfa handed over her dagger “Here, please find something before I’m going to get crazy”

Then she murmured “. . . We’re so close”

Juela digs deeper as she finds something. A broken device, an old clip phone with a phone charm. The charm is a small anime animal character.

Juela uses her sashes and traces it when it happened. The charm was traced back at junior high, at their original world. It soon skipped the rest until the reason of this young pre-teen girl joined the crowd. It was clear

“I don’t want to go home . . .”

It was the same girl who said it. The girl shows desperation as it shows her suffering back then. Her miserable life secrets made her this way. But to be in this coast is a foolish choice. This infuriates Silfa from what she sees.

“No, she was tricked. There is no way someone don’t want to go back. Her family, her friends, and everything else back at Isekai City is safer than this”

They are in disbelief. Juela keeps tracing to the last moment when the girl dropped it. By the last moment when the girl ‘dropped’ it. The motion how it fell to the ground is no incident, more like it was thrown to the ground in indirect anger. It shocks her why it happened that way. She turns to them, but they didn’t notice the last scene. Rather, they talked about the young girl.

The clip phone at her hand, this is the best opportunity to use the tracking magic or tool from the Dexter Guild. She turns around and sees them as expected. R-cord examines a different kind of device. The keyboard identical model like device but in different design. He takes it and checks how it works. This is definitely a tech from his quick examination. With hard to understands language, this is a better item to trace the citizens with. He responds

“Will definitely search them. Why didn’t you stop here? Those two are running if someone is out there”

The crying for help in these tunnels had made them tired from the desperation, even dared to go further they know they will be separated and lost. Even if they could reach out eventually, the time to search one another is a waste than finding the rest of their people. Silfa asks those two

“I am just wondering, you hear them, right?”

“We hear a noise, but you two seem to attracted to it. This means they are here” McS4 takes an assumption

“That’s right, what about your detection items or whatever it called? Will it be useful to try it now?”

McS4 agrees “It should, but I think we are out in the open for too long now. We need to rest. Juela is the only one is tired, and rightly so”

Juela looks fine, but after they take a closer look. Tabitha is a bit worried and tries to check her device. The time she reads as her face frown at how long they are travelling.

“It’s 10PM! We left the outpost at 5AM in the morning. Juela, how did you able to travel with us this long?”

Juela smiles at them at their stats “It’s the adrenaline, I guess. If we rest now, I would collapse anytime soon”

Later, they immediately find somewhere to camp. Thanks to Juela’s knowledge about Voldemyr’s hidden rooms, they eventually found one close by to where they found the clip phone.

The design of the hidden camp matches the quality of Ironno’s safe rooms. The difference is how big and wide the camp is. It is completely empty with nothing left to help them protect themselves. They set the camp. McS4 starts to prepare the meal. R-cord sets himself out to patrol while everybody will take a good night sleep. Silfa and Tabitha watches McS4 preparing the meal with their instant cooking utensils. MRE packs all set and using only hot water as the key cooking tool to get themselves ready. Under only 10 minutes, all the food is ready.

McS4 takes their dining utensils and set them before them. He won’t remove the package and kept it and places it on the plates. His shares and R-cords are at their side of the ground.

“I hope this feast will help you nurture back to health. Because you really need the immune system to get working”

He grabs his package and chows it down like it was a bag of chips. Astonishingly, his meals fell on his mouth and never spills. It is some impressive way of eating, but the women left disgust from his manners.

After they eat, the first come to mind as they continue their conversation left off after their meal. Silfa keeps shaking her head

“We are sure there are people out there”

“Hey, take it easy, Silfa. We have long day today. Juela is sleeping”

Tabitha tries to calm her down again. Silfa tries to hold herself

“Exhale* I’m sorry, I’ve been rambling so long. Juela really worked hard without any stats boost. Would it be possible to find them, tomorrow?”

Tabitha points out again at the detector left by R-cord. It slowly moves around next to McS4 sounds asleep.

The two can’t sleep, the cries for help had messed up their heads. It gets in their heads as they tried to take some sleep. Multiple attempts, they tried to lessen their stats to get them properly to sleep. It won’t take long as their eyes stared out at nothing keeping themselves distracted by their own worries. Fae-chan helps them by using the camp fire as visual images loosen their stress. The soothing light drawn the sleepiness of its ritual into their eyes, and they feel the warmth. It almost work, until those warm moments remembered the people they remembered. Both of them are very hard headed.

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R-cord returns later that night, bringing a recorder at hand and places it next to the detector. He drops it as it accidentally played the audio on McS4’s head. The same crying voice lead out then he quickly turned it off. He looks around and sees everyone is asleep. McS4 stood up as it is his turn to patrol. After their little incident, it was all quiet again where the campfire is almost set in ember. The light went out, and footsteps start coming closer to the detector. Eyes reflected on the detector’s screen where the sound came from. The three tunnels of the cave shown to be the one on the upper area. The two without hesitation quickly go there without everyone waking up.

As they reached to the tunnels, Tabitha hesitated “We shouldn’t leave our team behind”

Silfa encourages her “They’re tired. They deserved a rest after we have been through. But this is an emergency. They are calling for help and you know they are speaking our language”

“But it sounds too suspicious when they cry out for help in the middle of the night. There is no way we are sure that the same . . .”

“Sob*” A cry for help turns to tears. The two no longer restrict themselves as they immediately go and check.

They run as fast as they could. Bodies scattered around and found the people they are looking for. The cries are coming from one of them lying on the ground. A dying young girl tries to reach out to them as she readies to faint

“Please, save me . . .”

They bring out everything they have to save the young girl’s life. The young girl wakes up. She feels her body feel lighter as the pain disappears. Only she sees are two other women she couldn’t recognized. Her teary eyes keep running as she realized she was saved

Silfa checks around for any survivors. While Tabitha tries to talk to the young girl.

“Is there anyone alive around here?”

The young girl points to the dark end of this area. It can’t be seen neither their lights would reveal it. Tabtiha uses her card to brighten it. The girl groans as the pain on her body. Tabitha turns around to help the girl. When the card reaches to the dark edges. It reveals a face where the girl pointed. Mischievous stares at Tabitha as the trails of its linen attached to the young girl. A trap, and its slowly ready to activate it.

Silfa had checked everybody where the lights she could see. Everyone is dead, and the wounds show have been hours before their deaths. Her thoughts scramble trying not to regret what they should’ve done. Yet she thinks it again

“. . . If we gotten here sooner, then maybe these people won’t die . . .”

The card continues to flash wildly as dangers nears. They distract themselves from the survivor and the bodies all around them. The entity hiding in the dark is taking it slow. New victims as their hearts still warms to their kinds.

Fae-chan comes to warn them, but it stops and tried to hold off the bodies around them. The concealment spreads as it won’t activate its traps. Including the young girl who lure closer to Tabitha. Both the doll and the entity battled silently as their forces of their magic go against each other.

The entity speaks “Why is the creation of Lady Sarah Mae here? Both magic and its toy”

“We are lost, old one. And these people are my new servient duty”

The ground shakes and it begins to crumble beneath them. The ceiling and the walls are controlled by the doll. It reaches its limit as it carefully picks and choose where the entity’s attack to appear.

Tabitha and Silfa shoved in a great distance. The entity drove the entire bodies aside leaving the baited girl to be piled on. Tabitha uses her card again to protect the young girl. Silfa runs back to them to escape. Entity witnesses their powers out matched its little push. It dampens the ground. Cracks emerged trying to fall them deeper into the depths of the cave. The young girl is prying out to the doll’s essence. Fae-chan quickly grips it as the girl coughs out blood without them reaching contact.

“Tabitha! We need to get out of here”

“She is coughing blood. We need to heal her before she gets critical”

Fae-chan clearly sees the entity making a scene of the baited girl. Deep straight to its eyes at the dark abyss. The entity miraculously got hit by surprise. The doll’s face shows the old signs of their creator. Sarah Mae’s magic course into the doll and casts its vision at it. By sight alone, it will bring great discomfort. All powers will bring to naught and never be as strong as the eyes of Sarah Mae. Not because of intimidation, but by beauty. A tear drops on the entity’s face and emotion driven out. It backfires as it driven itself into an emotional rage. Still, it works. The ground crumbles as everything around them fall in a blink of an eye.

The doll watches the entity in the air. The entity glares at it while the doll removed one of its traps. The doll disappears and is resummoned to Silfa’s side. They were able to escape including the baited young girl. The linen is still attached to where the entity should be. The tries to stop them, then it halted. This won’t solve them from by escaping alone. They need this dummy to find the entity using their limited but powerful tools.

“Don’t worry, you’re safe now”

“Yeah, we are here to bring you all back home”

Fae-chan hears those two being hopeful. It tries to warn them but the linen sown on its face. Its voice mumbled.

Silenced and won’t be able to freely speak. Fae-chan is capable to break it. This includes the girl. If the doll tries to cut it, the young girl would probably traumatize them or whatever it releases coming from the doll’s power. The duty of the daughter’s toy must not be frown upon. This troubles the doll and its rule given by the creators. The old one knows this flawed. Fae-chan will not do anything about it. It must trust these two to face this trap on their own.

They made it back to the camp. R-cord and Juela remained asleep. The two quietly place the young girl on the sleeping mat. The young girl whimpered.

“Thank you, thank you”

They fix the rest of her wounds as they ask her

“What happened back there?”

“We were attacked. We usually switching hideouts like we normally do. Those monsters keep hunting us to no end”

“Those monsters, are they small little green creatures?”

“Yes! And there are also those short muscular men. They are very angry at us”

“It’s ok, we are here. Now. Is there anyone alive?”

“I think yawn*”

They stop “I think we got a little too overboard here, Tabitha”

“Yeah, I think we should call it a day. But there is one more thing. Can you show us your UI?”

“My UI? But I don’t want to see it”

“Why not?”

“Sorry, if you help me close my eyes, I will show it to you”

Both of them agrees and they shut her eyes closed. They see the young girl shares her UI and shows it in front of them. The panel shows a group of people and their live status. All of them are dead, it is also included the last scenes of them before they died. It was horrible at first, they soon see why they need to have it. The price of their lives to warn anyone before they got attacked.

The underground network is nowhere safe. Because of how improvised they have been, this is the best they could’ve do. There are flaws though. Tabitha observed the UI panel referencing an MMO game. The last one to let them see what happened to their final moment before their deaths is a terrible idea. There is no need to criticized it. Only thing they could do is to nurture her back to health. Silfa is ready with her strong health potion. Tabitha stops her

“She is ok. We need these potions who are dying”

“Yeah, but how many of them are there, left?”

“I don’t know”

It’s morning, McS4 comes back and sees they have visitor. The paused is certain what he sees through his detector. A message pops up on his screen, as he almost raised his heavy flamer. He slowly turns to R-cord for what is going on. R-cord did nothing and only watches them. He stood up and goes out without a single word. Then McS4’s message pops out on his screen. No comments after he read it. Through their detectors on their visors, they are not easily fooled. From what R-cord’s message at his view. They need to be patient. Their leader and her companion are being wrapped around by a demonic entity. They don’t know whether they are possessed or bind together in hidden chains.

Juela wakes up with bags on her eyes. One bad sleep due to exhaustion and it wasn’t a long dreadful battle. It was Tabitha’s lack of sense of fatigue because of her powers. She picks up something on her bag and places it on her face. She washes it out with water as her face glows for only a limited of time. Her fatigue is still there waiting for her to succumb into the collapse. Where she is about to find them, she sees a young girl lied sleeping. To her surprised they have able to find someone. She then looks at McS4 and R-cord for their next phase of their search. But they left as soon as she about to call them out.

This is strange, they never delay such an opportunity. She can only think of an example like Haw’s report. His action is very hasty at the same time accomplishing the school project. One week going through the landmarks under limited information and not going to use the guidelines provided from the past users of the spheres. It was incredible remarks from what she heard from her guildmembers. Or to say until Ironno gives his side of the report when he voluntarily part in it. It says so from Sanquin’s perspective as well. All in all, it was a feat of success.

Soon, they begin planning their next moves. Silfa and Tabitha are proud to find at least one of their people. The young girl is providing important information as they already mark it in on their UI maps. Juela is a bit puzzled of how they are doing. Because of the UIs area shared only to them, she is left to wait and tries to figure out what’s going on. They explained to her clearly. But they never mentioned the enemy who attacked them. The things they can only explain where the ground starts falling down. Then there is nothing left but them escaping.

This mingles the doll to act. It was obvious for the doll to react and prevent them from any harm. Juela tries to reach out to it. The moment they are starting their conversation. Its hand shows a sign only Enders knew. She knew what’s wrong and quickly hid her face before the young girl notices.

“. . . What’s wrong? You suddenly stopped talking”

“Sorry, I thought I hear something scary”

“Don’t worry, we are in safe place. No one will ever bother us here, right Juela?”

Silfa confidently told her as she turns to Juela. Juela pretends to smile with joy.

“O-o-of course. Eheh”

“See”

Juela walks to the entrance and checks outside. As she reaches it, there is a felt in a void as the lights can’t passes through. This feeling caught her attention and quickly picks out her sashes. Hidden among the paper made decorations, there she caught wit at the ink dripping on the letterings. The smudge that won’t stick on the paper and never will. It flows like glue on rubber. She uses her own cloth to wiped on the smudges. It absorbed, and begin to channel a spell. Her index finger begins to write off as fast as she can. Channeling her spells based on the writings instead of her voice.

A holy spell is chanted. Writing the correct name of the gods to heed her calls. The sounds of her voice reach both salvation and doom. The being hears her, the gods found her, and the who hears her callings through faith caught her attention. The risk she dares to do it. All she tried together to what’s going on made her to use her only viable spell against it. Was it worth it? Did she made a mistake of wasting it? Or was it for the best? She chants

“Hear me through my own scriptures. I dared to speak with little knowledge. You have already known and must act. Provide me . . .”

She didn’t finish writing it and the void have grabbed her hand and swayed left and right to stop her. But the entity underestimates her, the gods are closed than it had expected. No visual illusions manifested around her. It twisted the void hiding their view at plain sight. A sudden shock and pushes away in silence. The entrance is clear and she sees someone is already on the ground screaming and crying for help. The same voice

“PLEASE!”

Louder than the previous call for help.

Tabitha and Silfa heard another cry for help. They rushed forward leaving the young girl behind. The sudden changes reveal the empty husk of herself only a blink of an eye. The expression was exposed but never seen by others. The doll comes to her side with the silence wrapped down from her linen. The two stared as the doll is acting egoistic when they are parted. The look of the doll made the young girl stared at the distance. The girl who cried out was the same girl identical to her. The shock pushes through and spread her senses to the entity.

Sarah Mae’s magic persists on her as it was not finished. This causes herself to drag back to the entity. The shock goes through as it materialized as if she was being pulled in visibly. The deception and lies was sought out to ruin the women’s expectation of rescue was reversed. She hears Tabitha calling out to them

“R-cord! Save her!”

The young girl felt her hand grabbed by R-cord’s exposed hand. She stares at him as his hand is slowly draining out into a wrinkling elder hand. The augments steadily pull itself apart and letting her go.

Tabitha persists “McS4!”

McS4 comes to her rescue. The entity continues to pull her in as she watches what’s going on. Trying to break free to her actual form, but her body couldn’t. The Sarah Mae continues to channel and ceased every action the young girl acts. This is beyond the limits of the magic would last. There she turns around and sees McS4 who are pulled into the entity by its glowing tendrils of linen. This is too well played from how far she had seen. There is no way for neutral mana overcome archscience. Yet, there they go. Acting as if they are overwhelmed.

Once they are inside, the acting was over. The girl picks up in the air and merged the entity into one. All that links around it, then sends back to the very source. McS4 plays an audio right in front of the unknown being.

“. . . Remember me . . .” It whispers with an unrecognizable language

“I’d say this and I say it again. Never ever touch my children . . .”

The McS4 faded into nothing as the entity lights up into blindness. The explosion bursts out right in front of everybody. The last flash of light remains as it faded back to the darkness. McS4 walks out from it and walks towards the young girl.

Tabitha and Silfa reach out to another survivor as they felt dumbfounded.

“Wait a minute, you look like the same girl we save earlier”

Silfa asks “The girl we saved before, was it your twin?”

The young girl remained stunned as if all that happened at the same time. Tears in her eyes dripped down as she cried loudly. She hugs them both with both of her hands gripping with the use of her own magic. They felt it, but they felt an overpowering strength. The young girl continues to cry more until her voice cracked.

Juela finally meets with McS4 and R-cord “What’s going on?”

“Let it go, Lady Juela. This a story far too long to explain”

This gives her suspicions of what they are trying to hide. She demands it

“By the family name of my clan, and with the seal given to proof of my heirloom. Give me the truth”

McS4 mocks at her words with just few chuckles. Juela glared at him then quickly turned to R-cord. R-cord points out with his severed hand at the young girl, and said the truth

“That young girl is the proof you need”

Juela wasn’t satisfied and tries again “Then what else you discover on your own?”

“A plenty”

Magic comes forth, enforced from Juela’s chant and a spell she could not recognized. It restores R-cord’s hand and dries up the illusion casted down on their power armors. McS4 admitted to her

“Thank you, Juela. We truly do. This realm is cursed. Many of the citizens have brought too many unintended visitors into this place. Those people who actually survived, alive, are nothing more than free”

Juela remembers something on her pocket, R-cord’s monocle they used when looking at the bolts. She takes peak and see what truly hides them.

They are shrouded by unknown mana. Hard to detect and difficult to comprehend, then she switches to her friends and found their UIs are being interacted by the same mana. Alive as it casts through around them. The UI is being tinkered and no effort ever done to breach it. This made her remember the time limit for Tabitha to save her people. What will happened to them when the next moon cycle appeared? The time when Alga’s light returned to this continent. The demons will regain their strength again.