I stopped. Oh, because it’s silver. I twisted, and showed them the inscribed rune. “It’s an equipment ring,” I said.
“Ah,” the old man said. “That makes more sense.”
“Where did you get this from?” Freya asked. “It seems quite rare.”
“It’s a Legendary Class item,” I grinned.
“WHAT!” Oris exclaimed. Clearly, the Legendary Label had gotten his attention. “You just randomly obtained it?!”
“Well, I had to fight a whole nest of Giant Spiders and their queen, so not sure I’d say I randomly obtained it.”
“Tch,” he said. “You Eternals are amusing with your sudden strokes of luck.”
I was about to tell him how many times misfortune had harmed our adventure, but I didn’t mention it. No wasn’t the time for an argument.
So, I thought. Where exactly are we?
Mountains loomed in front of us, one behind and two ahead, and the three of them formed a triangle, with this small section of land locked in between them all. Trees and shrubs grew around us, but they didn’t seem too lush or in abundance. After all, it was hard to grow properly when you were in a small section of land between mountains. It probably wasn’t as easy to find water and nutrients at such a place.
Growling sounded behind me, and I knew this wasn’t coming from the volcanic bears. I glanced around and picked out wo pairs of glistening yellow eyes watching us from within the woods.
Perfect, I grinned.
“Irmeia, start up a fire,” I said. “Freya, come with me. We’re going hunting.”
The elf picked up her longsword, as I did Dawnbreaker, and we ran into the grove. The eyes vanished quickly, just as we approached it. I hastened my pace, and ran deeper into the forest. The trees around me weren’t too tightly packed, but certain sections had dense enough canopies to dull the sunlight.
The creature I’d seen wasn’t anywhere within the vicinity, and so I focused, analyzing my surroundings and trying to find any indicators of where it went. I saw a few footprints, but they weren’t really anything useful, just some smudges in the ground. They didn’t really have any good form either, which meant I couldn’t use them to find out what kind of animal we were chasing.
“Let’s move ahead,” I said. “Be on the lookout.”
“Got it.” Freya stepped forward, walking beside me
I noticed something odd with one of the trees ahead and strode up to it. I ran my hand along the odd pattern on its trunk, and realized quickly that these weren’t patterns.
They were scratch marks. My eyes turned to a thorny bush growing at the base, and I noticed something grey in its brambles. I knelt down and carefully removed it from the thick thorns.
I rubbed it between my finger. “A piece of fur.”
“It’s most likely chasing us.” Freya said.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re probably chasing a—”
My eyes widened. Climbing Tree Wolf.
I jerked my eyes up, just in time to see not one, not two, but ten sets of eyes in the set of trees before me. “FREYA, ABOVE US,” I yelled, slashing Dawnbreaker up into the air.
The wolves descended onto the ground in an instant, with angry growls echoing and rabid claws slashing as they came down. I used my superior agility and moved out of the way from their drop point. It would have been useful for me to just slash at them before they came down, but I knew that wasn’t going to be useful when there were like ten or fifteen of them.
Freya had fallen back as well, and was now beside me, breathing heavily. “Had not expected that,” she grinned.
A shadowy form approached from the side, and I knew it was Oris. He must have heard me yelling out to Freya. Our camp wasn’t too far from here at the moment, all the more reason to clean this place of wolves.
“Let’s get as many of them as we can,” I said.
She nodded. “Pick them off one by one.” She gripped her sword. “No mass attacks.
“Got it,” I grinned and shot forward, eager to cut into the wolves. I swung my hand, slashing and hacking at a few wolves. I moved away for a few seconds and then went in once again.
Rinse and repeat. About five times over.
Freya did the same, with Oris coming in and helping us a few moments in. More wolves joined the fight, coming in from all sides. However, the beasts had no chance against the three of us. In about five minutes we’d cleaned up the entire pack that had attacked — about twenty of them in total.
DING!
Congratulations! Your skill ‘Tracking’ has increased to Level 2! You can now discern certain animal types from the kinds of sounds you hear.
DING!
Congratulations! Your skill ‘Hunting’ has increased to Level 7! Agility will now be increased by +11% while hunting. Strength will now be increased by +11% while hunting.
DING!
Congratulations! You have defeated Climbing Tree Wolf Pack (Lv. 441)! Reward: Wolf meat (x15). Reward: Tooth of the Climbing Tree Wolf (x7).
Meat, I grinned. The other two had gotten Ga’em prompts too, and I figured they’d probably obtained meat as well.
We made our way back to the camp, where a confused group of people sat waiting for us, wondering what the hell had just happened. A moment’s explanation later, we gathered some firewood and set up a fireplace. Then it was on to preparing the meat for dinner, and that was Irmeia’s forte. Although, now that I had my Cooking skill I was much more helpful than I’d been previously.
Raffyr and Viola still had quite a bit of water stored, so we seemed set on that end. All we had to do was eat and rest out the night now.
“Do we really need this?” Raffyr fetched one of his canteens and placed it on the ground. “Don’t we have to get to this man’s castle as soon as we can?”
“We do,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean we give up on food. I can usually go a few days without food, but I doubt it’s the same for you guys. It’s been more than a day since we last ate, and given everything that just happened. It’d be nice to take a break.”
The old man’s stomach growled softly. He looked at me, and smiled. “That’s true.”
I saw Viola working on something at the side and walked up to her. She glanced up from the sound of my footsteps and gave me a polite nod.
“How are you doing?” I asked, and noticed that she was picking up dry twigs.
She nodded once again. “Everything is fine,” she said. “Although being shut out of the tunnel was a little jarring.”
“Mountains are annoying.”
She laughed. “These ones are.”
“Listen,” I said. “I just came up to tell you to stop worrying about what I think of you. I know things happened in the past, but I can tell those are things you regret. As far as I’m concerned you’re a good friend.”
She smiled. “I understand. Thank you.”
I nodded and stepped away, letting her go back to her task. Soon, the sun had disappeared from the mountains and darkness was beginning to set in. Irmeia finished her preparations, and this time the food looked even better than before.
We all sat around the fire and dug in.
“Slow down, Oris,” I chuckled, watching the Knight stuff everything in with gusto.
“Shut up,” he muttered. “You’re not the one who hasn’t eaten anything since he got here.”
“Fine, fine.” I bit into my meat.
An amused smile curled onto my face at the sight of the Knight eating with us. He was from the Dark Alliance, a group that had actively worked against me — both directly and indirectly — for the past few months. And yet, in recent moments, I had not regarded Oris as ‘the enemy’. It was more like he was slowly banding with us.
That’ll probably change when we get back to the present, I sighed.
“So Zoran,” Freya said. “Who exactly was this Dragon you met?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “Just know that she was called Espaniona.”
“Espaniona. Nope, have not
heard of her.”
“Yeah, I hadn’t either. We were lucky she knew about the castle though.”
“But nothing about the man inside it?”
I shook my head.
“I see.”
I could see a bit of nervousness on everyone’s face, and that was understandable. This man in the castle was a mysterious entity for all of us, and that caused a lot of concern. Of course, I, Nyx and Acnologia still had the piece of information that Polaris had given us — that the Analyze skill had responded with ‘Does not exist’ when used on this man.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Nyx said.
I know, I sighed.
After an hour or two more of silence and occasional questioning, we all decided to take a nap. Acnologia agreed to keep watch, because according to him ‘Dragons don’t need sleep’. I wasn’t protesting so I said it was fine. The only way I’d been sleeping over this journey was by falling unconscious. A proper nap was a welcoming idea.
I found myself a nice place a few yards away from the fireplace, under the trees. I just lay myself against the ground, and rested my head on the shallow incline of the tree roots as it led up to the trunk. I let my muscles relax and exhaled.
“You seem pretty tense,” Nyx said. “Even though you just sighed.”
Well, everyone’s questions were pretty on point, I said. I need to think through things a lot more.
“Think through what kinds of things?”
Well for one, what are we going to do once we get to the castle? I asked.
“Scout inside, and find this man.”
I reclined back and got comfortable. But we know nothing about him, I said. For all we know he’s so powerful even my past self couldn’t take him in battle.
“Well. Think of it this way. It’s either we do this. Or we sit still and wait for someone else to help us. And that usually doesn’t work. At all.”
I know, I sighed.
Footsteps came from beside me and I turned. Irmeia stood there, a warm smile on her face. “Do you have space for another Eternal who can’t seem to sleep?”
I chuckled. “Sure.” I shifted a bit to the side.
“Thank you,” she said, and sat by me, resting her head right next to mine.
“What’s keeping you up?” I asked.
“Prying into a woman’s secrets, are you?”
“No?”
“I’m kidding,” she chuckled. “Honestly, I just can’t stop thinking about my past.”
Figured this would happen, I thought.
“I do not know who I was, or who I’m supposed to be. I seem to know what my powers are, but nothing past that.”
I smiled. “I know the feeling.”
“You do?” Her face leaned closer to mine.
“Yeah,” I nodded. “I felt the exact same way when I first woke up a long time ago. I was clueless about anything and everything. I could have been attacked and I still would have had no idea why.”
She chuckled. “You’re amusing, Diablo.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“By me,” Nyx chuckled. “Multiple times.”
“Say,” Irmeia said. “The elven girl. Freya. Did I do something to offend her?”
“Uhhh,” I paused. What do I do here?
“It’s just, she seems to have something against me. just want to make sure I’m not doing anything wrong.”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing. She just takes a while to completely trust someone.”
“So the fact that my memory is kind of blank right now is a source of trouble?”
“Something like that,” I said. “Don’t worry yourself too much over it. She’ll come around soon, when she realizes you don’t mean anyone harm.”
“I see,” she said. “Thank you.” Irmeia sat up and swiveled around, resting her head on my lap.
“Hey!” I sat up, and my face flushed red.
She smiled. “How cute.”
I sighed. “What are you doing?”
Irmeia laughed. “Don’t be that way.” She reached out, and touched my face. “You know,” she said. “I’m glad you’re here for me. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d woken up alone in this world.”
I smiled. “I’m glad I have another Eternal I can talk to as well.”
Her hand reached to the side of my head, and she ran her fingers through my locks. “Your eyes,” she whispered. “It’s like I could stare into them forever.”
A twig snapped, and I jerked my eyes toward the sound.
Freya stood there, an emotionless expression on her face. “Apologies,” she said. “I seem to have interrupted something. I can wait.”
And with that the elf walked away briskly, before we could even get a word in.
“Oh dear.” Irmeia sat up. “She didn’t sound pleased.”
I sighed. “It’ll be fine.”
Eventually, my mind added.
Irmeia headed off right after, probably bothered by how Freya had. I couldn’t blame her. The Eternal already felt like she was doing something wrong, and the elf didn’t make her feel any better on that end.
I thought about checking up on her later on, but decided against it. She was capable of taking care of herself, or coming to me for help if she needed it. Soon my thoughts shifted from the situation and pressed onto a more serious issue.
I spent most of the night awake, just thinking about everything we were going up against. In the end, I got maybe an hour of sleep before the sun rose again and it was time to leave.
“You seem tired, Zoran,” Raffyr said as we got onto the Volcanic Forest Bears, ready to head out. “Did you not get enough sleep last night?”
“I managed a bit,” I said. “I’m probably just tired because of all the running around.”
“Sure, of course you got enough sleep,” Nyx said.
Well it doesn’t really matter how much sleep I got does it? I asked.
“If you fall asleep in the middle of a battle, don’t blame me.”
It won’t be THAT bad, I said.
“Never say never,” the spirit chuckled.
And on that note, we headed out, moving through the sparse grove of trees and trying to find a pass between the two mountains ahead. The Volcanic bears seemed happy that we were in this kind of terrain now, and the creatures kept their steps speedy, moving through quickly.
None of us spoke the whole time, and each one kept to their own thoughts. The only sounds we heard came from the bears and from the winds themselves.
It took us about ten minutes to find the mountain pass — although it wasn’t really a pass. The mountains didn’t really have any proper route between them since they overlapped each other, and so we actually ended up climbing a small section of their base, where the two mountains converged. It wasn’t more than a hundred yards high, but it still ended up taking us fifteen minutes to get to the top of the path.
I looked down, at the slope heading back to ground level. Another fifteen minutes, I noted.
“Zoran, look!” Freya called out, with tension dripping from her voice. I glanced up, and there I saw it.
Carved into a mountain a mile away were pillars of beautiful stone, the size of each one apt for the home of a giant. Large jewels glistened from the base of each one, and caught the morning light, shining it our way. Unease struck me from the mere glance of the castle. A gentle pressure sifted into my mind, and I traced the huge amounts of power that were radiating from the place.
For a long time, we had known nothing about this man in the castle. However, in that moment, I knew with a confidence that was absolute.
This man was an Eternal.
***
CHAPTER TWENTY
Deep down I had always known.
Always known that this man was probably one from my own kind. But actually feeling it for myself was a completely different thing. There was power radiating from within this castle of carved stone, and though it wouldn’t mean much to the normal person, I could
tell this man was an Eternal.
“Well,” Nyx said. “Given only Eternals and Dragons existed in this time and age, it seems obvious that if one is not a Dragon, then they are an Eternal.”
It doesn’t HAVE to be that way, I said.
“Diablo is right,” Acnologia said. “The other races of the world came into existence somewhere around this part of time. They might already exist for all we know.”
Either way, this mystery man is probably an Eternal, I though. It doesn’t matter what other guesses we could have made. It doesn’t change the fact that he is.
“Zoran.” Irmeia stopped her bear beside me.
“What?” I asked.
“You sense it too, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Inside the castle.”
“I can’t tell how strong exactly though. But definitely an Eternal.”
I didn’t need any confirmation that what I’d felt before was real, but this more than justified the feeling. I turned to everyone else, and noticed that they did not say anything and just kept moving forward, getting ready to climb back down.
Nothing asked, nothing told, I tapped my Volcanic Bear on the neck and directed him back to level ground. The Bear grunted once and started our descent. I kept the castle of engraved rock in my eyes for as long as I could, but the structure soon disappeared behind the trees, and I diverted my attention as well.
We walked through the grove before us, sunlight and wind infiltrating the place as they saw fit. A flowery scent carried within the gales, but lasted only for a few moments before the winds turned stale.
My mind felt empty, no longer occupied by intense thoughts piling onto each other. My only concern was this man I was to face. Polaris’ words were still fresh in my mind.
Does not exist.
That’s what the Ga’em had said when the Star Dragon had tried to Analyze this man. That surely meant something. I had been on the other end of weird Ga’em things happening to me, so I knew this was definitely indicative of something. I was just unsure of what exactly.
“Let us not worry about this too much, Eternal,” Acnologia said.
The Eternal: Transcend - A LitRPG Saga (World of Ga'em Book 3) Page 20
