"You get all sorted?" Junior rested his head in his palm as he leaned on the bar, giving me a look when I left the back area.
"Yeah, Roman is a bit out of commission though." I replied.
Junior let out snort, a small smile on his face. "Well, good thing I didn't do it" He sat himself up straighter. "Well, I introduced myself before, names Junior, I know a few things if you got the Lien."
I thought for a moment, putting some more Lien on the table. "Know anywhere close by where I can go punch some Grimm without a hassle?"
Junior looked at my oddly. "Well, I guess we all wanted to do that when we got our Aura for the first time." He scooped up the money. "Word of warning, kid. Don't let the new strength go to your head, Grimm have been killing trained Huntsman for centuries."
"I didn't know you cared." I flashed him a cheeky smile.
"I would rather your Lien end up in my pocket than some Grimm's stomach." He rolled his eyes. "But you got two options if you don't want to go venturing out of the city." He pulled out his scroll, widening it to show a map of the kingdom. "Over by Beacon, and to the North we got the Forever Fall forest. Opposite, to the south, we got the Emerald Forest. Both are more or less the same, but the Emerald Forest gets culled more frequently than the Forever Fall, but both are relatively 'safe' compared to the wilds."
"Why does the Emerald Forest get more attention?"
"Beacon uses it for their entry tests. Throw a bunch of kids in there, fight their way out or something." He waived his hand. "They don't technically own it…..but most folks who would even consider going there stay away around that time of the year."
Beacon, the Huntsman Academy, where they train kids to fight Grimm.
"Ah." I rubbed my chin. "I guess if they're going to train kids to fight monsters, the best test is to in fact, fight said monsters in a contained environment." I nodded my head. Can't really blame them for putting kids through a thing like that when monsters literally beat on their doors. "What's up with Forever Fall then?"
"Another place Beacon likes to take their students for training. The tree sap there is really expensive, but not many people are willing to go into Grimm territory to get it. Teachers take a few classes there in their early years, gather a bunch of sap, and sell it to interested buyers to fund some school stuff." Junior explained.
Actually, that sounds interesting. "The sap, anything particularly noteworthy about it?"
"Very sweet, apparently not that unhealthy either. Something about it makes it better than regular sugar or other comparable things around. Other than that I don't know much." He scratched his head. "Usually always a market for it if you want to grab some jars."
He really does know a lot of stuff off the top of his head. Information broker indeed.
"Alright, thanks for the info." I tossed a bit more Lien on the table before leaving.
***
It was surprisingly easy to make it to this 'Forever Falls' forest. The entrance to and from that connected to the city wasn't particularly 'guarded'. Granted, there were huge fuck off guns on the walls, and guards at the gate, but they didn't even bat an eye when I said I want to go in.
Guess it's more common than I thought.
"Beautiful." I muttered as the forest came into view.
It was red.
Almost unnaturally so.
The grass on the ground, the leaves on the trees, all of it was the same red coloring. There was no way in hell this was a natural evolution.
Still, it was a breathtaking sight.
I contemplated taking Artoria here for a date, a picnic would be absolutely lovely. I don't think Meridia or Scathach would be interested in that kind of thing.
Taking in the surroundings, I eyed a tree with a small nozzle coming out of it, looking primed for sap harvesting. Though, as I got closer, it looked a tad rusted, perhaps worm as well. Well, it seems like this was abandoned some time ago.
I jiggled it slightly, and turned the nozzle on with a bit of force to overcome the rusted mechanism.
I stared at it intently as finally, a small drop of sap emerged from the faucet. Quickly, I scooped it up with my finger and brought it closer to my eyes for inspection, the bright red color of the sap was surprising, but otherwise it didn't look offputting. Hesitantly, I licked it.
"Holy shit."
[Yeah, that's sweet.]
"It was like….I had eaten an entire candy bar in a single drop, but without that bloated feeling." I took out a small jar, putting it under the faucet and giving it little tap to get the sap flowing a little better. "What do you think, Waffles or Pancakes?"
[Waffles, definitely. Would go better with that little bit of crunch.]
"I can just imagine all the possibilities…." I didn't have that much of a sweet tooth, but I definitely enjoyed sweet things. "Would go well with some Ice cream, maybe even some varieties of cake like cheesecake." Which was odd because sweet on sweet usually detracted from either dish, but this sap was something wonderful.
[Grab more of it.]
"Don't gotta tell me twice." I took out a few more jars, cutting some small holes into the trees and tried my best to wedge a sort of 'extractor' into it so the sap would drip down into my jars. Basically a piece of metal to direct the flow of the drip.
"Ooh, need to find some acorns to bring back." In looked around, brushing away the leaves on the ground. "Hopefully these trees are something that can be replicated back home." No idea what mechanisms created this kind of tree, but perhaps I can research it when I have more time.
I brought out Sir Wiggles, having a bright idea. "Think you can grab me more of these?" I held out an acorn for him to get a good look.
The familiar link between us told me he understood as he bolted off in another direction.
[I take back what I said about Sir Wiggles.]
"You're such a glutton."
[Pot, meet kettle.]
"Never said I wasn't." I said with a laugh, kneeling I scooped up a soil sample, both around a tree and a bit further away. I labeled them before putting them away in my hat.
[Look alive, we got company]
"Yeah, I noticed it too." I grumbled, standing up as a familiar black creature approached me. "Though only when it got surprisingly close to me."
It doesn't posses the normal 'feelings' of a living being.
[What did the lass call this, a beowolf?]
"Yeah, and I only skimmed the book I got. Supposedly a weakling in the Grimm Hierarchy." It kind of looked like a traditional werewolf portrayed in popular media. I watched its lumbering steps as it broke out into a sprint at me.
"Well, lets test some stuff out." I summoned the boosted gear and immediately noticed a small change. It felt 'lighter' was probably the best word. Not it's weight, but its existence wasn't as constrained. It felt like, if I hadn't achieved Balance Breaker already, it would have been much easier.
The thing snarled as it got close, clawed hand swiping at me.
I didn't move, my Aura flared into a shield as its claw tried to cleave into my flesh. It stopped without any effort on my part, and I just admired the mystical phenomenon up close.
With my Aura out in full throttle, I flared my Circuits.
With a nod to myself, I made the mental note that nothing felt out of place there. If anything, they burned less from use than normal.
It makes sense, I suppose. Magic Circuits are a pseudo nerve system that extends from the soul. Aura is the manifestation of the Soul, and supposedly provides a certain healing factor on activation. It's probably offsetting the 'pain' and 'burning' from using the mystical organ. Was so used to it at this point that this didn't really mean anything.
Interesting interaction though.
[Weird, I kind of felt that.]
"The Grimm attacking or the Aura in general?"
[The Grimm, it was like an echo, but yeah…]
Odd.
I grabbed the thing and slammed it to the ground with enough force to indent the hard surface. "Decently sturdy, blunt damage probably not the preferred method of dealing with then." I muttered.
It struggled, snarled, or otherwise thrashed under my grip. "Intelligence seems lacking, perhaps a sort of preprogrammed instinct?" I twisted its arm back slowly, watching it still struggle but it didn't even change its 'expression' as I pulled it back much further than it should have been able to. "Doesn't react to pain, or perhaps it cannot feel pain?"
Pain is an evolutionary trait for living beings to survive. While I can't say that every living thing across the infinite realities feels pain, it is a dominant trait in every world I know about.
"Boost." I said quietly as my physical abilities doubled and I ripped the arm off its body.
An inky black liquid dropped to the ground, seemingly its blood.
"Thoughts, Ddraig?"
[Nothing wrong with the boost, nor anything extraordinary. Seems we're good to go there.]
I nodded along, inspecting the arm. "This thing doesn't have proper bone structure…I mean, It has bones, but they look like an afterthought in its whole design." I threw the arm to the side and picked up the Grimm again. It tried to bite at me, but my aura blocked any kind of haphazard attack on its part.
"Yeah, this thing is definitely not alive. The old man was correct in calling it a 'construct' but that probably didn't do it justice. It is a facsimile of life." Dawnbreaker flew out of my ring, hovering nearby, not reacting. "Yeah, no life nor 'unlife' to be found here." Grabbing the sword, I stabbed into its stomach. "Magical energy." I muttered. "This thing exists from magic." The faint sensation of magical energy wafted from its body
It makes sense….but to have confirmation that magic is prevalent here was something to mull over. "The magics holding it together, they bring together the 'container' to mimic life, organs, bones, that sort of thing. I can only imagine when the corresponding parts like the 'heart' take damage, the magics that make up the creature try to 'heal' or sustain it but are unable and it collapses. It isn't that any of its internals are vital, but it was designed to be a reflection of a true living creature."
Fascinating.
Who made these things, and for what purpose? I suddenly had the eerie though that whatever created something like this on such a world-wide scale was not a simple being.
Yeah, this world isn't as simple as I first thought.
Dawnbreaker slammed down into its head, letting it dissipate back into magical energy and drift back to the world.
I was lost in thought for a moment before taking out the Vial of Dust, uncorking it and letting a tiny bit spill out onto my palm.
"Jesus fucking Christ." I felt a sharp pain in my head at invoking the name of 'God'. The taboo woven into my devil bloodline.
[Whats wrong, you're usually good about not saying his name?]
I clenched my fist, throwing the bit of dust into the wind. "This dust, it's crystallized Mana." I fell to the ground, staring up at the sky.
[I don't understand.]
"Crystallized Mana….is not a natural phenomenon. Mana, the lifeblood of a world, the most abundant form of magical energy. It pulsates out, spreads and returns to the planet. It is NOT supposed to clot up and 'crystallize' like this. Something is seriously wrong here."
[What does it mean?]
"Well…..I don't think I've ever walked on a dead planet before." I stared up at the broken moon in the sky, an oddly apt reflection of the world I now found myself on.
***
Just a reminder, i'm not posting tomorrow.
MC discovers some stuff about the world which just brings up more questiosn.
Anyways, if you want to read ahead 5 chapter or just support me, visit my pat.reon.com/astoryforone