“ … We lived our lives trying to help up whoever in need, whoever we could but … If there was a mistake in our existence, it would be that none of us knew how to die, none of us really did.”

Djeem the Accursed.

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I’ve never had the opportunity to fully appreciate how calm being underwater is.

There is that strange burdening noise, I concede, but besides that, it’s nothing else but peaceful.

I felt so helpless underwater, yet I had no fear.

Amidst the water, small creatures that I knew were fish were swimming while producing a calm and peaceful bubly melody.

If only it could go on like this forever.

But sadly, I was no fish.

Feeling that I was beginning to drown, I immediately made my way to the surface.

Before reaching the surface, I was surrounded by a snake-like surface and was brought to the surface at a much higher pace.

I came out panting, as I never did before.

"Finally done playing with the water."

"Yeah."

I was enveloped by Han. This was his fifth vessel. It was a giant snake-like creature. Once again, we had no prior knowledge of that creature's regard, so we settled for "Cryptid Snake" as a name.

As always, we were still in the forest. I no longer have any idea how long it has been since that confrontation against these siblings. Six months, seven months, eight months?

I couldn’t tell anymore, I was done counting. All I knew was that I was roughly eleven years old and a half and that I was slowly but surely approaching my twelfth birthday, not that I would feast on it or anything.

I was now swimming inside a blue crystalline pond if I followed Han’s word, and as someone swimming in it, I could attest to its purity, I felt younger merely by swimming idly in it.

Suddenly, from somewhere on the opposite side of the pond, I heard a pack of monsters getting close, While I was underwater, I didn’t notice them

From the sound of their steps, I knew they were giant hoofed monsters.

To be exact, the creatures in question were a herd of moose-like monsters with glowing blue antlers. They approached the water and began to drink with absolutely no regard or fear for us.

Since they were simply there to drink, we didn’t do anything that would attract their hostility.

We've come a long way since that day I recovered my arm.

We got to meet a lot of monsters along the way, among which were Han’s two latest vessels, a Cryptid Snake, adept of ice magic, and a Giant Bear-like monster, adept of fire and earth magic.

After a while, being done with what they were doing, they simply left.

We also got out of the water.

Like a dog would, I removed the water from me, and continued our journey. That swimming was just a small pause we took.

"We’ve seen more and more monsters like this lately, they just walk by without courting death. It’s super weird. Don’t you think? "

"Yeah."

I agreed that it was weird,

In fact, it was not just that, it was that entire area that was weird, for several reasons.

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One: There was a wide variety of monsters here, ranging from beasts to magical beasts. In fact, we even caught sight of animalistic and non-monstrous life forms like a rabbit.

When I heard Han telling me that there was a rabbit in this forest, I couldn’t believe my eyes, but once we caught it, it was indeed a rabbit, not a poisonous one, not a horny one, just a regular rabbit.

Two: We caught sight of something I also thought I would never see in this forest. There was a plant, not just one but many of them, each producing a strange fruit I never tasted before. It wasn’t a poisonous one, nor was the plant it grew upon a cannibal one. It was just a plant producing fruits. Even though it was nothing compared to the thing I stumbled upon in the middle layer, it was still quite a discovery.

Three: a large space between each tree, a grassy ground, no mud, slightly uneven topography but nothing exaggerated, many easily accessible water sources like the one I swam in earlier,

And four: these kinds of behaviors, such as the one displayed by the moose we met earlier, I wasn’t saying that every monster was avoiding us, I was just saying that some of them were avoiding us. I know it is a strange thing to say, but it was more unsettling to not be attacked at each meeting, than being attacked upon being sighted.

In short, this place was very welcoming, which made it even more unsettling. A place like this was never good-omenning.

But still, we were ready for whatever was coming at us.

Many things have changed during the past few months, not only for Han but also for me. I no longer was the same as the one I was a few months ago.

I can’t believe I would ever say this, but after some time after retrieving it, I finally got used to my hand.

Having lost most of my appendages, I had to radically change my fighting style to fit what I had.

I was now armed with quite an arsenal, having acquired that person's sword and a new healthy arm from that woman.

And there was something in particular that I could count on as a new arsenal, I first took notice of it during the fight against the siblings.

During that time, I was able to propel myself, onto her in midair, as if I was stepping on something solid but not just air.

It took me some time to figure out how exactly it worked for that time, and I merely did it almost naturally without any thought put into it.

I took my time to get what it was about, but I eventually got the gist of it.

What I did that time was simple, I, how to put it, enhanced with aina the air, which I then used as a projecting step toward that woman.

I admit it made little to no sense, but once one understands, at least as I do, how exactly aina works, it at least makes a little bit of sense.

For most, aina allows one to enhance things such as sense, strength, and even skin hardness, but how exactly does it work?

Let’s say by enhancing, let’s say someone was to enhance their arm. Would that person’s bones and skin become as hard as steel in a split second.

The answer is no. Physiologically, there was no change in one’s body while using aina. We merely coat ourselves in aina to enhance the desired part of our body, and it was that same coat of aina that allowed an aina-user to do whatever they could do as an aina-user.

This logic can also apply to sense-enhancing. Here again, there is no physiological change, your eyes don’t get better, nor do your nose get keener, it is just that aina allows its user to receive more information such as hearing, sight, and even touch.

Since a very young age, I was easily capable of noticing the presence of someone using it. At first, I assumed it was normal among Aina users, but when I first interacted with other Aina users like Ramia and Mael, I realized that it wasn’t normal.

And it was that abnormality that allowed me to survive so many fights. All this time I wasn’t only relying on my other remaining senses but also on that strange ability I had to sense the influx of aina, which is very noticeable on magical beasts and highbeasts.

If I had to rank my senses by order of usefulness: that strange ability to sense aina would be somewhere at the top, along with the sense of touch, followed by hearing, then smell, taste.

All this time, I have been using physical things connected to my body as enhancement vessels.

One can debate whether air is a physical thing or not

But what I did back then was enhance the air to a physical level, just enough for me to use it as a propelling ground.

Now, with quite a bit of training, I am now capable of swiftly reproducing what I did before.

This currently makes me more versatile and mobile than I ever was.

Han and I were walking side by side toward our next destination. It’s been a few weeks since the last time we fought anything, and to be honest, it was a little bit lonely.

Han was still in his Cryptid Snake vessel form, and in my back was that sword from back then, my sword, and in my hand were berries that looked like fruits.

"That being said, it’s really sad, you can’t taste these. They’re tasty, you know.."

"Well, it can’t be helped. This is not a body made out of flesh, so I can’t really taste it. But you can always try to describe it. Maybe I will understand. "

"... Describe, eh? Let me think, it tastes like something between a pineapple and a lemon. "

"Do you realize that I have no idea what a pineapple or a lemon tastes like?"

"Well, sorry, let me think again... Do you remember those disgusting giant toads we fought before finding the cryptid snake? "

"Yes."

"Do you remember that giant moth we fought a month ago?"

"Well, yes."

"Try imagining what their venom would taste like. These things taste like something in between these two creatures’ venoms. "

"I really have no idea how I am supposed to picture that in my head."

"That’s the best illustration I can give-" My speech was cut off by a loud, monstrous noise.

It was from afar, but it reverberated vividly.

A loud, long, and majestic howl.

At that time, we knew that that howl belonged to a powerful monster, but we had no idea that that creature was the reason for that area being that calm and peaceful.

The howl belonged to the ruler of this place.

A magical beast at the top of the food chain.