The High Peak of Brenn [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1794.01.09]

Instead of answering immediately, Makani reached for the backpack lying near him and took out a small metal canister from between the clothes inside.

Zeph noticed that the man's eyes recovered quite splendidly, so he could tell that at least a few hours had passed. Before he lost consciousness, Makani could only recognize shapes even in the light. His head was still covered in bandages, but they seemed fresh.

“You need to drink and eat something before that,” he said, quickly walking closer. “You had a high fever and was spasming constantly for hours. I had to take off your armor when parts of your body started swelling.”

Zeph didn’t argue. He was still confused and scared, but dehydration and hunger were of more immediate concern. He shuffled his body with difficulty to lean against the shallow walls of his earthy pit.

He could feel pain radiating from every muscle and joint as he moved. If not for his heightened pain tolerance, he wouldn’t be able to move at all. His naked skin was covered in brown dirt, sticking to him in wet clumps as it mixed with his sweat.

“Gru told me your body and Soul are overexerted,” Makani continued, passing him the small canister. Zeph had just enough strength in both his arms to lift it up. Inside, he found a warm broth. “But I would rather hear it from you.”

Zeph nodded and started taking small sips while concentrating inward.

Gru was asleep; its form the same he knew, going by the empty spots in his body.

His internal Mana circulation was more or less in order. Feeling his way deeper, his Soul also didn’t seem to be damaged, but he lacked the precision in Soul perception to really take stock of its state. When doing this, though, he immediately noticed how weak his Will was.

Looking at pending notifications in his Interface, he confirmed that he was suffering from Medium Will Depletion. It was actually less than he expected. Thankfully, nothing concerning his body or Soul showed up. He shoved away the ones describing his Skills’ advancement and zeroed on the only two that stood out from the rest.

Warning! [Cohesive] [Soul fragment] of higher quality detected!

Safe integration impossible!

Integration process [Interrupted]! [Soul fragment] secured!

Integration [Deferred] until conditions met!

Calculating… No damage to the [User] found!

[Fulfilled requirements] for [General Skill] [Survival] [Expansion] updated!

…I am really not sure what to think about that, he thought bitterly. It sounds as if… He shook his head. “Did Gru…” he wheezed out, “say something about… the last Soul fragment?”

He quickly gulped another mouthful of the broth. His quickly-recovering throat took some damage from speaking too much.

“Hmmm, he was more descriptive about his efforts towards your body… I think he mentioned something about an indigestible, stubborn piece of trash? He basically stopped working on it after that, if I understood his grumbling correctly.”

Sounds about right… So, that nightmare, it was… a Soul memory? Of the deceased? he thought with a mix of anxiety and relief. No, not just any Soul memory. A memory from… he glanced at the notification once again, cohesive Soul fragment of post-100 man… Yeah, sharing Soul memories that way isn’t… doable, he concluded. Wait! He perked up suddenly, looking around with slight panic. All that talk reminded him that they shouldn’t be alone. Where is—

“Thompson bailed as soon as we cleared the forest. The few hours he had during the manhunt were enough for him to stabilize his body.”

Zeph relaxed slightly and sent him a questioning look.

“Right. Well, let’s start with what we know. Thompson actually shared some of his insights into the matter. A higher Netherbeing manifested back there. It seemed to have a mild interest in you, going by how you reacted to its presence. But, thankfully, it had a much more vested interest in the Manacaster that was pursuing us. What you were going through wasn’t something Thompson knew much about, but it was a form of Soul attack. One that, supposedly, also influences the Will of the individual.”

Zeph nodded. Resonation-type influence over Soul was something he knew very well from his past experiences with Gru. It was just a first time that something… foreign tried to resonate with his Will.

Actually, was it going for my Will directly? It felt more like… a hallucination? Like it all started in my brain… he pondered. A shame I couldn’t feel that man’s resources in that… dream.

He took a breath to center himself again. That nightmare, incomplete as it was, felt like something he experienced personally. If he understood the System notification correctly, that Soul memory wasn’t available for him at the moment. But his brain was still trying to process what he saw. And because the experience did come from his Soul directly—while his Will was weakened, at that—there was little distinction it could make to not treat it like reality.

I wonder if that’s how it feels to be Memory-imbalanced. Poor P’pfel…

“Anyway,” Makani continued, interrupting his musings, “we weren’t sure why it appeared with that timing, but… I think that if it was trailing anyone there, your Mana Highlight probably gave it enough clue as to the exact location. You know, because it uses that contamination of yours…”

Zeph could only shrug. He had no idea what the being was capable of. Was it hunting for Will or was it hunting for Souls? In the first place, his contamination produced something different from Will itself. Even if he – most probably – felt the being’s presence back in that village, there was too much Soul fuckery going around for him to even guess what was really going on behind the scenes.

“After the first blast of the Nether, we were stripped of our Mana constructs and Veils. Even the enchantments in our gear stopped working for a time… I am more impressed they weren’t damaged… or that our internal Mana managed to buffer the Nether…” Makani said while looking into a distance, shivering slightly. It was the first time he allowed his fear and confusion to show. “Thompson panicked. He leaped out of the cradle and started to jump away as fast as he could… I just started to follow him after lifting you up when an explosion happened… Thankfully, that Manacaster was quite a ways away. His shielding construct just… blasted everything nearby into scraps—” he stopped suddenly, looking back at Zeph. “We need to thank Ghrughah for that armor of yours. I am not sure what would have happened if…”

Zeph stopped him with a gesture and signaled to go back on topic. He was mentally and physically tired. Dealing with side remarks could be left for later.

“Ahem, right. Well, for better or worse, that explosion caused enough push for me to capitalize on it…” seeing Zeph’s skeptical gaze, he tried to correct himself. “Hey! We may, or may not, have been sent airborne… but I made sure we landed safely and at a good distance, understand?”

Zeph shrugged again, making him sigh in defeat.

“Before the really powerful Spells started flying around, we had made enough distance… barely. Thompson actually waited for us and even tried to help… not like he could do much with one arm and one functional leg. At least he shared his thoughts with me. It seems that you being targeted by that Netherbeing alleviated his fears about Gru. To some degree.”

“Didn’t try—” he coughed. “Try to…”

“No,” Makani shook his head. “It seems he decided to play it honorably. If he hoped to settle the score with us, I’d made certain that he understood it wasn’t enough,” he looked at Zeph seriously. “Whatever is going inside his head, you basically spared his life, and he knows it. Even if killing him could bring some problems your way, we had full right to do so.”

“How… close we… were to the…?” he changed topics.

“Too close. The two decimated the forest in at least four boats’ radius and felled all the trees in twice that distance.”

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Zeph paled. He had no idea how they managed to survive that.

“We were running perpendicular to their line of fire,” Makani elaborated, understanding his confusion. “After the first blast, we were already clear from the most devastating attacks… Well, at least until that area Spell took place…” he muttered under his breath, making Zeph curious. Although, he had an idea of what he was talking about. “They continued thrashing around for a while, too… I am not sure if that man survived it, bu—”

“Dead,” Zeph said with finality.

Makani glanced at him with surprise. Then his pupils contracted as he realized what had happened. “The last Soul fragment?”

He nodded.

“Did you… find out anything? Their purpose?”

He shook his head. “Mostly… the fight… not clear,” he explained with sparse words, trying his best to not overburden his vocal cords.

“Do you know their name? Their allegation?”

“Adeptus Miu-something… Vire-something-talo…” he said, trying to remember the exact wording. That part of the memory was quite scrambled, though.

Makani audibly sucked the air through his teeth, taking his attention back. “This is bad…” the man mumbled. “Really, really bad…”

Zeph frowned, not understanding why it made any difference.

“Are you really this dense?” Makani asked after noticing his ignorance. Maybe even expecting it. “He has an official Tower title and allegation to… whatever that is. But it’s sanctioned! That man was a higher-stratum Manacaster, a legit one.”

Seeing his unimpressed stare, Makani threw his hands up in frustration. “Oh, for Ojis’ sake! We are neutral! The Towers are NEUTRAL! Do you know what that means politically? For the lower stratum to hire an Adeptus for some small squabble? Frix, he even died!” Makani exclaimed with realization, pausing for a moment. “He died on a mission for a lower-stratum garbage…” his voice started to trail off. “And we don’t even know what they were hired for… We can’t accuse them of anything, they were just trailing Thompson!” He hid his face in his palms.

“But he died… to a Netherbeing,” Zeph added helpfully.

To his surprise, that made the Manacaster perk up. “Right! Right… Lurona should be safe… If we play this correctly, they will just check the forest…”

“Stop scheming,” he grimaced. “Go back… to Lurona, first!”

“Yes, yes. Aisha would know what to do! We need to inform the Towers! Discreetly…” the man misinterpreted.

Zeph rolled his eyes. He wasn’t going to correct him, though. He didn’t have the strength to confront the panicking Manacaster.

“A little… help?” he asked, bringing the man back from his mad mumbling to the reality of their situation. “Food?”

~~~

It took them a good hour to sort Zeph out.

Even after devouring half of their food rations, he didn’t feel any better. He was so weak that he had to give away his Spear and backpack to Makani – the combined weight of his armor and cloak was enough to make him struggle to move.

His body wasn’t regenerating as it should. If he was to compare, it felt as if his PEs weren’t working at all. In other words, except for the Physical and Energy Enhancements present in his body, he felt just like an ordinary Earthling – Zeph ‘the’ Einar – that crossed the boundary between the worlds for the first time.

The only real difference was the constant pain in his joints and muscles.

If that’s how the old people feel… Maybe I should invest a little more into Regeneration… he considered while trudging through the snow.

Because he wasn’t sure what was going on in his body, he decided against adding more points to Flexibility for now. He should have the time to deal with them later, and he would rather recover first.

The sun somehow managed to pierce through the heavy clouds, basking the land in a weak but warm light that reflected from the spherical snowflakes dancing around. The visibility wasn’t the best, but it played right into their hand; as was the strong, continental wind. The traces they were leaving behind would vanish in minutes in these conditions while not slowing them that much.

They were going to be late for the Duel Tournament inauguration day, that was sure. Makani was positive that they should be able to return before the dawn of the following day, probably landing right at one or two bureaucratic issues, but they just couldn’t muster any fucks to give.

After the last brush with death, they just couldn’t take the Tournament seriously. Even the consequences of all that happened here were more serious than the coming skirmishes. Theoretically, they could lose their lives in the Tournament, but it seemed so far-fetched after that one confrontation that their brains weren’t even able to process that possibility.

The desensitization in its fullest form.

That’s one of the reasons that they didn’t hurry, saving their strength more than trying to be on time. Their pursuers were probably still looking for them in the civilization centers all around, but no matter how strong they were, it was impossible to track the two of them right now.

And they should be in disarray after one of them fell in a sudden meeting with the Netherbeing of that level.

As they slowly moved north, Zeph finally regained some measure of strength. Instead of spending it on carrying his belongings, he focused on the ‘now’ and reshuffled his Soul fragments distribution. He still had one level to go before reaching the overall level 50, but it wouldn’t give him much edge in the Duels anyway. He was more concerned about overreaching – the last Soul fragment from the Manacaster would surely put him above that level if he was able to absorb it. Besides, Gru was lagging in levels because of this excursion.

As so, he gave his partner the major share to balance out their levels. He wouldn’t be able to level for some time because of that, but he would rather play it safe in case his enemy died during the Tournament either way. They were planning to hide Gru’s method of leveling up, after all.

As so, 90% of the Soul fragments would now float directly to his partner in crime. It was the maximum he could set up. Adding the 5% that his Profession would take, he was going to level with half of the normal speed his Class would normally do.

Well, ‘normally’ while taking into account his Space contamination, Generalist Class that required 18 level resets, and possessing a Soul-bond. Among other things. The ‘natural’ way was, indeed, at least an order of magnitude slower than with Gru’s harvesting method. The exact parameters weren’t clear to him yet, even if he made the math for the most important parts.

It was because overhunting one species was detrimental to the leveling speed, too. The Soul fragments were retaining a lot of the race information. If it was redundant, the System was taking those parts while paying more UP in exchange.

Zeph was still suffering from a strange tamer-specific mental backlash because of the amount of Soul fragments he received in the short time. Seeing the owl species as attractive or cute wasn’t helping him in their hunts. At least, he got most of the Soul fragments from the hunting individuals, so he was also privy to their more predatory side.

It was still a mystery for him, though, why the Manacaster’s Soul fragment left him with such deep impressions while the animals only left… familiarity with their behavior at best.

He thought he knew why, but that Manacaster’s Soul fragment was already stripped from any Will beforehand by Gru, so that theory was already incomplete.

Whatever the reason was, he felt like he lacked a few basic Skills to even try to decipher the problem.

~~~

Gru woke up midway through their journey. Not without help, too.

Zeph had spent quite an amount of his Mana to poke him into awareness. He tried to not abuse his Soul too much – same as with his body – so he opted for a more… physical approach.

Their conversation was short, though. Gru was on his last legs after their excursion and later fall-down.

Zeph managed to extract more details about the offending Soul fragment from him, at least. From Gru’s perspective, it was a combined effort of his ability and the System’s authority. Before reaching them, the fragment they were going to receive was stripped from most loose parts by the being that... devoured the Manacaster’s Soul.

The details weren’t clear. Gru just knew there was a connection with the man and that in case of his death, they should receive quite a treat. He leveraged that. But instead, he barely managed to steal one free-floating part as the Netherbeing ravaged the rest of the Soul. The System helped to deliver the part to them, but by the time the fragment was accessible, it became, quoting: ‘hard as a stupid rock’.

That shed some more light onto Zeph’s ‘borrowed’ memories but instead of feeling elated, he could only feel remorse.

It was clear that the man’s Soul was destroyed in its entirety. The memories he shared with the man only exaggerated how… unacceptable that act was. It wasn’t about pain, the man’s identity, or even his actions.

The man HAD an eternal part, and he had lost it, irrevocably. He HAD a chance for continued existence, and now he was perpetually gone.

For eternity…

Even when coming from Earth – where the beliefs of eternal life seemed more like a distant possibility than anything palpable – he couldn’t shake off the feeling of loss he now felt. He thought that he was ready for non-existence…

But he was not.

~~~

Makani changed clothes and entered the village. He was tasked with looking for any caravan that suited their timeframe.

Zeph was waiting nearby in another, shallow burrow they had made.

Makani’s face was already covered in bandages, so all that was left to fully camouflage him was his height. But, sadly, both of them sported the same, short stature. It shouldn’t pose much problem if he kept to the deep snow, though. It was hard to discern someone’s real height if they were half-buried in a snowdrift.

Zeph made sure Makani understood that. After receiving directions, Makani could just make a move directly on the caravan’s leader without engaging with anyone else.

If their pursuers were here, they shouldn’t notice him at the beginning. Makani could just pay the person he asked for directions—or anyone else, really—to bring a message to the leader directly. They were paying, so there shouldn’t be a problem.

Makani was skeptical at the beginning, but Zeph explained that even if the Manacaster could easily find an empty room in the building that a caravan leader occupied, open the window without making noise, and deal with the simple lock on the doors, it wouldn’t end pleasantly. People like that – the leaders of the groups – would be the first targets to spy on. And their pursuers would think the same.

Of course, there was no way one person could monitor so many targets.

After the last-night fight, everyone wanted to leave the premises as soon as possible, which was the best outcome they could hope for. The commotion was visible long before they reached the vicinity of the settling.

That didn’t change the fact that he was extremely paranoid right now. Even if their enemies couldn’t monitor so many individuals, he was sure other people would. He would rather not risk getting caught.

Zeph hid near one of the underground chimneys on the outskirts, giving Makani enough reason to return to the place – to warm himself up, and waited for him to return with new directions. He would join the ride midway to the next village. His armor was too conspicuous to even try to show himself. He would be out of commission for the rest of the ride, anyway, so bunking down in one of the wagons was his plan. They had enough money on themselves to convince the merchants that it was worth taking a stray in the middle of their journey.

As for their story… let’s just say it was as convoluted as Makani’s mind. At least he wasn’t going to leverage his Blackwind Tower allegiance this time.

Everything could be explained with magic, evidently. At least if someone had enough coin and an apocalyptic—in the eyes of the masses—event that happened overnight.

Makani showed up not even an hour later with the news.

Strangely, the Custos Naturae wasn’t angry – at least according to the locals – even though a huge part of the forest was destroyed. And the destruction act was visible from the ‘nearby’ villages. The dome of flying earth, debris, and giant trees was quite hard to miss when it wasn’t snowing. The moon was as bright as ever that night and the tremors themselves were probably enough to wake anyone in the twenty-kilometer radius.

Zeph passed Makani some simple stilts. He made them from ice and shrubbery as he waited for the Manacaster to come back. The constructs were easy to make with his Spells—mostly because he didn’t have to even try to freeze the water back—and Makani could hide his ‘feet’ if he used an additional cloak.

Zeph’s body wasn’t recovered yet, but he was sure a few hours in the freezing temperatures weren’t enough to put his immunological system in jeopardy, so he handed him his own. It should be fine if he were to use one of the blankets as an improvised garment.

More importantly, they were leaving no traces to follow. Even if they were detected, they would manage as long as they noticed soon enough.

Makani didn’t have the ability to hide his presence or even camouflage, so they had to play the game of intermediaries. But their presence in all the chaos that was happening would probably be lost.

At least, that was the hope.