Airless Reunion

"This isn't right... no?"

I shoved the paper before Red Dragon.

Awkwardly, Red Dragon pushed my hand back, my bones whistled from the tension but I still insisted he checked.

Nodding his head slowly Red-Dragon gazed at the paper parchment with an occulent gaze.

His voice was sound and casual.

"It looks fine..."

His hood flapped back over his face solemnly.

200... Judes?

So in other words... I would have to do this quest 200 times?

This quest, otherwise known as the highest-rank quest available.

Yes. That's right.

This was the highest-rank quest I could find.

B+ Quest

Crolo-Ivarian Extermination

Eliminate 10 Crolo-Ivarians

Reward: 200 Judes

200 times?

I doubted there were enough Crolo-Ivarians to slay.

My thoughts began crumbling rapidly, trying to catch their crumbs I desperately searched the board.

150 Judes.

185 Judes.

20 Judes.

100 Judes.

160 Judes.

0 Judes.

What?

What were these reward statements?

Why were the rewards so... small?

Why did the Kingdom of Crows pay so little?

I hadn't rationality or mindfulness then.

Just a goal to fulfill.

One thing was clear as day, however. And that was the fact that the Crow Kingdom cared nigh nothing for its citizens. I had wondered why even a B+ Rank quest had no requirements to accept.

But it was probably because they just didn't care.

There was no legal system here. The people wouldn't protest.

Maybe in the Gale Kingdom, there was, but here?

The most they had was an Army, roles, and a jail.

A pleasantly corrupt jail, might I add.

400,000 Judes.

I felt curses and horror slither down my tongue.

"I need to take a break."

I spoke unnaturally clearly and splendidly flat.

My face had no expression and my hair swayed backward lightly.

Reaching a sort of alley behind the Adventurer's guild I took one last lookout as my blood-red eyes danced around the alleyway.

The thick perfume of the guild had vanished and been replaced by a foul, repelling, and disfiguring smog.

My fingers touched upon mossy and lumpy stone walls that had been long forgotten.

The moonlight descended, yet was eerily cut off by the shade of umbras.

My feet were implanted into dark soil and my ears were marauded by drowned-out bar noises.

"Vigar."

My voice was that of a snark in a way as it faded away.

I was quite, I suppose, narked and irked as of now.

It felt as though all my plans had fallen apart.

There were things I could do of course, but not things I could achieve.

My back was brushed by Northern Winds as Vigar materialized by my left, his white massless form did not shine any holy light, it blended with the darkness.

"How do I get 400,000 Judes in 2 months."

I once again spoke flatly.

I needed answers, and fast.

The phantom didn't seem friendly or jokey anymore.

Seeming to have grasped the contents at hand the Phantom wafted around the air before coming out with what should've been a satisfactory answer.

"There's a way or two."

It spoke incoherently subtly and I found this change of manner suspicious.

Was the Phantom hiding something?

"Then name them."

My voice seemed to pierce this invisible silence that had sealed the Phantom's voice and banded it down.

"The East of-."

The neutral voice fizzled out as if it had been strangled by something omnipotent.

Something far from the Phantom's control.

For the first time, it felt like I had heard emotions from this Phantom.

By no means, pleasant ones.

Horrendously painful emotions.

Why?

Why could he not speak of a get-rich-quick method?

Something felt incredibly off-setting.

"Vigar?"

My voice lost its facaded flatness and finally got some emotions yanked in.

Concern.

Confusion.

Crisis.

The white mass that was calmly floating to my left was gone.

It had not popped, vanished, or faded.

It had just become nothing.

In an instant.

Like a bad animation, it was there, floating. And then it was there, gone.

Wait.

I backtracked through my memories.

What could've happened to Vigar?

I doubt he ran out of energy again.

He could clearly sense when he was running out rapidly.

He couldn't have just vanished.

Not after figuring out an answer to my question.

Scolding myself, I tried to think just what could have caused his sudden disappearance.

Feeling the absence of light, my senses had thoroughly dulled.

The once peaceful and calming silence now felt trapping.

Engulfing.

As if it was devouring me whole.

I needed an explanation.

And this silence wasn't going to give me one.

Oh.

Oh, but it did.

And it gave the most reasonable answer that one could give.

Looking around, I felt my head stop in place.

As if the muscles in my body had just decided to stop working. As if they had been frozen in time.

No. That couldn't describe the sensation.

It was as if my every twitch, shiver, and wince was being controlled. Controlled so well that I had struggled to even grasp that it was controlled and not an act of nature.

Like I was in a bubble, a domain that caused one to lose the power of their own command.

And as if waiting for me to stay locked in place, It felt as though my innards spilled from my backside. It felt as though a part of me was ripped out. Leaving a seething, burning pain in my backside.

Yet no slushing and gushing intestines emerged from my back.

Just a creature.

From a ravine.

I couldn't see it of course.

Yet I knew exactly what it was. Where it was. There it was.

I felt two eyes interlock with mine.

Who knew? I could've been staring straight into 8 eyes, maybe even 40.

Maybe no eyes.

But it just felt like 2 eyes.

Through world energy, I could attempt to make an image.

But my attempts were disrupted by a strange,controlling domain that seemed to expand from this creature.

As I tried again and again, I realized there was never an attempt.

Just a wishful image in my head.

The same domain that had restrained my movements entirely.

After a few seconds passed, my skin was moist and wet.

There was no water, yet it felt as such.

My eyes felt like they had been dowsed in water and my legs were trying to tremble.

But they merely stood still. Perplexingly straight too.

I was powerless.

Just like Vigar had been presumably.

I wasn't fearful.

But I was confused.

Questioning.

Un-cooperative.

I felt as though the creature was examining me.

A nice reunion for a bit of a break.

I had no time to feel sorrow for Vigar.

I had no power to fend for myself.

I could only watch as the Creature stretched its limbs around me.

To an outsider, it was just a boy standing still.

But to me, it was far from that.

This was the closest point to life and death that I could visualize.

With no adrenaline pumping me up.

With no swollen muscles, dulling my senses completely.

Everything was the real thing.

Everything was right here.

And everything was sensed by me.

And I stood there.

For an unsettling minute or two.

The creature's limbs kept folding around mine before I was in a cacoon.

My lungs had been pressed and creased to the point where I was receiving so little air, my breaths had long become thin and exasperated pants.

My bones had long gone past their comfort points as they were pressed down emotionlessly.

The area above my neck was all that remained.

World-energy?

I hadn't noticed such a thing before but...

I had tried to manipulate the world's energy.

Uncaring for my arm.

I really had.

But I couldn't.

I just couldn't.

Because like I said. This was not my domain. I could not control the world energy.

It merely felt like I was trying to move a wall with a shoe.

No matter how much I kicked, I would only increase the damage on my side.

And, if I did kick down the wall?

Then I would be the one turning into a pile of mush.

As if the time was right, the cocoon tightened itself snugly.

My skin was infested by an irritating sense of shining needles.

They didn't pierce but scratched across the surface so fast and machine-like that I would've looked like a walking vandalized chalkboard in public.

My emotions were still tuned down.

He wouldn't kill me.

He had that chance for years.

He would just do his thing.

The least I could do is hide my fear.

Hide it deep down and stomp it out.

No matter how many times I tried to stomp out my primordial fear, it refused to bend to my will.

Rising higher and higher each time.

It had gotten to the point where the moisturizing feeling on my face was no longer a distant reality.

But a thin and clear stream of tears.

Although my expression was flat and dead-panned, my eyes had betrayed me.

In this desolate and muted alleyway, I watched as my ascended figure was illuminated by glistening tears.

My vision was smirched by these lucid tears.

Fine.

Happy now?

I drove my eyes at the creature in frustration and hopelessness.

Would it finally leave?

I felt the cocoon slowly unravel itself.

Ah.

So we were fine now?

Vigar would come back.

I would continue my life.

Save Audra.

Get some companions.

Be happy.

Get some actual relaxation-.

The minimal air in my body left hither my writhing tongue.

No.

Those realities were far from wherever I was right now.

My hair was gripped upwards as my choking figure was plastered with pain.

The wet and slushy feel had gone.

Replaced by pain,emotions, and something else.

A mix of the two.

I wanted to choke.

I looked like I was choking, but the feeling wasn't there.

It was... controlled.

The feeling was so unpleasant that I would be to die silently.

In this alleyway.

The creature had 3 years to wind up its power.

It couldn't fail this time.

The back of my head felt Fervent as my frustrated eyes shivered.

My disobeying mouth became frail and shook.

My figure bent and creased over.

Although the cocoon had unraveled, the hand on my neck remained.

An iron-grip.

I broke out onto the streets in a mad ramble.

All I could feel was a sickening heat forming around my face.

I didn't have air in my body.

My constitution tried to shut me down but my legs kept moving me forward.

I tried to smudge my hands on anything.

Yet it all felt so out of reach.

Even if I did touch something I wouldn't have felt it.

My sense of touch had been replaced by a feverous hotness that had molded into my being.

My emotions had become so many and so mixed that it just felt like a slithering, acidic mess in my mind.

My thoughts weren't straight.

My eyesight had become blurry and too vivid to be anything but a dream.

My hearing had long disappeared to another plane.

A dazzling cerise blade incised through the foul air of dusk.

I couldn't see. Blurs were infested into each other as I found myself different.

Yet I could breathe.

And slowly my sight returned.

Looking to my right, I saw a new figure.

A young man.

He had wavy, prideful blonde hair that had been curled upwards stylishly.

His youthful face was smooth and pastored. Attractive and passive.

His eyes were calm and unbothered as they looked into the distance.

His red-gold clothes blew heroically in the wind.

His burgundy blade twisted back into his sheath immaculately.

Rubbing my eyes, every image of this young man disappeared.

Replaced by a middle-aged man waxed with unheavenly features.

His hair drooped downwards and his blonde hair was flawed in many places.

His youthful face had become rougher and dry. Sore and aggressive.

His half-rusted blade awkwardly slid into his sheath.

Rubbing my eyes, it was Red Dragon.

I had noticed from the clothes as I looked down.

Ah.

The monster.

The creature.

It was gone.

The creature had disappeared upon sight of the Red Dragon.

"I could have sworn I had seen something."

I ignored Red Dragon's strange mumblings as I thanked him sincerely.

"Thank you, Red Dragon."

Refraining from drawing his hood down for a second, Red Dragon looked at me with two shaded-golden eyes.

The part of him that hadn't aged and dried.

"Call me Adam."

I nodded acceptingly.

We walked back to the tavern mutely.

Our steps were light duds as our usual personas returned and refined themselves.

The creature was gone.

But it would return soon, I was sure of it.

This time, I had not saved myself.

Someone else had.

In other words, would I be able to save myself the next time I met this creature?

It seemed to be getting stronger every time.

Wouldn't I be dead the next time then?

Never mind.

I cut off my thoughts there.

But the creature.

Why had it stopped when Adam arrived?

Was there a clause for it to be able to appear?

Was that why Vigar disappeared?

Was I on to something?

Ah.

Vigar.

Where's he?

"Vigar."

I called out in a whistle.

Waiting patiently and receiving no answer I decided to not dread it.

I'll wait a few days. Then I'll get worried.

Yeah.

For now, I think I'll just do some quests.

Kill some Crolo-Ivarians and take a step back.

This ravine-creature thing really leaves a pathetic taste at the end of my tongue.

My stomach felt like a power wash as my feet tried to pull themselves backward.

The second I opened the door to the adventurer's guild I shoved myself into the closest seat.

Took a deep sigh of relief.

And slept.

Sure, I could've thought about some horrific thoughts and wailed.

But I really wasn't in the mood for such a thing.

Because tomorrow...

There was work to be done.

And I was kind of homeless. That too, probably now that I think about it.