"My Empress!!"
In a beautiful-looking hall, a man came running, panting, and slammed the door of the hall.
"All hail the Empress! Hail the empire!"
Entering the room, the first thing he did was quickly came in the middle of the hall and kneel while hailing the one he called Empress. Seeing him, there are various other people who were present at the hall suddenly started to talk among themselves making the hall quite noisy.
"Silence!”
Suddenly, a strong, feminine voice resounded around the whole hall, quickly shutting all the people murmuring. The woman, sitting on the throne looked at the man kneeling in front of her and gestured her to continue.
"My Empress, a massive explosion was sighted at the village where the Boulders, the guild we hired have settled. The whole area has been razed."
“WHAT!!”
The calm demeanour on the Empress's face vanished as her face looked shocked followed by a sharp gaze containing anger and doubt.
"What about the Boulders? What about Ashv?"
The Empress frantically got up and asked the man. Her voice, which felt so calm and prideful slowly started to change.
Seeing this, the kneeling man gulped the saliva forming in his mouth, thinking how to answer her back. But seeing as having no other way out, he blurted everything.
"T-There's no message from them. F-For days, they are also not contacting us or the kingdom at all. W-We tried to contact them, b-but there was n-no response…"
“And you have the audacity to tell me this now!!”
The Empress has lost all calm demeanour of hers and now looks like a devil, ready to devour the man in front of her.
“Guards, take this man throw him in the dungeon. Because of him, my precious pet phoenix is missing now. Get this bastard out of my sight now!”
“M-My E-E-Empress…n-no no!!”
From behind, the guards came and took the man away while the man protested, cried for mercy to the Empress but the Empress feign ignorance.
The frustrated Empress looked at the man grieving and asking for mercy and then she furiously turned around and sat on the throne.
“Send the 23rd knight battalion to investigate.”
“Yes, My Empress!!”
On her orders, a knight near her bowed to her and exited the room, taking her message to the knights.
“DAMN!! I was just this close in getting my precious pet.”
The Empress looked furious but then touch the jewel on her necklace after which she regained her composer.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and thought to herself.
“Whoever is behind this will surely pay for causing me this much annoyance.”
***
Similarly, around the whole continent, the news of the blast spread like a fire. From the elven kingdom to the holy kingdom to the empire to the dragon kingdom.
And in a cave, one man deep in meditation finally opened his eyes.
“So it’s started now.”
Getting up, he came out of the cave as the sunlight finally shed light on his identity. It was the same sage who rescued Rick and Pat and the same sage who talked to Mrit in the memory.
“Oh world, for your time has come and so for me too. He has finally come.”
He looked down on his hand as he said so with a glint of mystery in his eyes. Looking up, he found the sun, shining brightly as its rays warmed him up.
“Oh Sun, how long is it now? For this world to return to its order. You have kept the whole universe in wait for too long.”
After saying that, the sage disappeared from there, leaving no trace behind.
***
“Ughh!!”
Lying on the ground, Mrit opened his eyes as a groan escaped from his mouth.
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“W-What the…”
Mrit tried to get up but couldn’t and he get it quickly as to why he couldn’t. His whole body was covered in bandage. Whether he tried to move his hand or his leg, nothing moved an inch.
“Man, I got messed up too much. Sun’s Embrace!”
“ARGHH!!”
Mrit used the sun’s embrace upon him after which a series of pain appeared all over his body. Loud noise of bone cracking started to come from him as the embrace slowly started to take effect.
“GAHH!!”
His torn muscles and broken bones slowly started to get repaired and get back to their place but the recuperation was too much.
Hearing his scream, Rick and Pat who were nearby watching guard ran back to Mrit.
“S-Sir!”
When they reached, they found Mrit shouting while covered in the bright aura. His whole body however was convulsing madly that it felt so gross to even watch. It felt like in any moment something will come out of Mrit. But that didn’t happen as the convulsion slowed down and then the aura around Mrit also faded away.
There was a deep silence as nobody, either Mrit or the three of them spoke. After a minute, Mrit looked around and find Pat and Rick looking at him and ordered them.
“What are you looking at? Unwrap me from these bandages.”
Both Pat and Rick came back to their senses after hearing Mrit shouting at them after which they hurriedly removed the bandages around Mrit.
“Ahhh!! Finally some freedom.”
Getting freed from the bandages, Mrit got up and stretched a little as he felt no pain or anything in his body.
“That was the worst decision, but I guess we have got no choice at all.”
He checked around his body for any visible scars but found nothing. He then inquired about how much time has passed by.
“So, how much time has passed?”
Turning around, he looked at Rick and asked. Looking at the sky, it doesn’t look like much time has passed, but Mrit still wanted to know for sure how much time has passed.
Rick who got called came forward and talked.
“A day has passed since you got hit by the shockwave.”
“What?! This long?”
Mrit looked surprised since he never thought that it would take him that much time to wake up. He expected to wake up by 2-3 hours.
“Well, can’t be helped since I have this weak body now. Pat, take out an armour and an innerwear for me. In the meantime, Rick tell me where are we.”
Tossing a storage ring to Pat, Mrit continued to talk to Rick. After looking at his body for a second time he realized that he is half naked. His skin, without any blemish shined like gold. His muscles were more visible and had a striking looks to them.
But Mrit never gave them any glance as he took the armour and the innerwear Pat took out from the storage ring and turned to Gan.
“So, how far are we from the village, Gan?”
“…Very much. We carried you a little further from the place you landed.”
“Any sign of enemies or anybody?”
“None, but we should leave this place as early as possible.”
“Fair point.”
The two of them discussed while Mrit was chewing on some fruits. After the discussion ended, Gan looked like he had some something to say but stayed silent. Mrit noticed this and called him out.
“You have something to say?”
Noticing that Mrit had caught him, Gan had no choice but to surrender as he spoke up.
“It’s just…. How can you be so calm?”
“Hmm?”
From Gan’s perspective, the level of calm headedness Mrit had showed him till now astonished him, more clearly, horrified him. Deep within him, he cannot tell the difference between his master and Mrit if it comes to decide who is calmer in such a situation.
After all, if what he saw from Mrit’s memories and heard from Mrit are correct, then it baffled him to see Mrit with such a calm aura around him as if nothing really happened to him. All those killings, genocide and pain seems nothing here at all.
“Well, it was something I developed over time when I was just a mere scout.”
Knowing what Gan wanted to know, Mrit started to speak. Slowly, the fragment of memories started to flow in Mrit’s mind as he remembered the times of him as a mere scout in the apocalyptic world.
“When the apocalypse hit earth, the society divided into two parts. People who awakened and those who didn’t. And I was one of them.”
He remembered the broken society, where there was no righteousness left, where people just seek strong with money and there were people, who were weak, left behind, crying for help.
“It was a tough time. The awakened formed a sort of hierarchy where we normal people just remained as bugs and slaves to them. The government of our world, though trying, just put a mere facade as it used us as their pawns. But still, there were some good people among the awakened.”
He remembered the faces of the party members he joined before his death. They were one of the people who helped him earlier on in his life when he just started out as a scout.
“The party didn’t form back then, but still, they were the ones who helped me when I just jumped into the business of the scouts. They saved me a multiple amount of times and they were the ones who mostly called me to party with them. Because of them, my skills as a scout also rose. And because I followed them in devil hunts, I faced many predicaments and that hammered my wills power.”
Remembering them made Mrit sad but rather, he smiled as he remembered the good times he had with them.
“They too became stronger. They popularity rose, mostly among the non-awakened. Where the top awakened and the government left us to rot, they came for our help. They were very nice people.”
He was always ready to sacrifice himself for them. For he felt indebted to them, but he never thought that the day to part ways will come so soon, and in such a horrifying way possible.
“And then, that unlucky day came where I awakened my powers and at the same time, lost my only friends.”
“That’s…”
Gan remembered the memory in which Mrit awakened after dying by the hands of the devil. The cruel monster killed Mrit’s team members in front of him and presented with a cruel choice of eating their hearts.
“If only I had the power of death before my death, I wouldn’t have hampered their way of escape. Just because of me, a mere scout, they had to die.”
Mrit’s fist trembled a little as he remembered the time when he had to watch as the devil butchered all the team and put their hearts in front of him, ordering him to eat them.
“*Sigh* …And after that, you have seen most of the thing so that must have given you a general idea.”
To this, neither Pat, Rick nor Gan spoke. They were too shaken that words didn’t come out easily. Seeing them speechless, Mrit just ignored them and finished eating. After regaining bit of power, he got up.
“Now, hide under my shadows and let’s go.”
“To where?” Gan asked.
“To the town at the border of the kingdom.”
With their destination decided, the three of them jumped into Mrit’s shadow while Mrit started to walk towards his destination just when he remembered a small moment of the past.
“Remember, no human is strong. You, who dares to go with us is equally strong as us awakened. So, don’t think of anything, just hone your skills. We will be there to watch you.”
The memory put a light smile on his face as Mrit looked up at the sky and continued forwards.
***