Emerging from the narrow stretch of trees lining the right hand side of the road, Nihil and Ignis were greeted by large open skies and farmland as far as their eyes could see.
The town they were headed towards was just over the nearest hill. That being said, it was over a day’s walk away so they wouldn’t reach the town for roughly another 2 days. Now that they’d exited the ancient forest, the towns and cities would all be 2-5 days away from each other by foot until they reached the rocky plains at Avalon’s shared border with Sheol.
The ruins were roughly 37,000km away so it would take almost two months to reach them on foot. Since they were adventurers, they wouldn’t use horses or other methods of transportation. After all, their destination wasn’t their only objective. They were also interested in the magical beasts that they could kill on their way. The average party could travel around 450km per day on foot, and Axis’ months all consisted of 50 days, each of which being 30 hours long.
If they’d been on their own, Nihil and Ignis would have been able to travel much faster so this slow pace was sure to annoy them. However, they couldn’t pass up the cover they’d receive from Diei Noctis. After all, the Royal Guard would expect them to have travelled much further by this time. In fact, they probably assumed that the men were already at Avalon’s borders at the edge of the Central Sea. The Guard must be frantically searching, hoping to catch the pair before they crossed the border.
The Central Sea was entirely Arcadia’s territory. Anything that was on those waters would fall into their jurisdiction, and no other country could interfere without going through the council first.
Since the inter-species council was in charge of the Central Sea, it would make sense for Ignis and Nihil to head there to petition for intervention. The sea also happened to be much closer to them than the borders of Sheol. However, knowing that the Royal Guard would anticipate this, the two had decided to head to the ruins first.
This route would also end up with a much shorter journey at sea in order to reach the main island. This island was called the Black Isle, and the city at the centre was the capital of the entire country – Bule.
Despite the island’s ominous name, It was actually named for the onyx within the ground, literally making it black in colour. The citizens really embraced it, and they built most of their buildings out of the stone. It also had the added benefit of being a very valuable material for enchanting due to its purity, so they often sold it to the other countries for a decent price.
* * *
There were a few groups of people dotted here and there, making their way to or from the road leading to Imber. These groups would be merchants, travellers, and also other adventurers that had business in the capital. However due to the recent developments with the crown prince, there were far fewer non-humans as compared to previous years.
Picking a path that would navigate them through the farmland and take them to the village they were headed to, the group set off. Before long, a few magical beasts attacked the party, trampling through crop fields and vegetable patches that happened to get in their way. Luckily these magical beasts didn’t attack in groups, so they were quickly dispatched and dismantled. After these attacks, the group would help the farmers clean up the mess and apologise for the trouble. The farmers were normally understanding and forgiving, but there would always be a few grumpy people that couldn’t be pacified.
Magical beasts normally wouldn’t care about farmland and the weak farmers who tended the fields. However, if a large group of powerful cultors passed by, the nearby magical beats would get stirred up into a frenzy and attack the group without worrying about what happened to be in front of them.
During their journey, it soon became evident that, with the absence of their leaders, the group was much more subdued than usual. However Ignis soon cheered everyone up again by telling them many different stories of his past with Nihil. He even told them the story of when he’d first befriended Nihil.
* * *
Ignis was 10 years old when he first arrived at the same compound that Nihil was being kept in. Looking through the glass wall, for some reason Ignis was immediately intrigued by the defiant man before him. Since that day, Nihil’s appearance hadn’t changed at all – aside from perhaps coming across as much friendlier.
That day, Nihil had looked even more stoney faced than he did in recent days. Ignis had thought that Nihil’s indifferent golden eyes were hiding a deep-rooted sadness. No matter what happened to him Nihil never seemed to even register it, but Ignis still sensed that there was more to him than met the eye.
To a child of 10 years old, Nihil had always been mysterious and somewhat scary. However, that just made Ignis want to talk to him even more. Unfortunately no matter how often he’d approached the strange man, he’d always been shot down and told to go off and play by himself.
Back then, they’d all been referred to by numbers. Nihil’s number was zero, while Ignis’ was 1915. That being said, by the time Ignis arrived, there were only around 20 kids left in the compound. He hadn’t really understood the full implications of this at first, but as the years passed and the kids slowly vanished, he gradually understood what had happened to them. He also finally understood why Nihil had never once told him to play with the other kids.
It was when Ignis was 15 years old that something happened to change his relationship with Nihil. Ignis had been wandering around the small, walled garden. As always, he’d been wearing the shackles that were compulsory for all the incarcerated children to wear.
Ignis had noticed that the apples on the tree in the centre of the garden were ripe, and he’d wanted to pick one to eat. While he was within the branches, Ignis had seen Nihil sleeping in the shade not too far away from the tree the little boy had climbed. Surprised that he hadn’t sensed the man’s presence until then, Ignis jumped down from the tree and approached the stranger for a better look. Even with Nihil right in front of him, Ignis still couldn’t sense the guy at all.
Looking at Nihil’s face, Ignis noticed that the guy’s sad expression didn’t disappear even while he was sleeping. Just then Nihil’s eyes flickered as he woke up and saw the boy standing over him.
“Y-your eyes are a pretty colour.” Ignis awkwardly stuttered. He was embarrassed at being caught staring, and his brain stopped working for a few seconds.
Realising what he’d said, Ignis had blushed deeply and started rambling in a desperate attempt to explain what he meant. “I-it’s just that I haven’t seen that colour before – not that I remember my past before I came here. Are you a half-breed? Though most half-breeds take after just one parent … You have horns, but you also have a fox’s tail and elven ears. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like you before -”
“You like my eye colour?” Nihil interrupted upon realising that the little boy in front of him wasn’t going to stop talking any time soon.
“Huh? Oh yeah, it’s super awesome. It’s almost as if they’re glowing.”
“Well, you’d be the first to think that way …” Nihil had muttered to himself.
Standing up, he tried to reenter the compound building. However Ignis was still standing right in front of him, so Nihil ended up tripping over the chain connecting his two shackles together.
Catching him, Ignis checked to see if Nihil was ok.
“Yeah, I’m fine. It was just a particularly rough day, is all.” Nihil replied, exhausted.
“No wonder you were sleeping out here then.” Ignis commented sympathetically. “Right, I’ll walk you back to your room.”
“I can walk just fine on my own …”
“If you’re certain, then …” Ignis replied reluctantly. “I hope we can be friends from now on, though.”
“Huh? You want to be friends with me?” Nihil asked in shock. He was convinced he must have misheard the boy.
“Yeah. Do you not want to?”
“It’s not that I don’t -”
“Then it’s settled.” Ignis interrupted before Nihil could finish what he was going to say.
* * *
Naturally when he was telling this story, Ignis altered it slightly to fit the circumstances of two merchants’ children. As a result, none of the group noticed anything amiss with the story, and they even found it sweet. Some members found themselves warming up to Nihil slightly. However, most of them were more intrigued by Ignis’ strange personality of being so persistent.
At this point, the group reached a small woodland along the edge of their route. Since it was around midday, they decided to step inside to hide from the scorching sun for a minute, and to eat lunch while they were at it. Checking his supplies, Nihil realised that their stocks of food were very low. Looking around, he noticed that there were actually plenty of small animals and wild game in the area they were in.
Just as a low growl echoed throughout their surroundings, Ignis’ face grew serious. He could detect at least 13 magical beasts encircling them. They had stumbled across a pack of wolves.
“Nihil, there are 13 adults surrounding us, with their cubs hiding just behind them.” Ignis warned his friend after concentrating a bit harder.
“That’s a little troubling.” Nihil replied with a furrowed brow. “I’m not sure this group can take on that many opponents. Ignis, I’ll need your help here.”
“Got it.” Ignis declared after Nihil had explained the plan to him.
With perfect timing, the pack jumped and attacked the party of nine just as Nihil had finished explaining his plan to his friend.
“Now!” Archer shouted to the group. He had become the de facto leader in Stella and Lunam’s absence.
Archer was an older demon with greying hair, but he was still just as strong as he had been in his prime. His rich experience allowed him to lead this group with no problems, and his tactics in battle also left no room for doubt. Not even Nihil could often find fault with Archer’s cunning strategies.
After Archer shouted, Lucas, Alexis and Merry all opened fire with their long range weapons. Merry’s magical rifle was the most powerful, but the reload time was the slowest since she had to allow the rifle to charge between shots.
As the wolves drew nearer, she reached down into a pouch on her waist. Inside this pouch were several magical beast cores that she could slot into her gun. She hadn’t used these earlier because the rifle used a lot of the energy stored within the crystals, so she had to make sure that each one was used to maximum effect.
These wolves had an incredibly strong defence, so the rifle could only take one of them down after a couple of shots in the same area. Merry’s gun had the most powerful single attack of the entire party so it was needless to explain how the others were faring.
Lucas and Alexis were shooting their arrows at the wolves’ eyes in order to blind them. Even if they didn’t hit, the opponent was forced to look away from the party as they slipped behind trees to dodge the sharp projectiles.
Linley and Archer both worked together to limit their enemy’s movements further. They both shot out small dart-like objects into the trunks surrounding the group, forming a protective circle around them. Attached to these small darts were thin wires made from a spider-type magical beast’s webs. These threads were far stronger than any steel wires, and would serve to slow down the wolves’s advancement.
The attack style of these two was more suited to ambushes and assassinations, rather than a head on confrontation like this, so their options were severely limited. However, they weren’t defenceless, and their cultivations were among the highest in the Star and Moon adventurers. This meant that their hand-to-hand combat skills wouldn’t be lacking in comparison to the rest of the group.
Once the threads were all set up, the two demons fell back to the centre of the group while pulling out two short knives and taking up a defensive stance. They, along with Klaus and Claude, would perform hit and run attacks in order to keep their distance. The long range specialists would have the biggest affect on the outcome of this battle.
For this fight, Claude switched to an urumi as his normal whip wouldn’t deal as much damage in this kind of fight. An urumi was a sword that was made of super flexible steel, and could have a varying number of blades that were unbelievably sharp. He did have to sacrifice some of his reach, but as this had actually been his main weapon before joining Diei Noctis he was highly skilled at using the whip-like sword. His urumi had five blades, making it extremely difficult to master. However, it did mean that the amount of pain it dealt to an enemy was by no means small.
Noticing his choice of weapon, Nihil was impressed as it was one that required many years of constant practice in order to master.
“That weapon suits you better than the whip from before.” Nihil commented after watching his movements for a moment.
“This used to be my main weapon, so I’m not surprised.” Claude responded blithely.
Just then, the wolves managed to force their way through the threads protecting the group and started viciously attacking the party in fury. Blood dripped from their bodies in several places, and it was almost synced up with their drool, making for a rather terrifying scene.
Sensing something, the wolves all looked towards Nihil and broke off into two separate groups. Four of them headed towards Nihil, while the rest acted to keep the adventurers of Diei Noctis busy. Nihil had been standing a bit away from the group in order to keep out of their way, but now that had turned out to be a bad idea.
Looking at the adventurers, Nihil could see that they were all wondering why so many were heading towards him. They tried to stop the wolves, but the magical beasts’ defences were just too strong for them to be defeated in time.
Tch. I could easily take care of these few small fries, but that would mean displaying my magic to the group. Nihil thought in frustration. I guess I’ll just have to tell them some of the truth.
Just as he was about to unleash his magic on the beasts, Claude suddenly appeared before Nihil. The demon was covered in cuts and lacerations, but he still stood his ground and protected Nihil with a determined look on his face.
“I know you’d be fine even if I didn’t get involved, but that would mean showing everyone that you’re not as simple as you lead them to believe.” Claude muttered to Nihil under his breath. “I wouldn’t want to be around when Stella found out.”
“Haha … no, I wouldn’t either.” Nihil responded with a small laugh.
In this way, Claude was able to hold off the four wolves for just long enough for Ignis’s mission to be completed.
“Hey! Jackasses!” A shout echoed out from a distance away. “I have your cubs here!”
At this new voice, the wolves stopped attacking for a moment and turned to look in the direction it was coming from. Naturally this was Ignis, who’d disappeared unnoticed right at the beginning of the fight. In his arms, he was holding a cub that was desperately struggling to get free. The others were drugged and lying on the floor, asleep.
Seeing their cubs in such a situation, the wolves tried to head back to save them, growling in anger and panic, but the adventurers didn’t let this chance go. They unleashed a barrage of attacks and didn’t stop until every last one was dead.
Before, they’d had to worry about defending so they couldn’t attack with their full power, as that required time to muster. However, when the wolves had been distracted, they had completely lowered their guard against the group of adventurers, giving them time to prepare their attacks.
In the end, each individual wolf was less powerful than each of the adventurers, it was just that the wolves’ defence was tough to beat when they had their guard up. That, combined with their numbers, was what helped them to take out much stronger prey.
Now that the battle was over, Linley and Archer took care of the cubs. They weren’t old enough to have cores yet, but if left alone they would definitely seek revenge and become a pain to the group.
Nihil and Ignis exchanged pained looks at this cruel necessity, but they ultimately didn’t prevent the cubs’ deaths. Seeing this look, Claude wondered why the two were so soft. It wasn’t like the creatures had any intelligence. They also actively sought out people in order to devour their refined energy.
Nihil and Ignis weren’t so naive as to think that killing magical beasts wasn’t necessary, it was just that they didn’t like taking the lives of such young creatures. These cubs were, for all intents and purposes, still innocent, so slaughtering them like this seemed just a little bit wrong to them. However, they didn’t stop the group because they knew that this way of thinking would only serve to get people killed.
The only reason the magic beasts hadn’t been completely wiped out, was because in a way people relied on them to survive. All the different magical items used their cores in order to function, and so naturally most infrastructure was also dependant on beast cores to continue working. This, combined with the beasts’ incredible fertility, kept the species around. Besides, even small villages these days had walls to prevent incursions from magical beasts, and they tended to ignore the farmers outside of the perimeter. As such, the death count due to the beasts’ activity was actually very low in comparison to many other causes of death.
Aerone Grey 