{[dark yet shining, as if time distorted itself:
"troublesome goddesses... disobeying the laws of time..."
"What are we gonna do to the intruders!? they have already given our people these... preposterous foreign anomalies!"
in the middle of the chaotic conversation, one stands atop of the throne as if he was the highest of them all. with a commanding voice, he commands all with one word-
"SILENCE!" . . .
a long, eerie silence followed, everyone staring at the one who they heed. without a word, seemingly, they all understood his signal. the silence turned into a hectic field, dispersing one another and commanding their followers to their will. with a smile on his face, he quietly whispers "so... the search begins" and silently and drowning the field with his suffocating aura
]}
------------------------
the night passes without any problems and I'm met with some... troubling events...
"Moon! what's going on?" Moon was cautious, he somewhat feels that he's in danger, I didn't notice this the first time but Lana was also here hidden somewhere, I can somehow sense where she is
"we've been spotted, multiple bandits came and waited for the right time, Lana noticed their movements but what's troubling us is she couldn't detect where they were coming from..."
given from his cautious demeanor, I could clearly tell that he's afraid... Ren too... the two of them are in high alert...
"Ron, I'm gonna ask you this once, are you ready to meet a bloodbath..."
"a-... bloodbath? what do you mean? are we killing them all!?"
"frankly yes, I don't kn-" a horn could be heard from a distance. moments later, bandits and cloaked men emerged as if from nowhere in the rocky mountains and came in charging.
with a warcry, Moon immediately dashed to the crowd and slowly killing them off with one punch, with flawless and masterful martial arts...
"Ren, we ain't losing to him right?"
I give him a competitive smile and he nodded in response, both of us started killing people off one by one, without question... the joy... the rush! soaked in the blood of my enemies, I slowly engulfed everything in my path with smoke and mist
"Ron! I can't assist you with a fog like that! sorry but I'm gonna have to assist Ren, no need to look after Moon, he can take care of himself"
her words were see-through, no lies or doubts...
. . .
one by one, we were charged by multiple waves non-stop, now rest... we've been fighting for 2 hours... but I still feel no exhaustion... it's... as if I'm getting used to this fight... the short blade that I got from that guy were tainted with blood and the clothes that I have could be passed as a serial killer's... without thought, without regret... we've been killing them off without any mercy...
somewhere in the distance, there was another person who had it worse than I am, depending on the situation, it could be seen as a blessing, Moon's cheerful, leading demeanor turned into something of a monster's, his face showed no life yet smiling, every punched crushed its enemies and no body was as distinguishable as the other one... broken limbs, crushed skulls and bones, disorientated face... he was unbeatable... yet... lifeless... a monster... and I'm no different.
with a joyful smile and a face full of joy, I mercilessly killed everyone who I deemed an enemy, a stabbed chest, burnt flesh, freezing eyeballs, and withered limbs... I slowly turned into laughter as I kill every people in the area, with no one to stop us...
5 hours pass and the enemies were now countable, around 30, the bodies on the other hand... it was pilling!
"You monsters! ho-" stopped with a thrown knife, he collapses immediately
"shut up, you guys were the first ones to attack" I didn't even hesitate
on the distance, Moon was still on his side of the battlefield staring soullessly on the sun. Ren is praying for the deaths and Lana was with him... I come to where they are and Lana immediately stopped me
"ahh... right... sorry for the intrusion. I'm just checking up on him"
"if you're asking for that then I'd explain it to you myself. I... don't want to be rude to you two but he's probably the sanest one here"
"What?! I'm completely sane! look! I even have a smile on my face" she sighs and just-
"fine, I'll say that as sane, mind if I request you to go to where Moon is right now, I think he'll need someone to stop him"
"well... as you say..." I head to where Moon is but-
"Moon? mind care to judge who won?" with a smile on my face, I slowly looked at Moon's face. with closed eyes, he uttered absolute silence... I didn't even hear any whisper...
"uhh... Moon? are you alright there buddy?"
he slowly opens his eyes and finally, a normal response!
"ahh!? uhh... y-yeah, I'm fine. sorry if I looked weird, what were you talking about?"
the usual Moon, we just met yesterday but... I feel some sort of connection with him. it's like we'll be long friends
"I... didn't think that we'll live through that... boy was I glad..." I didn't know that I grew that much! I feel invincible!
as soon as Ren's prayer was done, we washed with the river water near the foot of the mountain and packed our equipment and tools, somehow, I feel thankful that these magic bags were created
Lana returned to her usual post and we slowly trotted back to our original destination, it seems that we completely cleaned out this place, I feel no hostilities or any dangers.
...
before the teleportation here, Pheonix explained that we can only explore once per day depending on how long this should take, the device that's in our pockets should teleport us back to the outpost when needed but it's only a one time use, main reason is that we should allow others to hunt them... probably...
"so? are we returning back to the outpost?"
"no, at least for now, we should check the area here before we do so since we could always report back to the operator that we might have missed something in the area"
wow... "that sounds like work that I'll probably never do... I'll leave that to you"
"point taken, given that-... oh wait, right... sorry but I'll have to ask Ren something"
"huh? it's fine, go ahead"
I feel so connected with him and I don't know why... well, I don't need a reason anyway, do we need a reason to be friends in the first place anyway?"
「brother Ren, you prayed on my behalf too right」
「forgive me brother Len, I can't pray for a person foreign to our beliefs, you'll have to abdicate to our testaments」
「right... I'll do that...」
...
we checked every nook and cranny and yes, we have successfully cleaned out the area, looks like that's a success
"I don't think it's a success, the operator said that we'd be teleported in our post where the middle of India should be, why were we distorted to the north anyway?"
hmm... good point... "I couldn't really care that much though, if they said that we had some bandit problems then those bandits are fine right?"
well... it should be... right?
we teleport back the outpost and indeed, it was deemed as an accident and proceeded with the normal protocol, we even got a bonus per head since that wasn't our original place
"well then, I doubt that this would bandit extermination would last any longer. brother Ron, it was good meeting you"
"h-huh? this won't be our last meeting right?"
"huh? ahh! no-no, I said the wrong words, until we meet again"
well... I didn't really care all that much, it was still fun meeting him. we shook hands and said our goodbyes, talk about finding friends in an event... well, that's what normal events in a game should be! meeting friends! even... your... ... huh? was I supposed to say something ===
----------------------
India, the northern most part,
"well... wasn't that a great scene... reminds me of the war..."
"indeed... quite a spectacle too, they reminded me of your daughter!"
well... he's not wrong. we should be meeting up here any time soon, I wonder where Kealii is right now...
as soon as I though of that-
"well speak of the devil, quite an entrance if I do say so myself"
"yes, thank you for your compliment. besides that... what happened here?"
he gazes from the bloody arena "quite the spetacle right? what does this scene remind you Kealii?"
"hmm... the war? that's really the only thing that I'm reminded of really..."
"ding-ding-ding! we have a winner! well, that's because we really are in a war right now, well... this is the start of it"
"huh? wait... I... can only imagine..."
that's correct... I've dug some information from the churches and cults here in secret, there's one thing that I can definitely say: this world wasn't meant to have magic in the first place... there are also multiple gods but I can't make a direct conclusion thanks to information being so vague... almost all of them could be passed up as some made-up stories so that people could be tamed.
"it seems that there's a lot of anomalies in this fight too, there's the most prominent one, this blood pile" I walk to the blood pool and take some of its DNA for confirmations, but... I really didn't need them though
"I'm guessing you already know right? considering that you are my descendant"
"yes..." he just confirms it with that... there's some sort of fear inside of it too...
the blood pile, there's a lot of them, probably even enough to stretch across Pola, Laplace's farthest moon... the anomaly here says for it itself
"there's... no body anywhere..."
"correct! and what's even more troubling is this" I take my self improved database and show the sample to him, the numbers didn't impact all that much but that's the point, there are no readings, all zero. none. at. all.
Kealii was most certainly surprised, he stepped back a bit just to confirm the area.
"so... the gods finally made their move..."
"yes and admittedly, I hate to say it but we have no reasons to intrude... boy wouldn't it be fun to join in?"
well, I think his worries are on the spot, I don't really care that much for the matter since we're not the ones in trouble here, only partially if my guesses are correct
"haahhh... I'll go check up on the others. I'm afraid that I need to find a peaceful way to end this"
"this again? Kealii, I know you're a dreamer but... I'm afraid you can't do anything right now... no one's, at least people you know aren't getting harmed! just sit back and enjoy the show! the first horn was wait... no... the 3rd! the 3rd horn was heard all across the globe so the war is closing in!"
I already told him about our circumstance, we didn't need to do anything right now, we could only act as spectators
"hmm? what happened to your mark?"
"oh? this? I removed it, quite painfully I might add."
"well... you can't really evade the goddess, Alyn's blessing, but I guess you didn't do that in mind. well? what will you do for the time being?"
he just shakes his heads, no response other than that...
"as you said, I have nothing else to do in this war, I can intervene nor help, I'll just watch this all unravel..."
"that's a good boy, I don't sense any lies behind it too, are you just good at lying?"
"afraid not... haahhh... I feel powerless..."
"frett not! just don't mind it, you can still meet the people you want to meet! Tion for example! didn't you meet him some days ago?"
"I'll leave, for now, you're getting mildly annoying..."
"wha- that's not something you'd say to your ancestor!"
he leaves with a wave, like hell I'd accept that!
"Seriously... who made him grow like that!?"
"you apparently... you ARE his ancestor ri- YEOWCH! oy! don't-!"
"shut up, I'm not done tormenting you yet, sit still!"
hmm... I wonder what he's up to right now... damn... why'd I accept something like this for a contract... searching for the damn book that's almost mythical and it probably is is like saying you're fired... basically...
「say that again and you'll be facing my wrath lowly demon」
"A-ahh~... my goddess Yvel... it's... so nice to meet you..."
「so? how's the research going along?」
haahhh... I can most certainly say hat she won't be happy about what I'm about to say...