“And here we have the Hunter, stalking through the woods, in search of his prey. For many nights now, he’s tracked down a peculiar creature, intent on defeating it, and devouring its essence to make himself more powerful, yet the beast remains elusive, and as of yet unfound. Will our intrepid hunter succeed in killing his quarry? Or shall he remain unfed, forever searching? Tune in to find out!”
“Honey, why are you narrating my actions like I’m some kind of reality TV star?”
“Because you’re my reality TV star darling. Also, because I’m bored, and Veronica’s being a bitch, so I don’t really want to deal with her right now.”
“Is she actually being a bitch, or are you just saying that because you don’t like that she’s actually making you uphold your side of the contract?”
Silence fell over our conversation as Sophia avoided confirming what I already knew. In the two years that have passed since the events of the Capital, at some point Veronica had hit her full potential maximum mana pool while practicing stretching out her binding magic. She was able to cover a radius of about 15,000 miles, but that won’t be enough to steal the moon. The only way for her to be able to extend her magic further outwards now is to raise her maximum mana pool, which means she’s been frequently going out and cheating in games, then, when she gets caught, she’s been rushing back to her house, relying on Sophia to save her from the consequences of her own actions.
Sophia, who intentionally started spending time with Veronica specifically because she detests this particular habit of hers, has lately felt like Veronica’s been playing with a loophole in the contract, despite the fact that this is literally what she signed up for. As far as I’m aware, the terms of the contract between the two of them were something like, ‘Veronica helps Sophia bind the moon, and in exchange Sophia protects Veronica from the friends and family of the people she regularly cheats out of their power’. How can it be a ‘loophole’ if it’s clearly stated in the contract that that’s what Sophia would provide in exchange for Veronica’s help?
Regardless, Sophia has been in a state where she is constantly annoyed when she’s in Hell, so she’s been spending a lot more time in the subspace, telling Veronica to ask for help through the Group channel of the Leo enchantment if she’s about to be killed. In turn, this has resulted in Sophia spending the majority of her time discussing science stuff with Duke. The pair of them have already learned just about everything that I could remember from my original world, and have been attempting to use that information to fill in the gaps of what I can’t remember.
Two years ago, the Capital of the Kingdom fell, and after that, Ash, Duke, and I, set off together. Due to the fact that I intend to travel all around the world, Duke suggested that he use this opportunity to go back home to the Dwarven Village, and that Ash and I accompany him to visit it. After all, Duke has been learning a lot from me, and seemed to also want to share that knowledge with all of the dwarves. To be honest, I’m kind of excited to see what Dwarves make based on all of the things that Duke intends to teach them. Who knows, maybe they’ll have a whole ass technological revolution.
The mountain where the Royal Castle was built was the beginning of a mountain range that stretched for what seemed to be forever. No matter how high up I flew, or how far we ended up traveling, I couldn’t see the end of it. In fact, the mountains, which originally were miles apart from each other, gradually got closer and closer, as well as taller and taller. Similar to a forest where the placement of trees are thinner around the perimeter and thicker as you go deeper in. The way that I understand them, mountain ranges like this one develop when tectonic plates collide with each other, and turn into one solid landmass. Kind of like the seams on clothing, it marks the spot where two previously separate lands met and fused together. If that is in fact correct, then isn’t this massive mountain range a sign that we’re right on top of a fault line? With this in mind, I made sure to keep an eye out for ecological phenomena that occur next to fault lines, including volcanoes, earthquakes, and the resulting disasters from earthquakes like mudslides and avalanches.
Speaking of avalanches, the mountains surrounding me have provided me with the opportunity to see snow for the first time in over five years. I’m still uncertain as to how the weather of this world operates, seeing as how I haven’t observed a single season change in my time here, but seeing snow again…it’s delightful. I always did prefer the cold, and walking through it with Ash, I couldn’t resist playing several pranks on her throughout our travels. Snow down the back of the shirt, snowballs, you name it. Not to mention all of the miniature sculptures that the two of us have built on days we decided to take a break from traveling.
Currently, I’m traveling alone. Not because of any sort of problems that I have with the other two, but due to the nature of the creature that I’m hunting. Neither Duke nor Ash have any real way to protect themselves from it after all, and I’m the only one who stands to benefit in any way from finding it. What is this creature you ask? Well, to be precise, no one is actually certain if it’s a creature responsible for what’s been happening on this mountain or not.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After Ash, Duke, and I finally arrived in the Dwarven Village, our first stop, as always whenever we end up in a new place, was the Adventurer’s Guild. While I was looking around at all of the different jobs available, one particular Extermination type mission caught my eye. Now, you may not remember, but Extermination missions aren’t just about going out and killing a monster, despite their name. Extermination missions most often just have information about various odd occurrences that have been happening, and are a request for someone to investigate these occurrences, and, if they can, eliminate the problem, but if they can’t, simply gather as much information as they can about what’s going on.
In this particular case, the specific problems that have been happening are all reports from various adventurers who, for their own various reasons, have come to the mountain that I’m currently investigating. While here, they have occasionally found themselves instantly transported to an odd sort of place. From this point on, all of the reports start varying, as none of the adventurers seem to agree on what kind of place they are all transported to. One said that he was in a desert area, where fish seemed to be swimming through the sky, one said that he was trapped in an underground cave, where gravity seemed to constantly shift, sending him tumbling every which way.
Long story short, the only thing that the various adventurers can seem to agree on is that they are all transported to a place where nothing seems to make any sort of sense, and they are all trapped there for random amounts of time. When they return to the mountain where they’d started, they all also reported that they returned lying down in the exact spot where they’d previously been standing. There have been no other similarities or patterns observed, whether they looked at the locations in which these events occurred, the timing of the events, or the specific adventurers who were caught up in them.
Currently, the Adventurer’s guild has three theories:
One: There is some kind of roving portal on this mountain, and whoever comes into contact with it is temporarily sent to some kind of magical plane, where the sheer quantity of mana that exists there interferes with all known natural laws.
Two: Rather than a naturally occurring roving portal, these same phenomena are the actions of a Space-oriented elemental, and rather than transporting the adventurers to the same place, and that place being chaotic and unknowable, it’s sending them to various different places all around the world, and for some reason bringing them back.
Three: There is some sort of secret hidden society on this mountain, and any time an adventurer comes into contact with them, they are either drugged, or placed under an illusion spell so that they end up hallucinating various things.
Out of these three options, I believe that the first two are the least likely, and for one major reason. The distinct lack of any unexplained disappearances from the Adventurer’s Guild. This indicates that every single adventurer who’s come into contact with this phenomenon has survived, and if people were being randomly teleported to some sort of magical chaos realm, wouldn’t there have been at least a couple of casualties?
The third option both makes much more sense to me, while also being equally improbable. It’s improbable due to the fact that there are no other signs of any sort of civilization on this mountain, other than these odd occurrences. If there were really a group of people secretly living here, there would definitely be some kind of sign, between track marks, cut down trees, old fire pits, not to mention things like buildings. Even if they were living in hidden caves, they would still need to eat after all, so there would be signs of firewood being collected, of hunts taking place to bring meat back to the hidden village, etc.
However, the reason I believe that it makes much more sense than the other two, is that the adventurers all reported that when they returned to this mountain, they were all lying down in exactly the same spot where they’d left. Given that they were all perfectly fine, and that not a single one of them actually remembers moving or the actual transport process, isn’t it far more likely that these odd occurrences have all been some sort of traveling illusion?
What if, instead of a Space-related elemental, these events have all been the work of a kind of elemental that traps people in an illusion? In a false world that has no bearing on reality, and can shift according to the whims of the elemental? More than anyone else, I happen to have experience with something along those lines. After all, a false world with no bearing on reality, where I am basically a God of Creation…isn’t that just Mirage? And if these events are of that same nature…couldn’t this be the work of a Dream Elemental?
When I killed the previous Earth Elemental, and gave Ash its core, her ability to use Earth magic became almost unparalleled. The core of an Elemental serves two purposes after all, one: It acts in the same manner as Spectral Quartz, and provides a constant stream of microscopic soul damage, which when healed, allows the maximum mana pool of an individual to grow. Two: the experiences that the Elemental has with manipulating their various concepts are gradually absorbed by the soul of the individual who claims the core, providing that individual with a sort of innate understanding of how to use that concept in their own spells.
Despite knowing that my own Aspect is related to Dreams, I have not been able to use Dream Magic in my everyday life for a couple different reasons. Firstly, the specific…let’s say flavor of Dream Magic that I happen to have insight into is the manipulation of the subconscious mind, and as demonstrated by that one member of the Royal Family who I interrogated, it’s a rather dangerous branch of magic to experiment around with. To this day I still sometimes see the image of his mind crumbling into itself as ‘honesty’ devoured his entire being. Until I understand exactly what went wrong and how to control that specific magic, I can’t exactly risk using it casually.
Secondly, dreams, by their very nature, are something non-corporeal. They are nothing more than a false reality that you create for yourself. Which means that any sort of magic that I can think of relating to dreams would most likely only affect me, and no one else around me. This means that Dream Magic is functionally useless the way I understand it. However…if these phenomena that I’m investigating are truly the work of a Dream Elemental…couldn’t I take that core and learn different ways to make my Dream Magic actually useful in my daily life?
Given that Dreams are in fact the Aspect of Reality that I’m connected to so thoroughly that I can even Manifest it as a mere Marked, I’m certain that whatever Dream Magic I end up able to learn would be far more powerful than even the Elemental can use. It’s for this reason that I’ve been investigating this mountain, in the hopes that I will find something that will benefit me greatly.