145 – Talks

“…I might.” The girl said in a small voice. “But I would like to have some more time to think about it, Sir. That I do.”

Albert smiled. “Oh? And why would that be? Are you on the cusp of something?”

“It’s strange. Hard to explain… that it is…” she trailed off. Her eyes looked lost in the distance for a moment before refocusing. “But I do feel like I am. Like I might unlock something if I delve deep enough in the magic.”

Albert nodded. If the girl could sense magic already, then she was much more talented than he thought her to be. For now, he would let her do her thing, but he did plan to scan her quite thoroughly once he had the time for it.

“Well then, here’s your book. Come to me once you are ready for the next step.”

She accepted the book with a smile on her face, and went back to her place by the fire. There was a hunger in her eyes as she sat down and meditated that made Albert quite proud. Not only that, but he was sensing that the magic of the world, Doom included, seemed to respond to her eagerness in kind. Perhaps, he mused, he wouldn’t have to unlock her class himself after all. She seemed on the right path already.

As for the book, the new description was much better than the old one, making the expense of a couple of cores to fuel the upgrade very much worth it.

***

“Alright listen.” Albert said. Morning had come and the trio was sitting around the embers of the fire, each eating what was left of their breakfast. “Now that you two are all fixed up, it’s time I share the next parts of the plan with you. When we first emerged from the cave I caught a whiff of a particular magic I remember from long ago, and I got confirmation that whatever artifact is generating it ought to be around here when I saw that someone was controlling the Lithoids.

“At least the artifact and its wielder were here until it all went to shit in the battle outside Bastion. Now? Who knows. But it’s imperative that we investigate. This artifact is called Kirkesis Core, and without it we literally cannot proceed.”

“What happens after you find it?” Lina asked.

Albert noticed that Scrappy was listening intently but was not asking questions.

“Simple. After I, no, we find it, it’s time to move onto the actual escape plan. You might have noticed that everything is going to shit around here, and it’s all due to a buildup in Doom energy. Now, I might be powerful, but not even I am powerful enough to undo all this damage. Plus, assuming I manage to stop whatever is happening here, I have this suspicion that it won’t be enough.”

“No?” Lina’s voice was trembling, yet there was a hint of disbelief in there too.

“No. This energy that’s building up, I have an idea where it’s coming from: the Lithoid home dimension.”

“How do you know?” She asked, her voice steadier and her gaze piercing.

“Well, I guess I owe you a more thorough explanation. I come from the past. Like, thousands of years in the past. There was a technological civilization back then, with no magic whatsoever. Or so it seemed at the time. Turns out there was some magic, but it was so faint and the mana so thin that for most of the population it was something only talked about in books and stories. Then something happened, and the world ended.”

“These… Lithoids you mentioned?”

“Bingo. They began invading, sending wave after wave to conquer this planet. Bringing with them, Doom.”

“But they were stopped, weren’t they?” She said. “I mean, I have seen them for the first time in my life the other day outside Bastion when you showed me, but never before.”

Albert hummed. There had been some Lithoids milling around the shielded city of Sitea, but that was a whole continent away.

“Yes, they were stopped, but at great cost. We had a device we could use to cut them out of our plane of existence, at least for a time and in a localized area of space. But the cost was the total destruction of our old society. That’s how I speculate this world came to be, from the ashes of the old one. There are still mysteries of course. Where did all this mana come from? I have a theory that more mana is generated when sentient beings use mana, but… if that’s the case where did it come from in the first place? Another mystery would be: why are the Lithoids back? Or rather, how? How is Sitea still standing?”

“What’s Sitea?”

Albert felt a headache coming.

“Sitea is an old city we built in the last stages of the war. Or so I presume. I was long gone by the time it got built, but there were plans to build it before I left. From what I gather, Sitea survived the end of civilization, and it kept doing whatever it was doing to keep the Doom energies in check. Until I touched its shield. That’s when this whole buildup process began. Now, the plan. I need to retrieve the Kirkesis Core, and once we find we must make out way back to Sitea. I… I’m not really sure about the details, but there should be a device there to end the Lithoids once and for all. Two problems: first one is that Sitea is in North America while we are in Europe. Or the modern equivalent. Second? Well, what’s the point in destroying the Lithoids if the world’s gone to shit?”

“If we—"

He held up a finger to cut her off. “I’m not even talking about the Doom buildup, although that’s a legitimate concern. Lina, you see, I don’t care about the world here and now. This is not my home. This is not my world. I don’t care about saving it. I know it’s not a good thing to say, but… the device was made to save the old world, and that’s what I am going to use it for. I’ll find a way to go back to the past, even if doing so will change the timeline and effectively destroy this version of the present.”

“I see. Will you take us with you?”

Interesting that she would ask such a question without arguing. “Of course.”

“Then it’s no problem.” She said immediately.

“Really? I was expecting more resistance.”

“Why?” She got up and started to pace until her gaze landed on Scrappy. “I am a fugitive and Scrappy… I don’t know what the deal is with her, but she doesn’t seem very attached to this place either. If you can guarantee us a place in the past or whatever, then I guess there’s nothing to worry about. If anything, I can watch this world go to shit without wondering if there will even be a world for me to live in the end.”

“Huh… interesting.” Albert said, stroking his stubble. It itched. “Very interesting. Well then. The plan has many holes for now, namely: how do we get to Sitea in the time we have, and how do we travel to the past? I have ideas, of course, some riskier than others, but it’s no use worrying now. In fact, I might soon grow strong enough to make some if not all our problems a moot point, but it’s better to have a plan B in case it doesn’t happen.”

“Right. The first thing we need to do, then, is find this Core? Right?”

“Right. Assuming it’s even here. It’s not guaranteed, in fact I would have expected it to be in America for a bunch of reasons.” The most important being that he was dumped over there by the System after he left the void island and given the task to locate the core, but he didn’t say it. It wasn’t a strong enough piece of evidence and he didn’t want to have to explain the system to them either. “But since we are here and I am still working on the problem of transportation, we might just as well have a look around.”

“Only one question.”

“Just the one? You surprise me.”

“I have many. But there’s one that seems the most pressing: how much time we have?”

“Oh right! We have 38 weeks before the world goes to shit so bad we won’t be able to leave anymore.”

“Not too bad.” Lina nodded with a satisfied expression.

Albert immediately decided to rectify that.

“It does seem like a lot of time. For now. But remember: we need to find a magic item we have no clue about, we need to travel half the world, then we need to break through an impenetrable shield into a fortress city rumored to be infested by ghosts and demons, figure out the weapon to destroy the Lithoids, and then find a way to return to the past to before the Lithoids forced us to use the Cutter – that’s the name of the device that ended my civilization by the way. Oh, and I forgot to tell you about the S-ranked guild master who wants me dead so bad he allied himself with the… elves. Wait a min—”

Suddenly Lina stopped pacing and yelled, interrupting Albert in his rambling. “What?”

Albert shook his head. An idea occurred to him and he didn’t want to be distracted. “No, no. Wait.”

“I am not waiting.” Lina stomped towards him. “What do you mean the S-ranked Guild Master!”

But Albert was not listening. “The Elves! Erebus! I’m a genius! I don’t know where we are on the planet right now, but I know the general direction of that planet! And I know there is an open gateway somewhere on Earth leading there! If we can hijack the teleportation to join the main stream from a temporary branch created here, we should end up pretty close to Elvenhome. From there we can use the actual portal through the Iperborea tree back to Earth and end up riiiiiight… where? Should be close enough to Sitea, no? Actually, last time I used it I ended up in the Void Isle, but I assume that my mother should have stabilized it and rerouted it… perhaps even to Sitea itself!” he trailed off, thoughts coming at him faster than words. He was vaguely aware that Lina was screaming bloody murder at him, but he could not care less in the moment.

“Albert! Albert!”

Albert returned to himself.

“Explain! Now!”

“Right, right. Sorry. Nothing to worry about right now. I still need to figure it out myself, but we might have a pretty significant shortcut. I’ll explain more once we get to it, okay?”

“You better. I’m not crossing a portal leading who-knows-where.”

“You should.” Scrappy said.

Both turned to her. She hadn’t spoken at all until now.

“You should, Lina.” She repeated. “You either trust Albert or you don’t.”

Lina’s cheeks flushed. “Right. But he should tell us regardless!”

“Of course. I will. Now, we better start searching for this damn Core. If it’s not here, then I don’t want to have wasted more time than strictly necessary.”