The sun is starting to rise, huh? Guess it’s about 6 am

Maia usually woke up around this time, so I had to at the very least tell her they wouldn’t be training today before she got ready to leave. I opened the front door and walked in, still careful as to not make too much noise. I looked around the living room and didn’t see anyone, but then I looked at the kitchen and as I thought, Maia was already there eating breakfast on her own.

“Good morning sweetie, what are you eating there?”

I had no intention of acting suspicious, nor was it hard. Making sure my movements and words were as casual as possible I went to the fridge and grabbed some water.

“Just some eggs I scrambled and some bacon, do u want some?”

“Nah, I’m good. They do look good though, at least you’re getting better at cooking”

Though when it comes to cleaning…

I thought as I looked at the sink that was somehow full of dirty dishes that weren’t there when I woke up Isolde, meaning all of those were used by her, though I had no idea how she could’ve had dirtied so many plates for a bunch of eggs and bacon, I didn’t question it.

“Where have you been? I checked to see if mom was awake but she’s also not home, even though it’s barely 6 am.”

“We were at Aldric’s place, Isolde is helping Lyanna cook up some food for you guys.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t it a bit early for that?”

I sat at the table before answering, still acting as casual as possible.

“You’re not training today. You’ll go camping with Lyanna, Lara and your siblings.”

“H-huh? I didn’t hear about any of this?!”

She quickly got up from her seat, visually shocked as she replied. Her reactions started to resemble mine a lot more, which made me kind of nostalgic about when she was still just a kid.

“That’s because it was a surprise, my dear daughter.”

Ugh… now I get how mom felt when she called me my dear son… I kinda like it.

I had also unintentionally matched mom’s smugly tone as I said it, and ironically enough, Maia had kind of a similar reaction to when I first got called something like that, being visually embarrassed and probably feeling an unreasonable sense of defeat for no reason at all.

“Why so suddenly anyways?”

“Did you forget how the twins were pestering us to take them out somewhere for the past 2 weeks?”

I sighed, since the idea of taking them camping wasn’t just to get them to a safe place. Those 2 had actually been pestering us almost non stop, and this was the perfect occasion to shut them up.

“Fine, fine. I’ll go wake up Cael and let him know before I wake and dress up the twins…”

“I’ll make breakfast for Cael and those 2, sorry we didn’t prepare clothes for them in advance haha, I can help you pack other stuff though.”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind. Cael aside since he can do everything on his own, they’re my dear younger siblings. It’s my duty and pleasure as the eldest to take care of them.”

… you sure have grown up, huh?

Maia’s expression as she expressed herself was genuine. I could feel that she genuinely did not mind it one bit. She has some rocky moments as a kid like the time they went to the river in the forest, but ever since, she’s been nothing but an Amazing Older sister, and I couldn’t be prouder.

I guess I’ll start by washing these…

I sighed, then started washing the dishes before finally making breakfast, and by the time I had finished cooking a bunch of eggs and bacon so the little ones wouldn’t complain Maia ate them but they didn’t, Cael had just come downstairs.

“Good morning buddy, slept well?”

He yawned once before answering as he approached the table and took a seat.

“Morning… I slept pretty well, Didn’t expect to go camping though.”

“Sorry about that buddy, it was a surprise for the little ones haha”

I could see that he didn’t fully believe that was all, and since he knew an attack would come eventually, he probably was starting to connect the dots, but there was generally no proof for that to be the case. The twins pestering us for the past 2 weeks wasn’t a secret, so I was hoping he’d just think we were silencing the twins and nothing more.

“Here you go. Did Maia wake the twins up already?”

He took some eggs from the plate I just gave him before he answered.

“Yeah, she’s dressing them up now, she told me to go ahead and eat first”

“That’s good, I’ll have their plates ready then”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I’ll eat after sending you off, I’m not that hungry right now”

Silence enveloped the room as he kept eating, and I just sat at the table drinking some coffee, and it was broken out by the twins as they came downstairs a few minutes later.

“Morning little ones, did you sleep well?”

Unlike Cael and Maia, both of them were grinning from ear to ear, and could barely stand still at the table as I gave them their food and favorite mugs with some orange juice in them.

“I slept well, daddy! I can’t wait to go already!”

“Me too, me too! I’m very excited to go!”

Usually unlike Nala, Rune was mostly silent, and just followed his older sister around. He’s a pretty shy kid, and it was pretty rare to see him this excited, which made me glad I chose to go along with this plan. Seeing both of the twins excited like that pumped me up even more, and it fueled my determination to not lose even if the attack did happen today.

Stolen novel; please report.

Both of them ate their food as fast as they could, and soon enough Maia came downstairs with a large backpack on her back. I washed the twins' favorite mugs, and packed them inside alongside some juice that they liked and we were out the house, meeting up with Lyanna, Lara and Isolde outside Aldric’s house.

“Is everyone ready?!”

Lyanna was holding Lara in her arms as she spoke, but Maia walked over and took her instead.

“The backpack isn’t heavy, and you already cooked for us, you can rest while I hold her.”

I could feel myself teasing up. Why? Because my daughter was a fucking Angel, that’s why! Seeing Maia being so responsible and noble hurt my fragile heart as I realized she probably didn’t need her father anymore.

“…”

“…”

All of them were silent for some reason, while I kept crying about it, but it was then Maia that spoke first.

“Dad…”

“Maia!”

I started running towards her to give her a hug, but when I got close enough, she punched me straight in the face, before talking again in a scarily cold tone, while keeping a gentle smile on.

“We’re outside, please keep your composure.”

She really does resemble her grandma…

I haven’t seen the cold tone + gentle smile combo in years, it was pretty nostalgic to me, but either wsys as I was still on the ground, Lyanna and the kids started marching on their way to the hills.

“You sure are soft when it comes to your kids, huh?”

“How could I not? My kids are angels, did you not see how Maia took your daughter in her arms to let your wife rest? Where’s my thank you, huh? You ungrateful piece of shit!”

“Alright, alright, thank you very much for your daughter helping Lyanna. But it’s time for us to get serious again, Bartholomew.”

I slowly got on my feet again, and this time without any goofiness.

“Isolde, you’ll patrol inside the village. Go around but don’t make it obvious, just act like you’re on a walk.”

“Got it.”

“Aldric, take a 2 kilometer radius and patrol that all around the village.”

“Alright.”

“I’ll patrol in the forest area and right outside the walls after I get my blade, you 2 go take your weapons and get on your way.”

We can’t afford to make mistakes. I’ll probably also do a larger radius of patrolling in between…

They both nodded, me and Isolde went back to our house to get our respective weapons which were my blade from adventuring times, a completely black blade made out of the horn of a Wyvern. And her magic staff which was enchanted with a mana boost spell. As soon as we did, we were out in a matter of seconds, and on our way.

By extending a thin layer of your mana in a specific area, though it’s a pretty annoying and hard technique to learn, you can actually see throughout that mana… more or less? There is a relative perimeter limit, which is only limited by your energy mastery and amount frankly speaking. We would do it for a few kilometers, but not enough to reach Lyanna. By closing your eyes and focusing your vision on where your mana is extended you can kinda see whatever is in that zone, but not really. Since everything in the world is made out of the same energy we call mana, when you use this technique you can kinda see or I guess other sources of mana, and their shapes, more or less allowing you to identify them. After you identify your target, it is possible, although hard, to send your thoughts to that target via mana, and that was what we did to communicate. (All 3 of us could keep our eyes open while doing it)

“Anything out of the ordinary there?”

“The city seems normal. Oh and the old lady that manages the store gave me a bunch of free cookies , they’re soooo gooood! Want me to leave some for you?”

“Sure… but make sure you don’t take too much free stuff, people always give you whatever they can whenever you go out…”

Isolde was particularly loved by everyone in the village, frankly speaking she was like a child always receiving stuff from relatives, though that wasn’t really the case.

“I’m about 5 kilometers around the village, at northwest ish, nothing wrong here. I’ll go towards the southwest next.”

“Alright, both of you make sure you let me know if anything happens.”

To stop the communication you kinda just stopped spreading your mana around, and since it was a thin layer, the average person wouldn’t even notice it which made it extremely convenient. Really, I mean very fucking convenient. Imagine having to explain to every single villager that it wasn’t the mana of some dangerous beast, but just us talking to each other… would be pretty inconvenient right? Anyways, back to being serious, we’ve been patrolling for about 5 hours at this point, and it was almost midday, but we weren’t going to stop yet. I had a feeling that something would happen today, and I wouldn't be able to calm down until the day passed by and nothing happened.

“When then, I can’t deny that this is pretty boring…”

So boring in fact that I started talking out loud to myself to fill in the silence. It was getting pretty sad, and ridiculous but we had to do it.

“Lyanna and the kids should be there by now, wonder if the twins are still excited after a few hours of walking, haha”

I started moving towards the north as I thought about my kids to relieve some boredom, and it worked well enough at the moment at least.

What am I even looking for anyways? I sent all 3 of us on patrol but I’ve no idea what we’re even searching for…

Maybe like a bunch of monsters on standby like an army? I don’t know, but I feel like Cael would've thought of something. The kid is probably smarter than all of us, but we couldn’t rely on him at the moment, so we just had to keep checking.

A few more hours passed, and by now it was only about 2 hours until sunset. Nothing particular had happened till then. since it was still summer that was pretty late… around 6 probably! I decided to go back to the village and told both Isolde and Aldric to meet me at the front gate.

“I guess it wasn’t today, huh? I’m so glad we didn’t evacuate the whole village for it…”

Aldric was right, it would’ve been pretty bad if we did it just for nothing to happen…

“Guess we were alarmed for nothing, also here’s a cookie for both of you, they’re so good!”

Both of us took one, and took a bite.

“Pretty good, you weren’t lying.”

“Of course she wasn’t you dumb fuck. My Isolde would never lie!”

As we were getting jokily heated over this matter, though there was also probably some seriousness here and there, it was Isolde that stopped us.

“Hey… am I the only one seeing that person over there?”

“Hm?”

We both turned our glare towards where her finger was pointed. Relative to the village’s banana shape, the main gate was at its south, and that was where we were, around 10 meters away from the gate. She pointed straight ahead, and about 500 meters in that direction, there seemed to be a person, though because of what seemed to be a fully black cloak, I couldn’t really see them.

“It is, I wonder why they’re just standing there? I guess there’s all kinds of weirdos around the world, huh?”

“Wait, Bartholomew… isn’t he?!”

It was then that it hit me. Same height, same figure, same cloak as the guy that appeared a year ago in the Queen of Nature’s transmission.

“Everyone, get the fuck out of here!”

I screamed as loud as I could, directed to anyone that was anywhere near us, and all 3 of us got in a fighting stance. Aldric shot an arrow towards him as I unsheathed my blade, and Isolde started casting some enchanting spells for both of us.

“Aldric, keep her near you!”

“Roger!”

I charged toward him, as fast as possible, but there was something wrong. Something terrifyingly wrong. The bastard wasn’t moving a single muscle?! I stopped my charge as I was about 100 meters away from him, and in an instant, he completely vanished. Where did he go? I looked around me at every single angle possible, and he wasn’t there. It was Aldric’s scream that notified me of where he was.

“Above! He’s above you!!”

I looked up, and he was in the sky, just standing there still. We knew from a year ago that he was a dude because of his face, but as he was standing above us in the sky, looking down on us as if we were ants, I couldn’t see his face. The only visible thing was his eyes. Both of them were glowing amidst the darkness of his face, and surprisingly enough they were glowing different colors. He was in front of me, so the order was reversed, but from my perspective, what I saw as his left eye was glowing green, and the other one was glowing blue.

“W-what the hell is that thing?!”

I went back till I was a few meters away from Aldric and Isolde, and we were both just looking up, since he wasn’t actually doing anything. It wasn’t just his eyes, or his weird behavior that were terrifying. Ever since we noticed him, we’ve all been feeling some mana so creepy that we had chills to our spines. It wasn’t an overwhelming type of mana, but it embodied fear inside your very bones. I don’t know how we were able to move, in all honesty.

What do we do now… this guy isn’t even attacking us, what is he even doi-

My eyes widened in terror before I could even finish my own thoughts. I felt, and saw it. From the point he was standing at the top of, he activated a spell?! What is this? But it didn’t take much to realize. A veil like thing started extending in a circular shape from where he was, and in a matter of a few seconds, it had completely enveloped not just the village, but the nature area for what seemed to be a perimeter of around 5 kilometers.

“You bastard! What is your probl-“

He was now only a few meters ahead of us. In a spit second, not giving me enough time to finish talking he had already come down and was just standing there.

“My bad, my bad haha, see even for the most skilled ones like myself, putting up a barrier of this size is a bit troublesome, you know?”

He spoke, but that only gave us even worse chills down our spine, the reason being painfully simple. His tone was so cheerful and casual at the same time as he spoke, it was beyond creepy.

“This barrier is an illusionary and sealing one, you see. Basically from the outside, it looks like everything is the same way it was before the barrier was activated, and that won’t change. The way it works is that it's a barrier placed in the spirit realm, therefore detecting it from our dimension is not possible. Or even if someone somehow manages to do so, it would take them a pretty long time, and nonetheless this should go without say, but only those who have my permission can get in and out!”

“I-in the spirit realm?! The average person can’t even stay there for longer than 10 minutes, even a recruit can barely stay in for a day at most! No one is allowed to do anything inside the spirit realm, let alone create a barrier in it?!”

How was this guy saying stuff like that so casually?! And why was it so… believable. I did try and counter back his explanation, but seeing the situation, there was no reason to doubt it. The spirit realm is parallel to ours, and exists on the same plane of existence as us, just on a higher dimensionality. No one has the authority to do anything other than speaking with spirits at most while in it, and in exchange our mana pools grow from the constant contact with higher dimensional space. But to say that he’s got any kind of authority in it is just insane.

“I guess that’s usually the case, so I won’t say you’re wrong… but the thing iiiisssss, that I’m different.”

What is this man talking about?!”

He then cheerfully clapped his hands, and stepped back about 300 meters, made a throne out of stone with earth magic, and sat down.

“It would be boring if I just killed you all myself, so let’s play a game!”

“A game?”

I looked at Aldric and Isolde trying to look for some kind of affirmation, and we were all thinking the same thing. We had no choice but to play along.