Torrent mountain range, local time [1793.10.26]
They were traversing the hazardous forest for almost four days now. Only Aisha was unaffected by the water constantly pouring down; even Gru complained about the low temperature of Zeph’s body.
At least he had his overcoat. He was really happy that he crafted it, as his waterproof fabric was in constant use by Makani, who made a makeshift baldachin from it. With the primitive wooden construct secured to his belt, he looked like a parody of a tribe’s spiritual leader.
Zeph had taken pity on the mage after seeing him sneeze every minute and shiver like a leaf. He probably had lower physical PE than Makani, but the combination of Gru, the living armor, and even the Source Net, kept him warm.
Although, he was now reevaluating his past choices. His overcoat was soaked and useless after days of traveling in the drizzle. Even if he was able to impregnate the leather, it was impossible to prevent the water from making it inside. The fur slowly absorbed the moisture, and without any chance to dry up, it became a soggy mess.
Their luck was bad, too, as they never found another cave at the foot of the mountains. Going higher to delve into the deep caves wasn’t really an option, at least until one of them was on their last legs. They didn’t have enough rations to prolong the excursion too much, and hunting in the caves would be inevitable in such a case. Which meant setting up a semi-permanent camp and prolonging their stay in the badlands even more.
They had tents, but it wasn’t much of a help when every piece of their clothing was wet already.
And so, their misery continued.
Truth be told, it wasn’t even that cold here. The temperatures didn’t go below 10 Celsius, from what he could tell. But the wind was blowing under the bare trees, effectively cooling their bodies down. They couldn’t do much about it beside quickening their pace.
Aisha even complimented Zeph for not slowing them down, adding to the Makani’s mental suffering. The ‘Lesser Metabolic enhancement’, blessed be its name, was perfect for long activities.
The travel time wasn’t fruitless, though. Zeph had learned a lot from his companions. But only three topics were of immediate importance.
Firstly, by using his Will, he unknowingly delved into an Advanced Mana manipulation territory. Coherently changing the shape of your ‘Mana bubble’, called the Interference Veil in Rui, required, more or less, Willpower of 300 and Intuition of 100. It was a domain of people above level 100, basically. Makani wasn’t even shocked anymore. He stoically received the news, his stone-face not even cracking. At least, not on the outside.
The second important information pertained to his supposed back-story. He was to become a visitor from another continent, ruled by the Cirin Magi Conglomerate, former Cirin Empire. The country was separated from the world at vast. The Mana, air, and water currents made the travel a very risky and costly endeavor, blocking most of the trade, along with the cultural and technological exchange.
The thing was, Torrent mountain range adjoined the sea to the East. It was a known crashing spot for stray airships traveling from the CMC. The irregular Mana currents around here were the cause of many accidents over the decades. It was a shame that one of the safest airways from the CMC led right past this place.
The country was exotic enough to explain the strange… design of Zeph’s gear, especially the light his armor produced. As well as his ignorance.
His looks were surprisingly similar to the natives, too. Also, he could just say that he was ‘from the continent’, and it should suffice in most cases. It was important, as people specializing in Soul perception could distinguish hard lies. At least sometimes.
Gru was already preparing countermeasures for that, thankfully. The genius.
Only after getting more information about the country, he understood what he was dealing with. It was a continent of dwarves. In Corora, they were called Fullangrarians if spoken officially in Rui, or Fularins in Common. His companions didn’t know much about them, but evidently, they weren’t undersized at all. In his standards, that is.
The average Human here had 1.9 meters of height, so anything below 1.8 was considered… dwarfed. Makani included. Zeph had his suspicions that the guy was of mixed blood, but kept himself back from asking, for now, because it could have been a sensitive topic.
This race of Humans, because that was their main race designation, had an average height of around 1.6 meters. It coupled with a lot of muscles and lush facial hair, though. He wasn’t surprised at all when he learned that their technology was at another level, even compared to the higher altitudes. The Dwarf stereotype was strong with this one.
Fantasy races aside, the third important subject was Gru’s method of gathering the ‘spare’ Soul fragments from entities Soul-wounded ‘positively’. The duo’s speed of leveling should be around 50 times faster than normal, but it was only an estimation. Not to mention, they had to divide that by two, as Gru couldn’t really kill things by himself.
He tried to ask about the normal leveling speed, as the number of kills required to level up was staggering in his opinion. Aisha just said he would understand after visiting a civilized place. Most of the questions he could answer by himself, supposedly.
After a moment of deliberation, he had to agree with that. Trying to explain in detail a similar concept, for example, the logistics of Earth’s financial or bank system, would require a series of lectures. Even explaining all of the rules of a civilization game would take a lot of time. It was better to first experience, and ask later. His cover allowed him the right to ask a lot from their people without making it strange, anyway.
By the time the sun started to shyly peep from behind the clouds, the forest changed. They were at a lower altitude now, and greenery started to mix in between the teal-leaved threes.
“I think we will make it before dark,” Aisha said.
“She means the excursion camp,” before Zeph could ask, Makani elaborated in a coarse voice.
She nodded. “It’s more of a shelter. Wooden cabins were set near the Torrent range by the locals, to accommodate gatherers,” she explained, stopping for a moment. “I am expecting a company there. Zeph, remember about the zyp thingies in your pack.”
They discussed this earlier. It seemed the zippers were the most visible and unusual part of his equipment. Probably a very valuable design as well. Either way, he was to not use them publicly until they arrive in a city. If possible.
She warned them early because she worried about scouts around the campsite. They were to keep silent from now on, too.
After an hour, they finally exited the grasp of the unrelenting clouds and found a dirt road. The team followed it for two more hours before a wooden cabin showed up in the distance. It was late evening, so the fire by its side was like a beacon in the dark forest.
They were prepared for possible conflict, but Aisha was quite sure the chances for such were scant. As so, they marched confidently into the clearing, placing the full responsibility on Aisha’s back.
No one disrupted them until they walked close enough to distinguish the occupants of the camp. Around a small wooden house, six people in the full plate armors were moving about, tending to the fire, preparing food, or taking care of large horses.
Horses? No way! Where are the giant birds and reptiles?! Zeph disappointedly thought while observing the strangers.
Their heads were uncovered right now, so he noticed two women among them. Not so strange in itself, if not for their heavy full plate armor. On Earth, it took a lot of dedication to train yourself enough to comfortably wear one. Not many women tried that, at least according to his poor historical knowledge.
As expected, all of them were almost as tall as Aisha. Armors of their size looked strangely lean for Zeph, but what really surprised him was the fact that her mostly-leather-armor was a little bulkier than their full plate.
Is she more muscular, or something? he thought, looking between the group and her.
As they got closer, a guy near the fire looked their way and stood up. He was seemingly young, maybe in his twenties. His jaw was comically wide. Coupled with semi-long, black hair combed smoothly back, he resembled the king from a certain comedy film. Only, not in size.
The Farq… A knight welcomed them by bowing slightly and saluting. Probably saluting, Zeph couldn’t be sure what the straight hand near the opposite shoulder meant.
“Duloc Guller Kunitaro Fuminao,” he introduced himself as an official representative of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom.
“Aisha Zora Toritalo Leilucia,” she answered lazily, nodding her head while putting a fist on her waist.
The knight frowned at the disrespectful woman.
“This zone is—”
“The fact you are here already elucidates it all,” she interrupted him abruptly. “Your plate, if you will?” she said, extending her hand in his direction.
Why are you provoking him, woman?! Zeph screamed in his mind and glanced at Makani. The guy was in the middle of a nap, using his long branch to steady himself. Useless! This guy is useless!
The knight straightened himself, his face lost any trace of respect and compliance. He reached to his neck and pulled on a delicate silver chain. An intricate seven-point star made from silvery material emerged. He kept it close to his face, in a universal gesture of law enforcers. He started to open his mouth to explain something.
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But it wasn’t to be.
Aisha didn’t care. She gripped the star and pulled to get a closer look. With a surprised grunt, the knight bend forward, trying to keep his balance and almost falling forward anyway. He tried to back off, holding the necklet’s chain, but he was unable to tear the ‘medallion’ from her hand at all.
His face paled a little.
After a moment, Aisha let go of the star. The knight lost his balance again after that, staggering backward. The rest of the knights started to slowly advance on them, but they didn’t show any sights of aggression. Yet.
“KuniTARO my ass,” she spat out, cursing for the first time in Zeph’s presence. “Why are you even trying to instruct Me? You ungrateful piece of crap,” she continued with a disgusted expression. Her dominating voice surprised Zeph.
He was witnessing another side of Aisha altogether.
The knight tried to compose himself, but something was wrong. Soon, he started to throw glances at his companions, never meeting Aisha’s glare.
The rest of his squad was here already. Zeph was ready to take action, dismayed by how she handled the situation.
With a fire in the eyes, one of the women grumbled—“Sorry about that, Warrior Priestess,”—while bowing lightly.
Zeph blinked, absolutely lost.
Guller took the opportunity to back off and hide behind his team. “But you need to understand we are under orders. This acute mind,” she continued, pointing with a thumb at the retreating guy, “came to a conclusion that respectfully intimidating you would be the best approach. He is our commander… For now at least, so we decided to let him try,” she explained.
Aisha started to groan at that. “This level of stupidity… Why is a landlord sending their own brat here? Isn’t it unreasonable? I swear, one more time…”
The rest of the unit waited patiently for her to finish her half-mumbled tirade. They were relaxed, as if expecting exactly this outcome. One of the guys helped Makani, moving him slowly to the house.
They definitely knew who she was and were shockingly respectful. Aisha and authority? What a strange combination, he thought idly.
Zeph stayed there, unsure of what to do. He had enough after half a minute of Aisha’s ramblings, though. He nudged her in hopes of speeding up this farce.
“What?!” she growled, sharply turning in his direction.
“Stop blabbering to yourself and make us rest,” he demanded. “You were speaking to yourself for almost a minute.”
The people around looked at him with curiosity tinted with a little worry, while Aisha just blinked a few times as if trying to process his words. She sighed deeply, placing a hand on her temple.
After a moment, she turned to the knights.
“My apologize,” she said with a nod, but not meaning it in the slightest. “I have a lot on my mind right now. You are?” she asked, looking at the female speaker.
“Ruthia,” the knight said. “Vice commander. We can leave the procedure”—Aisha made a face—“for later. By the way, we have some spare clothes you can use.”
“Bureaucracy…” she mumbled, walking after Ruthia.
Zeph stepped behind them, left alone for now. He was trying to decipher the meaning of Gru’s sendings meanwhile. The knights were of lower level than his companions, probably around 50. The ‘vice commander’ also had an item allowing a very rudimentary Soul perception of a specific kind.
Gru suspected it was the fabled truth detector, which didn’t surprise Zeph at all. If there was a possibility to detect lies, enforces of any kind would use it for sure. Even if it was just at the level of measuring someone’s pulse, to which this item amounted to; according to what Gru sent him, at least.
He was more concerned about how the darker side of society was using such items. It could become much more potent very easily, with a proper ‘treatment’ and drugs involved. He knew something about that; military contracts for ‘truth serum’ weren’t rare at all.
He quickly abandoned the depressing thoughts after getting fresh and DRY clothes, together with a space to clean himself in somewhat warm water.
An hour later, he and Aisha were sitting at the campfire, slowly seeping warm stew with the rest of the knights. He felt tired to the bones after abusing his metabolic Skill, but the meal invigorated him enough to keep him attentive. Makani, on the other hand, was sleeping in the cabin. The knights' medic diagnosed a minor cold, which was actually unimportant in the light of severe Willpower abuse. Zeph could sympathize, even if he only experienced a direct Will depletion, he believed the symptoms to be similar.
The peaceful time was over too soon. At least Guller was nowhere to be seen right now.
“Then, Miss Zora,” Ruthia started, “let’s start with the explanation for this expedition.”
Aisha sighed, resigned. “We were contracted to come here and retrieve this guy,” she said pointing, at Zeph.
Gru sent him something interesting at that moment. The item in the knight’s hands stuttered and partially deactivated, something external replacing the Soul input.
I am so lost right now, he thought, feeling like an apprentice in a craft listening to his teacher. Useless knowledge is useless, Gru! It’s still active, so what is the difference? Was it even your doing?
But there was no time for explanations.
Ruthia was silent for a moment, before continuing. This time, she turned to Zeph.
“Please state your name and origin.”
“Zeph Einar tabitalo,” he answered, shrugging. There was one good side of being ignorant – he didn’t care anymore; all this was way above his paygrade. He would just say what he was instructed to say and be done with it.
“Country of origin?”
“The continent,” he said, thinking of North America. He wasn’t even born there, but it was the closest answer he could give.
“Umm, you mean the Cirin?” she asked, evidently failing in the truth-reading, but already having her own idea.
“If you mean the technologically leading country,” he said indifferently, playing the stupid, “then yes. I wasn’t born there, though.”
The knight was struggling with something. It seemed like the lie detector was going crazy after that statement. Gru was sending him short depictions to keep him updated.
“I think you should know the name of your own country,” a man’s voice could be heard from behind. Zeph looked back, and indeed it was the infamous Guller. The nuisance was back.
“What do you mean? You are unable to pronounce my country’s name properly. Do you want me to state an untruth? That I am from the Cirin?” he asked, gambling a little.
Every isolated country should have its own dialects, which meant he could ignore the truth-reading instrument because they knew the pronunciation wasn’t correct. What really mattered was his perception of the ‘truth’, anyway, if he understood Aisha and Gru correctly.
He was no Cirin citizen, and they were unable to pronounce neither that name nor Earth’s names correctly. What he said was an absolute truth, almost a resonating one. He could almost see as Ruthia’s item flared, telling all of that was the ultimate confirmation.
“That doesn’t ex—”
“Duloc, just stop it,” Ruthia said, glaring at him. “It’s not a meeting between you, the landlords. It’s a standard check out. And I didn’t even finish the protocol.”
“Yes bu—”
“If you don’t shut up,” Aisha started in a low tone, almost growling, making Zeph shudder. “We WILL duel.”
Guller froze. Emotions quickly flashed through his face – fear, shame, then anger. His face became red, for a change. After a moment, without saying a word, he turned around and walked away, fuming a little.
“A coward,” Aisha commented indifferently, taking a sip from her depleting ‘ethanol container’ and taking her hand away from her weapon.
“That doesn’t matter, please ignore him,” the knight said, quite irritated herself. “Let’s just continue, Mister Einar, were you born on Corora?”
Aisha made a confused face, but didn’t react in any other way. At the same time, he could weakly feel that Gru used its Will-Mana.
“Yes,” Zeph answered shortly, hoping his Soul-bond had something prepared. “What a strange question,” he added, tilting his head.
He could feel a short flickering between Gru’s Soul and the item. But Ruthia was none the wiser about the happenings.
After a moment, she nodded to herself and put the item on her belt. He could see it now, a thick, non-distinctive metal ring, maybe 5 centimeters in diameter.
“That would be all for the security protocol. Now, about the migration papers…” she started, taking out some documents from her bag.
“I don’t remember the knights being so open about that in their questioning,” Aisha chimed in. “Something happened when I was absent?” she asked with curiosity in her voice.
“Ah, you shouldn’t worry too much. Some rumors about the last of Terrien showing up started to circulate lately. Supposedly, someone managed to augur or divine it would happen around this time, but you know how reliable such claims really are,” she lightly told them, finishing with the papers. “The landlords, though, want to be sure. They even loosened the secrecy protocols and gave everyone appropriate equipment. How generous,” she finished, smirking.
“They are probably thinking it’s their last chance, or something along those lines,” Aisha concluded, nodding. “However, that doesn’t explain the presence of that pest,” she said, indicating the secluded guy with her chin.
Ruthia smiled ruefully. “In their vast brilliance,” she started, her words dripping with an almost physical manifestation of the sarcasm, “they decided to double their gains. Increasing the ‘safety’ of the mission and making their young train in the field, all at the same time.” She sighed tiredly. “I sometimes wonder if they ever come back to the ground after flying high on their lofty shenanigans,” she continued, handing a sizeable stack of papers over to Zeph and a few pages to his companion.
Aisha loudly laughed at that.
“Ha! For sure, a reality-check for some was in order years ago!” she said, sharing the leftovers from her bota bag with the knight.
Ruthia smiled along and took it gratefully. The duo gossiped some more. Soon, other knights joined them, seeing the official part was done. Some took out their own alcohol to ‘help the conversation’.
In the middle of the festive atmosphere, Zeph was sitting silently with a stack of papers, grudgingly scribbling away. When a surge of a good mood hit her, Aisha even deigned to help him with the harder parts. Ruthia was making sure the documents were filled correctly, scanning them automatically and talking to the others at the same time.
Of course, Zeph was denied any alcohol until he would finish. At least Gru kept him company.
Where is justice in this world? he lamented internally.
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Long after midnight, the duo was strolling through the forest to refresh themselves.
The slightly tipsy – as she insistently insisted to call her state – Aisha was in the middle of a rant about the city they were going to visit. Meanwhile, Gru was finishing his explanations on the truth-detecting device. As it turned out, the System granted him a Skill at an early stage that helped immensely in the preparations he made for the occasion. The sly...No? The shaming… Ugh, the wise?... The wise Onji was five steps ahead of the events, it seemed.
“I am just happy we are finally safe,” Zeph chimed in during a brief moment of silence when Aisha was gulping down some more alcohol. He felt as if a big burden was taken out from his shoulders, he had everything to truly start his new life. And to learn; his hunger for knowledge flared like never before. There was so much to check, to experiment with, to explore—
But before the coming resonation could even take shape, Aisha hit him hard in the back, laughing loudly. He stumbled forward, frowning at the absurdity of her timing. She just had to choose the worst moment.
She was still laughing, hitting the palm on her knee repeatedly when he looked back at her.
Anger started to boil in him, strengthened by the alcohol in his system. “Couldn’t you—“ he started harshly before she rudely interrupted him by placing a hand on his face while trying to get a hold of herself.
“Hahaha… Stop… Haha… no mooore,” she slurred, taking deep breaths while he backed a little, confused. “We ale not ‘Saafe’, my f'iend,” she continued, finally managing to straighten up. She took her sweet time to calm herself, standing there with closed eyes while leaning on her weapon.
After a minute, he was almost sure she has fallen asleep.
“Safe he said,” she suddenly said, snorting again and shaking her head. Her language was back to normal for a moment, giving new weight to her words. She looked straight into his eyes and raised her finger up, going into a teaching mode. “On the way to the Lurona City we w-will lesture you on the Netherlings. The mian reasson our civivi… civilivis… cibilisacion is in pearlil…” she continued, reeling about, her articulation deteriorating further with each spoken word.
Finally, she gave up and just waved her hand in a ‘whatever, it is not that important’ gesture. She started to walk in the direction of the camp again, stumbling slightly.
Zeph just stood there, looking at her back for a moment. Then, he sighed deeply and slouched.
“It’s never that easy, isn’t it?” he asked to the air, and looked up.
He stared at the unfamiliar night sky, full of colorful nebulae competing with the stars for the space at the firmament. The alien visage once more reminding him he was a stranger here.
“I hope our chances won’t be as bad as at the beginning,” he said. ”Even if there is no safety to be found...”
“Graaaaaa!” he reminded him and declared at the same time.
Zeph smiled a little. “I know, my friend.”
He looked back in the direction of the camp.
“Both of us. We will come to terms with it,” he said, clenching his jaw.
The new adversity? New adventure? Well, be welcome to challenge us. We won’t be easy on you.
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Interface: without a change.