Chapter 108: Omake#7

It's been a full day now.

A full day since he blacked out completely. 

Staring at him, aimlessly wandering about makes me anxious. I'm not sure what's going to happen now.

Ever since we left Spol behind his blackouts suddenly took a turn for the worse, the lengths increasing with episode until…until he can't even summon me anymore.

The last he had his awareness; he'd just come out from a twelve-hour black out and was wondering where he was and why he was surrounded by snow. It didn't even take thirty minutes before the next black out occurred.

And now we're up to a day. I'm not sure if he's coming back from this one either, right now, I'm just shadowing him until he stumbles unto the Cultists Camps that so obviously lie ahead.

He may be chewing what grass is left in this snow and chasing after bunnies, but he's got no intelligence behind him. It's like he's just biting into everything he can to find out what will relieve him of his hunger.

At the rate he's at, he might just fall over from exhaustion, ever since the wandering started it hasn't stopped, not even for a second. I bet his legs must be killing him already.

But this resilience…or rather, insanity can't be natural. Asher almost never talks about his powers in a way I can understand or glean anything type of knowledge. 

It's obvious he's hiding something, I'm not that oblivious. He talks about levels, locks, proficiency, always muttering to himself about more spells to gain. I've asked about these things, and he's poorly changed the subject or given some vague answer.

RPG. RTS. What the hell does any of that mean?

'Oh, you wouldn't understand this cheap RPG, Anselm, just trust me.'

And I have. I've put up with it because his decisions have gotten us results thus far. I'm not so deep under a rock that I don't know that magic has to be learned, has to be studied and practiced and trained and honed to the point that it becomes second nature but still a foreign object in the palm of your hands.

I know. From my time there and even now still, magic is learned through tomes, through libraries secretly built and heavily guarded. Magic is bought with heaps of gold and Mages are given authority for simply having the knowledge.

But Asher is different. The last time I saw him with a book was in the cave, and the last time I saw him practice his magic was in Ioina. Never again.

But yet through our time together he's grown so much more powerful than I could have thought possible for a human. His ears aren't pointy, he isn't overly tall either so he definitely isn't an elf.

I've thought to myself…perhaps he has elven blood in his ancestry and that's what spurs his unnatural skill with magic. But even that explanation has a gaping hole in it. 

A gaping hole that is the fact that magic is information. If he had a tome, it would explain the new spells, if he were buying it off someone, that would explain some of it too.

This isn't the oddest thing about Asher though. Sometimes he stops and stares so intently at a point in the air, smiling and chuckling to himself. What could he be looking at?

I shake my head free of these questions and suspicions. None of that matters now that he's like this. 

The Spirit Wolf he made a deal with…that's what matters.

Looking at Asher shove snow into his mouth for likely the hundredth time while I'm unable to do anything to help fills me with rage. Rage at myself, at Asher and especially at that Wolf he made that deal with.

I get that it was for power, power that he promises will help him get closer to shoving my little not alive situation like he promised, but the cost of said power is looking to high as it stands.

What use is a spell of death when you've run so made you can't even call upon your mana?

Ugh! When he took that stupid deal, I warned him I wouldn't be able to help him without being summoned. Look how brilliantly things have worsened.

"I wish I could strangle Asher and that damned wolf!"

"I know exactly how you feel…"

I freeze up, perhaps literally as there's a sudden blowing wind full of cold that sends chills through my spine…

But that has to be wrong. Why? Because I'm in the Spirit Realm, there aren't such things as, wind, cold or the sensation of touch.

And the voice that spoke, it's as though the words I heard carried said foreign wind into the Spirit Realm. This isn't any ordinary spirit.

Slowly, I hover and pivot to have a look at who's in my company. But behind me, I find nothing.

"Who is there?" I ask, puffing my chest out, ready to go through an immortal brawl with a malicious spirit if that's what this is. They've attacked me before, since I can move about it's like they're drawn to me so I've had my full staving them off.

But not recently, Asher's been summoning me almost all the time so it's almost like I'm alive but I'm really just absent in the Spirit Realm.

Nevertheless, I set up my dukes and ready my mind.

"Be at peace, I have not come to harm you."

There's that wind again. It baffles me, I'm certainly not in the physical world, so how is this sensation even possible?

The voice that speaks is calm, reassuring even. But malicious spirits are sinister, you can't ever be sure what shape or form they'll take, about time I add voice to the list.

"Show yourself!" I demand, my head swirling around, looking for a target for my fists to meet with.

"I am before you, I am below and above you, I am…" A strong gust nearly knocks me off balance as the voice speaks. 

With my eyes squinted and my eyelids frosted from the cold, I can barely make out the twinkle that begins to rise and twirl in front of me. 

I can't make it out because of the wind and ice, but slowly, as I grunt and struggle against perhaps the first bit of wind in the Spirit Realm, the object begins to take on some form.

I can see six points; it glitters as it grows up to the size of a hand. The six points begin to join together and form…branches? Could it be…a tree?

No.

The wind stops abruptly, like it was never there in the first place. All that remains is the cold, it's cruel, my tips turn blue and my lip breaks.

Then the voice speaks again.

"I am the cold, the cruel heat, the frost…" 

Finally, I break the ice sealing my eyelids and peer a look, before me is a single snowflake, twirling and twinkling, emitting a radiance that can only be compared to…to the light of Anera's embrace.

Could it be? Could this be the second chance I've longed for? A chance at resting peacefully at last, like I was meant to?

Is it, Anera?

"…I am Frozia, Goddess of the Winter and Ice."

I feel my heart plummet with disappointment and brace with shock. A Goddess…a Goddess before me.

I feel my mouth fall open and my saliva dry up.

"You are Anselm, are you not?"

"Uhhh…" 

The snowflake twinkles at my odd response. I blink rapidly and shake myself out of stupor. 

There's a freaking Goddess right in front of you Anselm! Get it together!

"Yes!" I yell, or rather scream. "I am Anselm, Squire to the Knight of Riveden!" I fall to a knee and bow my head, "It is a great honour to be graced with the presence of a Goddess!"

The flake hums quizzically as it twirls, "Squire? To the Knight of Riveden. So you do not remember then."

At this I slightly raise my head to gaze upon the flake, "Wha-"

"Do you not remember me either?"

The voice…the voice up until this moment wasn't a voice but just directive, like the will of the Goddess forcing me to understand what she says.

Because of this, the 'voice' didn't have a voice, it had no emotion because it had no sound, because there isn't anything to make a sound.

And yet, as the Goddess asks this question, her inflection resonated a deep sadness that tears at my heart, why I feel this way for her sadness, I do not know. But it angers me.

"Forgive me!" I scream, falling flat on my stomach, "I do not mean to forget!" Tears uncontrollably streak down my cheek, forming small teardrop shaped icicles no doubt.

The flake hums once more, this time there isn't any trace of that sadness, simply my mind understanding the Goddess. 

"It will be well in time, my child, you will remember, they all will. But I have not come for that matter."

I stay flat on my stomach as I ponder my luck; there are several reasons a Goddess would come to me? 

"Your saviour seems to be in a predicament, you wish to help him and smite the one who cripples his strength, do you not?"

Asher and Lotar? "Yes! Yes, I do my Goddess!"

"Unfortunately, the time has passed for my authority to smote the child of Harlfary on a whim, but I can assist you in helping your saviour…will you do as I say?"

I don't need a split moment more to ready my answer, "Yes! Yes, I will!"

The flake begins to shine and twirl, brighter and fast. It grows enormous in size, far past the size of a building, and encroaching the size of…of…of the moon itself.

I can only marvel, stricken with awe as the flake's light begins to envelope me, pulling me into a cold yet spurring embrace that fills me with life like I've never felt before.

As I bask, I hear her words, the words of Frozia, Goddess of Winter and Ice, "Very well, come with me, Anselm…my knight."