"What do you mean I'm crazy, Bujang?" Wisesa's voice boomed at one of the pigs perched atop the weathered fence. "I expected more from you. I thought you understood my situation. Turns out you're just like Lingga, Rangga, and Wati!" He tilted his neck and gestured to the trio of pigs leisurely munching on their afternoon meal. "Yes, you heard right, your ears are still working. You three heartless swine!"

The pig called Bujang was still resting its front paws on the wooden fence, unperturbed by Wisesa’s outburst. Ki Semar did not bother assigning names to each animal before they ended up in his belly as porks. It was Wisesa who bestowed identities upon the pigs—all the livestock here, in fact. As for Bujang, all it offered was a snort or two.

"Of course it’s possible!" Wisesa's voice took a higher pitch. "You're just a pig. You're only three months old, and you won't live more than another three. What do you know about magic?"

Wisesa was silent for a moment. He gazed at the two vivid black eyes and the oversized snout that made Bujang almost too adorable to be destined for slaughter.

With a sigh of resignation, Wisesa rose from the long wooden bench by the fence, not because he realised how foolish he would be if others saw him talking to a pig—a being more amiable to interact with than most humans. "You haven't seen it yet, Bujang. Just wait if I go berserk again. You will see the figure. It's the source of my problems, your problems, everyone's problems."

At this, Bujang let out a yowl, sending a splatter of mud onto Wisesa’s shirt with its hind legs.

"Hey!" Wisesa growled. "Damn it! If you don't believe me, fine. Is that even necessary?"

Boiling anger coursed through his veins as Wisesa picked up a rock. "You ungrateful snorter! I hope you're slaughtered soon! Too bad you didn't get to make out!" Wisesa chuckled.

"Wisesa!"

To his shock, the pig had just called him by name! What was more, it sounded like a female voice. There was no way Wisesa could have misjudged the gender of any creature he encountered.

Before the stone could leave his grasp, his head swivelled only to discover that Alicia, the bespectacled girl, was the actual owner of the voice. No wonder it sounded similar. The embers in his eyes weakened in an instant. A lad who saw the girl's sweet face as a manifestation of the underworld. The bookworm's mien was no more charming than Semar's pigs covered in muck.

The cankery lad turned away. "Gods, one day!” he grumbled. “Just one day, no human being ever to ruin my day, especially a Westerner!"

"What are you doing with that stone?" asked Alicia.

"You four eyes and still blind as a mole! I think Bagong is all talk. He can't even make proper glasses!" Wisesa retorted.

Alicia paid no heed to her eyesight's critique. "You can't stone those pigs! If Ki Semar finds out, he'll go berserk!"

"So what? Maybe I stone you instead? Girls like you are more annoying than Bujang."

"Wh-what? Of couse, you can’t!"

"So what's your business here? Oh, yes. You want to fight with your magic ball bet again? How chivalrous you are, Alicia." Wisesa walked over to pick up the coil of rope. Perhaps his saying about leaving the girl tied up was not contrived. "Don't just stay there, you idiot! There's no way we're going to fight here. The people will be angry that all their hard-earned ornaments were destroyed. To the forest, we go!"

Alicia's teeth chattered as she tried to make herself heard above Wisesa's stomping feet. "Why do you only have 'fighting' and 'snatching Orb' in yer head? I have more important things to discuss with you!"

"Not listening, all the way to the forest!"

And so Wisesa pressed on, ignoring her, trudging all the way through the village gate into the wilderness, while Alicia kept prattling about him being the chosen one, destined to save the world and scour to find others—which the lad considered it nothing but mere trivialities. No one knew why both of them were so patient today—Wisesa listened patiently to the girl's nagging, while Alicia herself tirelessly made her mouth foam with patronising words.

Wisesa's footsteps eventually came to a halt. He fixed his blangkon. "Alright, Alicia. Enough bitching," said the man. Before they knew it, they had walked through a field of weeds and arrived at a shady wilderness, albeit his hut was not yet in sight. The sky at that time was unusually gloomy. As they recalled, it was not yet for the sun to sink too deep at this time of day.

"I had intended not to stop talking until I could drag you out of Yawadwipa! The world needs you too!" Alicia steeled herself.

Wisesa uncoiled his ropes. "Whatever, whatever. What matters is, that I'll grab your magic ball again, and then I'll use it to throw this evil creature away!"

"Why do you hate Barong so much?" Alicia questioned with a hint of distress. "It is the Patron of Lands! You’ve got one of the four aspects of the strongest power on Earth inside you! Ye dinnae even give it a wee bit of thought, to find a new perspective? Like being grateful for that power and trying to use it to help folk?"

Upon hearing Alicia's words, Wisesa’s fingers ceased their play with the rope, which now sprawled across the grass. Rather than enlightenment, his ire seemed only to intensify, twisting his expression into a scowl.

"What did you say?" His voice was low with real resentment. "What do you know about me and my power?"

"I'm just like you!" Alicia insisted. "We are believed to be the saviour or the destroyer of the world. Arcane trusted me to carry its power—"

"You... don't even try to compare yourself to me!" He barked back at the girl. "I don't care about your background! You know, I gotta spend six hours meditating at the waterfall every day just to keep Barong from crossing the boundary of control over my consciousness and attacking everyone in sight! Last time, the beast came out because I was late in my meditation, and it smelled black magic! Isn't it ironic; that a creature infected with black magic hunts its 'own'? Do you think keeping Barong is fun? Mine ain't no pet, like your chirping Arcane ball, you moron!"

"And I'm sorry!" Alicia shot back. "Black magic made Barong and you suffer. But your curse can be turned into a talent, if only you listen to me—"

"Damn it! I've had it! Westerners always think they're the leaders and need to be heard!"

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Don't bring race into this conversation!"

Wisesa was not to be outdone. He inched closer. His index finger trembled but remained pointed in fury at Alicia. His voice booming, an octave higher this time. "You think I wanted this? You think having power because I got one of the four aspects of Sang Hyang Sukra makes me the happiest person in the realm? Let me tell you something: that dumb ass god can stop admiring the Earth from afar and come down here to snatch Barong away from me before the world is destroyed once again and he whines like a baby, blaming another god who is locked in a fucking box! Fuck! Everything in my life is just filled with nosy fucks!”

"Then what is it? What do you want?" Alicia asked, astounded. "Do you want to give up that has become a part of you? Live as a normal person, without any impact on the world other than living, eating, and dying?"

Wisesa pointed his finger again. "Exactly! That! Right! I don't care about the world of thaumaturgy, Alica! My whole life related to magic is just bitter suffering like the torture of Layaloka! I want to die, but I don't want to kill myself. I want to kill all of you instead! All I want is... peace..., no one bothering me…! I just want to build a farm in a remote forest, wake up in the morning to see the waving barley fields, and chat with the farm animals!” He shook his head. “Government life is not for me, let alone life as the world's greatest magus! Screw all that!"

With those grievances off his chest, the lad's body went limp, and he collapsed onto the grass. His fury had subsided somewhat. The will to fight was lost again. However, that did not imply that his heart had softened. Wisesa was still swearing at Alicia in his heart for discouraging him from capturing Orb.

Alicia was left speechless. A sense of guilt settled upon her as she, too, sat down on the grassy ground. In truth, she did not mean to be so insistent. Never had she desired to walk this path alongside Wisesa. But fate allowed no compromise. It was either Earth saved or Earth destroyed; those were the only choices fate could offer. So the lass was forced to take Wisesa by force as well. Life's choices were never easy, never simple.

"Are ye done ranting?" asked Alicia.

"Shut up!" Wisesa replied in brief.

"But I won't shut up. I have a world to protect. Family and friends to protect. I won't stop until you change yer mind!"

"I don't care about your people."

"Don't ye have a family too?"

"At this point, I'd be happy if they all died so I could build a palace over their graves."

The bespectacled lass could only shake her head. At this point, she doubted if there was anything left about Wisesa that could astonish her. Such sentiments had gradually eroded. Rreplaced by a sense of pity. "Ye dinnae care if the world is destroyed, do ye?"

"I'll probably wait for that time to come," Wisesa responded. "Let everything die without a trace, and I'll enjoy my day on top of your rubble."

"That, if you still find a foothold.”

The two fell into a heavy silence, serenaded by the rustling of weeds and the fluttering of insect wings. Wisesa, seated cross-legged, cast a glance at Alicia's weary countenance. In the back of his mind lingered a question: had he really caused her trouble?

But then, he soon dismissed it with a new frame of mind: It's her fault for insisting on taking me on an adventure together!

Still, there was something inexplicable that made Wisesa intrigued to ask. "I thought you still wanted to patronize me."

Alicia cast a furrowed look at him. She began, "I've been meaning to tell you, I've heard the story of Barong from Ki Semar, and perhaps I know how to purify it from its evil influence."

"I don't want the beast to be free of black magic. I want it to get out of my life!"

"Haw, scunnered I dinnae provide yon service!”

“Can you speak like a normal person?”

“I said…,” she uttered with a deep tone, fueled by infuriation. “Too bad I don’t provide that service! That will be your and Barong's responsibility after I make you two a little more civilised! And also after that impending threat is taken care of!"

Wisesa snorted. His crossed legs straightened, then bent as he stood up. "It's useless. I've read the old man's proposal. It doesn't work."

"You haven't even tried it! Hear, I have a theory—"

Suddenly, a huge white cloth shot out to ensnare them both! Wisesa's reflexes were as sharp as ever, so he darted to the side and sliced the cloth's weave with his kris, while Alicia blasted the Arcane wind to push it away!

"Wisesa, behind you!"

They were far from out of danger; two enormous lizards were bearing down upon Wisesa! Without a moment's hesitation, he reached into his pouch and withdrew a pinch of ash, which he exhaled towards a lizard lunging at his face. The lizard floundered on the ground and died, leaving behind a fiery crack and a hollow body burnt from the inside down to mere ash. The other lizard flailed about, waving its tail as a flashing whip. Wisesa, propelled backwards, avoided the strike as he focused the inner power in his fused hands. Then in a swift motion, he shot the reptile into a tree branch where it drooped to its demise!

Wisesa turned his head to the Crimsonmane girl. Threats were lurking on her as well!

"Alicia, don't move! There’s ahool behind you!" said Wisesa.

Alicia was dazed. "Huh? What do you mean—"

"Kiiik!"

Alicia's heart leapt into her throat, nearly exploding from the shock! Fortunately, she fell in such a way that the claws of the creature called ahool missed her.

"Ye absolute bampot!" Alicia stammered in trauma. "Ye want to kill me? "

"Duh!" Wisesa replied lightly.

The beast secured its footing on the tree trunk, then rotated itself towards the lying lass while letting out a series of loud, piercing cries.

"Kiiik kiiik!"

How could the young lady not be horrified? The creature was large in stature, black in colour, and the tremendous wings attached to both hands added to the horror. Its ears were pointed like a bat, its entire body was a living shadow. Its snout of a primate relentlessly howled with such ferocity that Alicia's heart raced and her temples pounded.

One ahool was not the end of it; three more appeared out of nowhere and perched near the two youths. The echoing roar of the lizard herd overshadowed Alicia and Wisesa, as those reptiles outflanked them from all angles. The lizard in the herd had the colour of dull metal with thin patches of luminescence akin to biased light. They were of a staggering size, unlike the two lizards encountered earlier. So colossal that they had become ideal mounts for the armoured strangers with white clothes covering them from head to toe.

This was not a good time (there was never a good time to have an adversary for Alicia). A wide strip of cloth concealed the armoured strangers from head to neck. In the middle of it, an illustration, inked in deep navy blue, depicted the face of a being with long, ornate pointed hair, eyes bulging almost outward, teeth and tongue protruding out with pride. The drawing was the "mask" of scorn and fear. If Alicia ought to guess, they must be the Yawadwipa branch of the enigmatic terrorist mage guild.

The orb was already orbiting Alicia's body. The criminals suddenly retreated while whispering in a foreign language—not sounding like Yawa's tongue this time—about something related to Kalimasada.

"Those despicable magi have found me all the way to Lojitengara, eh?" muttered Alicia, believing they were after her beloved orb like the gang of black mages she had met.

Wisesa scowled. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? Do ye ken these people?"

"Of course, I know them," said Wisesa. "They're the elite warriors of Girah. No, not just warriors... Worse."

"Leyaks," said Alicia.

"Someone did pay attention to that old fart's tales, apparently!" the man acknowledged. "They're after me." []