Nia

I remember having a dream.

No, it’s not that. I am still currently having a dream.

Within that dream, this dream, I was once memoryless.

When I realized that I was here, I neither knew my name nor even remembered if my appearance was really mine.

I traveled a vast, empty yet filled world.

Within that dream, everything existed to make it feel real. Yes, everything but one thing: life.

There was nothing alive within that Ersatz of reality besides Soros and me. It was how I was able to tell that all of this wasn't real but a dream.

A very long dream, one that I couldn’t wake from and felt that I would certainly never awake from,

From how that dream was, it should’ve been lonely, but it wasn’t because I had Soros by my side.

The moment I awoke from this dream, he was there. I didn’t know what he was, for to me he appeared as a sky-blue sentient bubble, but since our meeting, he was always nice, telling me things to forget about how lonely this dream was. Together, we journeyed throughout that empty yet filled, real yet dreamlike world.

Together, we journeyed to discover diverse and varied places, each equally devoid of life.

For how long or how short we did it, I couldn’t tell.

But one day, it happened. Like glass would, the blue sky shattered, revealing behind it an empty and boundless void.

I didn’t have to know what it was or what caused it; I instinctively knew that this world was shattering.

The dream was coming to an end. And along with it, shards of my memories came back. As memories came back, I began to recognize scenes that I had been given to see throughout our journey within the dream.

They were familiar, but it wasn’t as if I had seen them somewhere, it was just that I realized that it was how I would imagine they would be from someone’s description.

Slowly but steadily, my memories progressively came back, and as they came back, my vision of my surroundings began to change, but nothing was as shocking as when I finally saw through Soros's true appearance. He was not only the one who accompanied me throughout this time, however brief or long it may have been, but he was also the source of that dream.

This dream, this whole world we’ve been journeying into, was an illustration of my mind itself, made of stories someone told me when I was younger.

That "someone" was Soros. He was my father.

He was at my side all the way.

He no longer appeared to me like a bubble, but as I remembered, he was.

All my memories came back to me, and I finally remembered everything: the tower, the stories Papa himself wrote for me, him telling me about my mother and what would happen to me,

I also remember that night, when I was finally given the opportunity to see the starry sky. For the second time in my life, I was brought outside the tower.

I remembered his question about whether I wanted to go on a journey together, just the two of us. Without knowing or even doubting what it would imply, I acquiesced.

And now here we were.

All these times, I wished to be freed from that dream, and when the day came, I felt that it wasn’t enough. It was only then that I realized how precious these times were to me.

I was told by him how little time we had left. I refused to say goodbye, yet the state corroding dream told me that soon I would have to say goodbye.

I wished to remain forever in this dream.

But then it happened.

"Nia."

This time, instead of the world, it was Papa that was dusting away.

It seems I have lost, and rather He held his arms open and said, "Child, time has come. We must say goodbye. "

Knowing it was inevitable, I embraced him and cried like I never had.

Back when I was still within the tower, I knew what was happening to me. I knew that one day. I had to leave Papa. Yet I couldn’t allow myself to cry because that would make Papa sad, and I didn’t want that.

"Hahaha, it reminds me how bad I was with crying babies."

"Mother, Father, Grandfather Davence, Anna, Raissa, they must be proud of me, and so it is time for me to join them."

"Shuuh, it’s okay now. Nia, stop. You're a big girl now. Right? "

You must continue this journey without me. My end is here, but it is without regret that I go. " In the end, I accomplished more than I could ever have imagined. What you will stumble upon throughout yours is a mystery to me. But I’m sure you will find it: the happiness your mother and I wished for you. "

For the time being, I must say farewell." said with a smile before vanishing into nothingness.

Tears were unstoppable, wailing down my face, but this time, it wasn’t like before. These tears were real and were falling down the face of my real body.

And, like someone waking up from a very long dream, I finally woke up.

Through my eyes, I saw the light from the sun, but also noticed the still vague silhouette in front. Once my sight cleared up, I could see them distinctively.

I knew from Papa that his body was fighting against monsters in the waking world, but once he told me that he was defeated, I didn't know even a single second about these monsters.

Two pairs of eyes were cast on me.

One pair of gleaming golden eyes belonged to what my father would call a wolf, yet deep down I knew that something this size could be anything but a mere wolf. Without a doubt, it was a monster.

The other pair were a gem-like red and belonged to a boy with white hair and ragged clothes; he had blood all over his body and scars wherever my eyes ventured.

There was also something strange about him; there was a small flickering hue on his shoulder.

The two were, to say it honestly, frightening, but despite that, I didn’t sense anything that could be defined as ill-intent from them.

So once the boy offered me a helping hand to get out of the craddle-like thing I was in, I accepted.

But then it happened.

I just got out of a dream, but the moment I touched him, I knew I was drawn into another dream yet again.

The next instant, I was transported to a completely different sight.

Hovering in midair, I saw destruction below my feet through an ocean of flames. Then, while my eyes were scanning the surroundings, they stumbled upon it.

In fact, given how gigantic they were, it was impossible to miss them.

When I was little, Papa told me stories about that, so I instantly recognized them once I saw them.

Rena, the first dragon.

***

Ronandt

When I awoke, I immediately knew that it was nighttime, that I was once again inside an area of the forest surrounded by trees, and that I was laying against something I was now quite comfortable sleeping against, but there was something next to me that I couldn’t immediately process.

A pace of breathing came from that person, indicating that she, too, was in deep sleep, as I was earlier.

It has been ages since I have been so close to someone and that someone isn’t trying to kill me. It took me some time to finally remember what my true last souvenir really was.

Somehow, creeping by it, I moved away from her.

I stood up and went toward Heon’s head, "Thanks again for taking care of me. How are you doing? "

"... "

I have absolutely no idea what it is supposed to mean, but take as much rest as you need. "

Still, in deep thought, I made my way to search for wood to start a bonfire; I remembered the fight against that remnant, who suddenly came back to life, the egg-like thing, and the girl within it, then me offering her my hand. Then I felt like I was suddenly electrocuted, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t attacked physically back then. Despite the terrible state, I was still fully enhanced even then. I was ready to fight back if needed, and yet I was completely helpless against it. It felt more like a non-physical attack than anything else.

That was pretty much my last memory before I passed out.

Was it her doing?

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I’m not quite sure, but I believe I wasn’t the only one to have gone through that.

Now that I think of it,

"Hey Han, How are you doing? "

I miss my beloved vessels. I am currently no different than a ghost. It was pretty much only that that gave me a semblance of a realistic anchor in this world. But besides that, I’m doing great.

Having easily found wooden sticks around, I packed them together, started a fire, and proceeded to sit next to it.

Sorry,... If I weren’t that curious about that barrier, none of this would’ve happened. "

"Enough! As if the mood wasn’t depressing enough already, it’s useless to dwell on the past, so what are we going to do now? Especially about her. "

I couldn't help but turn my head toward that sleeping girl over there.

"For her? To be honest, I don’t know, but that shouldn’t be the last of our concerns. Shouldn’t our focus from now on be on how and where to get you a new vessel? " I said, before exhaling a long, "If there was anything that fight taught me, it was that I was afraid. Despite how much I wanted to believe I wasn't, I am still afraid. I was afraid of how lonely it would be without you two guys. I almost lost you two guys. I wanted to believe that we were finally strong enough to not have to fear anything, but I was wrong; there are always bigger fish. Prior to the fight, my only goal was to find a way to continue on this journey; I became overly confident in my abilities, unaware that they were far from sufficient; look at us!We couldn't do anything against yet another. But nonetheless, I think I've learned my lesson. Though it wouldn't give you back your vessels, I promise I will find you the strongest vessel this place has to offer.

"I don’t know why, but I feel like you just, though inadvertently, insulted me, but whatever… Hey, Hon, there's no need to rush for the vessel.Don’t sweat it, we’ll eventually find it. Besides, no matter how you look at that guy, he was without a doubt abnormally strong. After having come this far, there is no need to sell ourselves short. Right? "

It was something I couldn’t refute. That man was an absolute monster. Even now, I can’t tell what kind of magic that was.

"Space magic, at least that’s what it was to me,"

I suppose it makes sense. Space magic would explain the teleportation as well as the barrier.

Then how would you explain the magic inhibiting thing and the fact that we suddenly shifted from an afternoon straight to midnight in a split second?"

For the time-shifting, maybe he also has some sort of time-alteration magic. Isn’t it said that time and space always go in pairs? For the magic inhibiting magic, I think I have a clue about how it works.

"At first, I assumed it was some sort of secondary effect of being within the barrier, but then I realized it wasn't. You know how magic works, don’t you? "

"Well, I guess I do."

When you use magic, you use mana within you to produce an external effect on the real world. For most, this takes the form of what people call "aina-enhancement," which consists of simply enhancing the sensitivity and toughness of one's body. In your case, you have a more varied altering capability than simply making yourself harder or tougher when it comes to aina manipulation. In magic’s case, when using magic, the magic-user serves as a catalyst from which his own self-produced energy, mana, comes pouring into, ultimately producing an external effect, called magic. You must have a little clue about how it works in practice. When sparring against him, didn’t you notice a difference between his way of using aina, yours, and others'? Didn’t you think there was something weird with his barrier, or to be exact, the strange environment we were thrown into after interacting with his barrier? "

"Something strange? I should’ve noticed? I don’t know... Wait... The surrounding aina were behaving weirdly back then... Then he did his ... Wait, I see. Back then, he siphoned mana from within his strange domain, but it wasn’t all. He also siphoned the aina as well. "

I remember that this was literally my first discovery of Aina.

Aina comes from outside and can be found everywhere, while mana comes from within. Back then, I theorized that people had difficulty using both magic and aina-wielding simultaneously because both mana and aina don't blend well because of their opposite natures.

My theory was that using both aina and mana felt like pointing their fingers at each other, then simultaneously turning one clockwise while rotating the other counter-clockwise.

It's not impossible, but only a handful of people are capable of pulling it off effortlessly.

"Exactly, it doesn’t work. Do you remember what happened after you stabbed him? "

He withdrew all his mana from the surrounding

Then I realized

"So you've finally realized, haven't you?" That bastard was wide-spreading his mana while also doing something similar to you and your "Friendship Aina Beam" attack. In another world, he was messing up the world by wide-spreading his mana while simultaneously controlling the surrounding aina. Well, I presume influence seems to be the appropriate term. If living beings capable of so weirdly influencing Aina were to be categorized as a species, then that man was one of your kind. "

With Aina, I wasn’t only capable of altering some aspects of the real world, producing that wind and lightning attack was one of them. What that man did was similar to what I did while producing that attack of mine, with the only difference being that he was most likely combining it with a very unique use of both aina and mana. I couldn’t explain how it works yet, but during the fight I got a glimpse of the step he took.

"Let us call the first stage of your battle "the first phase." Basically, during the first phase, that bastard was maintaining the barrier, which I believe was created by some sort of space magic, while passively and simultaneously spreading his mana within the barrier, influencing the aina within the barrier during the first phase and protecting the egg-like object the girl was in. And all that while fighting you on nearly equal ground. "

Hearing these words, I couldn’t help but sigh internally, then laugh sarcastically.

"And that's not all. Didn’t you notice it? His bubble thing was also quite a big deal. The bubble alone was made of an insane quantity of mana, but not the explosion itself. "

"What do you mean?"

"You would have understood if it had been your vessel that was ripped to shreds there. The explosion felt like it was based on the same concept as your "F.A.B": highly compressed air, but in his, let’s call it "Bubble of Evil," he combined his technique with the sheer intensity of the released highly pressured gas to produce the "Explosion of Evil" that almost killed us more than once or twice."

Once again, I couldn't help but sigh.

But hey, we must see the bright side of things, "

"Like?"

"We aren’t dead, we weren’t killed. Imagine if he was releasing his "EoE" the same way you release your "F.A.B". We would be cut in half, that’s for sure. Besides, your F.A.B felt more powerful than his "EoF." It's just that you can't spam it like he did, and you're quite on the slower side when it comes to computing your attack, but let's not mix our apples and oranges. That dude was undoubtedly an old monster from a long gone era, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was a god-like being at his peak. We’ve been on this journey for what? Three years. I can’t tell how old he was, but as long as we keep the pace, we will... you know, kick asses. We still have time to reach that level, and as I think I said earlier, our confrontation with him has set a new concrete goal now. All we have left to do is to pursue it, right? "

"I suppose you’re right."

"A wise man once said, "A wise man learns from, eh?..." What was it already? You know what, never mind, just get the best of it, just as I do. Come on, praise me. "

"You want me to praise you for what?"

I, thanks to my genius, have already found a way of adjusting one of his techniques to your art of aina. I have even already found the perfect guinea pig. "Hahaha, come on, praise me."

Yeah, I applaud your genius. Oh, Venerable and Wise One. And may I know what exactly it is? "

Oh, don’t mind what I just said. It’s irrelevant right now, but I’ll tell you once your injuries heal, that-. Hey! Guess who is awakening? "

Still laying against Heon, the girl we discovered inside the egg-like object, the man who was apparently protecting him with his magic until his last breath was waking her up from her slumber.

She was slowly opening her eyes.

I’m going to come across as a pain in the arse, but I have to ask, what are you going to do with her?

As I said, I don’t know. I mean, I was, for some reason, knocked out the moment I touched her. It was Heon who carried her here, so I really don’t know. "

The first thing that attracted her attention was the bonfire kindling between us, but then she noticed us sitting on the opposite side. She put her hand on it in an attempt to rise, only to fail miserably when she took notice of what she was lying against during all this time, Hon.

She didn’t cry nor scream, but still crawled in fright away from Heon.

Heon, having noticed her reaction, didn't seem to particularly mind it, as she stood up and walked away with a limp deep within the forest.

I stood up, then made my way to her, then crouched to be at her level. I just remained like that for several seconds.

"Seriously, it's creepy how she hasn’t tried to kill me yet."

"Wait, what did you just say?"

"Me, nothing."

I still have no explanation for what happened earlier, so to find out, I reached out my finger to her face to reach a soft spot that I believe was the cheek.

"No reaction, huh?"

I did it to see if the thing that knocked me would once again take place, and it didn’t. Instead, something else happened with a small "Paf." An aina-enhanced slap landed on my hand.

I couldn't quite find how to describe how it felt. How it was enhanced wasn’t as explosive or powerful as mine, nor as polished as a certain person, but it was... That’s it. It was similar to High Beast’s aina enhancement.

Strangely, after having landed on her slap, she displayed a strange reaction. It was as if she was surprised by what she did, but immediately after, having regathered her thoughts, she frantically looked around, as if in search of somewhere to fly away, but with us being in the middle of the night, and being in the middle of the forest, the choice wasn’t evident. Besides, from not so far away, where Heon disappeared, the sound of an explosion that could be easily recognized as her beam reverberated, along with a howl easily recognizable as Heon's.

Given how still fully enhanced on Aina she was. She clearly didn’t know what to do, and was definitely weirded out by the strange thing that we were, but without the option to run away as it was night, and well, who said night in these woods said dark tree, frightening noise deep within the forest. So, pretty much any sane person wouldn’t consider running into these woods as a viable option.

"Hoy, Hon, you’re frightening the poor girl. Come on, give her a big smile. "

"A big smile, huh?"

I executed myself and displayed my warmest smile.

Oh no, now she's even more crept than before.

"Oh god, now she’s going to think that you’re going to eat her. Dude, tsk, tsk, tsk, even Heon would have been less scary while introducing herself compared to you. "

"If you think you can do better, then do it yourself."

"Hahaha, it’s not like I could. Besides, what do you want me to tell her? "Hello, I'm Han, an unperfect vessel-less soul-eating creature that is his friend with that weird and creepy guy and that giant wolf over there."

"Why not? It would be far less creepy than how you introduced yourself to me. "

"Hahaha Well about that-You know what, forget about it."

From afar, I heard the sound of Heon dragging something heavy and lifeless toward us.

Knowing that I was doing no good, I decided to put some distance between us. Before backing away, I placed my hand on the ground and manipulated it to form a sort of ground-made tent to protect her, nothing catchy, but just enough to keep her safe.

Since she’s afraid of Heon, I guess she’ll have to content herself with that for the weirdly not-so-cold night. Heon must’ve brought us quite far since the weather was quite different from that place.

I went back toward the fire, where I grilled some meat from the monster Heon brought back. I wasn’t sure what kind of monster it was, but I’ve learned to trust Heon's fine palate over the years. Once done with cooking it to an edible level, I took a chunk of it, which I then brought to her.

Sorry for earlier. What’s your name? Name... Naaameuuuh. Does it ring a bell for you? "

The remnants we met were from an age where the language was so different that it sounded completely gibberish to me, yet there were words that I could easily recognize the sense of. "Papa," for example, was the word she muttered before and after being freed from that egg-shaped thing.

I knew what "Papa" meant, and to be honest, I would have far preferred to not know what these two redundant syllables meant.

I received no answer from her, so I went back to my old spot. From afar, I heard the wings flapping of the dragon getting closer; soon it passed just above us.

Naturally, even the girl noticed the wing flapping, so she got out to see what it was only to see the dragon's shadow cast on us for a short while. She stared back at us only to see us unaffected by the dragon.

At first, I thought it was the dragon, but her eyes remained fixated on the starry sky. She was intrigued, but I think amazed would be the right word to describe her right now.

Her expression resembled that of a child discovering something for the first time.

I don't know how long she's been within that egg-shaped thing, but it must've been long enough for her to feel like she was discovering the sky anew.

"It’s called "sky" in my language."

I'm not sure if she even understood what I said, but she, well, let’s say she nodded.

And as expected, I received no further answer, but just as I was about to leave, she uttered a word, "Nia".

"What did you say?"

"Nia," she says.

"Nia, is that your name?" I asked, pointing at her.

She acquiesced and didn’t answer any further, for she seemed to be utterly disgusted by the taste of what she tried to put in her mouth.

"Then I suppose, nice to meet you, Nia."