A metallic, whitish blue fork flips madly into the air.

After a few moments, gravity takes hold, and it begins falling once again.

With a slight ‘poof’ of moving air, an unseen force pushes it back up, causing it to dance on the wind again.

It falls again… rises again. Falls again… rises… barely half a centimetre before starting to fall again.

The element of randomness to this ki blast makes it incredibly difficult to do accurate movements with it. Especially since it requires so little to move me, so a difference of five points, let alone twenty, is a large increase in power.

But increasing the proficiency to rectify that problem requires me to use it, so here I am, flipping away.

Still, movement is a pleasant new experience. Even if it is a bit randomised.

…Better, but I want zero variation! I can’t trust RNG!

Well, back to it, I suppose.

…I seem to be stuck. I really should have guessed that I might fall tines-first. Let’s see… How about 20 ki?

I activate the skill again, and I’m propelled out of the hole and into the air again. And then…

My tines neatly slip back into the earth.

Well alrighty then!

I check my status briefly. Good timing, my mana is back to maximum. Activating form manipulation – self, I first bend most of my body flat to the ground, then draw my tines out of the ground. After that, I form myself into a ball.

A very small, wonky ball, but a ball nonetheless. Ha! Let’s see me get stuck into the ground like this!

…I fall into a crevice.

Well, whatever.

With the simultineous utilisation of a ki blast and absorb, I cut a path back to the surface, and another ki blast horizontally puts me out of the way of both hole and crevice.

Ki blasts in mid-air aren’t as effective motion-wise as ones from a solid surface, but they still work, albeit to a lesser degree.

I am currently around two kilometres out from the city. There’s nobody within my range of vision, and at this distance, it would be stranger if somebody does notice me than if they don’t. I am very small after all, and seeing something with a size measured in centimetres from a distance of over a kilometre would require some pretty serious visual acuity, not to mention luck.

Well, it’s not like people with abilities like that won’t exist in a world like this. I mean, look at me! Just 10 months old and I can do all this!

Alright, I may be a bit of a bad example, but you get my drift. There are always anomalies.

Ferdinand is off hunting nearby. I worry a bit when he doesn’t have me to make sure he doesn’t get KO’ed by some powerful monster that walks along, but there’s none of them around here. Besides, it’s not good for him to rely overly on my protection.

Not that I won’t rush over if something serious happens, of course.

I wonder, now that I can move, should I do some hunting of my own?

---

Days pass by with us leisurely training and hunting. It almost seems as if all the crazy events of the past week or two were a dream. Until…

---

(POV Richard)

I walk down a familiar hallway, old memories swirling to the surface of my mind through the thick haze of age. Despite all the friends and triumphs I had had here, my countenance is grim and unchanging.

I have come back to headquarters of the Empire’s navy for one purpose, and one purpose only: to find whatever it was that I saw that day.

It is doubtful they would have any intelligence on it precisely, but… I think back to the piles of corpses I saw in the hold of that ship. That many people don’t go missing without people noticing.

After asking a few old buddies, it turns out that the current head of the information department in the navy is a past student of mine.

Stepping up to his office, I rap my knuckles on the door.

I hear someone within the room getting up and walking to the door. It opens a moment later.

He looks at me quizzically for a second, then his eyes widen in recognition and he snaps to attention, saluting.

When I finally manage to recall his name, I open my mouth. “I’m an Admiral no longer, Harry. You don’t have to salute me.”

He relaxes, smiling abashedly. “It’s reflex by now… I can’t exactly stop doing it, sir. But rather than that, why have you come back?”

I sigh, and explain the bare minimum. “When I was fishing the other week, I came across another ship. It was filled with demons, monsters and… corpses.”

Harry tenses, looking furtively down the corridor. Seeing the complete lack of other people, he sighs briefly in relief and beckons me inside.

I step in, and he quickly closes the door behind me.

I frown. “Why all the secrecy?”

Harry sits down at the neatly arranged desk, hurriedly taking out a few documents. “If I’m right… This could involve some very powerful people. Do you remember that old abandoned mansion out west?”

I think for a moment, then just give up. “No.”

He frowns. “The Sylgrave family mansion, thought to be haunted for almost a century… Anyway, someone recently bought up the land and paid for priests to come out and purify the whole place. A couple of months later, our contacts in the underworld tell us the same person has bought up almost the whole slave supply.”

How bizarre… something like that would take a hefty chunk out of anyone’s coffers.

Gulping, he says, “That’s the only thing we know that could account for such a large number of people going missing.”

“Give me a map that shows where that mansion is.” I say flatly.

He hesitates, then takes a piece of paper out of the drawer of his desk, handing it to me. “If anyone asks, I didn’t say anything.” He says, in a similar tone.

“Sure.” It shows enough detail of the surrounding area for me to find it, so I stand and turn to leave.

“Sir.”

I turn back to him.

He sits there opening and closing his mouth for a few seconds, but doesn’t say anything. Finally, Harry gathers himself and says, “Just… be careful, sir.”

With a slight nod, I leave.

---

After Richard leaves, Harry closes the door behind him and slowly sinks into his chair. He looks down at his hands.

They are trembling violently.

He tries grasping the desk, taking a swig from a flask of wine. Nothing works.

“They never told me it would be you…” he mumbles, holding his head in his hands.

For the first time in his life, Harry finds himself wishing he had disobeyed orders.

“Damn it!” He swears, rushing up to the door and opening it again; but Richard has already left.

Closing the door, he quietly takes out his flask again, taking several long drinks from it. In all likelihood, he won’t be able to sleep tonight.

Shuffling some papers around, he looks at a document hidden under all the rest.

Orders from the top brass, not that you would know: the page is unmarked and unsigned.

It was strange when he first saw it, and stranger still when he looks at it now. It states simply, that if anyone were to come to him, inquiring of missing people, demons, monsters or monitored vessels, he must describe to them the points outlined; namely, that of the old mansion being bought and purified recently, and the purchase of large sums of slaves by the same person. He must then provide them with the map attached, and should thereafter in no manner disclose this information to any other party.

The situation outlined by the orders is ridiculous in and of itself. After all, if someone wanted information, would they not ask one of his many subordinates first? Not just anyone could walk in the door to his office unannounced. In fact, only his superiors and a few old friends could…

The realisation strikes him heavier than a whale. It wasn’t just that Richard happened to be the one asking. No, the entire situation was created so that he would be the only one who could ask…

Following that path of thought to its conclusion makes him break out in a cold sweat.

Harry quaffs more wine from his flask, emptying it completely. He definitely isn’t getting any sleep tonight.

---

Meanwhile, Richard is overlooking the land from the top of a rocky cliff, comparing the prominent landscape features to the map.

Having reconfirmed the direction he has to take, he makes his way down the cliff again. In his younger days, he might have just jumped down.

But his age is catching up to him, and wasting energy now would be simply foolish.

Normally, even walking around would cause a dull pain to radiate from his bones. But not today. His fighting spirit has been steadily increasing since the moment he left the navy headquarters, and it causes the pain to become meaningless, forgotten amidst the anticipation of battle.

So, he walks. And walks. For hours he walks, stopping only to check the map, eat and drink. When the run-down mansion is finally in sight, the sun has already begun to set on the horizon, and night is swiftly approaching.

Caution struggles internally against the thrill of fighting spirit coursing through him, as well as the intense desire to find out precisely who, or what, it was that had taken on the appearance of his late son.

Caution prevails. There are many beings of evil that grow in strength at night, and he already knows demons are involved. On land, he is already bereft of the advantages provided to him at sea. Why disadvantage himself further?

Richard settles himself down on a stone, keeping a vigil watch on the property.

If anything escapes during the night, he doesn’t know if he will be able to forgive himself. Not when he is so close.

The last vestiges of the sun slip over the horizon, and the world is blanketed with darkness once more.

Stars speckle the night sky, interrupted occasionally by dark clouds. A common sight for any of this world’s denizens, no doubt. But were Gerald able to see this, he would be startled – and very, very confused.

For where earth’s night sky has innumerable stars of all different colours and brightness populating it, Odwia’s skyline is vastly different. While there are still many stars in the sky, they number in the hundreds, not thousands. But stranger still is that every star has the same colour, the same size, and the vast majority of them have the same brightness, with some few numbering in the lower tens outclassing the splendour of the rest by an order of magnitude.

But perhaps strangest of all is that each star, if one looks closely enough, has a specific shape. Indeed, there is one shaped like a sword, another like a bow, yet another like an anvil.

Nevertheless, Richard does not seem astounded by the irregular vista, remaining on the lookout unblinkingly.

Time wears on beneath his patient gaze, and fatigue begins to tug at him gently, enticing Richard into a sweet sleep. Only the steady burn of fighting spirit coursing through him even now keeps him awake.

Teroc, ponderously tracing his way across the sky, eventually reaches the peak of his orbit.

It is at this moment that Richard’s eyes gleam, standing almost instantly while his hand shoots towards the harpoon holstered on his back.

A silhouette exits from the dilapidated mansion’s front entrance, walking leisurely towards Richard.

One hand still on his harpoon, the other moves towards a pouch at his side, drawing from it a vial of translucent colourless liquid. Without taking his eyes from the advancing figure, he pops the cork and downs the contents in a single gulp.

After a moment, Richard’s eyes begin to glow so softly that it would be impossible to notice in daylight. In the darkness, however, they emit a mystical brightness.

Any alchemist worth their salts can concoct a night vision potion – provided they have the ingredients – but the huge demand by adventurers, guards, thieves and many others keeps the price high nonetheless.

If you can’t see in the dark, such things are indispensable.

Richard’s eyes sharpen, focusing on the figure.

It’s him again. His body is concealed by a voluminous cloak, but the face is unmistakable.

Richard hates everything about this situation. He is going in completely blind – metaphorically speaking. He doesn’t know his enemy’s fighting capabilities, he doesn’t know if they have allies in hiding – hell, he doesn’t know what his enemies are.

The ground is completely bare, without a single blade of grass covering its baldness. The dry ground grates against his boots as he calmly takes a stance, taking care that his every muscle and tendon are exactly as they should be.

It is silent. Completely, unnaturally so. The only sound for miles around are the slowly approaching footsteps of the imposter and the steady breaths of Richard as he composes himself for the inevitable conflict.

A small circle of dust is stained a dark brown with a sound softer than that of a feather landing. The spot is joined by another, just a step away. Then another. Then thousands, as the rain begin in earnest.

Richard doesn’t flinch at the moisture coursing down his body. If anything, he welcomes its touch as an old friend. Water holds no secrets to the long-time man of the sea, and it does not hinder him in the slightest.

The two grow closer. Two hundred metres. Then one hundred. Eighty. Fifty. Thirty. Twenty.

Again, Richard’s hand shoots down to his pouch, then forward, sending four shapes streaking out towards his opponent.

With a flash and a series of dings, the imposter skilfully deflects the projectiles, a spear held relaxedly in his hands.

“Is that how you treated your son? How terrible.” He drawls, his voice smothered heavily by the roaring downpour.

Richard hears it clear as day. He says softly, “What are you?”, as much a question as it is a probe of his opponent’s abilities.

The imposter raises his hands to shoulder height either side of him, shrugging and shaking his head as his spear lolls dangerously in his grip. “Now that would be telling… suffice to say, I’m not your son.” He looked Richard in the eye, smiling. “But you wouldn’t believe me even if I said I was, would you?”

Richard doesn’t reply, but neither does he break eye contact. His hand moves yet again to his pouch.

“This again?” the imposter laughs as he readies himself for combat.

Richard tosses out another string of blades.

“So slo-”

With a slight tremble, Richard disappears from where he was standing, momentarily leaving a space void of rain.

He reappears behind the imposter, sending a flurry of stabs towards him. Almost contemptuously, the imposter deflects each strike with a twirl of his own spear, smiling gloatingly as he brushes the last one aside.

An instant later, his smile freezes and he quickly dodges to the side.

Frowning, he picks out a dagger from where it is lodged on his back. “Clever… but it won’t do you any good.” Shedding his cloak, he reveals a set of black leathery armour that hugs his body. Flames flicker in and out of existence all along the surface of it, creating a constant hiss as it contests against the rain. “Do you like it? I personally killed the nightmare this was made from…”

Then they are at it again, whirling in a storm of thrusts and slashes. Their feet, moving almost as fast as their weapons, send water flying from the puddles on the ground as they shuffle about, each trying to get an advantage over the other.

Richard’s eyes widen slightly, then become even more determined as he utilises a heavy kick to blow the imposter backwards. He is unharmed, but he skids backwards over a dozen metres on the slippery soil.

In the meantime, Richard quickly accesses his pouch again, drawing from it vial after vial of coloured liquid, each of which he downs with careful haste. Some he drinks simultaneously, tossing the empty vials aside.

Potions of strength, swiftness, toughness, mental clarity, wisdom, even luck. And rarer, more expensive ones. Resist curse, resist poison, increase recovery, stamina recovery, restore stamina…

He barely downs the last one when the imposter darts in with another attack. Tossing the last few vials at his face, he shatters them with a backhand strike, sending glassy shrapnel flying.

Leaning to one side to avoid the cloud of projectiles, the imposter stabs towards Richard’s stomach, but a hurried twist of the harpoon by Richard deflects it. But not enough. The sharp spearhead pierces through the air towards Richard’s side, but after cutting through his clothes, it skids across into empty air.

Caught in Richard’s shirt, the spear tears a gaping hole in the coarse fabric as it returns to his side, revealing a scaly armour beneath it.

“Do you like it?” Richard grins savagely. “I personally killed the giant sea serpent this was made from…”

The imposter curses. “Bastard, how about we get serious now?”

Richard’s eyes narrow. “Gladly. Try not to die too quickly, if you can.”

Both jumping back from the melee, both of Richard’s hands dip into his pouch while the imposter tenses, a bloody aura leaking from his body and condensing upon his weapon, painting it crimson.

The imposter leaps back into battle soon after, and Richard’s hands return from the pouch, now garbed in a pair of scaled gloves. Spreading his hands to the sky, ten glints of light fly out.

The airborne harpoon tilts in mid-air, shooting towards the imposter. He slams it away, but it curves back around.

Eyes widening in desperation, the impostor jumps backwards in a graceful arc, landing on his hands and flipping backwards again onto his feet. The harpoon embeds itself in the ground, a wire uncoiling from its haft.

“You’re bloody joking.”

Ten wires arc towards him through the air, cutting off all paths of escape. Gritting his teeth, the imposter emits a burst of ki, blasting the wires backwards.

But a moment later, they correct their courses once more, streaming towards him uncannily. Unable to repeat the burst so quickly, all he can do is dash to one side, warding off what few he can with his spear.

The imposter feels a light impact, as if something hit his armour. Then he suddenly feels as if he is hit with a hammer, and something digs through his armour and into his skin.

Yanking it out, he looks incredulously at it for a moment. A fishing hook?

Then the hook slips through his grasp, flying at his face. Hurriedly, he lets go of the sharp wire now slicing across his armoured palm and dodges to the best of his ability. The hook misses him but turns yet again to hook into the back of his neck.

Another impact leaves it embedded there, causing the imposter to gasp for breath before again creating a burst of ki which expels it from his body and repels the other nine wires almost upon him.

Desperate to close the gap, the imposter sprints towards him.

Strangely, although he has not moved a step, Richard is breathing heavily as he manipulates the wires streaming from his fingertips to twist in the air again and form a wall of wires in front of him.

Eager to decrease Richard’s fighting ability, the imposter slashes at a wire with his blood-red spear. That particular wire suddenly loses its mysterious flight capabilities, falling to the ground and rendering his strike completely ineffective.

The remaining wires close in on his position yet again, him seeming completely helpless before their impossible range of movement. Just as they are about to latch on to the imposter and slice him into ribbons, hundreds of bones rise from the ground to create a barrier in front of him.

A moment later, a horde of skeletons emerge from the mud behind Richard. Wielding nothing but rusted swords, they are of little danger individually, but in numbers they can be a threat to those much stronger than them.

Suddenly forced to split his attention between two directions, the effective battle power Richard can exert in either direction is less than half the strength he could originally.

One hand points forward, one back, and the wires whip around the horde of skeletons, scattering thousands of bone fragments to the wind and covering the ground there in white.

On the other side, the imposter is fending off the five wires attacking him as he moves slowly towards Richard.

A series of bone spears flies towards Richard. His attention on so many different things, Richard is barely able to avoid the bolts, and for a moment his wires start falling from the air before they again lash towards his many opponents.

Within the skeleton army, two dark shapes rise from the ground. Snorting, steam rises from the nostrils of two dark horses, the stench of death surrounding them despite their apparent life. Upon each of them is seated an armoured warrior, wielding in one hand a large sword and the other holding aloft their severed heads.

They charge towards Richard without a care for whether it is mud or their fellow skeletons that is crushed beneath their hooves.

Pressured more with every passing second, he has no choice but to take a risk. With an explosion of steam and air, one wire slashes out with blinding speed towards the skeletal foes. Bisecting every skeleton in its path, the wire swiftly reaches the two dullahans.

The first raises its blade in an attempt to block, but the wire cuts straight through the sword, the dullahan itself and its steed in one fell motion, before continuing on to the next dullahan.

It also raises its blade, and this time it looks as if it is successful – the wire cuts through half of the width of the weapon, then moves no further.

But in another rush of motion, the wire starts moving again, cutting though the second dullahan as well.

Richard’s mouth curves into an exhausted smile.

Then his face freezes, and he looks clumsily down to see the spear protruding from his stomach. His face distorts in pain.

Roaring, he clenches his teeth, making perhaps his final movement. Still impaled by the spear, he reaches down to his pouch – and upends it completely.

Clothes, food and various items spill out of the opening endlessly without any regard for the laws of space. Potions also fall out, tens upon tens of potions kept for a rainy day.

With his final breath, Richard steps on the vials, crushing them and causing their contents to mix uncontrollably.

“Oh…” The imposter doesn’t even wait to finish his words before rushing backwards as the alchemical mix starts pulsing with light, exploding in a massive green fireball.

After the initial detonation, the fire keeps burning on the ground, unrelenting even under the heavy rain and without fuel to feed the blaze.

The imposter slowly gets up from the mud where he was thrown by the blast. His face is a horrific mess of burnt flesh, and even some parts of his armour don’t escape unscathed.

Taking off his armour piece by piece, he reaches into his garments, fetching a vial of red liquid. Downing it, he grimaces as the liquid traces across the scorched flesh of his lips and throat.

His lesser wounds heal, and he stops bleeding, but his face is still torturously painful. He downs another, then, having used up all his healing potions, yells out.

“Old man, do you have any healing potions on you!?”

“Of course not. Don’t you know they only hurt the undead?”

The voice comes from a cloaked figure wielding a tall wooden staff that looks as if it has been burned black.

“And why the hell didn’t you help more!?” The imposter screams.

The cloaked man says amiably, “Every skeleton that dies is a terrible loss to me, you know. It will take a while to train some new dullahans.”

The imposter sneers at the cloaked man, the expression almost the stuff of nightmares due to the partially formed, partially burned skin on his face. “Yeah right. You just wanted me to die, so you could take all the credit!”

The cloaked man chuckles happily as the pouring rain washed away the last vestiges of blood and ash, and all that is left of the battlefield is a single harpoon stuck in the ground.

---

(POV Gerald)

Until one day, two weeks after the events on the ship, one of the members of Richard’s crew bumps into Ferdinand as he makes his way through the city.

They start chatting, and eventually he breaks the bad news.

Their ship’s crew has a few magic casters, and one of them had given the captain a notebook before he left. The notebook was magically linked to his own, so they could exchange messages across great distances.

The notebook had spontaneously turned to ash the other day, which means that Richard…

“I suppose that you’ll want to find out who did this?” I ask Ferdinand telepathically.

He looks somewhat despondent, but I can tell that he’ll be able to come back from this.

“Yes, yes I will. He was an old friend of mine, and a much higher level than me… I can’t imagine who could have…” He pauses for a moment. “But even if we could find who did it, there’s nothing we could do.”

I shrug internally. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. I think it’s time to get serious in my training.”

“Training all day, every day isn’t serious!?!” He retorts.

Indeed. It’s time to stop treating this system like a game’s.

---