“Huh?”

When he woke up, Dauma found himself in a strange place once again. However, it was not the snowy field where the mysterious soldier being constantly interacted with him.

Even though the entire area around him was also completely white, it did not carry the same kind of chilly sensation he always felt in that field. Instead, he felt warm and comforted, almost as though he was being tucked under a blanket facing a warm fire in the middle of winter.

And to top it off, he did not intend to come up with that analogy himself. It came to him like it was being projected into his mind on the spot. He did not want to feel that certain way, he just knew he had to, and that fact unnerved him.

As the place was also covered in a strong light that persistently shone into his eyes, he could see where he was now after he had slowly adjusted to the complete brightness.

Somehow, he had found himself in a place covered with white clouds in every direction, as far as he could see. The ground below him was also covered with them, and as he reached down to touch it, he could feel a certain firmness to them. It felt less like he was touching soft cotton candy, but more like a springy bed mattress.

“This is...”

As he was carefully rubbing and observing the bizarre landscape he was in, a sudden flap of wings drew his attention back up to something in front of him.

“Anten?”

At first glance, it was not the angel he was familiar with, but instead a small black raven, curiously tilting its head and staring at him. It was standing on a protruding lump of cloud that reached up to his upper torso level, and as he stared back at it, it began to blink repeatedly before opening its beak.

“Devil of a grave sin.”

“Eh?”

His reaction was more subdued than he was expecting himself, although since he had already seen many strange talking animals and beasts over the last few weeks, it made sense that he was most likely no longer shocked by this kind of phenomenon.

Undeterred by his response, the raven continued without pausing.

“Devil. Soon, you and the angel will be able to contact me.”

“Me?”

His mind immediately jumped to a few possible candidates, including the very unlikely but still entirely possible worst option, but he quickly realized who the raven was referring to with its next line.

“I am He.”

With that simple answer, he understood everything he needed to know.

“You’re… the one who sent me, who sent us, down here.”

The raven bobbed its, or rather his, head.

“I will speak more when we meet later. Right now, your dream is ending, and I cannot be inside your head longer than I can manage before your mind overloads.”

True to his word, the clouds had slowly begun to fall apart all around him, becoming unrecognizable blobs and dissolving into an even whiter space.

“Three days from now, at the highest point of the mountain where the crow lies, come as you are with the other. That is where you’ll find me. Do not be late.”

“W… wait, is that it—”

“Farewell.”

Before he could ask any further questions or clarify any further doubts, the ground below him vanished completely, and he fell into the white empty void.

The dream was over. But the quest had only just begun.

**********************

After leaving the destroyed abandoned city and the Silver Foxes behind, the Apocalypse Cleaners—though they had still not used that name to address themselves out of sheer awkwardness—had set up camp inside a forest at the base of a mountain.

While most of the trees in the area were devoid of life, there were some that were miraculously still alive. The surviving trees, however, were all oddly misshapen, with brittle leaves that disintegrated with a single touch and large, spiky fruits that they quickly discovered hid only small, black seeds inside its exterior, and nothing else.

As night soon fell and the group took a rest under one of the trees, Anten took this time to pester Yuu as she had been doing the past few days.

“Show it to me again.”

“… really…”

“Show it to me again!”

“… fine…”

Begrudgingly accepting the request, Yuu took off the shawl wrapped around her body, closed her eyes, and squeezed the Particle in her chest tightly.

For a while, nothing seemed to be happening, but soon there was a bright green flash and a soft whooshing sound, similar to a cape flapping in the wind, before everything slowed down again.

Having averted her eyes away due to the bright flash, Anten turned back to see the cloaked, hooded figure leaning against her scythe and looking back at her with a slightly irritated frown.

“Nice.”

After having witnessed the transformation a few times, the sight of Yuu’s new form was now familiar to the group. From there, they had also discovered a few interesting traits about it during some tests held with Kara.

For example, the form, termed the ‘Reaper’ form for convenience, would only appear when the Soul Particle had absorbed enough souls, whether from Lost or other sources.

It carried significant offensive power, capable of taking out large groups of souls at a time, but at the expense of its durability.

For an unknown reason that Kara compared to a motor vehicle’s energy consumption, the form would tend to overheat after a while, especially after repeated actions within a short period of time.

If the heat became too intense to the point that everyone in the vicinity could feel it, the form would cease its functions and Yuu would return back to normal until she was able to cool down again.

However, that was not the most surprising thing about it. As both Anten and Dauma had found out during the underground city fight, Yuu would suddenly become braver and more talkative in that form and able to hold proper conversations on her own for as long as she maintained it.

Using that piece of knowledge to their advantage, they had uncovered her past, her motivations, and her preferences through persuasive questioning every time she had transformed. And this time was no different.

“Now, answer me truthfully,” Anten cheekily asked her as they continued to look at each other without moving an inch, “what is the ‘gift’ that Miss Kara gave you?”

“…”

“Come on, you can tell me. I won’t judge.”

“… ugh, alright,” Yuu sighed and rolled her eyes, “it’s… a book.”

“A book?”

“A book from my time,” she explained to Anten as she slowly pulled it out from an unknown space seemingly behind her and presented it, finally showing it off in all its glory.

It was slim and rectangular, with a surface that was bright, garish, and filled to the brim with a myriad of colors and words.

Upon taking a closer look at the offensively loud cover, Anten noticed that there was a man in the center, with his face contorted into a yell and a bloody giant double-bladed axe in his burly hands, surrounded by a circle of strange green creatures that were either screaming in place or charging at him.

“It’s… very detailed,” she offhandedly remarked after a while as she stepped backwards, simply overwhelmed by the bright colors and style.

“It’s a comic,” Yuu continued to elaborate as she began to flip through its pages, “back in my time, I used to dream of reading one of these, and now that I can, it’s great!”

“Uh huh, so… what is this ‘comic’ about?”

“It’s called The Lumberjack. I think I have a later volume so I’m not too sure, but from what I can see, it’s about a man who chops trees for a living, but when he is attacked by tree goblins, he is forced to protect himself using his trusty axe. That’s all I know so far.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“And… that is great… how?”

“… I don’t know,” she rattled off, “I guess it’s the experience of holding it in your hand, smelling the paper, flipping through its pages, getting immersed in the story, it has everything anyone needs to have a good time. Plus, I do believe that this story is only getting more interesting. The main character meets a mysterious woman who seduces and offers to help him in his fight, but who also seems to be hiding a motive of her own, and…”

She suddenly let out a short gasp and stopped as she looked up at Anten again. The angel had been wearing a smug grin as she silently watched her throughout her entire monologue.

“… ah… never mind…”

With that sudden realization, she reverted to her quiet self once again, despite still being in her Reaper form. The pure embarrassment she felt at that moment had triumphed over her increased confidence.

“No, keep going! It was great!” Anten attempted to persuade her, but her lips were already firmly shut as she immediately hid the comic away from sight and refused to say anything more about it.

“That’s all…”

But the angel was having none of that.

“Come on, don’t be like that, Miss Yuu! I was genuinely interested, you know! You can’t shut me out like that!”

Yuu recoiled in shock as she watched Anten walk quickly towards her with her arms outstretched and speaking in a voice that was sweet like honey. Before she could even stop her or push her away, she had been pulled into a warm tight hug.

“Nngh… did the weird science lady rub off on you or something? Mmm…”

Like a cat, she squirmed and wriggled in an attempt to get out of her strong embrace at first, letting go of her scythe and using both of her hands to push against the body of her ‘attacker’ as she squeezed her body tighter and tighter, refusing to let go.

However, despite this sudden and unexpected action, she did not have any big issues about it, especially after she began to get gently patted on the head through her hood.

As much as she was initially uncomfortable about it, she had soon settled down into a calmer state, deciding not to fight back against the show of affection.

“I guess… this feels nice…”

“Shhh…” Anten whispered in her ear, “don’t ruin this moment. I am finally giving you my undivided care and attention.”

“Mmm…”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The angel’s soothing voice was like a warm massage to her ears and head, seemingly ridding her of any burdens or problems she had at least for a short period of time. Very soon, her eyes had begun to droop as she slowly surrendered to its liberating properties, and her knees buckled.

“I guess… it wouldn’t hurt… to rest…”

“What the hell are you two doing?”

Just as she was about to lose herself to the temptations, a sharp male voice interrupted the both of them.

Dauma, who had been absent throughout the whole interaction, had suddenly crashed down into the dirt ground behind them, causing the nearby trees to shake.

“For god’s sake, Dauma, you could have come down normally!”

“It just seemed like the fastest way,” he bluntly reasoned as he casually stood up from the small crater he had left in the ground and brushed his legs, while an irritated Anten raged at him.

“Man… now you’ve ruined my precious bonding time with Miss Yuu. What a waste!”

“What? Seriously, have you been following Kara? I really don’t recall you acting so… goofy when we first met.”

“Who knows?” she shrugged as she pointed at both him and Yuu, “maybe you two should follow her example and be happy too!”

“No thank you, I can decide by myself. Anyway, I wanted to give an update on our search.”

“Yes, right. How has it gone so far?”

“Not good,” he frowned and shook his head, “I’ve looked all over the area, but there’s no sign of any birds, let alone crows.”

“Did you check the top?”

“I waited there for an hour, but nothing appeared.”

“Hm,” she stroked her chin and began to frown as well, “then maybe we got the wrong mountain after all.”

“Are you kidding me?”

In response to her claim, he threw his hands outward and remarked in annoyance, surprising Anten.

“This is the first mountain we’ve seen so far. How is it possible we’ve got the wrong one?”

“I don’t know. There might be another one with more significance to him.”

“Yeah sure, as if we can just know something like that. Why did you even place your trust in him in the first place?”

Anten suddenly paused and looked at him with a suspicious expression as soon as he asked the question.

“You know how I feel about that.”

“…”

The two of them stared at each other in silence before he sighed and put his hands down.

“You’re right. I don’t want to bring it up.”

“Thank you.”

“Because you won’t stop being an ass about it if I do…”

“I said thank you.”

“This is still a problem though. It is the third day already. If we can’t find the crow on the mountain before the sun rises… I don’t know what will happen, but I think it’s better if we did get a chance to talk to him. Find out what he wants from us.”

“Perhaps he will find us instead, if he really wants to meet us.”

“I don’t think so,” he shook his head again before beginning to theorize, “I think this is a test of some kind.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, if he was truly desperate to meet us, he wouldn’t have given us that weird message and would have just talked to us directly. This is most likely his way of making sure we follow and work our way up into a conversation with him.”

“I guess you’re right on that,” she readily agreed.

“Still, it wouldn’t help matters if we don’t know anything about his instructions. There must be something more to it, there must be,” he muttered as he began pacing around a dead tree, deep in thought.

“…”

“Come on, Anten.”

“Don’t look at me,” she raised her hands in submission, “I don’t know anything else about it either. If I had, we wouldn’t be lost right now.”

“Tch. Maybe I should try going up again.”

“… excuse me.”

As soon as she spoke again for the first time in a while, the two of them stopped their actions and turned towards Yuu, who was still in her Reaper form.

“If I may ask, what are you two talking about? This has been going on for the past three days, yet I know nothing about it.”

“Umm…”

Dauma and Anten looked guiltily at each other as they attempted to come up with a good reply. As she had mentioned, they realized that they had not told her anything about him since the moment she had first joined the group.

“I guess she was bound to find out eventually…” Anten whispered to Dauma as she moved slightly away from her, avoiding her gaze.

“She doesn’t have to know.”

“I think she has to.”

“Fine. Yuu, listen up.”

With that, the both of them gave a quick and simple explanation of who the mysterious being they had been talking about the whole time was.

Unsurprisingly due to their lack of knowledge about him, there was nothing much they could say either, but nevertheless, Yuu was still fascinated by the existence of a deity at the very top of all life.

However, when they had told her the riddle, she was even more intrigued by it, and was now spending some time to herself going over it in her head.

“’At the highest point of the mountain where the crow lies…’”

“Wait… do you perhaps know something about it?” Anten asked curiously and excitedly as she watched her dwell on it for a few minutes.

“This is the first time I have heard it,” she admitted before continuing, “but… I am considering other things as well.”

“Really? Like what?”

“I’ve read plenty of riddles like these before. Usually, the answer would not be so simple if it was a real one. There must be a trick, and I’m trying to figure out what it is.”

“You see?” Anten exclaimed as she elbowed Dauma, “it was better to let her know after all!”

“Nngh, let’s just see if we can find out the answer first.”

Yuu had gone silent again, her face screwed in thought and her eyes tightly closed as she focused on the riddle.

“Miss Yuu?”

Her eyes snapped open as soon as Anten called her, and seeming as though she had reached an answer, she promptly looked up at the night sky, where a blanket of stars dotted the inky darkness, and pointed at something on it.

“It’s the stars…”

“What?”

Dauma and Anten looked up at the sky as well, but they were unsure what she was pointing at.

“It’s the stars!” she repeated confidently as she continued to point upwards, “have any of you heard about constellations?”

“No…”

“I don’t know, I think Kara mentioned it once. She said something about how we could use them to guide the way, and some basic stars as well, like Sirius or Orion, if I remembered it correctly.”

“I don’t recall hearing Miss Kara say that though.”

“Well,” Yuu explained, undeterred by Dauma and Anten’s interruptions, “there are many star constellations beyond the usual that I believe everyone would know. As for ones that are named after birds, there are a total of 9 of them.”

“9?”

“Yes, 9. Out of all of those, there is one that matches the description of the riddle itself. Corvus, named after the crow. In case you cannot see where it is, it is made out of four stars: Gamma Corvi, Delta Corvi, Epsilon Corvi and Beta Corvi, which form a quadrilateral shape together. And to tie everything up, the entire constellation, if you look at it from the correct angle, looks like a mountain. The ‘highest point’ in that case would be Delta Corvi, over there.”

“…”

Even though they still could not precisely see where it was due to the complete mess that was the starry sky, Anten was impressed.

“I have to say, that is some pretty useful knowledge there.”

“… I did have to study a lot when I was still alive. I just used what I learnt from all the books I read.”

“Still, I think it’s—”

“Can we hurry up?” Dauma rudely interrupted as he kept his gaze towards the sky, “Yuu, do you know where the ‘Delta’ star or whatever it’s called is? We probably have to go in its direction.”

“Dauma, she’s been more helpful about this whole thing than either of us. I think we should thank her.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’re running out of time.”

Anten and Yuu looked up at the sky again as soon as they heard his urgent reply.

“…”

True to his word, they were running out of time, as they watched the stars slowly begin to fade, and the sky began to look just a little brighter.

The night was ending, and the end of the third day was approaching.

**********************

“Run!”

“What do you think we’re doing?”

As soon as Yuu had pointed towards the direction of where the Delta Corvi star was facing, Dauma had immediately taken off, and they were now racing through the wasteland at high speed without any breaks.

Barely a few minutes into their journey, they had been forced to stop due to Yuu’s Reaper form overheating and disappearing, forcing her to cool down for a moment.

By the time she had recovered and was ready to move again, the stars had almost vanished into the emerging dawn. The time was now tighter than ever.

“Where do you think… it will end up?” Anten spoke out loud as she zipped through the air.

“Who knows? All we need to know is to go in that direction. That’s the best option we have right now anyway.”

As the sky grew even brighter, the three of them did not stop running. Even as they covered miles and miles, going past a few strange oddities, they ignored them completely and focused all their energy into going straight.

“Come on!”

However, as the first rays of sunlight peeked through the horizon, they had not stumbled into anything in their path. No mountain, no obstacle, and certainly no him. They were running through a complete stretch of empty wasteland.

“Dauma…”

“We have to make it. There has to be something.”

“Dauma!”

The three of them stopped at once. As much as they tried to race against it, the sun had finally appeared, rising into the sky with no hesitation or pause. The brightness of the light harshly beat down on them, almost like it was telling them that they were too late.

“It can’t be…” Dauma spoke with frustration as he finally accepted the truth.

Anten and Yuu were both quiet as they watched him look away, trying his best to avoid looking at the taunting sun as much as possible.

“We were too late… if only we had known about the stars earlier…”

Now that the third day had passed, there was no longer anything they could do but bemoan their loss and blame themselves.

“Dauma, I know this isn’t good, but we should move onto our main mission. We have to accept it,” Anten stepped forward and tried to convince him.

“Yeah, I know that. I wanted to talk with him, that’s all.”

“I want to as well, but—”

“There is no need to panic, devil. I am here.”

A familiar voice suddenly cut through her sentence. A voice that both Dauma and Anten quickly recognized even though they had only heard it once, or in Anten’s case, twice.

The three of them immediately turned to see the black raven perching on the ground in front of them. They had not heard or seen it approaching before they stopped, so its appearance was surprising on top of welcoming.

“It is you.”

Him, in the bird’s flesh. The ‘god’, that had supposedly sent Dauma and Anten down to do his work, had now shown up in front of them at last.

As they all heaved a sigh of relief, he opened his beak to speak to them again.

“Now, shall we begin our meeting?”