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Regardless of how much mundane scientists search, they will never find their Theory of Everything. The forces that we struggle against are the active proof of that. They create and destroy energies and concepts just as you and I eat and drink. Only a few energies are inextricably linked to Order and Chaos. First, Entropy and Dark Energy, being the direct expression of Order and Chaos respectively. (Refer to section 2.3 for more information.) Second, Mana. The beginning of all life and the lifeblood of the planet we protect. (ref. 3.3) Third, Soulforce. The fuel of life and final gift of the Myths. (ref. 3.4) -Excerpt from Volume 2 of the Lighthouse Guidebook |
Time: ??????
Location: ??????
The girl could smell blood in the air. A rusty, metallic scent, but tinged with a nauseating spice. Not human. She thought.
She opened up the semitransparent, floating interface of the Order that had chosen her mere days ago and checked the information of the quest she was given, staring at a screen only visible to her.
"Psst, do you think she's ok? She's been staring off into space for like, five minutes now."
"Oh shut the hell up, Leo, it hasn't even been 30 seconds. And you know you just gave away our position, right? Why the hell anyone ever thought it was a good idea to give you missions that require stealth is beyond me."
"Hey! Rambo-style stealth is a valid tactic! Anyway, the fact that she didn't find us before I started talking means she's well within what we can take right now."
"Who's there!?" The girl yelled out, drawing a long dagger from one of the several sheathes that lined her waist and pointing it in the direction that the voices were coming from.
"Hey now, didn't your parents tell you it was rude to point sharp objects at people?"
"Her parents probably told her to not trust suspicious men who approached her while she was alone, actually. I know I'd do the same."
"Really? Even though I'm your beloved older brother!?"
"Oh true, you have a point. I guess if you were a random stranger I wouldn't try stabbing you out of the blue, Onii-chan."
The young man exaggeratedly collapsed to the ground, clutching his chest after taking multiple instances of damage. "Why do you only ever call me that while dealing emotional damage!?"
She looked down at her brother scathingly. "You just answered your own question, nitwit." She then turned toward the girl who had unconsciously lowered her sword a bit, confused as to why the people she thought were going to kill her for EXP were doing a comedy skit. "And now that that's all taken care of, I hope that you'll be so kind as to answer my questions. First off, what's your name?"
The girl stumbled backward, falling on her butt and almost dropping her sword the instant her assailant made eye contact. The redhead's eyes somehow combined kindness, goodwill, and intense bloodlust, all in one emotion that would have forced her to flee, had her legs been working properly.
"Oh, we could probably close some of these. Leo, stop moping and let's cut it down to two gates."
The girl's jaw dropped when she looked behind them and saw something that, unbelievable as it may seem, had completely slipped her attention. Behind them were two massive trees with their branches intertwined, so much that it was impossible to tell which tree was attached to which branches. This may seem normal for being in a forest, but something about those trees seemed... different. Sinister. And lo and behold, even as she watched, the trees shrunk down, their branches and limbs retracting into the trunk like a cat's claws.
And at the same time, the intense fear that she had been feeling lessened dramatically.
"Sorry, I think we might have gotten off on a bit of the wrong foot there, so let's restart. My name's Rin, and that idiot over there is my brother Leo. What's yours?" The redheaded girl—Rin—walked forward, stretching out her arm for a handshake. This time the bloodlust was all but gone. The only hints that this girl who called herself Rin wasn't a sweet girl in her late teens was the sinister tree that grew behind her, feeling both like it was a part of her and a wild beast ready to hunt.
The girl unsteadily got to her feet, reflexively brushing the dirt off the white parts of her dress. She uneasily stretched out her own hand, but nonetheless firmly shook Rin's with a surprisingly firm grip considering how much her legs were shaking.
"It's Io. Io Zeraphus."
***
I awoke with a feeling that something was off. Pushing aside the reflex to shoot up, I kept my breathing steady while I opened my Conduit.
Almost immediately I noticed the source of my discomfort. Aya was gone. I quickly paid attention to the information my Soulsense was giving me, and it turned out that she had simply moved a few meters away. I closed my Conduit and opened my eyes, preferring to use my far more detailed mundane sight, and realized that she was sitting on the edge of the platform, dangling her feet off, staring off into the distance.
"Looking at the moon again?" I said as I walked over and sat down beside her.
"Mhm." She replied absentmindedly, her thoughts far away.
I joined her for a few minutes, gazing at the lilac-colored moon which seemed to hang unnaturally still in the sky.
But as much as I wished we could relax here, that would have to wait until we were someplace safer. "We should get going now, Aya. It's best if we could find somewhere to set up a permanent base while you can use your main Authorities."
"Right." It surprised me when I saw her eyes flash with gold for a single instant. "We need to get going."
She jumped down without hesitation, falling a distance several times her height, but landed with the knees barely bent, as if she had just dropped eight centimeters instead of eight meters. She then looked up at me with a cheeky grin and stretched her arms out.
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah yeah, I get it. Enjoy it while you can."
If an outsider had been watching, they would have seen the surreal sight of a young man who appeared to be in his early twenties jumping off a two-story high platform, straight into the arms of a girl who didn't look much older than half his age.
"...you do realize you don't have to catch me in a princess carry every time, right?" I asked seriously.
She evenly met my gaze, equally serious. "You do realize that if I didn't, that would defeat the entire purpose of catching you, right?"
We had a brief clash of wills, staring into each other's eyes, waiting to see who would cave first, before I finally rolled my eyes and jumped out of her arms, landing lightly on my feet. It's not like I couldn't have made the jump myself, even without the ~20% Aether enhancement. Naturally it would have required quite a bit of technique, but I'd seen completely normal people drop distances greater than that and come out unscathed. However, Aya always enjoyed the fact that she could use Mana enhancement while I—and any Sorcerer for that matter—couldn't, so who was I to stop her from having fun?
It only took us a few minutes after that to reach the place where the forest abruptly changed to tundra. Without pausing, Aya took my hand and stepped out ahead of me.
As she crossed the boundary, she softly spoke a single word.
"Seal."
The instant her foot made contact with the surface of the snow, something pulsed through the entire area. It was as if the land itself had heard her command and was obeying.
Instead of sinking into the snow as you'd normally expect, Aya simply stood on top of the fluffy white surface as if it were solid ground. I followed behind her, and that was also the case for me. Although there were no obvious signs of what just happened, if you looked carefully enough you could catch short glimpses of the bursts of violet and amethyst light that arced through the sea of white around us.
We walked like that for hours. Probably close to twelve or fourteen, based on the fact that the moon in the sky had begun to dim, while the outline of the sun began to be faintly visible in the now starless sky. Thankfully just as Aya's Authority started to wane, a shape started to be visible through the fog.
…ok, this all might sound pretty weird for those unaware of how planes work, but it'll suffice to say that an impenetrable fog replaces what those on a planet would experience as a horizon. And the sun and/or moon, in the few planes that actually have them, don't actually move across the sky. They only dim/brighten on the borders of dusk/dawn.
After a few minutes, the shape that appeared out of the fog was discernable as a structure that closely resembled a medieval castle, but with a few important differences. Size, design, and surroundings.
It was small, tiny honestly, compared to an actual castle. If not for its outer appearance, I would have called it a mansion instead. Secondly, the design was clearly not intended for defense. Admittedly this may not be true if they had a barrier-class Psychic to ward it, but I'd only ever heard of a handful of those, so the chances were quite slim.
Finally, the real kicker was in its surroundings. There was absolutely nothing here. Not unless you count brutal cold and a metric fuckton of snow, but last time I checked, neither of those were resources that were ever in high demand.
By the time we were within a kilometer of it, the moon was no longer visible in the sky, which was part of why I had five Gates open. Now, there was no reason to have over half my Gates open just to stop us from getting cold, one would have been more than enough for that. The real reason was to provide a fighting chance against anything that might live here. I honestly would have been more comfortable with all my Gates open, since whatever lives out here is probably extremely powerful, but that wasn't an expenditure I could afford unless I knew we were about to die.
We stopped around 100 meters away from the "castle", which coincidentally had its main doors facing toward us, for Aya to send a communication pulse. However, several minutes passed and there was still no response.
We exchanged a glance and shrugged, then headed closer to the building. I frowned shortly after the building entered my Gate range, because I could detect a soul inside. Only a single one, but one then felt oddly familiar.
But I didn't have enough time to think too hard about it, because before long we had arrived at the door. I lifted my hand and knocked firmly on the door. Which began to slowly open.
I tensed for an instant before I realized that it wasn't something creepy like the door opening on its own. Instead, it had just been unlatched, and the force of my knock had caused it to swing open. I exhaled the breath I didn't know I was holding as a short laugh, most of the tension we had built up dissipating.
But there was still that oddly familiar soul, which we began to approach. We followed one of the large corridors until it let us out into a central courtyard that was remarkably free of snow. In the center of it stood a boy who looked to be maybe 15 or 16, holding a wooden training sword with both hands and looking at us with more of a deer in the headlights expression than I'd ever seen from an actual deer.
"Yo." I casually raised a hand in greeting.
Aya mirrored my movements. "Nice place you have here."
He remained frozen for a few seconds before hesitantly speaking up.
"Are you… real?"
