When we stepped back onto the surface, I couldn’t help but wince.

The first time we had set foot in the wastes, over a decade and a half ago, I had noticed how strange everything was. The pink grass, the smell of charcoal, the ring-shaped planet… All of those things had distracted me, causing me to focus on them as I tried to devour everything I was seeing for the first time.

However, upon returning to the surface, my first thought was different.

This was because, when I looked at the black sun that hung in the sky like a hungry mouth, I realized something.

Was the black sun… bigger?

It was hard to see, but I could have sworn the black sun was a little bit bigger than last time we had been on the surface. It wasn’t a huge difference, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t just seeing things.

I turned towards Sallia.

“Hey, Sallia. Does the black sun look bigger than before?”

“Now that you mention it… maybe?” Sallia also looked up at the black sun and squinted her eyes. Anise and Felix followed suit, and also glanced at the black sun.

“It does seem to be a little bigger than before,” said Anise, also squinting as she glanced at the black sun. She grimaced, and then looked at the rest of the surface. “If that’s the case, perhaps we should be more mindful of the time we spend exposed to the sun. I remember that when we were traveling to Silver City, teacher Ella estimated that it would take us a week to get sick from black sun poisoning, but it only took us three or four days instead. I imagine that the time we can spend exposed to the black sun without getting sick is even shorter now.”

I blinked in surprise. Anise’s comment made a lot of sense, but I wasn’t used to Anise making good suggestions.

Then, I felt a smile tug at my lips.

Anise had been slowly growing up in front of my very eyes. I could still remember the days she went on and on about how she wanted to be a super witch, and how she had always made me chuckle. Now, she was all grown up. Even though Anise’s love for spellcasting had never died down, she was old enough to make good suggestions and understand the world around her far more than ever before.

“I agree,” said Sallia. “The black sun isn’t something we want to take chances with. If the black sun is larger than before, its effects might be stronger as well. If we get sick, it might be very hard to deal with afterward.” Sallia glanced at me and nodded. “Even if Miria’s healing is better than before, we should still avoid wasting her essence if we can.”

She paused for a moment, and then looked at the wastes around us. “Also, we should take extra steps to make sure that we don’t walk into any outsiders: their abilities are all very weird, and I think we would be better off if we didn’t end up tangling with them. Whether or not we have a way to survive after an encounter with outsiders seems to be mostly related to how quickly Miria can figure out a solution, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to put our lives on the line like that.”

I paused for a moment, before I realized that Sallia was right. The two outsiders I could think of that we had encountered so far were the thought worms and the fog, and I had been the one to deal with both creatures. The strange, difficult to comprehend biology of Outside creatures often meant that only a few specific kinds of spells were useful against them. Rather than mess around trying to figure out what worked and what didn’t, it was usually much faster and easier to just extinguish them, or remove them using alteration essence.

Despite the fact that Shaping required a lot more creativity and quick thinking to use in a fight, it was also much better at coping with unusual enemies and situations.

“Perhaps what we should do is spend a day out in the black sun, and then a day taking shelter?” said Felix. “With the help of Sallia’s noodle bowl and Miria’s dimensional pack, we have a good amount of food. And with only four people to support, our supplies won’t drain anywhere near as quickly as they did last time. We should have a comfortable three or four weeks of supplies, assuming Miria and Sallia are able to forage.”

“Sallia and I might be able to forage, but it should probably be sporadic from Sallia,” I said. “After all, our strong Fortitude makes both of us much more resistant to the effects of the black sun. However, it’s not perfect. I have {Emptiness} to deal with the effects of the black sunlight, but Sallia should still take breaks from time to time.”

Sallia shuffled uncomfortably. “Would you be all right doing that? I don’t want you to get hurt while foraging, and it’s much safer with a friend or two to keep watch while you look for food.”

I hesitated, before nodding. “I can manage. But I’ll stick near camp when it comes up.”

Sallia still looked uncomfortable, but eventually, she nodded. “All right.”

After we finished figuring out how to manage our traveling system, we started walking again. We only had a rough idea where we were heading: after all, the location of the ruins where the cube had been found weren’t certain. However, based on the direction the adventurers had been heading when we met them, as well as some rumors floating around the underdark, gave us at least a general direction to follow.

However, as we started moving away from the tunnel that led to Silver City, I couldn’t help but think about this world and its future.

I had already realized that the Orthanoids of this planet weren’t exactly in a great position. Unlike most species, we were forced to live in underground cities, afraid of returning to the surface. Even in the underdark, most of the creatures were stronger than us, requiring extensive, well-maintained networks of soldiers and magic users to keep civilians inside of cities safe.

In some distant corner of my mind, I had expected that things would improve over time. After all, spellcasters and shapers were always actively working to expand their knowledge base, either by raiding lost labs and research facilities, and also through doing their own experimentation.

However… what if things weren’t getting better over time? What if the Orthanoid species as a whole was declining further and further as time passed, and our species was just a long-forgotten relic of a previous era?

I couldn’t help but think back to Sallia’s words when we had been parting from Ella. At the time, Sallia had talked about how she felt that the Orthanoids of this world were slowly dying, as more and more cities fell and fewer and fewer cities were reclaimed. At the time, I had wondered if Sallia was correct.

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The fact that the black sun seemed larger than before seemed to validate Sallia’s opinion.

The black sun wasn’t from this dimension. It getting bigger seemed to imply that the ‘other dimension’ we were connected to was getting more and more connected to our world over time. In other words, outsiders, the most dangerous enemy in this world, were also growing more and more populous with every passing year.

Perhaps in a few thousand or a few tens of thousands of years, there would be no more Orthanoids on this dying planet at all. The adventurers, spellcasters, and shapers might simply be the last gasps of our dying species, struggling to squeak out a new place in the world for us as the world changed around us.

I shook my head, trying to push off such grim thoughts. However, my mood plummeted as I observed our surroundings.

“Sallia, when you were talking to Ella, were you telling the truth? Is this world getting harder and harder to survive in?” I asked, whispering to her as we walked.

“To the best of my knowledge, yes. of course, the history books I had access to were written by historians in Silver City, so it’s also possible that this region is getting worse and other regions are doing fine. I imagine that information gets hard to verify once it related to cities farther away. But everything I said to Ella should be correct,” said Sallia. “Why? Does it bother you?”

“It… does,” I said. “I know that everyone will probably just get thrown back into the ocean of souls anyway, but it seems… I don’t know, sad. This world dying seems like a shame to me.”

Sallia smiled, and then hugged me.

“It means that even though we’ve reincarnated twice now, you haven’t lost your heart,” she said. “Sometimes, I also find myself wondering what really matters and what doesn’t. Since everyone just reincarnates anyway, does dying really matter? Is it a bad thing to kill someone? After all, they’ll just be reborn. Even if some people get absorbed by the ocean in between lives, most don’t. You and Felix keep me grounded. Losing friends is sad. I want to stay with both of you as long as possible, and remembering that is what keeps me human,” said Sallia.

I felt surprised, but warm as I hugged her back. Sallia had never talked about her thoughts on life and death. I felt glad that Sallia wasn’t losing who she was, despite how odd our perspective on life and death had become after joining the Market. Being part of the Market would naturally change how we viewed some things: after all, once we died and were reborn several times, it was entirely possible that we wouldn’t view death as something particularly noteworthy.

So I was glad we had each other to stay sane.

Then, I wondered if there was a way to ‘fix’ this world. Right now, it felt as if the world was slowly spiralling out of control. The Orthanoids were slowly declining, the black sun was getting larger, outside creatures were probably becoming more populous… In all, this world felt liked it was slowly fading away.

Then, I sighed.

Even if I didn’t want the humanoid creatures of this world to go extinct, I had no clue how to fix it. I didn’t lack the will to help. However, I lacked the ability. I had no clue how the black sun had even come about. I would just have to hope that someone found a solution in the future, unless I got a bright idea or found something relevant.

I put my thoughts away, and the four of us continued moving through the wastes.

* * *

For the rest of the day, we didn’t encounter much of note. Which, in itself, was actually rather unusual. During our journey to Silver City, we had run into odd creatures several times a day, and while we avoided most encounters, that wasn’t because there weren’t any monsters roaming around: it was simply because Felix’s parents were exceptionally proficient scouts, and most creatures we saw were too strong for us to fight.

This time, however, the surface was oddly… quiet. There were still occasional mammoths that shook the earth with each step, and creatures of ash and nightmare that trawled through the soil and made the world shiver in fear at their passing. However, we ran into them infrequently, and we had more than enough forewarning to avoid them each time.

And near the end of the day, instead of running into a giant creature we had no hopes of fighting, we found a corpse near the area we were thinking of camping.

It had been a massive creature at one point. It had likely had a wingspan nearly a quarter the size of Silver City, and its skin was made of bright yellow feathers. Its all too human mouth and lips glinted with a metallic gray color, making me wonder if it had some distant dragon ancestry. It looked as though, at one point, it had been an incredibly dangerous creature. It was impossible to tell if it had any access to magic when it had been alive, but I imagined that it had once been a ruler of the skies.

And now it lay dead on the ground. I had absolutely no idea what had killed it. There was no crater or disturbance in the area, to indicate it had fallen out of the sky and crashed onto the earth. There were no cuts or burn marks on its body, to indicate it had been killed in a fight. It simply looked as though the creature had landed, and then died in its sleep. Scavengers hadn’t even begun picking at its flesh, even though it had clearly been here for a while. The creature’s flesh was beginning to rot, and yet nothing had dared to consume it.

“I wonder if it’s the black sun,” said Sallia, as she glanced at the massive corpse. “If the creature got sick from black sun, and tried to land and rest for a while, it might have just never gotten healthy enough to fly again.”

I glanced up at the black sun again, and shuddered.

The creature could have died from some strange outsider power. However, if it had been killed by the black sun, it was confirmation that the black sun was getting more dangerous. After all, if this creature hadn’t been able to handle a little black sunlight, it would have gone extinct centuries ago. If the black sun had been its cause of death, it meant that the black sun was getting much stronger than before.

I tried to think about our journey to Silver City. I didn’t remember our group stumbling across any unusual corpses like this during our first foray into the wastes. In other words, creatures like this dying of seemingly no cause was either the result of something in this area, or the growth of the black sun.

Felix turned towards Anise. “Should we return to the city?” He asked. Even though he was looking at Anise, I could tell that he was asking me.

I sighed, and then shook my head.

If the black sun was truly getting bigger, then adventuring would only get harder in the future. We had more to lose the longer we waited. However, I glanced at Anise.

I cared about Anise. I didn’t want her to die. But if we didn’t do anything, Sallia, Felix and I wouldn’t earn enough Achievement to grow stronger. And then, in a few more lifetimes, we would die. Permanently.

I hated this feeling. This… indecision. The idea that I had to choose which group of friends I wanted to keep safe. If Anise wasn’t with us, I wouldn’t feel conflicted about pushing forward. But I also didn’t want to try to control Anise.

I gritted my teeth. “We’ll be extra cautious about the black sunlight, but if we want to change anything, we need to keep going.” Felix glanced at Anise, and then sighed, and nodded.

Anise, surprisingly, spoke up. “I agree. If the black sun is really getting bigger, this is our last chance to go to the surface safely,” she said. “If we do it in the future, it’ll only get more dangerous. We should push forward now.”

Sallia looked a little surprised at Anise’s words. She grinned, and gently tapped Anise’s shoulder a few times.

Anise looked a little nervous as she glanced at the black sun and the wastelands, but she also seemed determined to keep going.

The four of us decided to move a little further away before setting up camp. Just because the black sun had likely killed the massive creature didn’t mean we knew for sure it had died from the black sun. It was best to move out of the area, just in case something dangerous lived there. I hadn’t forgotten the lesson learned from the fog monster.

Finally, we found a suitable spot to camp. Before going to sleep, I carefully rubbed the good luck charm Ella had given me. It felt warm and comforting.

My dreams that night were filled with the image of an ever-expanding giant sun, swallowing down more and more of this world, before it grew large enough to swallow the entire world.