“I’m back.” Lucas greeted the man sitting and leaning against a tree while reading a giant book.
“Great, you good to go then?” Nihil replied as the book in his hands disappeared into his void ring.
“Actually, there was something I wanted to talk to you about first – if that’s OK with you, of course.” Lucas started tentatively.
“Is this about the ‘Caretaker’ thing I said earlier?” Nihil asked as if he’d expected this conversation to happen at some point. In fact despite his earlier words, he hadn’t actually stood up when he’d put his book away.
“Y-yeah.” Lucas replied nervously. “How do you know that term? It was supposed to be a closely guarded secret that only the elven royalty knew – and, of course the Caretakers themselves.”
“I knew a Caretaker a long time ago.” Nihil answered with a distant expression. “But that person must be long gone by now.”
“You talk as if you’re much older than you look …” Seeing Nihil’s warning look, Lucas quickly trailed off and changed the subject slightly. “Does that mean you know what we’re tasked with.”
“So you admit you are one, huh?” Nihil teased. “Yes I do. It’s the very important duty of guarding and taking care of the world tree.”
“So you are aware then.”
“What I don’t know is why you were allowed to leave your post. As far as I’m aware, that’s never happened before. They were too paranoid that the secret of the tree would be leaked. Never mind the fact that it used to be common knowledge.”
“Really!? It used to be that widely known?” Lucas asked incredulously. He just couldn’t imagine that. “It’s not even something people know by word of mouth these days, how did they erase the knowledge that cleanly?”
“Memory wiping magic.” Nihil replied curtly. “Before the inter-species council was formed, they destroyed all the books that even vaguely mentioned the world tree in passing. They then performed a wide-range memory wipe at their own discretion. They basically scuppered themselves though, because they hadn’t realised in time that the tree was sick, so they no longer had any way of fully curing it.”
“You know even that much!?” Lucas exclaimed in shock. “Your friend must have trusted you a great deal to tell you all this. If you don’t mind me asking, what was their name?”
“It’s fine, I don’t mind. Their name was Shusaura and they were very kind to me.” Nihil started remembering some sad things as he said the elf’s name.
“Were you very close?” Lucas asked, while also trying to remember why that name would sound so familiar to him.
“We lived together for a while, but that’s about it.” Nihil replied more to try to convince himself than Lucas. “Anyway, you never did answer my question about how you were able to leave your village.”
“Ah! Well if you already know that the tree is sick, then I guess there’s no harm in telling you.” Lucas started explaining. “Recently the tree has taken a sudden turn for the worse and, due to some special circumstances, the elders deemed that I could be trusted to keep the secret. As such, it was decided that I should be the one to leave the village and research rare botany to see if the world tree’s disease was one that was known to the outside world. The hope is that I can find a way to completely cure it.”
“I’m sorry to say this, but that’s going to prove very difficult due to your ancestors’ own actions.” Nihil calmly stated. “The disease the world tree has is unique to it’s own kind. This is the first time something like this has happened, but the research on the world tree was previously much more in-depth and advanced than it is now.
“Without a genius, or hints from someone who still remembers, the research would take another century or two to get back to where it was before.”
“Hints from someone? Is there anyone who would still remember something from that long ago? Putting aside the memory wipe, is there anyone who could live that long in the first place?” Lucas asked dubiously.
“It’s precisely because the spell was so wide-reaching, that someone who was able to live for that long would have been able to resist it.” Nihil replied simply, refusing to acknowledge the real question in Lucas’ words.
Noticing the obvious dodge, Lucas decided not to pursue the subject for now. He was starting to have his own suspicions, so thought that it was probably best not to aggravate the person in front of him even more.
“I guess that make sense.”
“Well, I doubt the spell would have been able to pierce the crust and affect the dragons …” Nihil decided to give a small hint in the end. He appreciated Lucas’ understanding in not asking any more questions.
Nihil made a mental note to drop by the world tree with Ignis after their business was sorted out. If Lucas still hadn’t figured out a solution by then, he would take a look himself. That was the most he was willing to help after what had happened back then.
* * *
Back at the camp, a dark slit appeared in the air. This time Ignis had chosen not to alert the adventurers since no one was in the area of effect. Nihil and Lucas stepped through the gate and reunited with the group. Neither of them mentioned their recent conversation, but Nihil was going to let Ignis know of the updated plan once they transported Diei Noctis to the prepared cave.
“Is everyone ready to leave?” Nihil asked the group, wanting to get going as soon as possible. He wanted to get back to Regan’s inn and sleep for a full night. Naturally Ignis would also rent a room there as well.
“Yep, we guessed you’d probably be coming back at around this time.” Ignis replied for everyone.
Slashing his hand down, an even darker slit materialised before the group. Nihil’s gates would get darker according to the distance between points A and B. The greater the distance he compressed, the closer the gate’s colour would get to the colour of the void. When Nihil was fighting Scarlet, the gate he created actually extended the distance between the two ends, so it only looked like a faint shimmer in the air that could easily have been mistaken for heat haze. However now that he was crossing the distance of an entire country, it’s colour would naturally become much darker and more obvious.
Seeing it appear, Nihil was the first to step through into the cave. The members of Diei Noctis quickly followed, with Ignis bringing up the rear. After Nihil showed everyone the layout of the cave, and warned them not to light a fire, he handed over some heat gems to everyone. These could store heat, but they wouldn’t get hot enough to cook food. They purely acted as heat packs for a slow and gentle warmth. They could also be used on the water to allow for warm baths.
“The desert gets cold at night, so these are a definite necessity since you can’t light a fire just yet.” Nihil explained just before he and Ignis stepped back through the still open gate connecting the place to the camp site.
Nihil had tried his best to account for everything since he felt responsible for their current situation. Lunam and Stella’s group would get the supplies on their way to meeting up at this spot, but until then, Nihil thought that he shouldn’t hold back his own supplies if they would help the group be more comfortable as they waited. He even gave them some of his books for them to read – though he only had history and language books on hand, so he wasn’t sure if they would actually read them.
“You know, I think he’s more of a mother hen than he tries to let on.” Merry commented with a warm smile after the portal disappeared, causing the rest of the group to laugh in agreement.
“Why can’t we light a fire yet, though?” Archer asked in confusion. As far as the Royal Guard would be concerned, surely they would just be normal adventurers or travellers?
“Normal travellers wouldn’t bother to build a cave like this, so smoke rising from the top of this hill would be suspicious. They would wonder why such a permanent camp was set up so close to the border.” Alexis explained.
“Not to mention our track record with fires. We’d somehow manage to burn down this stone cave.” Lucas joked with a teasing look towards Claude and Clark. “We should probably invest time in actually getting better at cooking – or at least good enough to not almost start a forrest fire.”
“Should we set up patrols?” Claude suggested mainly to change the subject. “We need to keep an eye on both our surroundings, and the bridges across the canyon. After all we didn’t put any co-ordinates in our message.”
“Nihil even has us covered for that.” Merry spoke up at this point, before leading the group into a previously unnoticed room in the caves. “These mirrors only take mental energy to activate – just like storage rings.”
She then proceeded to inject her own into each one. Suddenly they flickered and several images appeared in front of them. One showed a birds eye view of the hill they were currently inside, and all the others showed a different bridge so that they could keep an eye on them all at once. This way it wouldn’t matter which bridge Lunam and Stella’s group decided to use.
“He really though of everything, didn’t he?” Alexis muttered under her breath.
“Isn’t this equipment super expensive and only available to Arcadia’s government?” Clark pointed out. “ Just who is he?”
“He’s a space attributed mage, maybe he made it himself?” Archer suggested.
“It’s not that simple. Only a two people can even perform maintenance on Arcadia’s surveillance. Let alone making them from scratch. Also, not even Arcadia have real time footage. The images have a delay depending on how far away the crystal captures are to Bule.” Alexis explained. “But the daylight and shadows clearly indicate that it’s at least much closer to real time than Arcadia’s systems.”
What she didn’t know was that these mirrors worked in a completely different way to Arcadia’s systems. While the latter’s used crystal captures as an intermediary to capture the images, Nihil’s system used his spacial magic as a medium and compressed space and then returned it to being invisible. This made the mirrors act more like windows that magnified distant objects, rather than having to transfer image data across vast distances.
* * *
Back at the campsite again, Nihil and Ignis set about laying a false trail to hopefully distract the Royal Guard into thinking that the group was going in the direction of Arcadia instead of Sheol. The shift in direction also shouldn’t alert the Royal Guard, since most travellers did the same in order to avoid the mountains anyway.
Leaving traces of 9 travellers was easier said than done. Not only that, but Diei Noctis was a party of adventurers, so they also had to leave evidence of fights with magic beasts as well. In order to do this, Nihil enchanted seven beast cores to create some shikigami to at as the remaining members. Shikigami were a kind of ‘doll’ that would be under the control of whoever created them. They would normally act as servants and weren’t especially useful in most situations, but Nihil chose to use them now since the members of Diei Noctis were far too slow to keep up with him and Ignis at full speed. The last thing Nihil wanted was to have to spend more time than necessary on a trail that wouldn’t hold up against an expert tracker anyway.
In this way, the two fugitives were done just before dusk. Nihil opened another portal to the spot outside Flumen’s walls and Ignis stepped through. As for Nihil, he transported himself directly into his room at Regan’s inn. After all, he hadn’t officially ever left it in the first place.
Arriving in the room, Nihil deactivated his belt again before opening his door and putting on a show as if he was just waking up due to being hungry. Heading down to the dining room, Nihil found Regan sending Aki off for his shift at the gates.
“Are you heading out already?” Nihil greeted groggily.
“Oh! You’re awake?” Aki responded. “Yep, it’s better to show up early than leave a gap in the patrol.”
“Have fun then.” Nihil smiled warmly before leaving them alone to say goodbye to each other for the night.
“Would you prefer something light since you’ve just woken up? Or would you rather a more substantial meal since you haven’t eaten anything since this morning?” Regan asked Nihil after Aki had left.
Just then Nihil’s stomachs let out a loud grumble as if it was answering the question for him.
“A more substantial meal it is, then.” Regan laughed.
“Thank you.” Nihil replied simply while blushing deeply.
“It’s not a problem.” Regan replied while handing over a basket with bread rolls and butter inside. “Feel free to snack on these while waiting for dinner. You can take them into the library if you’d like, too.”
“Library? Do you have any interesting books on history?” Nihil asked, his eyes practically sparkling in the dusk light.
Giving a small chuckle at Nihil’s eagerness, Regan teasingly replied. “Well I’m not sure if they’re interesting, but I do have several in that genre. Aki is a big history nut, not that I can say that understand it.”
“Oh? Seems like we have that in common then.” Nihil smiled.
“He actually got his hands on some rare books, but then we realised that neither of us could read them.” Regan commented with a small smile and a fake sigh. “The language shares our alphabet so we thought it would either be a known language, or a variant of ours. However, it might as well be written in code since no one recognises it, and there are many words that should be impossible to pronounce.”
“That sounds interesting. I think I will have a look around the library then. Which way should I go?”
“It’s just down that hall and through the double doors on the right. Despite what the door would suggest, it’s just a small library – more of a study really. But Aki wanted to make the entrance more dramatic just to confuse people.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged him for that sort of person when I first met him.” Nihil replied while laughing.
“I know, he does a good job of hiding it.” Regan agreed jokingly.
Leaving Regan to his job, Nihil made his way to the library and immediately noticed the books that the couple said they couldn’t read. They were gilded in gold leaf, so they easily stood out even when properly placed on the bookshelves.
Pulling them off the shelves, Nihil opened the cover to reveal a language that he’d never seen before. Strangely though, Nihil found that he could actually read it perfectly well. Spotting an armchair in the corner with a book stand in front, Nihil walked over and sat down, using the stand while he munched on a roll.
When Regan came in later to let his guest know that dinner was ready, he found the man curled up comfortably on the armchair. The huge book was in his arms as he read with an enraptured expression.
Just then a shadow emerged from behind Regan’s figure.
“We should leave him be. When he gets like this it’s impossible to shake him out of it.” Ignis’ helpless voice explained.
“I was hoping to surprise him during dinner. It’s an amazing coincidence that you chose this inn to stay at while you were searching for him.” Regan replied, disappointed.
“Well, you’re inn was highly recommended by someone I met in the street. He was dressed as a guard, so I guess he was heading to work.” Ignis shrugged.
While this was also true, Ignis was always heading in this direction since Nihil had already caught his friend up on where he was planning to stay and the story he’d told the owner. As such, Ignis was now posing as a guard from the merchant caravan, tasked with locating and bringing back his charge.
“Well, it looks like he ate all the bread in the basket at least, so he shouldn’t be starving anymore.” Regan commented, relieved. “I’ll leave some food in the kitchen, so if he’s hungry later there’s some ready. We should eat now, though – I’m sure you’re also tired after searching for Nihil for so long.”
“That sounds like a good idea. The smell of your food is already making my stomach rumble.” Ignis commented truthfully.
“You guys are more similar than I first thought.” Regan replied with a laugh while he was setting the table for 3 people – just in case Nihil came out before they finished eating. “You must have spent a lot of time together.”
“I’ve known him since I was little, so yes we’ve been together for a while.” Ignis answered, carefully avoiding lying about his friend’s age.
He’d noticed the pendant around Regan’s neck, so he felt that it would be better to lie a little as possible. As much as Nihil had insisted that the ring had no value, Ignis knew that his friend had actually greatly treasured it. From what he could gather, it was supposed to be a gift to someone but he’d never had a chance to give it to them.
Of course most of this was inferred from what Nihil had told him the previous night, when he’d been describing the memories he’d managed to recall. Naturally Nihil hadn’t gone in to much detail – nor did he have the time to do so – but Ignis knew him well enough to be able to read between the lines. He’d even mentioned the necklace specifically which would have been unusual if it actually meant nothing to him like he’d claimed.
Just as the two people were settling down to eat, Nihil appeared at the door leading into the dining room.
“It smells super good.” He commented happily. Seeing Ignis, he then put on an act for Regan’s benefit. “Ignis! You’re here?”
“Haha, yep. I’ve been looking for you ever since you disappeared, but staying at the same inn was a stroke of luck.” Ignis joined the act.
“We should head back to the caravan tomorrow morning then. I miss everyone.” Nihil replied.
This overly expressive Nihil is a little disconcerting – if I’m being perfectly honest. Ignis thought to himself wryly. He wasn’t used to seeing Nihil act like this so it threw him for a second.
Nihil had deliberately chosen to be more open with his emotions while he was in Flumen. This was because he knew how much his tail revealed anyway, and there was no point in a poker face if he had such an obvious tell. It also helped that Regan and Aki had been so welcoming and made Nihil much more comfortable than he had been in a while.
“We looked into the library earlier, but you seemed really into the book you were reading so we decided not to disturb you.“ Regan commented after the two men had ‘caught up’ with each other.
“Ah, yeah that would be my bad habit. I don’t think even a fire would distract me from reading when I’m that into it.” Nihil gave an embarrassed laugh. “I actually only smelled the food once I finished the book.”
“Haha, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Which book were you reading? Your expression made it look really interesting.”
“Actually, it was the one titled ‘Discidium’.” Nihil answered frankly.
“You could actually read it!? More than that, you already finished it?” Regan exclaimed unsurprisingly. Not only was it written in an ancient language that no-one had even seen, let alone understood it; but tit was also massive with tiny writing. Completely reading it within a couple of hours was very impressive.
“What was it about?” Ignis asked, curious.
“It wrote about the time period surrounding when Axis split. I’m not sure how much was actually accurate, but it was well written and brought up a lot of questions.” Nihil explained with a conflicted expression. On one hand, he really enjoyed reading the book, but there was also a rising dread welling up within him. He felt like he was about to remember something he really didn’t want to.
“You can have the book if you’d like. In fact, you can have all of the books written in the same language.” Regan offered. “They’re basically useless to us, and it could be considered a ‘thank you gift’ for this necklace.”
He clasped the pendant on top of his clothes as he said the last sentence. Nihil wasn’t sure whether or not to accept the offer, but ultimately decided to allow the man to express his gratitude in this way.
“Thank you, that would be great.” Nihil replied simply with a grateful smile.
By the time they finished, both Nihil and Ignis were ready to pass out on their beds so they headed up to their rooms. Ignis was directly across the hall from Nihil’s room, so they said goodnight to each other there.
Aerone Grey 