I let out a low groan trying to alleviate the sharp pain within my head, upon opening my eyes, to no one's surprise, I am once again back in this blue distorted world.
"ugh.... what happened?!" trying to find my bearing as the disorientating feeling subsided, A jolt inside my head immediately reminded me of what just had transpired not a moment ago.
"—right, Arthur!"
As I turned to my left, there I saw the figure of Arthur who was frozen in place and was about to be struck down by the leader of the group.
"You damn fool! Why do you always have to be so reckless!" I begrudgingly yelled at the frozen Arthur.
Turning my attention to the other end of the street was the two ladies who were watching us, written on their faces was of course the expression of horror as they were about to witness something very gruesome.
"—So we meet again"
A soft voice from behind, upon turning around I see a familiar face endowed with a graceful black dress.
"Entropy..." I unconsciously whisper.
Upon hearing my weak voice Entropy let out a warm smile.
"You remembered my name, this spirit is utmost grateful"
"No, I was just... It was from a dream... You know what never mind..." I let out a sigh of defeat.
"Fufufu, this is quite nostalgic, it seems that no matter how time passes by something from you won't ever change... Haaa~ It feels like it was just yesterday when you and I formed the pact of Sarjaebel"
"Believe me, I have no idea what you're talking about"
"I know, but like I said in due time you will remember everything"
"—Those words... So everything that happened last night wasn't just a dream..."
"Indeed, so does everything that I told you back there, the past, the Arcana, and of course its legacy"
"..."
"Well then, there will be a more appropriate time to talk about those in the future, as for now, since you've summoned me, how am I of service" Entropy then teasingly lifted the hem of her dress and bowed gracefully to me.
"I... I am still at a loss, I want an explanation for everything. What is this strange phenomenon? Why is everything covered in a blue hue and completely frozen still?"
"Don't tell me... —You honestly don't know? Even though it's already your second time using this spell?" Entropy then tilted her head.
"Know what?..."
"You can't possibly..." Upon my reply, Entropy changed her expression to a worried look and started to write strings of words in the air using unknown symbols and texts. "—Tell me, my lord, you can at least read what I've just written right?!"
"I-I can't nor have seen these unknown symbols..." I replied.
"..." With a defeated look, Entropy resigned herself to the realization and let out a deep sigh.
"A clean slate huh... Now ain't that just unfair Magus"
"Let's set all that aside for now, please I need your help, what should I do to save my friend!"
"As you wish... —Chron aspect, that's the name of the spell that you've just cast"
"But how? I don't even know how to use magic, and just like last time it all just came and happened in a blink of an eye!"
"Even I have no clue about that my lord, but there's no denying that you've managed to halt the passage of time"
Upon hearing entropy's words, I was shocked in place by how absurd it is.
"Wait, stopping time?!"
Entropy nodded
"Chron aspect, the first of the Chronus spell collection. Created during the golden era of discovery and enlightenment, a forbidden spell long forgotten by time..."
"Just how powerful is this spell?"
"Much powerful, though it pales in comparison to the magics known as Grimoires"
As Entropy methodically explained everything to me, I learned that the Chronus Collection is a group of spell magic that is created with the intent of manipulating time.
"—Though the Chron aspect is in itself a rather crafty one to the point It transcends logic between an illusion and reality.
Ritual, Runic, Enchanting, Mana Engineering and Architecture, Spelling, and Chanting. These are the known methods of magic casting in the world, each method is a compromise based on the application, nature, and type of magic that's to be cast
Focussing on spell casting, it is a method by which mana is converted to a string of text to call upon miracles of magic.
As far as Arcana goes, There are three known types of magic that are based on spell casting. Conjuration, Manipulation, and Strengthening.
Conjuration is a spell that lets you influence the world with the use of mana and conjure elements like flame and water out of nothing.
Manipulation on the other hand lets you influence existing elements in the surroundings and manipulate them to your liking. Believe it or not, there was once a powerful warmage that managed to move a mountain and halt the enemy from further advancing.
Last on the list is strengthening, which is the use of mana to influence the property of the element you are targeting. With this type of magic, wood can be as strong as steel, and steel be as soft as leather.
—Now Chron aspect is a type of spell that utilizes the combination of all three types where instead of forcefully stopping time, it rips the caster out of the fabric of reality and transfers it into a shortlived astral plane where time does not flow. I referred to this spell as an illusion as you're not really stopping time, you're simply copying reality to another plane of existence where everything comes to a halt"
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"—if it's just an illusion, are you saying there's nothing that I can do?"
"Not quite, it may just be an illusion but as long as you're in the astral plane, the power time itself is within your grasp. You could for example allow time to continue" Entropy then snaps her finger and what comes was a mind-shattering scene of my best friend being cut in half.
"No!" was the only thing I could shout before my face was splattered with blood.
"Or" With another snap of her finger, everything begins to revert to what it once was "—reverse it"
"—Chron aspect may just be an illusion, but it is also a projection of reality itself. Only fools will call this spell useless as this grants you the power to see what was once, and what will be. Thus why it was a forbidden spell"
"I see..." Still shaken from the earlier scene, I quietly try to calm myself as I further listen to Entropy.
"Now that I've explained everything, my only question to you my lord is that what are you going to do now? you've already seen what happened when I let the flow of time continue"
"Arthur's certain death... —but even if I try to help him, there is no chance that I will make it!" I frustratingly declare.
"Indeed I'm afraid so, —But like every problem, there's more than one path to solve a dilemma, and for that, you must think of a way that will reach your goal.
Remember my lord the mage's most powerful weapon is not that they were able to manipulate aether and mana but their knowledge, wisdom, and intelligence. You may have forgotten everything but my faith in you is still the same"
"—I... I can't, I need your help"
"You must Remember who you are"
"But I don't have any clue..."
"I know, but I believe in you because you promised"
With a smile, entropy summoned her black raven wing and tightly embraced me from behind.
"But..."
"This is but a simple trial for you to overcome, one of the stepping stones across the vast ocean, so please try and remember"
It was then that I was hit by a nauseating feeling followed by a flash of a vision inside my mind. It was a torrent of images centered around a blurry vision of a blonde young man wielding a majestic bow and facing what seemed to be an army of monsters. Raising his hand in the sky, the young man begins to write strings of text in an unknown language, upon the completion of his spell he whispers a silent word under his breath, and then everything goes blank.
Hearing the name of the spell, as if struck by lightning, something unexplainable inside me jolted as more images further flooded into my mind.
In a sort of trance, I subconsciously pulled out my bow from my back and loaded an arrow into it.
"Memory bleed... So it has finally begun... The Awakening..." Entropy whispers under her breath as she lets go of me before bowing and disappearing into thin air.
Pulling the string slowly, a gentle surge of wind began to gather around me and condense at the tip of the arrowhead.
Now at full draw, I aimed at the leader of the mercenary, and just as I was about to release the arrow, colorful symbols began to appear and dance around me.
Scanning through them one by one I recognized that some of these mysterious symbols were similar to the one that Entropy had shown me earlier, but like before I couldn't understand a single word.
"Astral rift..."
Muttering the same name of the spell that I saw in my vision, I let the arrow fly straight which was then followed by the sound of shattering glass and a thunder that blinded all my senses.
"Arrghhh!!!"
A loud painful cry woke me up from my trance. Coming to my senses I realized that I was now back in the normal plane.
"Graaah!... my arm!"
Opening my eyes I was greeted by a scene in which I did not expect. Arthur who's still in shock is frozen in place, while the boss on the other hand is whimpering on the floor trying to stop his bleeding as a huge gaping hole the size of a fist manages to tear through his muscular arm.
Profusely bleeding out, I couldn't help but feel sympathetic to the man and tossed him a spool of bandage from my emergency pocket to let him mend his wound.
"Tie it tightly around your would, or you will die"
"Tch... I don't need your help"
"Sure, die for all I care" was my cold word to him.
It was just then that a group of guards who heard of the brawl managed to arrive.
"Halt!"
One of the guards shouted and upon seeing the carnage of the aftermath of the fight there was no surprise that they would come to a very unoriginal conclusion and arrest all of us.
**********
"So you wanted us to believe that it was all just an act of self-defense? There were like nine men all beaten up!"
Sitting on a table complete with our hands tied in handcuffs, Arthur and I are currently in one of the guard's outposts and are being interrogated about the incident.
"I'm telling you the truth! Look sir those goons were mercenaries and were harassing the two ladies by the streets. We just came and helped but those goons attacked us out of nowhere, as for the aftermath... Well, it's not our fault they're all bad at fighting" Arthur answered.
"hmm... That indeed checked out based on the testimony of the two eyewitnesses" the second guard commented as he looked at his report paper.
"YES! Finally, so are we in the clear now?" Arthur breathed a sigh of relief but was immediately cut off by the first guard.
"—But that still didn't explain anything of how you two managed to tear a hole in the last man's arm! Our investigator said there was a lingering presence of mana in the scene, the suspect also said he was hit by something like an invisible wind"
"Wait magic? Respectfully sir but there must be a mistake, my buddy here and I don't have any affinity with both Aether and Mana, if anything it must be somebody else"
"Oi Rey say something, why are you leaving all the talking to me?" Arthur leaned and whispered to me but I just ignored him to let him reflect on his actions.
"Sigh... Listen, kid, our shift ended two hours ago and I just want this to be over with. We've already proven that you two are innocent and it was all in self-defense, now I just need your confession about your usage of magic so we can finish with our incident report and go home"
"Go home, sir? I thought we were going for a drink" the second guard comedically commented.
"—Shut it, Ryan"
"but we just told you..."
"Just say you've used magic for self-defense so we can both go"
"—Sorry sir but we are not mages"
"Ughh... Why so Stubborn, Fine, I guess we'll just use the longer procedure to confirm it. It's gonna take another hour but we need to test you guys with the Aether and Mana measuring devices.
It was then that the first guard grumblingly exited the interrogation room.
"Hehe sorry about Carlson, he's just eager to go out and drink, we can't write any false-negative when it concerns magic without a proper test"
"Sorry for the inconvenience" Arthur sympathetically replied.
After half an hour, the first guard finally returned with a measuring device.
"management better count this as an overtime! Anyway, here put your hand in the console and we'll measure it up right away"
As instructed Arthur and I put our hands on the central console and let the device measure our affinity number and as expected nothing new came to arise.
"Well, how'd you look at that, zero. That means you two aren't the perpetrators of that magic attack. That's all then, you two are free to go and I meanwhile will have to finish up my written report!" The guard then hurriedly shooed us out of the room.
**********
It was now close to evening, leaving the outpost we were greeted by the busy street that was filled with people who had just gotten out of work.
Taking the train back home, I silently stare by the window as I try to process everything that just happened in these past couple of days
'A collection of memories that shaped the world into what it is now...'
'Kingdom of Arcana..."
Just what are you trying to tell me Entropy...
"Say Rey, now that I think about it, we didn't manage to get the names of those two ladies right? Sigh... What a waste!" Arthur breaking the silent atmosphere starts the conversation in the most absurd way possible.
"That's what you're concerned about?"
"Well of course! I have to say the maid was pretty right? —come on, just imagine me inviting her on a date!" Arthur then sheepishly let out a grinning face as his thought flew to paradise land.
"Sigh... I'm reporting all of these to Madam Ruela" was my cold reply to him.
"—wait! I-I'm just joking! Just joking!"
"So anything you want to say?"
"Y-yeah... I'm sorry for dragging us into trouble, that one is on me, and of course, thank you for saving me. Well, you'll be saving me more if you won't tell my mother what happened today" Arthur profusely apologized while also giving me his honest thanks.
"Don't worry, I'm also just kidding on that part, after all, I like my friends being indebted to me" was my reply to his request as I showed him my scheming smile.
"Hehehe... go easy on me buddy" Arthur defeatedly accepted his fate.