Chapter 86: Death – Part 2

Chapter 86: Death – Part 2

I failed.

The brightness of the harsh sun glares off the red sand, blinding my sensitive eyes.

I reach around, searching for Alissa to steady myself, but my hand only finds hot sand.

"Alissa...?" I call for her, but I can only hear the wind.

I try to summon a small bird to be my eyes, but the "button" inside my soul space isn't there.

"What...?"

I search for my other spells, but they aren't there either. I try to open my "Status," but even that is gone.

"Oh... no... no... no..." I mumble repeatedly, and my body freezes up, overwhelmed with emotions.

The reality of my situation immediately sinks in, then a feeling of pure rage wells up from deep within me.

Stop fucking with me... stop with these fucking stupid games! GIVE ME BACK CIEL! GIVE HER BACK TO ME, YOU FUCKING WICKED GOBLIN DICK SUCKER!

I repeatedly pound my fists against the sand in fury.

I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU!

"AAAAAAAAAH!" I scream until my lungs give out.

I'LL DESTROY YOU!

My soul tentacles spread out from my body, randomly solidifying and changing their shapes.

I'LL RAPE YOUR CORPSE, YOU FUCKING CUNT!

I grab the hot sand with my hands and tentacles and start throwing it around in a rage.

"FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! RAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The last of my mana is wasted when I recklessly try to cast whatever spell I can, then the pain of going into the negatives calms me down, and I let the overuse steal my consciousness away.

I wake up sweating profusely with my skin painfully burned. That hateful sun is going to kill me if I stay here for much longer.

I feebly manage to get up, then I take my armor off. My elven underclothes aren't enough to protect all of my skin from the sun, so I cut off some of the padding with my sword and make it into a few crude scarves for my face and hands.

I stand up and look around, but I just see the same landscape that I saw back when we first entered this part of the dungeon: sparkly red sand, a clear blue sky, and a painfully harsh sun. Dusk is coming, and the sun is setting, so it'll be nightfall soon.

I don't know where to go or what I should do right now, so I find a large dune to hide myself from the sun and sit down in the shade.

I failed... Ciel's dead.

She can't be dead.

Her body was consumed by the slime.

She can't be dead.

I saw her skull.

She CAN'T be dead.

I pull on my hair and grit my teeth while my tears flow freely. I start rocking my body back and forth as the anguish in my heart swells until I can barely stand the pain anymore.

I continue crying until my tears dry up, then the exhaustion knocks me out, and I have another nightmare. Ciel's death repeats over and over in my mind, endlessly tormenting me with my failure.

I wake up sweating and confused. The heat has increased, but the sun hasn't set yet.

My face feels uncomfortable because of my dried tears, which have only stopped because I'm so dehydrated. My whole body itches and hurts from the sand, from the rough sleep, and from not being able to heal myself after I overused my mana.

Ciel's muffled shriek replays itself in my head, but I refuse to accept it as reality. There must be something wrong, or something I missed. This has to be a dream.

She can't be dead! Not like this... not like this!

I grunt as my anger starts to flare up inside me again, but my throat hurts so much that I have to hold back my roar.

I need to... find her body. I need a link to bring her spirit back!

A headache starts to pound in my head, making it difficult for me to think straight.

This can't be over... I-I can still do something!

This isn't over! I have to get out of here! I have to find her!

I stand up and wobble as my headache makes me temporarily lose my balance.

I slowly recompose myself, then I climb back up the dune and look around. The sun is still setting, letting off a faintly orange light, which is odd since I think I was asleep for a while.

I try to focus on the horizon around me, but I can't see anything different, and the sun glare reflected off the sand makes it difficult to discern any details.

I need something to help me scout!

The system is gone, so I can't open my "Items"; I can only cast [Clean], [Spirit Light], and my special [Materialize] without my Gift of instant-casting; and I only have my sword and partially dismantled scale armor as potential tools.

Never mind scouting, I'll die of thirst before I can even do anything at this rate!

I sit down again in the shade of the dune and grumble as my rage boils up once again.

I have no idea how he's doing this, but he's just fucking with us at this point! He's been doing shit like this ever since we came here! Just hardship after hardship, test after test, and this too is nothing but another one of his fucking...

My rage dominates my thoughts, and I try to crush more of the sand in anger with my hands and soul-tentacles.

Wait! What i-...

I need water.

My throat is hurting and parched because of my angry outburst, my mouth is as dry as a grandma's cunt, my lips are parched and tingling, my body is sweating cold and shivering, and my head just won't stop pounding. I'm really fucking dehydrated.

How did [Conjure Water] go again...?

I never learned anything about [Conjuring Magic] besides what I could passively absorb from watching others use it, but I barely paid attention to that. There was no reason to since we could just use either a magic tool or my instant casting.

Who the fuck even is Arreira that he can block my system and Gifts so thoroughly like this?

I hold myself back from grumbling in anger. I have no time to waste; I need to blindly recreate the spell on my own.

I gather my mana inside my heart, then I visualize all the details I have about water to convert my mana into something water-attuned. Without a chant to "align" my mind and improve the visualization, the whole mana conversion process takes a long time.

Once I have a good amount of water-attuned mana, I start to build the "structure" of the spell, but I have little idea about what I'm doing. Even if I succeed with this spell, it's so rough that I'm sure the mana-efficiency will be really low.

I need to convert the mana into water, but it has to be actual water, not the pseudo-water that's used in spells. That kind of water would just dissipate with time, and I'm sure that having it and it's atoms suddenly disappearing from within my body would have terrible effects.

My head hurts too much to think straight anymore.

Just... water... I need water. I need something that converts mana into "drinkable" water and spouts it from the tip of my finger like a fountain. That's it, that's all I need.

I imagine it like visual programming. Just one data input, the mana; one function, the converter; one output, my finger; and one switch, the trigger that activates the input.

I push the spell's "structure" and the attuned mana to the tip of my finger, then I flip the "switch."

Most of the mana gushes out wildly without being properly converted, which nearly collapses the spell's "structure" since it's too weak to endure such a chaotic flow of mana.

A few drops of water appear at the tip of my finger, and I immediately suck on it in desperation.

My tongue immediately becomes wet, but I can barely feel the water going down my throat, then I taste something strange.

Oh... if the water was badly formed, then I might have just poisoned myself...

I feed even more of my mana into the spell until I feel the danger of overuse looming over my organ.

If I go crazy from dehydration, then it won't matter if I'm poisoned, anyway.

I spend hours trying to get a reasonable amount of water to drink, but then my MP runs out again. The sun doesn't even set after all this time, only becoming more orange as the day continues on and the heat continues to increase.

I'm getting a bad feeling about this...

I decide to run away from the sun whenever I'm waiting for my mana to recharge.

Shade didn't know what to say, so it remained silent.

Groman stopped and stared intensely at Shade to impart the seriousness of its next words, not that Shade understood the meaning of this action. "Perhaps there's still a chance for you. Stop following me and leave this desert if you wish to try again," Groman advised, but Shade wished for nothing, so it continued following Groman in silence.

Shade turned its head away from Groman, and the beast immediately noticed that its silent companion wasn't staring at it anymore.

"What is it?" Groman curiously asked.

Shade didn't know how to answer that, so it remained quiet and resumed staring at Groman, but soon, it looked away again.

A spirit, a body, and a Thread of Fate, that was all that Shade was. No more, no less. It had no will, no memory, no knowledge, and no reason for existence, yet something still called to it.

Once Groman realized that something was happening to Shade, it immediately stopped and stared at Shade for days, waiting for any sign of a change.

Shade twitched, then it looked away for a third time, and it didn't look back at Groman again. Its head gradually turned, searching for something towards the horizon.

"There it is..." Groman whispered excitedly and grinned. "I knew you had it..."

Days passed, and the two continued staring towards the horizon, then Shade took a step forward.

Days later, Shade took another.

The next day, it stepped again.

The next hour, it took one more.

The next minute, it did it again.

Then it started walking, then running, then flying.

Groman followed Shade while laughing out loud. "WHAT IS IT THAT YOU DESIRE?!" It excitedly asked, its long, glowing hot tail swaying about happily.

"To save..." Shade's hoarse voice struggled to respond.

"Save who?" Groman pressed.

"Everyone..."

Groman asked many questions, for it had both the time and the thirst for knowledge, but Shade said nothing else besides those three words.

It vexed Groman for a while, but it let it go since three words were far better than nothing.

Groman bent the land to his will, shortening the trip so that Shade could reach its destination immediately.

As they flew, Shade saw the sand become cracked earth, then packed dirt, then it was covered in moss, which grew into grass, and the first plants started to appear. Herbs, flowers, bushes, and then trees, which grew and grew and grew until the two were nothing but ants beside their inconceivably large roots. They grew so large that they completely blocked out the blue sky, but Groman was the sun personified, so they never lacked light or warmth.

They passed by colorful, glowing, exotic, and extraordinary plants and animals, but Shade knew nothing about them, so it ignored them all.

They passed by statues carved into the trees that depicted epic battles and historical events, but Shade knew nothing about history, so it ignored them all.

They passed by the most beautiful buildings and works of art ever created, but Shade knew nothing about what they meant, so it ignored them all.

They reached the heart of the forest, the center of this alternate reality, and the source of all Groman's mystic power. There, they found Shade's destination: an orb the color of a Dark Void.

Once Shade spotted it, it immediately stopped flying and landed on the grass, then it slowly walked towards it.

"Do you wish to discover who you really are?" Groman tentatively asked.

Shade didn't know how to answer that, so it remained quiet, but it knew that the orb was calling to it.

"I must continue..." Shade struggled to respond.

"Continue what?" Groman excitedly questioned.

"Fate."

Shade approached the orb, then its non-corporeal eyes stared deep into the dark abyss, and the abyss stared back.

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