“Getting back to the question of a certain someone’s location,” Cyril spoke back up after seeing Sarman leave. “You saw the castle in the back of Crystalia as you came into the city, right?”
Aria, Nic, and Rust all nodded simultaneously.
“Good. They should be in the central tower, near the top.”
“Ah, hold on, let me look.” Rust stayed quiet for a second before exclaiming a soft ‘Aha’. “Got it. There seem to be some windows near the top as well. Though only one is facing towards us, though I think I see a balcony above it as well.”
Cyril looked Nic and Aria with a confused face. While he had just described the tower, they were in a barely lit room and couldn’t see it at all.
“He can see through stones.” Nic quickly explained the way that Rust spoke to Cyril.
“I see… Then yea, that should be it.”
“Hmmmm….” Rust crossed his arms as he thought for a minute. “I have an idea to get one of us up there.”
“An… Idea…?” Nic felt uneasy as he heard the tone in Rust’s voice and the slow panning of the dwarf’s head to him.
“Mhm. You’re the one going up. So step right here.” Rust walked over to a spot roughly in the center of the small room.
Nic slowly walked over, every step getting slower and slower until he was standing right in front of Rust, but not quite in the spot.
“Ah, that works fine.” Despite Nic not being in the exact spot, Rust simply shrugged and waved his hand at Nic. A new, much smaller, stone spear encapsulated Nic, cutting him off from the others.
“Hey! Hey! Rust! What’s the meaning?!” He thought he heard Rust responding, but the sound was too muffled for Nic to hear what was being said.
The ground beneath Nic started to move, throwing him off balance. He couldn’t tell exactly what was going on but he heard Aria’s muffled voice talking with Rust’s.
“Hey! Hey!” Nic pounded on the stone around him. A small hole opened, letting Nic hear Rust clearly again.
“‘lright, listen up. We’re gonna send you flying at the tower. You should land either in the small foyer outside of Crystal’s visitor room, or you will land in her own quarters above it. Once you have confirmed the safety of Crystal, you need to get her to jump out of the tower. Aria here will catch her. Then you jump. Once you have jumped, that will tell us that there is no one else coming out with you. Got it? Good.”
Rust rapidly fired a set of instructions, never stopping to make sure that Nic understood what he had to do. Once he was done the hole filled back up with stone before Nic could say anything.
The ball of stone became very jittery before suddenly shooting upwards. The force knocked Nic onto his back and kept him there as he, presumably, flew through the air in the stone ball.
After what felt like only a few mere seconds, the rock surrounding Nic disappeared and he found himself lying on a carpeted floor.
A quick look around while standing up told him that he had arrived at the tower. The gaping hole in the wall leading to open air was proof of that. In front of him was a set of doors that was flanked by two very confused guards.
“You two won’t just let me in to see your queen, will you?”
Nic had seen enough of Crystalia’s soldiers that day to know that he was asking for the impossible.
“Never! Alex, get the intruder!” The two guards drew the swords at their hips and rushed at Nic.
Like every other soldier Nic had foughten that day, the two guards used Yuuki’s fighting style, though it was much less polished. As a trainee of the style himself, Nic had no trouble evading their attacks and striking at their weakness. One of the guards, the one who had responded to Nic’s question, went down with a single punch to the back of his neck.
Seeing how quickly his fellow guard went down, the other one dropped his weapon and held his hands up in defeat.
“You’re smart, at least.” Nic walked past the man towards the set of doors. He could hear some talking in the next room, with one of the voices sounding familiar.
They most likely were preparing for Nic’s arrival with an ambush.
Nic reached his hand out to open the door but was stopped by a screech behind him.
“For the dawn of a new world!” The guard who had feigned surrender ran at Nic, his sword aimed to stab through Nic’s chest. Nic drew his own sword in the blink of an eye and swatted the guards away from him. With his chest open wide, Nic punched the guard hard enough to cause him to stumble backward. Not taking any chances of another attack, Nic burst into the room.
The first thing Nic noticed when he rushed into the room was the presence swinging a sword at him from behind. Nic threw his blade over his shoulder, stopping the blade by just a few cer.
When he turned around to see who had attacked him, Nic’s eyes widened in shock. Though she was using her left arm instead of her right, Nic wouldn’t mistake the purple eyes that were staring at him. Her long black hair was in disarray like she had just gotten through a lot of running.
“Yuuki?!”
“Nic?!”
The two yelled each other’s name at the same time.
In Nic’s case, he was simply glad to have found Yuuki. Even after assuming she was in the town based on how the soldiers fought, confirming she was there lightened his mood considerably. His heart jumped slightly as a smile formed on his lips.
Though it wasn’t all happiness as he looked at her. Worry crept into his smile as he looked at her limp right arm. The telltale black miasma of Irradiation was pouring out of it, though it seemed to be stopped by something foreign just below the shoulder.
As for Yuuki, he could see a variety of emotions pass through her face in rapid succession. At first, happiness beamed from her eyes, but it was overtaken by worry, fear, and pain in the blink of an eye. Finally, it settled on a confused happiness. It wouldn’t surprise Nic if she knew about the ‘attack’ on the city by foreigners.
Appearing in front of her like this was sure to compound some worrisome ideas.
“It’s good to see you again, Teacher.” Nic didn’t use her name. Even to Nic, it felt wrong. But if he positioned himself as someone who was on Yuuki’s side, even if only as her student, Nic hoped it would help lower the guard of those listening to them.
Nic lowered his blade before turning to the two other people in the room. One of them was half-sitting in an ornate chair. It was clear that she had moved to get up as soon as Nic had entered the room, but stopped once Yuuki and Nic crossed blades. She had eyes as red as rubies with long snow-white hair draped behind her. She was wearing a red dress that matched her eyes, though unlike the few that Nic had seen, this one looked formal while still looking like it could easily be moved around in.
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For Nic, the most defining feature on her was her face. It wasn’t anywhere close to a one-to-one comparison, but he could see features of his father’s in her face. Though, it might have been better to say that his father had some of her features instead. In fact, Nic was sure that he also had some of her facial features.
He was her descendant, according to Rust and Aerial.
“You must be Crystal, correct? Leader of this Rad-Town?” Nic turned to the other person standing slightly behind Crystal. “And you would be Tom?”
It was plain to see that the burly man was confused. It was plastered over his bald face. The raccoon Demi-Human from before, Cyril, had mentioned that he was an ex-adventurer. Nic could totally see it. Muscles for the sake of lugging around the massive sword on his back. Clothes that looked like they had been dragged through the mud one too many times. Tattoos across the visible parts of the body.
But what Cyril had never seen, and Nic was sure the other two people in the room couldn’t see it either, was the third web of Irradiation running through the ground that Nic had seen that day. Like the first two, this one was focused on a person. And that person happened to be the ex-adventurer, Tom.
“Ah, yes. I’m the Blood Elf herself, Crystal Serilo. And you-”
“How do you know my name? Who did you beat it out of? The weak-willed fool Cyril?”
Crystal introduced herself, but when she was beginning to ask Nic to do the same, Tom cut her off with a self-defending question.
“Tom!” Crystal turned to admonish her subordinate.
“It’s alright. I heard it from Cyril yes, though I didn’t ‘beat it out of him’. He willingly told me to stop you once Narissa branded him a traitor for simply talking to me.”
Nic’s statement left the room dead quiet. Three pairs of eyes were glued onto him.
“Narissa… did what?!”
“Crystal, you know Cyril wouldn’t do something like that! He loves this city, why would he betray it?”
Crystal seemed dumbfounded and was questioning what one of her advisors had done while Yuuki immediately jumped to Cyril’s defense.
Given that Cyril had been able to recognize Nic, Sarman, and Aria before and Yuuki’s avid defense of him- it wasn’t hard for Nic to piece together that Cyril was likely the one to have brought Yuuki to the Rad-Town.
At the same time, Tom took this opportunity to advance his own goals.
“See! Cyril was a traitor. And as the one Cyril brought, this cat person is also a traitor! You heard him right?! He called her ‘teacher’! They are working together to assas-”
With each sentence, he took a step toward the throne. With each step, the net of Irradiation bubbled more and more. It was reaching for the Blood Elf herself. He continued to walk until his face smashed into an invisible wall just a few feet from Crystal. Sitting in the middle of the wall was a small green orb leisurely floating around.
“Huh?!”
“I needed you to stop moving.” Nic pointed his sword at Tom’s feet. “Just so you know, I see what’s below you. I won’t let you get any closer to her.”
The pleading look on Tom’s face turned to confusion as he was stopped, then anger as he realized what Nic was saying.
“What’s under my feet? There’s nothing under me! Whatever you think you’re seeing is delusional.” Tom tried to sweep Nic’s accusation under the rug. In an instant, he had gone from trying to throw Nic to the wolves to simply defending himself.
He tried too hard.
Tom ratted himself out with that defense.
“You know, I do think yours and Narissa’s plan would’ve probably gone off without a hitch if Narissa hadn’t unknowingly made one single mistake.” Nic grinned as he felt the glare of the ex-adventurer on him. “One of the people she chose to act as your fall guys… Well, I’m the descendant of the person you're trying to kill.”
“Descendant…” Tom looked between Nic and Crystal as the realization that the two did in fact look alike dawned on him.
“Isn’t that right, Crystal Verilo?”
“Hahaha… HAHAHAHA…. So you already know the truth?” Crystal burst out laughing, her speech coming out in bursts as she tried to hold it in. “Who told you? Rust?”
“Aerial.” Nic responded with a single name, a name which caused Crystal to stop laughing immediately. She eyed Nic suspiciously as Tom, fed up with the situation and not caring about familial relations, charged at Nic.
“Who cares if your family?! I’ll just kill you both!” Tom moved far too fast for Nic to dodge or block his attacks. He wouldn’t be able to move his sword up in time.
Yuuki might have stood a chance, but Nic wouldn’t.
So instead he pointed his sword at the adventurer's shadow. The connection point for the Irradiation. Tom sensed a threat from the sword and stopped his charge. He kept a good chunk of distance between the two of them while eyeing the sword.
“What’s that blade?”
“This one? Hey Yuuki, what does Sora make the blades out of?” Nic glanced over at his friend, who had been watching everything unfold quietly. Her eyes were full of anger as she stared at Tom herself.
“The blades? Nothing special, just some Iron and Steel. The gem’s what’s special with your blade, right?” Yuuki answered the question without turning away from Tom at all.
Nic admired her one-track mind when it came to situations like these. Even without the use of her dominant arm, she was ready to attack Tom if she needed to.
“Ah yes, the gem!” As Nic spoke, he pointed to the muddied dark gem in the hilt of the sword. “Here, let me show you what it does.”
Whenever the sword absorbed Irradiation, two things happened. First, the gem would lose its luster and become muddier the more Irradiation it absorbed. Second, Nic could feel the Irradiation through the hilt. The sickness he always felt was in his hands.
Because of that, Nic could always invite the Irradiation within the gem into his body.
A dark tendril of Irradiation snaked out of the gem and up Nic’s arm, where it then entered his body. As the sickly sensation spread, Nic’s magic quickly coated it and wiped it out as fast as it appeared.
When he was done, he held up the sword again to show a pristine, shining black gem inlaid in the sword's hilt.
“Did you just absorb Irradiation willingly?!”
Even if they were opponents, Tom yelled at the stupidity of the man in front of him. To a normal person, willingly absorbing Irradiation was simply a way of saying that you wanted to die.
“It’s fine. I can absorb much more than this and I’ll be just fine.” Nic readied his sword again, pointing it at his opponent. “I do believe it is time for me to stab that shadow of yours.”
“Hehehe… Not happening.” Tom raised a hand, free of his sword but Nic could see the Irradiation pouring off of it. He raised it above his head, ready to slam it down.
“Yuuki, immobilize him with your sword!”
His master didn’t respond.
All he heard was the clattering sound of a sword falling to the floor.
“You’re too late! You’ll always be too late! For the dawn of a new world!”
Nic looked over at his friend.
Yuuki was hunched over.
“Ugh… It… Hurts…”
She wasn’t being held up by her arms. Her legs had already collapsed beneath her.
So what was holding her up?
The black spike shot into her right shoulder from her shadow.
Nic had been so focused on the web of Irradiation only being tied to one person's shadow, that he had never even thought it could sit in two different people’s shadows at the same time.
Yuuki groaned in pain. Nic took a single step towards her.
But it was too late.
“AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”
A guttural scream left Yuuki’s mouth as the pain got to her. The Irradiation inside of her body bellowed out of every hole it could find. Mouth, eyes, ears, nose, skin pores.
Yuuki was now a massive spiral of Irradiation.
Nic gripped his sword so hard his knuckles turned red.
“Wait! Stop! AHHHHHH!” Nic looked over towards the screaming Tom just as his head dropped to the ground. A red liquid hung in the air for a second before slicing through the rest of his body.
As it fell to the ground, Nic saw Crystal finally standing up.
She was pissed. The red liquid hanging in the air came from her hand. It wasn’t until it retracted into her hand that Crystal finally looked at Nic with worry in her eyes.
“Can you stop this?”
Nic looked at the vortex of Irradiation next to him. What Noah Verilo had written in his journal flashed in his mind. Rust and Aerial had said the same things.
“Aren’t you gonna say that I’m 200 years early?”
“I only told Aerial that I would wait for them to choose when the lock would be dropped. If he has chosen to break his 500-year absence two centuries early, well that works better for me anyways.”
Crystal had already pieced everything together. Nic smiled as he reached out toward the vortex.
Crystal was the first one to simply accept that he was able to absorb and purify Irradiation.