"Got You!" I swung my sword at Narmaya who was looking in another direction. But as my sword strike hit her, suddenly Narmaya disappeared and was replaced by a purple butterfly that started fluttering around me.
"Tsk tsk tsk, too bad you didn't hit me," I heard Narmaya's voice from behind me and then something touching my back.
"Haahh, your sword technique is so unfair..." I raised both my hands to signal her that I'm surrender.
Right now Narmaya and I were practicing together while waiting for Grandcypher to reach our next destination, Golonzo Island. It was already the day after we left Albion Island, and since my parting with Vira, I never thought I'd say this, but I kinda miss her...
But at least this separation is only temporary until Vira finishes her duty as the lord of Albion, and then we can meet again.
"Owch..." as I was thinking about Vira, suddenly someone hit my head. I turned to see that it was Narmaya hitting my head with her katana sheath.
"Why are you thinking about other things while we're practicing?" Narmaya said to me as she sheathed her katana.
"I was just thinking about the island we're going to visit and what primal beast we'll face next," I replied to Narmaya as I making my sword disappear.
Narmaya seemed to not believe at what I said, but she decided not to ask me any further. "Well, then let's end today's training here. You need to work harder on your sword technique because right now it's really bad."
Well, I'm sorry about that... the power of Lucifer and Lucillus makes me forget to train my sword technique too because I'm too focused on mastering this power so I don't lose control.
"Did you hear me!?" Narmaya said again to me, but this time her tone was more menacing than before.
Hearing her voice like that, I quickly replied before she got angry, "Yes, alright, teacher, I will train my sword technique."
"Teacher? I told you to call me Onee-chan."
"No thank you."
"Good morning, you two. You two are already training diligently this early in the morning," the two of us suddenly heard Katalina's voice approaching us.
I then turned to Katalina, who was wearing her knight's attire and carrying a rapier at her waist.
"Hey, Katalina, we've just finished training. If you want to train, you can use the whole deck without interruption," I said to Katalina.
"No, Rei, I came here just to watch you two train, but it seems I'm a bit late because you two are already done," Katalina replied.
"Well, then the three of us can just chat here while we wait for the others to wake up," I informed them.
They both nodded in agreement with what I said. After all, the three of us didn't have any other activities besides waiting for Grandcypher to reach Golonzo Island.
But just when the three of us were chatting about random things, suddenly thick fog started to enveloped us, making it hard for me to see far because of the fog.
"Fog? How strange. How can such thick fog suddenly appear?" Narmaya tried to dissipate the fog with a wave of her hand, but the fog kept returning.
"I... I can sense a Primal Beast," I informed them.
"Primal Beast? Where do you sense it, Rei?" Katalina asked me immediately.
"I don't know, but..." before I could finish speaking, the others started coming out from the Grandcypher.
"Everyone! Lyria says she suddenly sensed the power of a Primal Beast," Djeeta shouted towards us.
Djeeta and the others then walked towards us and stopped in front of us. "Yes, when I tried to waking up Djeeta, suddenly I saw fog appear, and then I could sense the power of a Primal Beast," Lyria explained to them.
"Another Primal Beast, huh... So where do you sense it?" Rackam asked Lyria.
But Lyria just shook her head because she didn't know where the Primal Beast was, and the fog made it difficult for us to see clearly.
"Tiamat, lend me your power, please," I said to Tiamat residing inside me.
Not long I could feel Tiamat's power flowing throughout my body, and I used that power to dissipate the fog around us with the wind from Tiamat.
*Swishhh* The fog began to fade away due to the strong winds I unleashed, but it wasn't long before the fog started gathering again, and we couldn't see far once more...
"Well, that doesn't work..." I said to the others.
I thought that by using Tiamat's wind, I could dissipate this thick fog, but it seems that before we can deal with the primal beast that causing this fog, I won't be able to get rid of this fog.
But a primal beast with fog, huh? If I'm not mistaken, the primal beasts we haven't encountered in Arc 1 are Akasha and Celeste. Upon seeing this fog, it's certain that this is Celeste's doing...
"Hey, Rei, can you do that again?" I heard Lyria say to me.
"Sure," I then just like before use Tiamat's wind to clear the fog around us.
"There's a small island over there, and I can sense the primal beast's power coming from that direction," Lyria pointed in a direction.
We all turned to the direction she pointed, and as Lyria said... oh wow, that island is so small, even smaller than Zinkenstill...
[Mist-Shrouded Isle]
But we couldn't focus on the island any longer as the fog began to reappear and cover the area around us...
"So, are we going there?" I asked them.
"Well, we have no choice... we can't fly the Grandcypher in this thick fog, and also, since this involves a primal beast, we have to go there and check whether this is the Empire's doing again or not," Djeeta answered me.
As Djeeta had chosen to land on that island, Rackam then steered the Grandcypher so we could land on the small island. Meanwhile, I continued to use Tiamat's power to clear the fog in front of us so Rackam could safely land the Grandcypher.
Eventually, we landed and started descending one by one. "I can sense a primal beast on the island. Its aura is huge and really powerful!" Lyria informed us.
So, this is Celeste's aura... I can also sense her aura, and it's stronger than the primal beast we faced before. I don't really remember the abilities of Primal Beast Celeste from the game...
But I remember one of Celeste's abilities, it's the ability to erase someone's concept of death so they cannot be killed by anything...
"So how about you find some islanders who can fill us in on this place? Me and Rackam will stay here guarding the Grandcypher," Eugen said to us.
"Fine. But if we run into a swarm of monsters, you better come back us up!" Io said to Eugen and Rackam.
"Yes, ma'am! Leave it to us! We'll come find you wherever you are!" Rackam jokingly saluted to Io.
After that we started walking looking for the village on this island leaving Rackam and Eugen behind.
But this journey is really difficult because of the very thick fog, so we could only walk in random directions, hoping we would find something.
"...Hey, did everyone see that?" Io suddenly said to us, pointing in a direction.
"No, I didn't see anything..." Djeeta looked away from the direction indicated by Io.
So she saw it, huh...
"We didn't see anything just now! No zombie-looking monster or anything like it!" Lyria also turned her gaze away from the direction pointed by Io.
"That zombie-looking monster just now was all in your imagination! Yep, no way it was real..." Lyria seemed to start getting scared.
"Lyria! Let's just calm down a bit, alright?" Katalina said to Lyria.
Why are they so scared? Haven't we encountered monsters like this before? But when they meet zombie-like monsters, the two of them start getting scared.
"What about you, Narmaya, are you scared too?" I turned to Narmaya who was standing next to me.
Narmaya looked like she wanted to say something, but she chose to keep her mouth shut, then started smiling and finally held my arm and leaned her body towards me.
"Rei... Onee-chan is really scared of this. Can you help your Onee-chan? Maybe if you call me Onee-chan, I won't be afraid anymore," Narmaya said to me while leaning her really big breasts against me.
"No, thank you."
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
After that, we continued walking for a while until Vyrn spotted something.
"Whoa! Hey, Djeeta! Do you see that?" Vyrn pointed in a direction.
"I'm not even trying to look! I don't wanna see any zombies or ghosts!" Lyria covered her eyes with both of her hands.
"Good grief... Enough with the zombies! Anyway, does that look like a village to you? I see a bunch of houses over there. And there are lights... So it must not be a ghost town," Vyrn said to us.
I then used Tiamat's wind to clear some of the fog so we could see what Vyrn was looking at since he could see the village because he was flying.
After I cleared the fog, we could see a village with residents in it as the lights in the houses were all on.
"I never thought I'd feel so happy to find a village..." Io looked very happy as she said that.
"Let's go check out the village! We can talk to the people who live there and get some helpful information!" Djeeta said to us, and then we began walking towards the village.
As we entered the village, some residents started greeting us. "Oh! Welcome! Are you travelers? Don't see them often!" One of the villagers greeted us.
They really looked very pale... they seemed like someone who was already dead, and I couldn't sense any aura from them.
"Now, now! Don't just stand there! Come this way!" Another villager said to us while waving her hand.
"Hey, I can't sense any aura from them at all... and that's very unlikely because all living beings have an aura unless they're dead..." I said to the others.
"Rei, what are you saying? Clearly there's a flu going around, and that's why everyone looks so pale, right?" Lyria looked like she didn't want to accept the reality, then asked the villagers who welcomed us.
"We've seen our share of plagues in the past, but now we're immune to sickness! We're actually dead, you see!" One of the villagers proudly informed us.
"Ah... D-dead... you s-say..." Lyria looked very pale when she heard that.
"Lyria, no more excuses. You've got to face the truth right in front of you," Narmaya said to Lyria while holding one of her shoulders.
Well, so my memory was correct, huh? Celeste's ability where she can erase the concept of death from someone and bring them back from death by turning them into zombies...