It turned out that Scarlet’s squad weren’t actually very far away – just far enough to not be discovered, but close enough that they could respond quickly if they received Scarlet’s distress signal. Luckily everything had happened quickly enough that she hadn’t had a chance to send such a signal, and now that she was in Nihil’s pocket dimension her magic wouldn’t be able to reach them even if she somehow got out of the azoth shackles.
Looking at the softly shimmering gate, Ignis silently sent his friend off before returning to the room Scarlet was in. He decided to use this chance to question her further about the earlier information he’d touched upon about Nihil’s past.
While his friend was interrogating Scarlet once again, Nihil had arrived a small distance away from a military camp comprised of roughly 24 soldiers from the Royal Guard. From their uniforms, Nihil could immediately tell that they were from the stealth corp. He knew that just his basic mastery over the dark and wind elements wouldn’t be enough for him to avoid their notice for very long. As a result, he decided that the best course of action would be to find a patrolling guard.
Finding one didn’t take Nihil very long. Sneaking up behind the figure, he covered their mouth with his left hand and squeezed his right arm around their neck – silently carrying them away once they’d passed out. Once he’d put enough distance between himself and the camp, he sat the unconscious body against a large tree bordering a nearby field. During the day horses usually grazed in this area, but the owner had long since stabled them for the night.
Nihil contemplated bringing the guard back and having Ignis read the woman to find out how much the sergeant was planning on revealing to their higher ups. However, Nihil ultimately decided against doing this as he wasn’t certain how much the guard knew. Besides, his reason for coming wasn’t to stop the information from being leaked. To do that he would have to massacre everyone in this squad, and Nihil wasn’t yet willing to resort to that sort of action again.
Instead, Nihil actually planned to make sure that the intel was passed on safely. Normally he’d also use this opportunity to also steal anything of value that happened to be lying around as well, but he wasn’t planning on doing that this time. Aside from anything else, it would alert the squad that he’d been here and had discovered Scarlet tailing them.
After feeding Ignis again to heal him, Nihil’s mental energy was running dangerously low. In fact he’d actually used up more energy this time than the previous time, so it was a miracle that he’d even managed to stay awake at all. A normal mage in his position would be helpless in a fight even if they did manage to stay awake and on their feet. However Nihil was different. He could also use his cultivation to fight.
As his recently recalled memories told him, Nihil had been born able to use both magic and cultivation. This was partly why Callum was so determined to retrieve ‘Zero’. Despite being able to use both types of energy, though, Nihil normally preferred to use magic as it complimented both his and Ignis’ fighting styles better. However, this being the case didn’t hinder Nihil’s efforts at all.
After stripping the guard of her outer wear, Nihil stashed the woman in some undergrowth. He left her in her shorts and a thermal top that was underneath her clothes for warmth. Being a cultivator, these clothes and the small amount of protection from the ferns was enough to prevent her from any serious sequelae, so Nihil didn’t bother too much about the guard.
Nihil had deliberately chosen someone that had a similar height and build to his own, so hiding his face was enough to pass unhindered by the others in the camp. Luckily the guard had worn a cloak with a hood, so the intruder silently shrunk his head back into the depths of the cove created. Though it felt weird to be wearing women’s clothes, it afforded him an additional layer of camouflage. It was just that the skirt was a bit short for him to easily forget what he was wearing. Considering the glances he received from the guards in the camp, the woman he’d knocked out was pretty enough to draw attention, but ferocious enough to scare them into not approaching her. Seeing this, he was glad that he’d chosen the right person.
Heading toward the main tent in the centre, Nihil gradually seemed to merge into the shadows and disappear from any prying eyes. After he saw that it was quiet even after a messenger pushed their way into the tent, he cautiously approached. Judging from their muffled conversation that Nihil could just about make out through the thin material, it seemed that was the messenger that Scarlet had contacted with the news of the two fugitives’ whereabouts. They seemed to be discussing her lack of communication for the past few hours with the sergeant.
Letting out a small smile, Nihil waited in the shadows cast by the torches next to the entrance to the Sergeant’s tent. Just then a new person entered and interrupted the two’s conversation somewhat rudely. Surprisingly though, it didn’t sound as if the Sergeant was particularly upset by this behaviour.
“Ma’am, it’s been several hours now and we haven’t received an ETA on when the 1st lieutenant will manage to get here with his platoon. What are our orders?” A gruff voice asked.
“John, we’ve talked about this. You can’t just barge into my tent like that.” A calm voice gently spoke in response to the gruff man’s urgent tone. “But to answer your question, your orders are to remain on standby. We will leave tracking the group to Scarlet until we hear more from her. There’s no use in jumping into action early, only to alert the fugitives as to our presence. That would only serve to hinder our efforts.”
“But, Sergeant, I know that we can catch them ourselves!” The man growled.
Nihil didn’t recognise the voice, but he figured that the man must have been robbed by Ignis and himself at some point. Otherwise his gung-ho attitude didn’t make much sense. However, this soon proved to be the wrong conclusion.
“Why should the 1st lieutenant come in at the last moment and steal our glory when we’ve done all the work?” The man continued.
“It’s just protocol. It’s nothing personal to us.” The Sergeant explained calmly. “Especially for these two. They’ve managed to elude better soldiers than us before. If they also managed to slip through our fingers just because we got greedy, could you take responsibility for that?”
Of course, what they didn’t know was that it was precisely this protocol that had allowed Nihil and Ignis time to evade their pursuers for so long. Although in this specific situation, nothing the squad did at this time would make any difference to the outcome. Scarlet’s little slip up had seen to that already.
After the man had apologised somewhat sheepishly, the same big, burly figure from before stepped out from the tent again and brushed past Nihil’s hiding place. At this time another voice spoke up. It was the messenger’s voice this time.
“Ma’am, something has me worried.” The young boy’s voice nervously started. After a short pause he carried on talking. “I didn’t notice it at first, but just before Scarlet hung up the communication device there was another sound.”
“What kind of sound?”
“I’m not quite sure, but I’ll replay our conversation for you.”
After some faint noises of the young boy faffing around with the communicator, a burst of static blasted out just before snapping back to perfect clarity of sound as Scarlet’s voice rang out.
“This is Scarlet. I have been tailing a suspicious group for a while now, and just confirmed our two targets within their ranks.” Contrary to her vicious tone when talking with Nihil and Ignis, she actually managed to sound respectful during this recording.
“What? They’re actually here? I didn’t entirely believe the reported sightings before, I would’ve thought that they’d be in Arcadia’s territory by now.” The young boy’s confused voice was the next to play.
“I’m not sure why, but they are travelling with a group of low levelled adventurers so this pace is actually about right for them, I guess?” Scarlet sounded just as confused as she tried to work it out from what she could see in front of her.
“OK, keep tabs on them and let us know if there are any changes. I’ll go report this to the Sergeant.”
“Roger.”
Just then, there was a muffled thump that almost sounded like Scarlet had only fumbled a bit with the orb as she hung up. It was clear to Nihil, however, that it must have been coincidentally at that point that Linley had appeared and knocked Scarlet unconscious.
That was close, any sooner and the alarm would have been raised, making Scarlet’s capture a lot more difficult. Nihil thought to himself.
“Normally I’d say that this wasn’t anything to worry about. But considering that we haven’t received a report from her for several hours now, I want you to get a team to work on analysing that sound.” The Sergeant decisively ordered.
“Yes Ma’am!” The young boy presumably saluted before running out of the tent as well.
Once she was alone, the Sergeant sighed to herself before busying herself with making another call to HQ to see if they could give her any more information. Unfortunately no one picked up the call so she was left to just quietly cuss out the higher ups under her breath.
Hearing this, Nihil quietly chuckled to himself. He thought that had things been different, then the two of them might have surprisingly gotten along pretty well. With things as they were though, there was no way that would be possible, so Nihil just slowly stood up and made his way back to where he’d left the guard unconscious. He’d managed to confirm that the sergeant had passed along the information, and that there wasn’t anything too dangerous for them to know. The sound at the end of the recording was a little bit worrying, but given how short a sound it was, he didn’t think that there would be anything incriminating against Linley in it even after analysis.
Once he reached the unconscious guard, he changed back into his own clothes again, and then redressed the woman. Propping her up against the tree from before, he made it seem like she’d just fallen asleep while on patrol. He then opened a gate and sent a stream of energy to the woman’s head just before stepping through and back into his pocket dimension.
This stream gradually woke the guard up, and once she realised where she was, she quickly straightened her clothes and pulled her hood up to cover her bright red cheeks. She hurriedly continued her patrol and was especially careful for the rest of her shift – she wanted to make sure she didn’t fall asleep again.
* * *
By this time, Ignis had already finished questioning Scarlet for his own investigation. However, he wasn’t sure just how much he really believed, so he still didn’t mention anything to Nihil just yet. All that was clear was that Scarlet herself truly believed it.
Just before Nihil’s gate opened, Ignis sensed the fluctuations and made sure to be the other side of the room. Nihil had chosen to directly enter the oil storage room, as that was both where he’d left Ignis, and where he could talk to his friend without worrying that Scarlet would overhear them.
“The information has already been passed on to their HQ.” Nihil reported simply the moment he stepped through.
“Does this mean that it really is time to part ways with everyone?” Ignis asked, unsure as to which reply he was hoping for.
“From what I heard, it seems as if the platoon directly above them is dragging their feet to arrive for some reason, but now seems like a good opportunity to leave as any. If we stay with Diei Noctis for too long then we’ll only drag them into our mess.”
“They were just starting to warm up to you, though.” Ignis replied somewhat despondently.
“In any case, we should return to them for a moment and get them out of the area before we part ways with them for good.” Nihil mused as he tried to figure what would currently be their best plan.
“Wouldn’t that mean revealing our abilities to them though?” Ignis questioned worriedly.
“Perhaps, but it’s better than them getting caught up in our business.” Nihil responded calmly. “Besides, there’s no reason for you to do anything. It will all come down to my spacial magic, after all.”
A subtle frown flitted across Ignis’ face before he quickly corrected his expression. He hated how Nihil always tried to take on the difficult tasks himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything – especially since he’d just failed on his end when capturing Scarlet.
Not noticing his friend’s conflict, Nihil continued playing around with his torture tools while he was deep in thought. The action was entirely subconscious and was done to help him focus more easily, and just this conveyed enough about his friend to greatly worry Ignis.
Just then, Nihil’s eyes seemed to become sharper as he finally firmed his resolve and made his decision.
“I’ll run ahead and find a good spot to open a gate, and then return to meet everyone. This way I can reduce the likelihood of transporting everyone into the middle of a town or directly atop of someone.” The last sentence was muttered under his breath, but it was a very real concern for Nihil.
This was why he didn’t like teleporting across large distances. Aside from the obvious problem that his lacking memory provided (making his aim unreliable at best), there was the very real possibility of a mishap occurring. If someone happened to be in the spot he opened a gate, then that person would at the very least lose a part of their body to the void. Needless to say, this wasn’t a very pleasant experience for anyone involved, and Nihil wanted to avoid this at any cost.
“OK then, I’ll head back to the group and let them know what has happened and what we’re planning on doing. I’ll also try to see if they would be willing to keep this from Stella and Lunam for a bit as well.” Ignis agreed, choosing to put aside his growing doubts for the time being.
He wasn’t worried about what Nihil may or may not have done in the past, Ignis was only worried about how that knowledge would affect his friend if he found out.
Nodding his head, Nihil first opened a gate for himself and his friend. They decided to leave Scarlet hanging on the hook for the time being, and once they reached Bule they would hand her over to the inter-species council as a hostile witness.
Once they were back in the clearing in which Nihil had apprehended Scarlet, they both headed opposite directions. Ignis headed north west towards Diei Noctis, while Nihil headed south east towards the rocky plain that separated Sheol from Avalon. He thought that it would be easiest to directly transfer them outside of the country and then leave a message for Stella’s party to catch up at the town closest to the capital. If they’re not worried about hunting during their journey, then they should be able to make pretty good time.
* * *
After 5 minutes had passed, Ignis regrouped with the adventurers who were in the middle of searching for the missing two men.
“Ignis! How did you get away from Scarlet? Where’s Nihil? Are you OK? I saw your ears bleeding before.” A sudden barrage of questions flooded out of Lucas’ mouth the moment he noticed Ignis.
Lucas often acted almost as a mother figure to Diei Noctis, as a result whenever people got hurt or disappeared he usually was the one that fretted the most. He was also the scariest person to anger in the group because they all knew that he was only getting angry for their sakes. In fact, he was one of the first people to actually accept Nihil into the party wholeheartedly. However he never really approached Nihil, as he could tell that the man was trying to keep his distance from the group.
“Nihil and I are just fine, don’t worry.” Ignis answered just as the others were gathering around him, cutting off anymore questions from anyone else. “Nihil healed my ears, so there’s no problem anymore. He’s gone ahead to scout out a place to transport all of us to in a bit. He should be back by lunch time tomorrow – well I guess it’s ‘today’ now.”
Looking around at the blank looks, Ignis decided to get everyone to sit down and he explained while he re-lit up their camp fire from before in order to cook food for the group of 8 including himself.
“I can’t promise the food will be as good as Nihil’s, but it will definitely be better than Clark and Claus’.” Ignis started, provoking an embarrassed laugh from everyone. “After Scarlet dragged me off unconscious, Nihil managed to catch up to her a short distance away from here and somehow succeeded in freeing me. Unfortunately he had to let her escape since I was unconscious. Naturally this means that her sergeant has definitely received news of our whereabouts, and that we’re travelling with a group.”
“We expected that when she managed to escape from us, to be honest. We were thinking of leaving a coded message in the next village warning Miss Stella and Miss Lunam’s group to avoid us for the time being.” Lucas responded.
“What was that about Nihil transporting us somewhere, though?” Claude piped up. Of those in Diei Noctis, he was the only one who knew even a little bit of what Nihil was capable of, so this information hadn’t surprised him at all.
“Yes, well Nihil has a similar plan to you guys. He guessed that you’d have a code to pass messages to each other in the case that you get split up, so he was hoping that you’d be able to compose a message to let Lunam and Stella know that the rendezvous location had changed to the rocky plains beyond Avalon’s borders. This way it will be harder for the Royal Guard to act so openly even if they do somehow manage to figure out your identities.” Ignis explained the reasoning first.
“That makes sense, but how are you planning on getting us there quickly enough that wouldn’t search in that area by the time we get there?” Alexis asked, curious.
“Well, the truth is that Nihil is a mage with a space attribute.” Ignis started. “He can create ‘gates’ that will allow us to travel across the remaining distance in no time.”
“If that’s the case, then why didn’t you guys use that ability before? There’d be no reason for you to group together with us as you could have easily reached Arcadia which is out of the reach of the Royal Guard.” Merry asked reasonably.
“The problem is that if Nihil hasn’t been somewhere personally before, then his aim can easily go awry and we’d end up in the ocean or even in the middle of a rock wall. So normally he just travels to preset destinations, or to somewhere he can see. We didn’t exactly want to backtrack right into the Royal Guard’s clutches.” These reasons were only part of the truth, but it was much quicker and easier to leave it at that.
“I guess that’s fair.” Merry readily responded.
“Another thing, if you guys could keep this to yourselves for as long as possible – don’t even tell Lunam and Stella.” Ignis broached this issue now that they had understood and accepted the plan. “The more people who know the truth, the more likely it is that someone will let something slip and the Royal Guard will know that you guys were the ones that helped us. They are deliberately going along with our disguise as being just a couple of northmanni. After all it’s easier for the both of us like this.”
“Just what have you two done that it’s easier for the Royal Guard to claim that they’re having trouble with two northmanni?” Lucas asked incredulously, knowing that a straight answer was unlikely.
“That’s also something that’s better left unsaid.” Ignis replied.
The reason the Royal Guard claimed that they were northmanni, was that then it would be irrelevant whether the two were claiming to be mages, or cultivators. It was still a secret that dual training was possible, after all. This embarrassment, though, was a big part of the reason that their grudges were more personal than if they’d just been ordered to capture two random fugitives.
“OK I’ll compose the message, but I will have to go the nearest village to leave it in an inconspicuous location. It’s only a simple code, so if the Royal Guard find it, it won’t take them very long to decipher its meaning.” Lucas agreed to the plan, but deliberately made no mention about keeping all this from their two leaders.
Even though Ignis noticed this, he decided to drop the matter for now. “That’s no problem, when Nihil comes back he’ll first transport someone to the village.”
Aerone Grey 