I am so sorry for not updating for so long. I've been having a very hard time as my company where I worked for has been shut down. Now that my life is a little bit better, I can start to write again. But right now I can only write a chapter a week. I am so sorry that I left it unattended for months.
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The journey became so different than before.
Right now, we’re riding some big airship with spacious room for us. The airship consists of lots of room starting from bedroom, shower, main room. Even Mada made some special room for Erfia to improve her magic. The special room had some rock and land on it.
But, Mada himself is secluding himself in the bridge. He’s been inside of it for four days without showing any signs of coming out. I know an undead doesn’t need a food or drink to survive and he also doesn’t want to hurt Erfia. So, logically, his decision is the best. But, logic is just a logic. It’s hurting Erfia. Knowing her father is in this same airship but yet he won’t meet her at all.
All of us try our best to comfort her. At noon, we try to avert her by doing some magic training. As her only teacher at magic training, Xiel and I, it seems like we’re not giving her a challenge at all. She manages to master all of my earth magic in just a couple of days. Xiel is not any better. Erfia masters her body and weapon enhancement magic in just a single day. But, at night, it’s hurting us to see her cry in her sleep.
“Can’t we make him meet her, even just once?” I ask everybody.
It is midnight now. After sending Erfia to sleep, we gather in the main room. The main room looks like a normal lobby in some inn. Except, there’s this one big dome with a map of the world in the center. It’s showing our location.
“I don’t think that’s a good thing.” Kurua answers me. “You saw her reaction when she saw Mada for the first time in O’oni Port right?”
Yeah, I remember it, shocked and afraid. It seems like she was seeing a corpse of her father.
“I hate to say it,” Eri adds. “But the best thing we could do is find the Reviver as soon as possible.”
“Erfia’s asleep already, right?”
Suddenly, a familiar voice came up. All of us look into the door and see Mada is standing.
“Ye, yeah, She’s asleep.” Xiel answers him.
“Good,” Mada walks into the dome in the middle of the room. “Tomorrow, we will enter Land of No Man. And I tell you, monsters in the Land of No Man is not only land monster, but also sky monster.”
“You mean like those monsters around An Saia?” I ask him.
“No, those monsters are just a normal monster. The monsters in the Land of No Man is much bigger and dangerous. The smallest monster in the Land of No Man is ten times bigger than those normal monsters.”
“Mada is right.” Kurua adds. “You may not know this, but there is another way for a single person to get their one word title. That is, to slain 5 monsters of Land of No Man in a day.”
“What?”
I yell without realizing it. I look into Kurua and Mada eyes and it seems they’re not lying. I look into Eri and she doesn’t flinch at all. She also knew about it too.
“Xiel, do you know about it?” I ask her.
“No, I’m just a two words tittle. So I don’t really know about it.” Xiel answer me stuttered.
Wait a minute. I try to calculate it. Five monsters in a day. Normally, a person need to slain 10 thousands people in a week to get that tittle. It means,
“It means, a single monster in that place is worth more than 200 people or soldier.” Mada speaks my mind out loud.
“Normal one word titled will have a trouble dealing with one of those monsters.” Eri adds. “And weak one word titled like I was, stand no chance of fighting it one on one.”
Upon hearing it, I can feel my body trembles. I look into my feet as they’re not as firm as before. This, this is the first time I ever felt this way. I’ve met Seven Deadly Sins but yet this is the first time I got cold feet.
“Uh, um, Mada,” I try to get his attention.
“Yeah?”
“It’s safe in this airship right?”
“Well, I can say it’s relatively safer than in the ground. But it’s not safe 100 percent. I just hope we don’t meet with Quetzal along the way.”
“Qu, Quetzal?” I ask again.
“Yeah, Quetzal. A flying serpent. The dominator of sky. At child, it spans for a hundred meters. But the adult ones’ spans to a few kilometers. Not to mention its size. The adult ones are capable of swallow this whole airship in a single gulp.”
“Ah, I’m pretty sure you know this already. But,” Xiel butt in. “To be honest, it seems like we’re walking into a den of monsters. And there is only two people capable of fighting them in this ship. Are you sure it’s going to be okay?”
“No, not really.” Kurua answers her. “But I hear if those monsters eat us, we can still live inside its stomach for a few days before getting digested.”
“That if we’re not being chewed.” Mada adds. “Anyway, tomorrow we’re entering Nea Continent. I want all of you to stay in this room.”
Mada pulls something out of his jacket. “And put these earrings. It’s a device I made so I could search for you. Okay?”
Mada gives a piece of earring to each of us. An earring made of metal and silver with small ruby on it. I can guess the ruby is some crystal mana. I don’t know how this thing works but at least it gave me a little bit of ease.
“Get a nice sleep tonight. Because starting from tomorrow, you guys will take turn.”
~~~
“Reis, are you alright?” Erfia worries about me.
“Yeah, just some sleep deprived.”
In the end, I couldn’t get any sleep at all last night. I got scared and at some point I started to think about the worst possible outcome. Fuck. I hope we’re alright.
But it seems, the sky is not too friendly today. I look into the windows and see nothing but clouds. I don’t know. The clouds are giving me a bad chill. I can’t stand firm at all. At this rate, I might collapse at any time.
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Finally, the clouds disappear. Truthfully, I hope the clouds still there.
I can’t believe my eyes at all. I see an eye. A very big eye just outside the windows. I don’t know what that is but it can’t be good.
“Hey, is it only me, or the eye is getting bigger?” I speak my mind out loud.
“No, it’s coming closer!” Kurua yells.
As he shouts, the eye hit our airship and made us all fall. The airship is shaken so bad. The eye is getting smaller. Thank God the window is not breaking or else, we’ve been dead already.
Suddenly Mada come into the room and locked the door.
“ERFIA, REPEAT AFTER ME AND IMAGINE A FOG COVERS THIS ROOM!”
“Ye, yes dad.” Erfia answers in reflects.
~O the great one, the mighty, and the creator. Fulfill this call and accept it. As the sky descends, none stays the same. But this rebel asks for an exception. Room~
After Erfia said it, a magic circle appears on the floor. I don’t know what that magic for.
“WE’RE OUT OF HERE!”
Mada press something on the dome and all of us is flying toward the ceiling. Even the eye is going higher than before. No, it’s not us that’s flying into the ceiling. This room is falling.
“MADA! WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” Kurua yells to make sure his voice reaches him.
“I DETACHTED THE ROOM AND NOW WE’RE FALLING!”
As I look outside one more time, the eye is coming. It hit us harder than before. Then from another direction, another eye is hitting us.
“SHIT! THEY’RE USING US LIKE A PLAYBALL!”
As the eyes is playing with us, I can see some crack is appearing in the room. This room won’t hold for too long. And yeah, it finally happened. The room is destroyed and now we’re falling on the sky. As the room is gone, now I can see the true form of the eye. It’s a very long serpent. Very long is an understatement as I can’t even see its tail. A pair of wing is coming out of its back. A brown long serpent with some shell protecting its head. Is that a quetzal?
The eye is getting closer to us. I look at Mada and see he’s making something out of Philosopher. A very big pile of iron. As the quetzal is getting closer, Mada make it so both of their bodies is hitting it. Leaving us unharmed.
Both of the quetzals suddenly stopped and leave us.
“WHY ARE THOSE MONSTERS LEAVING?” I shout at Mada.
“IT MEANS WE’RE LESS THAN A KILOMETER OFF THE GROUND.” Mada answers me. “ERFIA, KEEP IMAGINE THE FOG! NOW REPEAT THIS SPELL AND IMAGINE YOU’RE SLOWING DOWN!”
“YE, YES DAD!”
I didn’t realize it but even after the room is destroyed, the magic circle that appeared in the bottom of the room is still here. Is it the thing that keep us from the air pressure?
~O the great sky, I envy your vast blue beautiful form. But your beautiful blue form can’t save us from the cold and cruel land. Please, save us from the cold and cruel land. Let these admirers of yours stay alive to admire your beautiful form more. Descender.~
As Erfia said it, I can feel our body is slowing down. Not faster like before. We can feel the air is not so harsh any more.
“DAD!”
Huh? What? As I see to Mada’s place, he’s still falling fast. Even faster. Oh no, I forgot he’s an undead now. Any non-destructive or non-physical magic won’t affect him. He’s going to hit the ground hard.
“DON’T WORRY ABOUT HIM. HE’S AN UNDEAD AND WITH SHACKLES OF DEAD, HE’S PRACTICALY IMMORTAL.” Kurua yells at Erfia.
Even after hearing Kurua’s words, I can see uneasiness within Erfia’s eyes. But yet, that uneasiness become worse as we’re closer to the land. In the land, we see a giant worm with its mouth opened. Ready to take us as its breakfast.
“DAD? WHERE ARE YOU?!”
Erfia look everywhere for Mada. I did the same but yet, I couldn’t find him. Could it be that he’s being eaten by that giant worm?
As we’re slowly descend into its mouth, suddenly its mouth is closing and it come back to the ground. Wha, what’s happening?
Finally, we landed safely in the ground. In front of us, a figure fully covered by clothes is standing. The figure has the same height as me. He’s fully covered whether it’s his body or his head. Even he wears some dark googles that makes me unable to see his eyes.
“We need to get out of here as fast as possible before another thing come.”
The figure is starting up some hover motorcycle and let it wander into a direction.
“Follow me, that motorcycle will create some diversion for us.”
He runs toward the opposite direction of the hover motorcycle. He runs fast even in this desert. I take Erfia with me and use earth slide to catch up to him. Xiel use a body enhancement magic while Eri and Kurua activates their mana layer. I look into the hover motorcycle. It’s being chased by something on the sand. I don’t really know what that is as the only thing I can see is something moving underneath it. Suddenly a worm come out of the sand and eat the motorcycle. From the moving sand, I can see some big creature like a fish with a hard jaw is coming out and fights the worm.
After some time, we arrived in some old city. Yes, I say it’s an old city because it still looks like a normal city in the new continent but it has been abandoned. Leaving a lot of building and houses. We’re going to the biggest building which is in the center of the city. After getting in, he’s taking us to the upper floor. I look into Kurua and he nods. It seems we don’t have any choice right now.
We follow him to the upper floor. Finally, we stopped at the highest floor. To the side, I can see the full landscape of the city through its windowless hole.
“Welcome to Sammera. Is what I’d like to say. But before that,” the figure taking of the cloth covering his head and face and also the googles. “What are you doing in Land of No Man?”
Uncovered by the cloth, I see a wide beautiful blue eyes combined with a white short hair. A very white pale skin is covering her body. He’s not a man. The person leading us is a woman. She’s an angel.