“What a charming fellow, don't you agree with me, Henry? I personally think you and David hit it off big time.” To my comment, Henry chose to ignore me and instead walked slightly faster with the two mares David had given us: both had an average height of about six feet, while one was chestnut brown from back to front and the other being pitch black in colour, nothing interesting really. But from a glance, one could tell both had a strong physique like David had promised.

However, after my little comment, Henry wouldn't give another response to any of my comments. Thus the event back to the carriage was pretty much uneventful, the two mares were tame enough that they didn't try to bolt to freedom as soon as we exited David's farm.

Surprisingly enough, once the carriage came into view I could see Ramaze attaching various shafts of wood to each other, while various other pieces lay scattered around him. Being intrigued I quickly teleported to the side of Ramaze leaving Henry behind with the two horses. On closer inspection, I couldn't but ask what he was doing, “So what's with all the crazy contraptions Ramaze. If my memory serves correctly aren't carriage yokes less of a jigsaw usually.”

“Considering the carriage doesn't need horses usually, the best method we could come up with for going incognito is to have the piece's separated into smaller parts. Obviously, there wasn't much need to write a manual since we weren't expecting this to happen. So if you don't mind, either help or go sit in the carriage 'your excellency'.”

“It's probably better for us to keep up appearances, just in case David decides to check up on us and see how were doing. Besides, even spirits need to nap once in awhile.” Just as I was entering the carriage I gave one finally shout to Henry on what he should be doing. “Henry! Once you've tethered the horses somewhere make sure that their calm wouldn't want them to bolt while you're helping Ramaze.” Sure telling him is slightly redundant since Ramaze will sort it out, but its best to get him thinking of something else then sulking over the intimidating giant.

[A few hours later]

Compared to the bumpless experience I had with the non-horse drawn carriage, I'm beginning to feel symphony for those two to have completely change the carriage to allow the horses to move it instead. But even if for me the problem was the sound of constant dirt bumps, after another rather big bump in the dirt road, my gaze fell upon the sleeping Henry who was groaning about the discomfort in his sleep.

How that boy manages to sleep so deep I'll never know.

However, this does give me an opportunity I've been neglecting lately, since we were still a few hours away from the city and Henry was sleeping like a log, I've decided it's the perfect time to check on Henry's progress.

Though instead of projecting my entire conscious into his body like I usual do, this time I left a mental image of myself seemingly napping. Since it was just forming an image using the surrounding mana it didn't take long to shape, plus it meant that when I came back I already had an image to jump into.

Entering the dark, dark body, my sight is simply assaulted by the unnaturally white bones. This bodes well for the rest of the visit. But not to be dismayed I quickly switch my vision to mana and get a pleasant surprise. A surprise in the form of mana beginning to collect inside his bones.

Upon close inspection I could see that the mana wasn't equally spread throughout the bone, various areas were blocked off and in some cases, the mana looked closer to little ponds surround by bigger landmasses. If this is the case, does his future training involve purging more of the filth, or does he have to get rid of it with other means?

I really can't wait to see.

On the other hand, the various mana sources poking out of his organs can't be ignored. Skipping around the body, my analysis showed that all of his organs were emitting this mana like a light. Though what was disturbing was that upon further investigation all of the organs also had almost invisible black light emitting from them as well.

Of course, my first reaction to this was to shout either 'demonic infestation' or 'the curse of death'. Thankfully, it only took me a few short moment; and my body hitting his skin, to regain my composure since those two things don't exist in this place.

Well not to the standard I know of anyway.

But I digress. Moving back to the wall of black and white, I begin a closer analysis of the situation. Though in truth I was stumped, what in Sol's name was this phenomenon? My mind quickly came up with a few of its own hypothesis.

The first one was that due to my void travel and arriving in a new and exotic world, I had unintentionally brought with it a virus. Mainly, the demonic infestation, since due to my various battles with demonic beings my body had been tainted on more than one occasion and even with healing and light magic driving the most dangerous parts away, some small parts may have lurked inside my body.

And as my soul/manapool was now attached to Henry, some of that taint may have come over and affected Henry. Resulting in the current phenomenon I see before me. The 'white' mana battling the 'dark' infestation for control.

However, even if Henry magic circulation training was keeping the demonic infestation inside of him, his outer appearance and personality would have already shown itself, due to the absolute corruption that comes along with the infestation over a period of time.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

My second hypothesis is that Henry's mana is undergoing some sort of mutation. Since, compared to my own calm and controlled mana, the mana of this world is chaotic and unpredictable. Which would directly correlate with the white and dark light being symbols of calm and chaotic mana.

Though the problem for that is the situation I'm seeing is only occurring in his organs. Plus the bones are already pure white and I can sense the chaotic mana resting in them. Plus, this would mean that mana can 'change' from being in contact with mana of a different nature, and I've seen nothing to support this theory, since all the mana around me is calm, but soon return to its original nature once I move away.

So this brings me to my final hypothesis. It's the white mana battling with the black filth. Though battling may be a subjective term, because long the same lines as the bones whitening due to the mana seeping into it, and the black filth being expelled, the organs could be undergoing this same situation. And the final catalyst will be when Henry can push enough mana into the organs to expel the filth and put his mana in their permanently.

But, without test subjects, I'm both unable to test these hypotheses, which also means that I'm unable to see what can occur if the first two options are the ones manifesting themselves.

[Even more hours later]

After the rather taxing dip into Henry's body, I was spending the remaining hours watching the rolling fields of wheat passed by. “Urgh.” Well until Henry woke up at least “Even if having a magically moving carriage get's us caught, I'd prefer capture to the rough treatment I was getting during my sleep.” Says the person who slept like a log.

Calm. Instead of shouting that at him, I decided to take a different approach to. “If being bumped around is too much of a problem for you, then I've got good news for you.” Henry perked up at this and even perked closer to me on his seat. “Open the window and have a good look outside.” This drew a little bit of confusing to Henry but he soon did what he was told.

And once the window opened, Henry jumped back at the loud noise that had come, though. The confusing and embarrassment on his face was funny to see at first, though it's surprising Henry never put to and two together and figured out the windows were sound proof since the complete silence should have given that away.

But Henry wouldn't be deterred. Sticking his head back out the window Henry begun yelling back to me what he was seeing. “It's a big queue outside! Even if it's late afternoon there shouldn't be one this big!” Though to me, the voice was kind of muffled due to the background noise but I got the gist of what he was saying. Then after he came back inside and shut the window he said the thing that I was thinking about, “Something big must be going on.” Though to his credit Henry seemed to have more to say about this, “I've never seen such an influx of pilgrims before, especially for such a small town like this one.”

“Pilgrims?”

“Yes. As you've probably guessed the Flain Theocracy is a religious state, that split off from the main church of Ecclesia over a hundred years ago and with the Supreme Cardinal and the Santorum Pontufex always at each other throats. But I won't go into too much detail about these two since we'll be here all day with me trying to remember everything.”

“Don't worry about it.” I'll make sure to go over it later while you're sleeping. But it's kind of strange since I can't recall most of the memory I screened through all those weeks ago, maybe I'm getting too old.

“Anyway, the reason I'm surprised that such a small town has such an influx is because of the practices the Flain Theocracy uses. Mainly, using the wandering and overzealous pilgrims to do all the heavy lifting and not even having to pay them fully either.” Religion at it's finest I see. “But the problem is, that this only occurs in major cities where the religion is dominant our expanding. The minor places never get such results due to the fact that their either out the way or the place isn't seen as holy compared to the big cities worth churches and cathedrals that reach the sky.”

“And that means?”

“That the local Bishop is either up to something, or something worse is happening in the city.” Well, maybe this trip won't be so boring after all. But while I was about to image what might be happening, Henry continues on with his thoughts. “But what I don't understand is how any of this could happen. The old Bishop wasn't all that zealous. He got on with the nobles and merchants and this allowed the place to expand quite a bit, mass pilgrims wasn't really his style as I recall, even mother said he was the least crazy priest she every worked with. I'm worried about what this means if he's not in control anymore.” 

Hmm, whatever happening must be big, especially if Henry's getting anxious over this. I do hope this trip doesn't take a turn for the worse, I doubt my heart could take any more problems.

[Eventually]

“It's been half a day since we joined this queue.” Even if the setting sun was a sight to behold, being stuck in traffic wasn't. “Maybe I should set the city walls on fire, that should speed up the process a bit.” My insensate mumbling was overheard by Henry, however.

Who attempted to bring me back to reality. “Please don't do that. That...”

“...It's only wooden walls, they can easily replace them.” Unfortunately, I was too bored to take reason to heart.

Even when Henry was giving me good advice. “William I know you're agitated. But calm down. If you want to go into the city so bad, why don't you use your normal form.” Usual, this would have been a great idea. However, there was one flaw in this otherwise genius plan.

And that was because it would have been, “Boring! Look Henry strolling around town when your not meant to be there can be fun sometimes, but the only times I do that is when I'm behind enemy lines. Otherwise, I'm just skipping a queue, and that's not fun at all.”

Henry was looking to make another argument, but Ramaze ghostly voice cut us off before he could. “Pipe down you two. The city guards have just finished processing the rabble in front of us so it's our turn. I wouldn't want our performances to be ruined by an immature noble.”

Finally, “Henry get out on top and stand in for Ramaze. I don't know about you, but ghostly eyed and eerily spoken don't go well in a town of religious fanatics.” Sighing in both defeat and happiness, Henry quickly makes his way out, but just before he leaves I shout further instruction to him. “Also keep the window open, I'd like to hear what they say.”

With the window open I could hear the approach of about half a dozen armoured men coming from the left. Stopping a few feet away, one guard separates off and in a clear feminine voice calls out to the two up front. “Identification papers please.”

Henry responded to the question almost instantaneously, “Oh, er we don't have any, his er, excellence isn't from around here.” Though his speech did sound a little weird from how he usually speaks.

The guard captain doesn't in comparison and as if reading from a list, gives us our next instructions. “Well, then I'm going to have to ask his 'excellency' to step out for inspection then.”

Well, guess we're going to start with some fun first then.