Being teleported once more to the cave, I was mystified by the sight of the vault doors.
“How did you notice this?” I said to God.
“A large surge of magic blanketed the world, Damien. It was one of the first places to crop up on my search for changes.”
We continued to watch the gilded doors, thinking of any solution to opening it. Last time I went there, I didn’t have to go through the doors – I was directly dropped inside by one of the gods.
“You can feel it, can’t you?” God’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
“The magic?”
“The very strange magic.”
He was right. While the door did pulse with power, it wasn’t really normal magic and I already knew that. It was divine magic.
“Well, divine weapons are kept behind those doors. What did you expect? It’s just the different auras of the weapons leaking out.”
He stayed silent for a few seconds contemplating my words before saying his answer.
“What about the sword?”
“You mean... my divine weapon?”
“Maybe you could use that to open it.”
It didn’t seem like a bad idea. I did get the sword when I was sent inside by Ysveria, the one who created it. Maybe it was still connected to it somehow.
Urging the sword out of its slumber, I pulled it out of my chest. The blade shone like a flame that would not go out. Dying yet determined. I felt slightly exhausted by the whole process. Now to go to the door.
An odd feeling came over me as I got closer, blanketing me with shivers from head to my toes. I could hear the blade scream in my head to not go any further, as if it was afraid that I was going to put it back inside. Like I would ever give it back. I sent the thought to calm it down, which then immediately ceased its struggles. The feeling, however, got stronger as the doors got bigger in my eyes.
A ticking could be heard as the engravings moved apart in the middle of the doors, revealing a hole to what I assume I have to slot the blade in.
Easing it in gently, I twisted the handle like I was using a key to open a lock which this exactly was. Letting the sword go, I watched as the doors loudly opened, pushing away any rocks that blocked the action. What I saw inside was what I saw before. A little less than a thousand weapons were placed on podiums, each having the sigil of their respective god on the body of each of them. It was truly a sight to behold. Each god ruled a certain aspect or quality of the world – their weapons representing what they govern. For example, the god of agriculture had an overly detailed hoe which could make any land fertile. The god of fire had a large red flail that had ball which detach from its chain and become any fire spell. They were all unique in their own way. Even mine had a special ability but I’ll get to that later.
I walked in, my sword reappearing in my grasp and God following in my footsteps. Walls were made of a black, shadowy substance, beams of light coming from the non-existent ceiling. Each row of weapons were neatly lined up and categorised, like a curator had made spent his time do so. There was the row of nature gods’ weapons, sea gods’ weapons, and so on and so forth. You get the idea.
Just like my weapon, all these items could project their own thoughts to others. While most were quiet, the more war-hungry and violent ones wanted me to take them, earning a fiery lash from the one I already have. Though I never mentioned it, my one had a name but it doesn't like hearing it even in my head. To be fair Ysveria had a bad naming sense.
After a few minutes we reached the end of the vault, greeted by another set of doors. This time, the doors were more simple, made out of platinum. I didn’t see these when I was here last time. They were smaller, more to my height. I tired to push it open but to no avail. No door knob, once again.
“Can you open these ones?” God asked.
“I don’t think so. I’m not getting the same feeling as I did before at the entrance,” I answered.
“Try knocking.”
I gave him a look of utter disbelief before shrugging. Might as well as try.
Knocking on the doors three times, I expected no one to answer but the sound of turning locks caught my attention. The door opened up to reveal a blonde elf wearing an embroidered white dress with golden details. She seemed very bubbly from the way her eyes just sparkled when she saw us and how she frantically waved her hands at us.
“Hello! My name is Alta and welcome to the Vault of a Thousand Divines, though you probably already know that. I’m the immortal keeper of this hall made by the gracious God of Light, Solur, to make sure the weapons don’t fall into unwanted hands. Some gods are bad people so I can’t really say ‘evil hands’. You must be..” she looked to the sword in my hand and God’s face. “The chosen of Ysveria! And a light elemental? What brings you here?”
Her energetic mood was really welcoming, what with some of the vibes the weapons give off.
“Just looking around... hey, do you know where we are?”
“As in the location of the vault? Of course! Inside the mountains of Garn!” She waved her hands around to show her excitement.
Looks like she didn’t know.
“Listen. Right now, we aren’t in the mountains. We aren’t even in Piora anymore,” I said as gently as possible.
She stood stock still.
“Huh?”
“You may or may not know this, but I was summoned to Piora to help stop the Demon King who was leading an army against the Alliance of Races. I managed to kill him however, and was sent back to my world. The world that you are in. Right now.”
I let her take a few seconds for my words to sink in. I expected some sort of reaction from her but all I got was a look that sort of said, ‘okay?’
“It doesn’t really matter,” she said, swining her head from left to right, “the Vault is an independent space.”
“Like a pocket dimension?”
“Yup.”
I looked to God for an answer.
“She’s right. I didn’t mention it to you since I didn’t think it would be important,” he said.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“What does it mean anyways? Why is the Vault an independent space?” I asked Alta this time.
“Well, people used to like trying to break the Vault open a lot. The gods got annoyed so they moved the Vault into a pocket dimension small enough just to cover the exterior. This means nothing outside can affect the Vault, only something from the inside. It also means that the Vault can be accessed by any god no matter where it is due to the nature of the spell that made it like this.”
“That means... this basically connects my world to Piora?”
“Basically.”
I’m getting a real bad feeling from this.
“So... a god could just pop in here at anytime? Like, right now?”
“Yes, and yes!”
...Nothing happened. I was really expecting a god to just come out right then and- now!
Huh. Guess I had a bad feeling for nothing.
“This could be a problem,” God said.
“Definitely,” I returned.
----------------------------------------
Alta waved from in between the doors as they closed shut, the keyhole disappearing once again behind the various designs on them.
“My powers seems to be a bit unstable right now. I can send you back, but I won’t be able to know whether or not there’ll be people in the area of your location,” God said.
“I anticipated something like this so I hid myself in a park before signalling you.”
“Alright then. I’ll investigate the matter of the magical earthquake for now, see if any other locations have changed. I’ll tell you if I find anything.”
With that, I found myself deep within the wooded area of the park near my house. Seeing at how dark it is, its probably around six so I need to get back, like, right now. Scanning the area to make sure no one was around, I used Life Detect just to see if my eyesight failed me. Apart from some of the wildlife, no one was around. At top speed, I ran to the entrance of the park, stopping when I neared the road outside the gates. I needed to go right from there to get to my house.
----------------------------------------
The start of the school day was really quiet. Contrary to what happened yesterday, the school was silent throughout the halls as not a lot of people had come in. Due to the earthquake, the media was raving about end of the world theories and the parents ate it like hotcakes. While there was no structural damage to the school building, parents were still concerned for their children’s lives so chose to keep them at home. My parents weren’t really buying the news but they were still worried. They both had work today so they just sent me to school.
So, here I was, in registration time with just a few people. Sion wasn’t in as he took advantage of his parent’s love to catch up on all the anime he missed last season, while Ethan and Josh were in a different form. Fun fact – the girl who Sion dubbed the reverse trap was in my form. I didn’t speak to her but I did know her name; Alice Davies.
Our form tutor, Miss Hughes, was sitting on her desk, talking to some of the few students who had come in. I sat on my table, going through the news on my phone to look for any ‘crazy discoveries’ random people reported. Hope God’s having better luck.
From the corner of my right eye, I saw Alice looking at my direction nervously. Why was she nervous? I lifted my head to meet her gaze when she suddenly looked down at her desk, probably to avoid it.
Our teacher didn’t really mind us moving around right now, what with a little less than half of the class being gone. Taking the opportunity, I picked up my stuff and moved to the seat right in front of Alice. Her shoulders stiffened as I pulled up the chair, her eyes still glued to the green table.
“Hello, I notic-“
Before I could finished, she ran straight out of the classroom, her face fixed into one of mute terror. Everyone else looked at me like I had done something.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, putting my hands up in defence.
Seeing as no one believed me, I volunteered to get her. It was pretty easy considering I could just pinpoint her location with magic. Let’s see... the other side of the school? She’s pretty fast.
When I caught up to her, she was turning her head to each classroom frantically, like she was looking for an exit.
“Hey!”
I called out to her and she froze once again. She turned to face me and again her face warped into fear. What I didn’t notice before was how fast she truly was. Her shoes shimmered with gold as long ears made out of starlight came out of her head. She seemed to skip through the hallway with inhumane speed, going down a set of stairs before disappearing from my sight. Now that was definitely magic. But how could she use it? Deciding to get to the bottom of this quickly, I planned to stop her as soon as possible. Another Life Detect saw her going out to the tool shed the gardeners used. If I didn’t get back soon, my form tutor would probably call someone to find us.
----------------------------------------
I made my own way to the tool shed, now standing in front of it. The old rusted doorknob was on the ground, the door slightly ajar. Pulling on the side of it, I was met by the door slamming onto my face. From the inside, Alice came running out, passing me to make a quick getaway. Didn’t work out though.
“Frozen Hold."
The spell swiftly activated, an icy hand coming from the ground that grabbed her foot. A scream sounded out before a body could be heard hitting the ground.
“Finally caught you,” I said with a sigh.
Struggling get her foot out of the hand’s grasp, she lifted her upper body off the ground and angrily spoke to me.
“W-what are you? I saw you in the park last night and y-you aren’t human.”
Apart from the fact how she became so strong-willed when she was just scared of me a few minutes ago, I was very surprised by the fact that she actually saw me last night. How did she not get detected by my magic?
“What about you? You were clearly using magic.” I gave her a pointed glare after saying that.
“W-what do you mean? What magic?”
“You know, the starry rabbit ears you get and the glowing shoes when you run. Made you a lot faster.”
She gave me a blank stare before tilting her head to the side. Man, head-tilting is so cute... I wanto see Vivian do that.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Rabbit ears and glowing feet? You must be crazy or something.”
She clearly didn’t notice them on her body right now.
“Look at your feet,” I said.
She looked at the light which covered her foot then paled.
“Now touch the top of your head to find the ears.”
Her face was white as a sheet as she felt the threads of light which formed her rabbit ears.
“I rest my case.”
Undoing my magic, I watched as the ice melted into a pool of water. Alice laid on the ground for bit before slowly standing up, her head facing the ground.
“Now, I have a few questions. One, what did you see me do yesterday?”
Had to make sure.
“...Are they gone?” She mumbled, rather downcast.
“You don’t answer a question with another question, gosh. But yes, they’re gone. Must have unconsciously deactivated them. Will you answer my question now?”
“You said it was magic right?”
“When will my question be answered... yes, I said it was magic. Can you answer me now?”
She was quiet for a few seconds.
“Will they come back?”
“You know what? I’ll just answer all the questions you probably have right now. Yes, they will come back. No, they need a trigger to come back, probably when your scared. No, its only the ears and the glowing feet that appear. And I don’t know, it may or may not be permanent. Now, can you please, please answer my question?”
Alice looked up into my then back to the ground again, like she was unsure about something.
“...Your eyes were slit like a snake’s-“
“-dragon’s,” I chimed in.
“-that glowed in the dark. And it felt like you would swallow me whole when you looked over where I was at. I was really scared. Before I could run, you were already gone.” She seemed like she was out of steam after she said that.
“I see. Well, the whole ‘swallow you whole’ thing was my fault. Old habit. Sorry about that.”
Smiling at her, I was about to walk back inside when Alice grabbed my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
“Back to form. You need to come too, the teacher actually sent me out to get you back and,” looking at the time on phone,” it’s been 10 minutes. She’s probably called for someone to find us.”
We were inside the school when she said something to me again.
“So, what are you anyways?”
I don’t know if it was out of fear or out of curiosity, but she was really intent on finding out the answer.
“What do you mean?”
“W-well, you have snake eyes, you’re really fast, and you can use magic. What does that make you?”
She was a little less afraid now, though she was still stuttering.
“Have you ever read a manga or a light novel where the main character was summoned to another world?”
“Y-yeah,” she responded.
“Just imagine me as the main character, but back in his world with all his powers.”
Her face lit up as she had an epiphany.
“So you’re like super OP? And you have a harem? And you have-“ her hands quickly covered her mouth, cheeks turning red.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She put her hands down as she said, “well, I haven’t really told anyone that I like anime. It’s a bit embarrassing.” She gave an awkward laugh.
“Just like an anime girl....” I mumbled, looking at Alice in awe.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing!” I yelped. “Anyways, I think it’s fine that you like anime. And no, I don’t have a harem. I think you’d really like my friend, Ethan.”
“I-is that the boy that I bumped into before,” she asked, eyes sparking and cheeks red but not from embarrassment this time.
“Sion was right...”