Azariah's Rage

I write down all of my connections on the sheet of paper before handing it back to the guard. They hand me back my card, and I go flying into the adventurer's guild. It seems the cold mist and the lightning blades were enough to get through again. I also notice that the grass suddenly became much duller as soon as I cross the border again.

Seriously, what's causing that? I'm clearly not imagining it. There was the sudden temperature drop as soon as I got to the Emednes, too. I really want to know what's causing these sudden changes in environments. It's probably something different for each of them, but I still want to know.

That actually reminds me, I've been claiming to have come from this domain, right? Back from Kiaran and my information gathering days we decided that I was an aspiring mage from here that failed to get into the Elune Domain. Ahh, that brings back memories.

Anyway, that probably means I should pay attention to every little thing around me if I want to keep that cover story up. It would be super strange if someone saw me experience culture shock from where I grew up, wouldn't it?

Yeah, yeah. For the sake of my backstory, even if I don't wind up liking this place I'll have to pay close attention to everything around here. I'll head down south until I hit the Causter river which marks the first foreign border I've come across.

As a matter of fact, the Causter river flows from the Antisor Mountains, right? I wonder if I could visit Inell while I'm here. No, that's probably a whole lot easier said than done. It is an entire mountain range after all. I'm pretty sure the only thing I've heard from Inell about where he lived was that he lived in the southern half of the Antisor.

It's like heading to the Appalachians, then wanting to visit a friend there, but having no idea what state they're even in. Plus volcanoes, earthquakes, dragons, and various other things that happen to those mountains regularly. I'll just mostly fly around them while still heading south.

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Alright, so the first thing I've noticed after coming here… every single person here is super strong! Not fighting strong, but muscular strong! Everyone here is jacked, even some of the children! I mean, for the men that kind of takes all my interest away, but muscular women… ahahaaa, tomboys… no! No! Stay faithful to Kiaran! I can't be thinking gay thoughts now!

I'm walking through the first major city I came across in my flight. Around the city was a huge stone wall that even put the capital's to shame. Even the smaller villages that I came across had wooden walls at least.

I haven't seen much magic either. Did having the Antisor Mountains nearby wind up creating a culture full of muscle heads? That was my theory for how the Elune Domain wound up being so focused on magic. That would explain why everyone here is so strong… Wait…

I was claiming to be from here?! How did no one look at me like I was crazy?! I'm like, seriously weak! No, I have said that my parents were really overprotective, right? Yeah, given this environment, people would probably think that makes sense and explain why I'm so weak and nervous. Yeah, that's a relief.

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I fly over a forest clearing. Mana Detection is picking up huge amounts of mana manipulation under the ground. A connection with Ceres. Mana Location is picking up some humanoid chasing after it really quickly. If I was on my feet, I doubt I'd be able to keep up with them without making use of "Thrill on Death's Edge."

Whatever's causing the mana manipulation, suddenly surfaces in a huge explosion of dirt. It's a huge, red worm, with teeth and tentacles coming out of its mouth. It has eyes running down all over its body. It's quite terrifying.

It lunges down at the humanoid, and I notice a bunch of its blood going up into the air. I watch the fight as it breaks out. The humanoid just has an ax, and they're still somehow putting up a fight. Well, this worm is clearly aggressive, and I have been craving another fight for a while now, so…

I activate the charm that allows me to rapid fire those lighting blades, and I fire one after the other, all aiming towards multiple eyes as I fly down and around it. It starts screeching and wriggles around everywhere. Hm… I figured out that even if individual blades don't cost much mana, spamming them definitely adds up.

I notice another huge ax swing, and a huge chunk of its flesh is cleaved open. That was a blow from its side, and its spine is showing. That was halfway from cutting the worm in half. Umm… how do I say this in their language… umm this.. And that… oh right!

"Hold it still!" I yell, as I fly down to where its flesh was cleaved open.

It tries to dive back into the ground but a few ax swings keeps it up in the air. I fly down to where its flesh was torn open and prepare a huge spell to finish the job.

"Gale Blade!" I yell.

The huge assortment of wind blades hits right where I aimed it, tearing the worm's flesh in all sorts of directions. Blood flies everywhere as the spell finishes tearing it in half. The two bits of its corpse collapse onto the ground.

"Heyy! Thanks for the assist!" I hear yelled at me. Oh right, the ax man, the whole reason that Gale Blade managed to chop the thing in half.

I slowly fly down to the ground to meet whoever I was fighting the worm with. He looks like he's dressed in some pretty durable clothes. He's extremely muscular, like all the other people here, and is easily over 6 feet tall. He has long hair, and a really rough beard.

"Thanks for that, really. Wouldn't have been anywhere near that easy if you weren't flying nearby."

"Oh… it's nothing." I say.

"Right, right. So, you also a monster hunter? They send us both on the same monster?"

"Monster hunter?" I ask.

"Yeah, figured not. You look far too weak to be from here."

"Um… I am, though… my parents… were very overprotective…" That's the story I'm going with, might as well try my best to spread it around.

"Huh, I see. That's a real shame." He says as he looks down at me. "Name's Bleikr, monster hunter. What about you, miss?"

"Um… Azariah, adventurer…"

"Yeah, I owe you about half of the bounty from this."

"Um! Please don't worry! I'm in a rush, I'm fine…" I say, I really don't need any money right now, and I'd rather not bother.

"Oh, well if that's the case, I guess I could give you a favor if you ever need it. Worth half a many-eyed dirt crawler's life."

"Um, that's fine." I say, as I begin to fly away.

"Remember, Bleikr! If you ever need anything Azariah, I'll be there!"

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The closer that I get to Uclait's border the more and more forts that pop up. There are only a few of them, but the ones that I do see are absolutely massive. Like, true fantasy scale type massive.

Most of them resemble huge star fortresses with another smaller start fortress on top of it. Tall towers line fortress walls that have range over fields for literal miles. The last time I checked, the only nations that really posed a threat to Uclait were the Demon Lord's territory and Monster Country, and Alibas' domain bordered neither of them. Why are all these forts here?

It isn't long before I fly all the way to the Causter river. This makes up Uclait's border with a nation known as Blulia, I believe. Ahh, my first time ever seeing an international border in either of my lives! How exciting!

The Causter river itself has fortresses all over it on the Uclait side. On the Blulia side it's mostly just normal residential buildings, even though the architecture still resembles that of the Alibas domain. I'm assuming that that's because Blulia is still kind of close to the Antisor Mountains and that its style starts to become more and more unique the further you get away from that.

I land near another walled city near the border. I'm running pretty low on mana, so I'll stop flying for now. I flew in a straight line through Alibas' domain in just two days. I'll spend right now collecting my thoughts. Would this be an OK place to live with Kiaran? Where should I head after this?

Well, to be honest this isn't somewhere I really want to live. I mean, fighting monsters does seem really fun, but the culture here really doesn't mesh well with my personality. Kiaran's also trying to reach the self actualization part of the hierarchy of needs, and I am trying to stick to safe areas to help with that.

So unless Kiaran insists on living here, this is a real no go for me. So, where should I go after this? There's still quite a lot of places in Uclait to check. East of here is the Antisor Mountains and the Ulfur Forests, which are obviously out. If he wants to settle down there, he'll say something about it.

So where in Uclait next? There isn't really anywhere that's sticking out to me. There's Hallensteft, that city seems nice… um… yeah, can't think of anywhere else. I should probably ask someone about this. I could probably fly back to Heafdes in a few days to ask Jody.

Or… I could just not look in Uclait at all. I mean, I can cover quite a lot of distance pretty quickly, and there is a whole world out there. A whole fantasy world. There's monster country, there's the holy nation, and after that I don't even know. I mean, surely looking out there would show off a lot more results?

There is the issue of Kiaran getting there, but for that I could probably track down Inell and tel him how to send other people flying with Kari's connection. If I could do that, Kiaran could easily cover the distance really quickly, since I'd be dragging him along at my speed.

Alright, it's decided. As soon as my mana replenishes, I'm heading to Blulia, then-

An extremely sharp burning pain erupts deep into my chest, and my mind is filled with a splitting headache. I collapse on the spot, grabbing my head.

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As soon as the pain appeared, it suddenly went away. I'm kneeling on the ground with my hands on my head, and nothing seems wrong. I turn up Mana Location to as much detail as I can get it without hurting myself. I look all around, and there's nothing there that could have done that to me.

I focus Mana Detection on my chest where the pain started, and there's definitely residue from some spell. What did that? What caused that reaction? I tone down Mana Location and start thinking.

When did it start? As soon as I decided to leave Uclait. Oh, I'm going to regret this. I keep Mana Detection focused on the area that started hurting. Alright, so as an experiment, I'll fly over to Blulia-

The pain returns. It feels like I'm getting stabbed by a sword made of fire right in the heart. The migraine doesn't make it very enjoyable at all either. As soon as that started though, the pain disappeared and I'm fine again.

Mana Detection revealed… some sort of circle of mana embedded in my chest that reads my thoughts and reacts accordingly. It's so faint I could only detect it when it's actually going off. I don't think Lucidna could see this either. She can be mean, sure, but she definitely would have mentioned seeing this.

So what is this thing? Why is it keeping me from leaving Uclait? When did this thing get on me? What are the possible candidates that could have done this to me?

There's Inell, but this doesn't seem like something he could do, and even if it was, why would he do that? Is that really something he'd do?

There's Lucidna, but why would she do this? What could her motive possibly be? It could be some sort of sick way of protecting me, but I feel like there's a lot more efficient ways to do that, and she's all about efficiency.

Who else? Magic users… magic users… oh. Oh yeah. My first day here, that slave crest that got put on us. It was all right on our chests, weren't they? Those were meant to keep us from betraying Uclait, right? Does it consider leaving Uclait betrayal? That's all I can think of.

Anger absolutely floods my body. It's a feeling I'm not at all familiar with. I actually start to shake. This is honestly the angriest I've been since I've come to this world. Is this the angriest I've ever been? I can't think of a single time in either of my lives that I've been angrier.

"Damn you Runicez!" I yell out loud, not something I'd ever normally think of doing. "How dare you?! How actually dare you?! You think you have any god damned right to keep me chained up in this stupid country?! You think that you can keep me from seeing the beauties of this world and get away with it completely scot free?!

We'll see about that! Next time I see you, I'm definitely going to kill you, you crusty old man! I swear to God- no, I swear to Kari that I will tear you limb from bloody limb! I'm going to make you suffer, Runicez! You hear me?! You hear me?!"

It takes a while for me to calm down. I wasn't expecting anything to suddenly make me angry like that. I also hate Runicez even more now. First that whole audience with the king and forcing me to make that decision, and now keeping me from seeing this fantasy world! How dare he make me stay here! That's like sending me on a nice vacation to another country I want to see but only allowing me to stay in one city! How dare he?!

I actually want to hurt him. This isn't a feeling I think I've felt towards anyone before. I actually hate Runicez. I despise Runicez. I want to make him suffer. Ahh, damn it, imagining him getting tortured is really gratifying. Ahh, I need to calm down, I'm clearly not OK yet. I need to calm down, how do I calm down?

Right, right, the cold. Beira, this follower of yours is a stupid idiot that can't handle herself right now. Sorry about that, can you help me out here please? Kari, give me wind blades. I'm super sorry for not being as friendly as usual, I'm in a bad mood.

I form a bunch of rapidly growing ice in my hands and start pelting it with wind blades. I send wind around me, creating a cool, foggy mist that completely surrounds me. I feel the temperature plummet as I keep the process going.

I begin to be soothed as the temperature of the air around me gets lower and lower. 60 degrees… 50 degrees… 40 degrees… ah, freezing. I huddle up to keep up my body warmth. I'm sure this isn't a very pleasant feeling for most people, but for me it's deeply nostalgic and relaxing.

I stop the spell, but the air around me isn't going to get any warmer for a bit. I guess I could fly out of this mist, but I'd rather stay in the cold. I sit down on the ground to think.

OK, so I'm obviously not getting out of Uclait any time soon. I should stop thinking about that before I get angry again. Getting angry at Runicez obviously isn't going to fix anything. He's the second strongest magic user in the entire kingdom, I'd be an idiot if I thought I had even a remote chance of standing up against him.

I had an out back then so it's my fault I wound up with this stupid crest. I swear, if any of the royal selection candidates plan on making these illegal, I'll join their camp in a heartbeat. Anyway, this got put on me in front of the king. I doubt many people would be able to get rid of this thing so I'll have to live with it for now.

I guess I could ask Lucidna about it, but then I'd have to explain why the hell I have a slave crest on me, and that's going to be a whole ordeal. She'd definitely be able to see through any cover story. Could I just tell her the truth, then? That would mean having to tell her that I'm an otherworlder. How would she even react to that? I'm going to discount that idea, far too stressful.

OK, so I have to narrow down my search to just Uclait… unfortunately. So… where can I go after this? It happened so long ago it's easy to forget it, but we are meant to support the royal selection aren't we? Maybe… just maybe that would help get this damned thing off of my chest? If that's the case then would it be better to try and aim for a domain ruled by a candidate?

Alibas is in charge of this domain, and he's one of the royal selection candidates. A half giant, apparently. That doesn't matter though, Alibas' is definitely down. That leaves 5 other options.

So the closest to here would be Ebenel Byrne's domain located in the Ulfur Forests and Pitiful Girl's domain located in the Emednes Mountains. Both of the candidates I was mainly interested in when I first came here. I'd rather not check their domains out though. Kiaran is still trying to find himself, and I'd prefer to pick out a relatively safe area for him to think in. That obviously gets rid of the two most dangerous areas in the entire country.

And then there were three. That leaves Rhectia Royther, Raphael Kaer, and Amiel Leon. I don't have a particularly positive opinion of Rhectia since her policies seem a bit too dictator-y to me. Her territory also borders a foreign nation like Alibas' and I'm not all that into teasing.

So Raphael and Amiel. Raphael's particularly favored by the working class and Amiel's really popular in the adventurer's guild… and by merchants… and by nobles. Eh, Amiel seems more interesting, so I'll head to his domain first. There are two other reasons I can think of for checking his domain though.

The first is that it's right in the northwestern most edge of the country, and not including the Ulfur Forests, I'm probably about as southeast as I can get. That means that on my way I'm definitely going to run through a whole bunch of potential spots to settle down just along the way.

The second is that most of his domain is coastline. That means a lot of beaches. It's summer, and the only things that are more enjoyable in the summer are cold drinks & foods and the beach. Also, walking down a beach during sunset while it's cold enough to see my breath is a bit of a dream of mine.

With Beira's connection, I won't even have to wait until winter for that! Alright, I'll head straight northwest for Amiel Leon's domain first thing tomorrow!