CHAPTER 15: MAPPING YARIAN

It was now the 16th of Vyak—according to Myrin, at least. The time had struck midnight and they were now set for their journey to Yadria. After dispatching the headless ogre, Tina casually went back to packing her things, much to the shock of Soren. Though, he couldn’t stand there in awe for too long as she nagged him to come help her load everything into the carriage.

At the very least, he was given a new set of clothes from the spares they had on them—a linen shirt and black trousers and a waist-length cloak to shield himself from any possible rain. The ones he had arrived in Yarian in were too tattered to be worn any longer. Though, the real reason had to be that they smelled really bad—Tina wasted no time driving that point home.

What he was most grateful for, however, had to be the new pair of leather boots which Myrin had fictionally created using his Soul Weapon. His feet had already developed blisters, but Myrin’s healing magecraft took care of it for the most part.

After finishing his chores, Soren approached Myrin who was standing in front of the monster—Tina's victim, still tied up. Although he was scared to approach it, Myrin had already told him that he had cast a sleep spell on the creature.

“Ah! Soren, you’re here! Seems that damn witch finally let you go.”

Soren glanced over at his attire—a white wizard’s cone hat paired with a robe. Aren’t you the witch here?

Hiding his thoughts (unsuccessfully), he smiled back at him. “So, have you decided? Are you taking this one?”

Myrin simply nodded. “Yes. It's a bit ugly, but Tyrel is right. This Spirit Beast will do well as a carriage puller.”

He watched as Myrin pulled out his Soul Weapon again. This time, however, the silver glowing stick had morphed back into a flute rather than a brush. He gracefully moved it to his mouth and played a soothing tune. Soren resisted the urge to lie down on the cyan grass as he watched Myrin glowing in the ethereal light of his own music. It was as if the sleeping twilight forest had risen back up to join in the symphony.

The tied-up ogre awoke from its slumber—its eye now staring calmly toward Myrin.

“Success,” he smiled. Myrin walked over to the creature and untied it. It slowly stood up and followed behind him toward the carriage.

Soren stood there, shocked. These fuckers are all dangerous. I'm glad I complied quickly… The thought of having Tina or Myrin becoming his enemy made him shudder. He thought about it a bit more—Tyrel would probably be a worse enemy. He still hadn’t figured out how he fights, but it most certainly was dangerous.

Soren glanced up—Tyrel was sitting on a branch eating his food alone. He was hiding his face under his hood just out of sight from Soren. “Tyrel, we’re about to leave.”

He silently nodded at Soren. What’s up with him? Other than a few words, Soren had noticed that Tyrel rarely spoke. In fact, he almost always kept to himself. It wasn’t entirely antagonistic, but it did make the atmosphere awkward every time they were alone.

Sighing, he returned to the carriage to find Tina snuggled inside, sleeping. Myrin on the other hand was sitting out in front, commanding the ogre to pull the carriage. Soren walked over and sat next to him—he had already taken a nap before, and he was still needed for navigating the illusionary barrier blocking their way to Yadria.

“Say, you haven’t exactly told me what this barrier is… I've been in the forest for a bit now, but I still haven’t noticed it.”

“It's illusionary for a reason,” he chuckled. “Although it is unseen, the barrier is actually covering the entire Feylith forest—we just can’t notice it. The moment any wanderer has the intention of entering Yadria, the barrier will sense it and thwart their advance.”

“Thwart their advance? How exactly?”

Myrin cleaned his flute with a handkerchief. “Confusion. It will create illusions, making people go in circles. You could be heading straight toward Yadria forever and still never reach it. Some fools a few years ago tried to map out a direction straight from Cinta city toward Yadria and invoked magecraft that would erase their memories the moment they entered the forest to elude the barrier’s senses.”

Soren crossed his arms, “Did it work?”

“Nope,” he chuckled. “Even without their memories, the mere desire to head in the same direction as Yadria was detected and the barrier was activated for them.

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“Because of their memory loss, they didn’t know where they were headed but were instructed to go in that direction regardless—they were stranded in a loop for a whole month, heh.”

“... So how exactly am I supposed to fool this barrier? I know you said that my [Eyes of the Fairy] ability can see into the beyond, but when I was using it earlier, I didn’t notice the barrier at all. Didn’t you say the barrier covers the entire forest?”

Myrin rubbed his chin. “I am not exactly sure, but didn’t you say that your ability only works by hyper-focusing on one aspect that you are looking for while ignoring everything else?”

Soren nodded. “Yes, I get tunnel vision when I use that ability. To the point of not being able to tell time itself in some cases.”

“Indeed, the beyond is not a simple thing to look at or perceive. Your ability is rare even when it comes to abstract class Soul Weapons. It makes sense why it would have such a harsh drawback. Though, I do believe it will improve over time—you just need to get used to it.”

Soren thought for a second before responding. “Alright, let me try it now.”

With The Records sitting on his lap, Soren’s thoughts activated [Eyes of the Fairy]. The ancient tome came to life—glowing in radiant gold. The shimmering pages broke apart into tiny butterflies that swam into his eyes. Soren felt his vision shifting as abstract shapes and fractals flooded the scene.

The barrier. I need to see the barrier. He thought to himself. His eyes dilated even more as his focus enhanced on what he desired most. To see the unseen. And within the unseen were tiny strings dotting the fractal flooded forest like a spiderweb.

“I-I can see it… The barrier.”

Myrin smirked. “Praise the blossoms. Now try and focus your sight on seeing Yadria itself. Can you tell what direction it’s in?”

“West of where we are currently…” Soren could see a thread of light weaving in between the barrier’s strings.

Just as he had said that, his ability deactivated itself from stress. Soren lowered his head in pain—rubbing his temples. “Ugh!”

“Take it slow. At least we know where Yadria is now. Your Soul Weapon can display information right? Use [Record].”

Soren quickly listened to him. The fountain pen manifested itself and swiftly wrote down what Soren had just learned.

Event Log

New Entry Recorded: [Yadria’s Illusionary Barrier] (Mystery)

New Location Recorded: Yadria (Incomplete)

New Location Recorded: Feylith Forest (Incomplete)

Soren glanced over the new recorded information. Incomplete? It confused him for a second but he instantly recalled the fact that his usage of [Eyes of the Fairy] only lasted for a bit. There was no way he was going to [Record] the entirety of the Feylith forest with just that.

Rubbing away the pain, Soren dizzily looked over at Myrin. “It has recorded the information I saw with my eyes. Let me share it with you.

The pages shifted according to his thoughts. They then unfolded into an incomplete map called “Yarian”. Soren and Myrin looked over the image being displayed—they both smirked.

“Interesting…” They both said in unison.

“I didn’t think my Soul Weapon had this kind of capability.”

“Indeed… Though, this is not what Yarian looks like fully. It’s incomplete.” And he was right. Only a small portion of what looks to be a massive land mass was drawn on the map. A small icon was present that represented their current position, and another illustration of a castle with a sub-heading of “Yadria” was located to the west of their present location—far beyond what the map had drawn for the land mass, surrounded by well painted fog. According to Myrin, it was heavily zoomed in as well—Yarian’s borders were much bigger than what it was currently showing them. It seemed that he would need to keep using [Eyes of the Fairy] to map out the rest of the way toward Yadria.

This is basically like having my own form of GPS… He looked over at Myrin who was still amused and smiled. “Now that this has worked, let's see if it will change if I instruct it to show us how to navigate across the barrier.”

Replying to his thoughts, the map automatically shifted. A golden glowing line manifested itself on the map, leading them across the forest toward Yadria. Though, the further away from their position it got, the more faint and hard to understand the directions became.

“I see,” Myrin said. “It seems you’ll have to continuously activate [Eyes of the Fairy] to update the navigation path. And based on my understanding of the illusory barrier from the books I’ve read prior to taking this journey, it has the ability to warp and change constantly, so what we are currently navigating could turn out to be the wrong information an hour from now.”

Soren glanced over the page titled [Yadria’s Illusionary Barrier]. The information pretty much confirmed Myrin’s hypothesis.

“Alright, so I guess we should get going now?”

Myrin nodded. “Yes, but before that, I should probably create a roadway for our carriage to move in.”

With a look of both confusion and curiosity, Soren decided to just stay silent and await whatever Myrin was planning. How the hell will he create a road in this mangled forest? Maybe he’ll command the headless ogre to break the branches blocking our way?

Myrin pulled out his flute once more. The tune this time was different. Unlike the previously soothing ones, the current melody he was playing was much more visceral. It sounded similar to a banshee’s screams—his ears were close to rupturing. Soren covered them and grit his teeth. “What the fuck?!”

Myrin ignored him and continued playing. All of a sudden, the once chaotic treeline began to rattle—the branches shifted on their own, morphing to form a path. It was as if nature itself was begging Myrin to stop playing his flute.

He glanced over at Soren who had almost turned deaf and smiled. “See? I told you I'll be able to make us a road!”