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Late Morning - Late Fall : The Banevean Desert

(Back about a day)

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- Michael Cotorel ~

*Gulp* *Gulp* *Gulp* "Aah..." Lowering the flask of gloriously cold water with a refreshed breath, I hastily lifted my balaclava back over my nose. -How is this place even real...-

*Pat* Grabbing my staff and sliding the flask into my belt as I stood up, I looked out over the endless, rolling sand dunes, only to be distracted by the beads of sweat already beginning to form beneath my mask. "Haah..." -Almost there... Hopefully...-

Struggling to muster any motivation, I slowly worked myself up to a run while using magic to keep the sand out of my eyes and keep myself cool.

But it honestly barely even helped.

*wooooosh* With a relentless wind carrying temperatures that exceeded what I thought was even possible, it felt like I was running into the caldera of an active volcano. The heat was so intense that if I dripped water from my flask, it wouldn't even make it to the ground.

But while it was certainly a miserable hell that words could not describe, it felt more like a trial than anything else.

Over the last six months, I had traveled nearly six thousand kilometers through some of the harshest conditions in the world, and in that time, I was forced to adapt just to survive.

However, while filled with pain and struggles, in that drive for survival, my mind flourished like it never had before.

During the few months of the trip, I felt my knowledge of magic and runes expand severalfold, a kind of growth I couldn't have imagined even if I spent dozens of years studying like I used to.

Between the heat, sand, and colossal monsters beyond my understanding, I was fighting for my life at every passing moment, but as I adapted to it, I grew. -If I think about it that way, this trip has been amazing...-

But whether fortunately or unfortunately, my trip was only just beginning.

As the sun started to set that evening, I looked out toward the distant, beautiful orange sky, only to find what looked like treetops just beginning to crest the horizon. -Hm?-

At first sight, I completely disregarded it. With how intense the heat was, and how much it rippled light, it wasn't uncommon for you to get tricked into thinking there was an oasis or forest off in the distance, and as the sky turned dark, I thought that forest was no different.

With the light of the moon hidden behind thin cloud cover, I ran, and ran, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures at night to cover more ground, but after a while, I had to slow to halt, silencing my footsteps as I camp up to an extremely tall dune.

*distant chatter* Off in the distance, I could hear what sounded like the voices of people, but with the winds, there was nothing I could distinguish. -There shouldn't be people out here though...-

*Chatter* Slowly, cautiously peeking over the massive, several-hundred-meter-high dune, I looked down into the valley behind it only to see the light of torches illuminating a group of nearly five people. -Huh?-

It was a group of elves and demihumans, trying to run in the direction I was headed, straight into the wind, while trying to carry someone with a mutilated leg, and leaving a trail of blood on the sand.

-What did they fight for one of them to end up like that.

.. Shouldn't we be well outside burrower territory?

- They were essentially colossal, leech-like snakes that would stay deep under the sand, and wait for something to pass over it, be it a single human, or a wyvern that happened to glide by.

But I hadn't run into one in nearly a thousand kilometers. -Did they run into a wyvern?-

However, as I tilted my head to question it, the ground started to vibrate, and I started quickly sinking into the sand. *HMMM* -Uh oh...- Feeling the deep hum in my entire body, I felt the color drain from my face. -You have to be kidding me!-

It was a burrower, and a really big one at that.

*Vwoom-Woooosh* Hastily casting magic to stay on top of the sand, I hopped over the dune and sprinted down the other side, rushing toward the group as fast as I could.

They seemed to know what to do to not sink into the sand, but the one carrying their injured friend couldn't stop sinking, and by the time the others could help, the sand was up past his knees. -Shit...-

*FWOOSH* As I slid to a stop right next to them, their eyes all snapped to me, but trying not to pay them mind, I grabbed a nearly invisible string hanging from the tip of my staff, drew it to my cheek, and pointed my staff toward the ground as if I was about to shoot a bow.

But what I was actually doing wasn't too dissimilar.

*VWOOM* As a heavy mana ripple blew through the air, the string lit up with the glow of the countless runes in it.

-Please be enough...- *Vwoop* Injecting one final burst of mana into it, I grit my teeth through the pain of my fingertips burning before finally letting go of the string.

*Fwip* The glow instantaneously drained from it as a thin beam of light shot into the ground, turning a melon-sized patch of sand around it molten before the vibration suddenly stopped, and we were all simultaneously thrown into the air. *BAAAANNGGG*

It was a spell I made just for deterring burrowers.

-But this one might not get deterred by such a small explosion.

- Hastily shifting my focus to the group while we were still being lifted in the air from my spell, I used a huge mass of wind magic to redirect our upward momentum from the blast and launch us forward. *FWOOOSH*

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"AAAAHHH!" One of the younger elves yet out a fear-filled wail as we were launched well over a hundred meters in the blink of an eye.

But I don't think it was because of me throwing them.

*WOOOOSH* In an instant, the cloud of sand where we just were, still lit by the glow of torches, was engulfed in darkness and a huge wall seemed to sprout out of the ground right next to us, passing by so close to us that the gust of wind it dragged along threw us further into the air.

The burrower was at least one or two hundred meters wide, and probably at least a kilometer or two long, by far the biggest I had ever seen.

"Why is the broodmother here?!" One of the elves yelled in a language I couldn't understand as we continued soaring through the air. "Has god forsaken us?!"

"You'd be in the stomach of that burrower if that were the case!"

They seemed to be angrily arguing about something, but after eventually landing on the back side of another dune some several hundred meters away, and tumbling to the bottom, their focus started shifting to me.

*Pat-Pat* *Brush* As we all stood up, their gazes all landed on me. They were clearly very wary of me, and rightfully so.

To them, I was just some random mage that ran up on them. *Brush* *Brush* But as I slowly stood up and brushed myself off, one of the older demihumans walked up to me and bowed.

"Thank you, sir! If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have made it out alive!"

But I couldn't understand him at all. "U-Uh..." Quickly pulling down my balaclava, I tried to motion him upward and speak as clearly as I could. "I can't understand you?" -What language even is that...- It was unlike anything else I had ever heard.

And after seeing their confused expressions as they looked around at one another, they couldn't seem to understand me either.

-Could they be from Siratha?- It was the famed elven forest beyond the desert that most people on the Western Continent considered nothing more than a myth.

-But the desert probably just detached them from the rest of the world.

..- The quality of their weapons and clothes seemed to reflect that as well.

-They must be some native tribe...- "Do you know a woman named Leif Vilulf?

" I tilted my head to try and make sure they understood it was a question.

But they understood immediately, and nodded, easing their postures before motioning me along.

"Are you seriously going to bring this human back to town with us?!" As we walked, they whispered to one another.

"They saved us, and despite not knowing our language, know the name of Apostle Vilulf."

"Doesn't that make them even more suspicious?"

The tall man, still carrying his friend, glared at the woman.

"I'm not taking any chances. He saved us, so he should be treated with respect.

.. Plus, it's not like we're in the condition to fight him even if he does turn out to be a bad person.

.. We need to just bring him to the town head. .. He might know this man's language."

Trying my best to pick out words from their conversation, I carefully followed after them, unsure whether I was being led into a trap or not.

For all I knew then, they could have been cannibals, or barbarians, even if that didn't seem to be the case.

But little did I know, it absolutely was a trap. One I wouldn't realize I was caught in for several years to come.. and one I would never be able to escape...

But perhaps that was simply fate's plan, since as time would come to pass, I would find that it was a trap laid specifically for people like me, and one I would eventually take pride in falling into.

Getting brought to that town was simply the work of fate.. or perhaps it was it was the work of god...

A god I would come to befriend, and worship as time went on.

But of course, I didn't know that back then, and I doubted him. -Lord Vasilias.. just what am I about to get myself wrapped up in...-

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Early Afternoon - Late Fall : Eikasía | Eastern Bahamut

(Present)

- Vasilias Ragnarok ~

"You recognize that kid's condition?" Hera spoke softly as she looked through the walls of the saloon with a disgusted expression.

"It's similar to something I saw in the past..

but it wasn't this bad..." Thinking back to the incident at the academy, I felt my stomach churn.

-Back then, the manipulation was fairly subtle.

..- Although the manipulation of the minds of children to any extent was disgusting, somehow the sight before me made me feel especially sick.

.. "Back when I destroyed the Academy in Atlas, the rats of the Holy Kingdom were using an old god stripped of its ego and memories to manipulate the minds of children and get them to worship the Aesir instead of Bahamut, but. . this feels.. different..."

Although I couldn't put my nose on it, this somehow seemed far more sinister. "Do you think it's related to the cult?"

I immediately nodded. "More than likely.

.. The so-called god they're worshipping might be what's manipulating them, but.

.." Squinting slightly, I pushed my aura further and further into the ground, populating my mind with the colorless array of constantly changing numbers and information that took upon the shapes of countless strings as if I was looking through the eyes of my soul.

It was as if I opened up another eye, able to see everything within nearly eighty kilometers of me with excruciating detail, all at once.

But that was my limit, and there was nothing to see. "I don't see anything suspicious nearby..." -It's all just tunnels and buildings still under construction...-

Hera seemed to do the same thing as me, turning up empty-handed as well. "This.. might be more troublesome than I was thinking it would be..."

"You don't say..." -There's nothing out of the norm nearby.. and the 'child' is alone...- "But nothing will be as difficult as finding that dreaded cave entrance to the thunderbirds' nest."

Hera instantly tensed up. "Was it really that bad?"

I wanted to scoff. "It was bad enough for me to blow a hole the size of a city into the mountain so I'd never have to look for it again."

Cracking a joke, the mood seemed to lighten just a tad, but before long, the child in the back room finished its conversation, and Krystallo was called in...

Of course, not without me watching her like a hawk.

But while I suspected the child of also being possessed, perhaps by a god, he didn't seem to be able to sense me, there was no tether, and his soul looked normal for a dragon.

Everything simply happened in his brain.

. but even that seemed.. off... -His thoughts aren't smooth. . it's not just wires being crossed...-

Rather than being the manipulation of neural pathways, it seemed like something else was happening...

It almost seemed like.. 'it' had two consciousnesses...

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