COI C63
That night was a blast. Sanquin kept them glutton themselves throughout the night, endless consumptions to their hearts content. The feast was luxurious where the feast never stops. It’s addicted taste and rare spices nearly extinct in this world. Her actions to fatten them give funs among the Enders including Andui herself. It was the first time for Andui being dine in hell. Sanquin had her fun using her magic among the foods, satisfied through trust with danger to share a meal with a demon. Demon customs like this is dangerous, but she is trustful enough to take that risk.
Myrrkei gives his takes on to the documents, her purpose here is what Myrrkei needed to explore the wilderness of the districts.
“I have made my actions so alluring to come”
“The reason why you not coming with us because of Uecin?”
“I promised you; I have already given you the information what you seek. The rebellion already knew the demons are baiting into those new species or new batches”
Sanquin had something in mind during her visit. The obvious excuse, that the magic users, is doing to proceed for the next development of this island.
Andui and Haw left to school, by using her magic it was a sinch to get there easily. The hangover felt nothing even after Andui jugged down just to experience it. She still wonders if she is drinking juice or real alcohol beverages, and her stomach doesn’t even ache after she goes to the bathroom.
“I don’t know what demonic drinks she put on that stuff, but I was kind of addicted from it”
“There is no use to worry against her, she had her time within Enders Bridge, and she likes being human. There is a legend about her that her terms in transcendence to demonhood”
“Demonhood!? Now that you’re making stuff up”
It was already late morning, Andui admitted herself that she did sleep longer having such a nice meal. She didn’t get hungry in the morning, and she definitely got stuffed during that night. Haw on the other hand, enjoys the meal while eating familiar dishes that can be serve from the local restaurants or taverns. The difference that is added the spices and exotic flavorings. He can’t believe that there are other species of fish thriving close to Rune Isles, it should’ve been corrupted by mana.
They are now at the simulation room, no one is here to check on them. There is a note left behind from Thean, giving the message when about their plan for tomorrow.
“To anyone who are reading this, please provide the papers of approval of an individual would gladly help the project. If you managed to successfully take on the third landmark, then ignore the message and congratulations. Please don’t deduct our pay because how difficult it is to take control while being brain damaged because of the artificial demons”
While Andui is preparing herself to go inside the sphere, she talks to Haw one more time.
“I don’t know that you heard us talking during the night, but I mention to her about the demons like her. I say, it is quite difficult that she mentions that they are more types and other kinds of demons. Those two I describe to her are more than old hierarchs”
“I think that goes for us, humans or humanesques. Between you and me, both humans but have different kinds of power. Near godlike to naturally existing next to each other. I presume that what she meant”
“One other thing, if she is a demon, why didn’t want to show their true self?”
“Mostly legends of their images as symbols of their powers. In the end, we never go further research about them. Only myths and legends can explain the demon’s motives, not even my old guild to continue researching about them except you are willing to risk it. I even wonder those goblins in machineries of the past. I know it powered by spirits but never get the idea of using archscience for references”
Either way, Andui she kept her mind about Sanquin for a bit. She can’t be detected and her freely controlling them as much as she wants, the Enders are truly trust her magic and show off from time to time with her gifts to them. Andui still can’t accept her as a demon, what makes her think that Sanquin is an actual demon? A different kind, alternative version, or remaking the definition of so-called demon. Refreshing her mind by saying what Sanquin said to her.
“Heavenly Demon, that’s sound Asian folklore to me. Yet there are adventurers in this city that called themselves heroes or saints nonetheless”
Haw told her “Be careful out there, you are just any ordinary person like us. Witnessed your dark past and even they almost succeeded to let you surrender to them. I don’t know what to say from all things I said to you, but . . . I know that your responds are genuine”
Andui stands up and she slightly bows in front of him. Her way of gratitude is speechless, and by the time she raises her head, she will never regret the experience she had. To her reply, she said it again
“I love you, Haw. More than anything that I have said, if only wish that I would love to stay with you . . .”
Haw raises his fingers put it on his own lips, and he shows her his winks. Slight smile on the other side and wink at her in a friendly manner, as her eyes reimagined it as his charms. The words in her head that she wanted to defend him no longer been another regret in her heart. This trick was mostly done in her city as those pretty boys such hosts always doing. The word manwhore said by Sanquin made her understands differently. Even with all that, she still loves him. Foolishly in her hearts and tears never came to her eyes, because she knows the truth. She accepts it as they shake their hands.
Haw warned her “Beware from your other nightmares you have”
Andui held his hand firm, building up the strength in her heart to face the sphere again. The trauma, from the sphere’s phenomenon to the near-death experience of her companions, this is her chance to successfully control the landmark. Once she let’s go the portal to the sphere have open. Haw witnessed that Andui, a woman who not yet know how to open the sphere by thought, opens it with great heart and mind. He stares at the computers that are still off, and amazed as she steps in.
Acurse and the demon lord wait another time within the dream. They sense something strong coming their way, but the body is still weak as before. Happily feeling, that the orb starts to twitch within the landmark, it makes them excited to watch and never seen again. The agreement was set aside but they kept the promise to let orb remained. Andui appeared before the orb, no demons waiting for her, and she steps forth then tried to touch it. One single touch from her fingertip, the orb reacted and put her in a trance. Seeking deeply to her thoughts, the first ever nightmare she was facing before happened again.
The lustful dreams she sees when Haw is together with two other women, she laid her eyes with the version of herself felt being betrayed or cuckold in her own imagination. The Andui in that dream tries her revenge and went full obsessed to Haw, that’s what she afraid off, but now she stands up and moved on. Leaving the nightmare, without any deeper regression on her mind, it makes her angry that this is the nightmare she thought of fearing. Alone inside her head really makes her tell that she didn’t reach out to others about her doubts, then the reason appeared to the next dream.
Envy grew to the sight of her co-workers at the company, showing pictures of their boyfriends with their successful life. Mugging around her offering blind dates to experience the life of being love, it wasn’t to be like this. She heard those voices again in her head
“Why didn’t you have a boyfriend?”
“You can use this dating app. It will be fun”
“. . . Trust us, you won’t be feeling alone”
Andui remained silent kept listening to the beginning of those words. The drawbacks revealed after one of them have made a mixer date. Again and again, to the point they said.
“There so many hot guys, I don’t know who to pick?”
The worse kept her mind from what happened next. The incidents kept coming to her co-workers, the sex life getting in one of them. To the point, never she would understand what’s going into. That’s when someone trying to gossip one of her friends. Being called something she didn’t believe at the time, and it was infuriating to the least. A woman with a lovely boyfriend, keeping telling her that they were jealous, randomly told her about that, and it ended her mind with such confusion.
It was drama according to the envious people around her, then, the woman who was the center of all the rumors left the company. Andui don’t know what happened to her, even after she left. More people start resigning after. Until she is alone, the afterword of her co-workers made doubt and tries to defend them, but they ignore her without them even listening, she felt scared at the time when others are glad to see the people, they don’t like leave. Andui sees her trusted co-workers as their faces were wipe off. Entirely something she regrets as she walks by, she passed the nightmare.
She remembers it clearly how much she cared the one who was being targeted, a lucky woman who has a stable man in her life. Did what he could do to settle the matter, and he helped her in the time when her friends abandoned her. Andui wasn’t like that and her friend’s man told her his part of the argument.
“I don’t believe you weren’t part of their party life. Please, don’t go with them. I assure you that’s how I am getting part of the rumor. In honestly, we were dating back in high school. We have experienced high school drama, and even that we didn’t break apart. Don’t you worry, I was a loser, and your friend makes me her winner”
That man smiles of his own achievement, after he said that to Andui that he was a loser back then. She didn’t ask about him, but that’s probably why her friend loves him for that . . . No, there is more than being called like that. No one is a failure under calling them that. After that last meeting, she never gets to know why her friend loves him. Continue her life and moved on in this troubled environment. The dream only wanted to distract her, show no focus where she is right now. The demon sees the problem that this fear is about the unknown, she probably reconnected it to the present experience she had.
Andui have finished the next step of her past. The next one lead it happened to the most critical moment in her life. The day of the expedition, she stands before the time of her group readied themselves to go Rune Isles. Reliving to the same bad event, the time she her first massive lost and the friends who didn’t survive. The monsters were easy enough, then it gets worse when the monsters recovered by consuming their mana. It was the first time in their life to see monsters plays dead, and it heals itself where any small amount of mana lying in the air as it breathes.
No profound reason for her to remember it again, she prayed to those people who passed away. Only four of them survive, she hears from afar that there are Enders who are here keep watching on them. She thought the orb added in to cause confusion, but something look real as the orb sees through what really happened. They were there before the attack and none of them trying to save them. The Lord Lori’es was there, observing the moment when it attacked. He stared at the expedition where Haw will come for them.
She heard the response of the other Enders.
“Not even our gods will bless us to see such fortunate end. Is Archscience dared to intervene the way of life?”
“They dared enter these dead lands, and the purpose they have to leave and yet they entered this place”
“There is no deal about helping them indirectly in this place. This must be their choice”
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Andui never seen those Enders before, and more so, the way they think of them really is shallow.
Throughout their conversation, Lord Lori’es’ turn to speak
“These people shouldn’t deserve to go here, and the misunderstanding had already reached here. The fallen outposts both the goblins and the dwarves have riled up the Enders dwarves to lay their petty revenge in this part of the region”
“It is bothersome, that you have to say like that . . .”
Andui sees someone with Lord Lori’es. A young woman looking out from the normal, wearing futuristic clothes. It is beyond surprised, but it wasn’t that part of how she looks, it’s the way she said to Haw.
“. . . I made Haw a bit more robotic now, my guild members were not succeeding to accomplish the rehab”
“I don’t clearly see him of anything at the matter, your reports that the only person survive the first test was his endurance back in Mountaiwall”
“That’s enough, I’ll be stopping your report about the experiment. Called out your subject if you like, we don’t let this moment ruin with mid conversation”
Andui was stun and almost feel the orb is kicking her out. The demon sees it and alongside with the demon lord.
“This complicated matter, these people heading to the city will know the dangers with that amount people coming directly” “Something is not right, I’m having a strange reading on my head, and the crowd of people are blocking it with their aura. Someone led them to go there and somewhere among those carts had something dangerous in their hands. What are they carrying?” “I’m afraid you’re right, but I am no fool when something like this is being planned out. This coincidence . . . the false one is coming for them”
Andui is watching them at the moment, where these people already here and know about the incident. Now is the time she had relived again where she was pulled into this dream.
“Are you sure we can make it there?”
“We were nothing but nobodies, but thanks to these powers we did our first raid in the dungeon”
“I’d say it was too convenient to have rewards like that”
“I’m with him, the tutorial dungeon? Are you serious to believe that place exists?”
“Well, we did find it. But the locals were not convinced it existed . . .”
Andui heard this conversation before. Where they are talking about not in the game world, these adventurers before were sceptics about the dungeon. Monsters are not familiar to the locals, and most of all, it doesn’t fit the world’s immersion. Andui remembered what Reya said that never mention about this topic again. She believes that it was one of the reasons, but she never knew this is nearly the entire Xpo guild were involved. The trading guild, who were the first to take trades to Agatheus City but stop after this incident. Now they are heading to Enders Bridge.
For this opportunity to relive this event, she had to listen carefully what topics they are mentioning.
“. . . Is it really now?”
“I have the books pictured in my device, when the translation is fully updated. I’ll show you the almanac happened on that dungeon. They even told me that place was a farming ground”
“Su. . . re, why is it becomes a forest then?”
“I’m not certain, the elves said to us that is something dangerous happening from below”
“I don’t care of this world anyway. I just want to leave”
“Well, I am for one staying”
“Don’t try making it an argument here, we don’t get someone playing a fit over that”
They laugh as they move forward.
Andui sees her old friends again, with them having a long chat about making business at Enders Bridge. Not only she can interact with them, but she also knows this nightmare will be going there. She already accepted this fate, but it brings along the question in her head who the people are involved here. Andui quietly moves away, and someone pushed her back where she walked.
“Now, now, we already agreed to this Andui. Remember the music we are going to get inside their city, the choirs or the remnants of songs, I tell you this would be a good business in Mihayara district”
Andui turned her eyes and see Siren’s older brother, convinced by her friend for Siren’s brother to use instruments instead of electronic beats. Andui held her emotions to see him again, and the rest of the Melody Guild members. She really missed them, for the time she held it herself. It would be great to say them now.
“Uhm, I was wondering about you sister”
“My sister, how do you know I have a sister?”
“Damn, and I thought this quiet girl likes music instead talk about it”
“Hey, don’t interrupt. This is the first time I heard her say something”
“Heh, nosy”
“Shut up!”
Siren’s brother responds
“Alright, what’s wrong about her?”
“Nothing really, just wondering how she gets so positive after being down”
Siren’s brother never seen her being down after they can use magic now, how this girl knows about her without seeing his moody younger sister. “It’s been like that, and it was music that kept her going. I’d thought I could make my own music to just to cheer her up. Ironically, I’m no good and even those party beats were a little too much for her”
The other members want to spoil the mood, but it was Andui’s first time to talking to them.
These guild members once live and cherished through Andui as they continue to talk. She remembered that she is in the nightmare, forcing her in place to experience it again. She uses the elk spirit. it rises up and none of the noticed it. Her memory or dream wasn’t part of the elk spirit and no twisted memory to come it. Making her realize those Enders from before wasn’t fake, but real from the very beginning. Then what they mention about the false one.
The demons watch her and were impressed when she abused the alteration of reality.
“The gods had watch over her, did they try to add to her memories once she reached here?”
“Nonsense, even you neglected those gods with your arrogance. They invade our world, and tried to take back what we have stolen”
“Such jealous gods, even they dared to interfere their own creations’ fate”
“Sigh* you’ve already possessing theirs”
“Yet they chose and I o . . . be . . . be . . . laugh* I couldn’t even say it to my own hypocrisy”
Andui sent the elk to everyone she is with, collecting information as the time goes by. Same conversation and same routine they have done until that moment happened. Few minutes left until she had to relive it, the spirit shared with her thoughts to listen every detail. Front, middle, and at the back, all of them are business minded and exploration to their ambitions. The last step, the spirit elk reaches inside the carriages. One discovery she didn’t know, and she senses life inside and trapped. Cuffed inside the magic box had no one could possibly reach.
The same materials broadcast by the news that contain anti magic materials to conceal any magic user. Someone is inside of the container. The person was gagged and what is inside is unknown to her. Why there’s a person being trapped inside? She tried the spirit to interact with it, but the container is resisting any magic sources. The elk dissipates every time it goes near it. The time gets shorter when the nightmare began moving forward.
The container implodes inside, releasing the mana from the dead person contained. The stench of mana released and the timing on the wind moves directly outward to the sea, the timing was too convenient for her to witness, then the elk moves away where she sense the Enders are watching them. The skipped conversation already passed by, and she didn’t hear much of what they have said left. Only quotes she heard is “. . . Betrayal, the descendants will not tolerate this”
Andui heard their last words when it started and feels the moment of horror and screams among the adventurers. The expedition, the chance of opportunity, and the hope to find they ordered to do, were all just a set up to this event. Haw had said to her before how he was baffled to those monsters to ever dared to come the exposing moon cycle of Alga’s light. The monsters come after them, and the fight that strengthens the monster to its obsession.
Hearing those who tried to use their magic that quickly leached away, it was endless horror to see their magic was worthless to come to these abominations from Rune Isles. Haw said to her
“Those monsters aren’t from Rune Isles, and they are coming from the place deep under the bedrock, created monsters”
Andui sees all around her, seeing it again, the devastation of her guild again. Her friends, guild members, and countrymen, are all the ordinary people back in their home world. It was traumatizing.
She can’t bear to watch, then she heard Siren’s brother. No screams, no crying for help, and not given up, she turns her eyes to him with the other men at the front. Instructing others to escape, and not alone but with also other people who are willing to help. That’s when a powerful attack coming in their way. The horde comes in as they bravely face with their magic easily nullified. Then they disappeared, she sends out the spirit elk to see what happened to them. Andui turns back and see what the others trying to group up after being cornered.
Coral, Iggy, and Reya were there, pulling Andui out from danger by the dives of the flying monsters. She was the first who knocked out, and they tried their hardest to fight off the monsters to the point of impossibility. Reya uses her magic to risk their lives in order to hide within the smokes of her magic. A whirlwind of flames comes up to the air and slams to the ground. Protecting them as they are suffocating, they all fell down as the fight rages on.
The elk signals her from what it saw, the sight of shocked and betrayed by the look of those people. Even Siren’s brother, shock and in disbelief hearing only the raging voice they cast on the unknown silhouette before them. Loud and clear, discerning everything they have to say to that strange man.
“You summoned us just for this! You’re trying to believe that you will fix this world from what you did before. We never ask for this and neither will the others!”
. . .
“You used this opportunity just to be a hero again. YOU’RE INSANE!”
Then an explosion happened leaving no one survived or even witnessed it. That same explosion fully destroyed their mana in an area, leaving them to die as they faced those monsters. Those who fight were killed, and those who are dying are soon to be feasted. Andui sees the unthinkable, and everything what she listens from before fits altogether now. She turns her eyes as her tears are coming out again, waiting for the time he would be there. Haw comes to them, checking first the dying. Andui believed that Haw would never lie to her, but this moment shook her even further.
He lied on this part, and he did check everyone around him. The dying and even the wounded and are being treated by him. Andui hears them one by one while being treated, they requested
“We have the plague cough* I don’t want others to worry about me. Son of a bitch, who once like us, poisoned us . . . Ugh! I am losing my mind. Please, end it”
Haw poured the elven potion on to them, one by one, to check to cleanse away the curse. It was absolute and they were saved by death. On his owned words
“I envy your freedom . . .”
As he taps his own forehead.
Andui sees the truth. He kept a secret from her. Then lastly, they meet where the place where her friends are. Reya was the first, she took a sip and feels her power was regaining. She surprised him that she didn’t pass on, to the next person after the other. He somehow saved four people; Reya pulled to him as she going to pass out again.
“I beg of you, please don’t tell anyone what you saw. Tell them . . .”
Reya fainted, leaving him with his own excuse to make. He did what he could be understandable to most Enders would hear from a manwhore.
Then finally, the dream Andui wakes up see Haw then she begged. That’s how she met him, the more she sees him, everything he is now. He did all this alone and tried to save them all. Leaving the hero into a lie, it made her mad as she never experienced before. This must be the ultimate protection for the orb, the reality what she must see in order to lose focus and left the sphere. Truth, in her heart she is mix. Pushing and pulling her emotions in a ramble to the point which resolved she chose become regret and the other a lie.
She couldn’t bear this truth in her, where she is happy to have the people around her that will help everyone and be happy and safe. But the truth is, she is not strong and let the others try to handle the situation. The simulation room she thought won’t hurt them at least, and now she realizes how much an impact she had gotten now. The intense capabilities it had put her in such stress that it wasn’t enough comparing to those closest to her were actually harmed. Now she had to listen again, Lord Lori’es words once they are sheltered in Enders Bridge.
Pouring her a cup of wine, along with the other three survivors with them. The scene she had to remember what he meant from before. The first time in a while she had to listen to him, very carefully, to the point what happened back then. Lord Lori’es first sends his condolence then the matter starts.
“It is quite unpleasant to have experience the tragedy, who had thought that a horde of monsters come in your way”
“. . .”
“I’m sorry that I have to speak on your misfortune, the sheer warnings coming from the entire people in Kinteinnou region had already warned you about it”
Andui had to watch those lifeless expression between from all of them as they lay rest inside the room. Hopeless and vulnerable to the point of giving up life, and still cling to have their meaning to survive. Lord Lori’es continues
“I’ll be bringing you back once you regain your conscience, and please not dare to harm yourself for this . . . Anyone, please hand them something to ease their tears”
Iggy was the first to cry after all what happened, kept staring at her own hands as if she can’t even try not to let it go. Coral refrained herself not to have a breakdown, and Reya remained silent.
For Andui, she hid her face. Remained silent as Reya had no leads when she will say, no one knows how she expressed about that event. The recent Andui knew, it is painful. A support or a healer within her power, wanting to show them she too can be part of the team. In the end, she was the one being rescued. The only survivor from Melody Guild. She stared at her past self and bear the silence of this moment, and it wasn’t her fault but the others who dared to harm her friends. The truth had already showed to her, and Lord Lori’es is adding more to her resolve as ever before.
“Bear it will you mind, that you have witness something unimaginable. No known incident had occurred like that but only in Rune Isles, and there is no exemption on the natural order. You may not understand it, and you will never will. Even you can trust my words that one of you wants proof. I can only say this, every action has it purpose, and I suspect neither both of us want this to happen. Be aware, if this incident comes true again, then someone out there made it purposefully”
Andui had pass the nightmare, leaving her grasp in full control of the orb. The orb can’t do anything physically and lost its will. She held the orb with memories of countless documented lives, and now she controls it under her own will. Her UI appeared and it spoke.
“Data is connecting to the server, please wait . . .”
Andui had succeeded, she surpassed what she had thought to be impossible. And it was all thanks to everyone who entrusted in her.
Andui sends the elk to move closer to the orb, where it touched and let her see what she had saw during the expedition. The elk helps her find the common event happened in this world. She foresaw the past, the man that was possessed who is now alive and well and the disoriented figure that is marked as ‘escaped’. She couldn’t understand why, but the events were the same. The censored image said the same word.
“Heroes!? We were taken away and wanted us to take revenge”
“Think about it, they can go back and forth in this world. We just leave here now”
Fast forward to the moment of the incident.
“You brought an entire community from our world! Are you trying let the world know about it?”
“No! you’re not the man I know, you’re obsessed! Worse than any demon on this world”
Andui understands those words, a different language but most common to use.
“English? They are speaking English. Elk spirit, can you search deeper about this?”
Andui sees the rest where most of them completely censored, there is nothing she could see or hear, Even the disoriented figures were the ones who are against it were not found after that.