Sidestory: The chaotic devil and the mercenary (5)

With slow and heavy steps, I approached the mercenary guild, opening the large wooden door to enter.

As the creaks echoed through the hall, everyone went silent, exactly knowing who just opened the door.

I've been told that I had a very oppressive presence, which was quite logical, as it was one of the properties of ether.

Pure power.

While mana, especially ambient mana, gives the user control over a large variety of elements or special abilities, ether's uses are very limited.

Until now, the only properties that I had found out were its strengthening effect, which was vastly superior to mana, and its control over space.

While many seemed to control more 'elemental' attributes, I theorized that ether had control over only a few limited things.

That being the fundamentals of the world.

Ether existed everywhere.

However, the most collective ether existed in the Depths.

The ether density in the depths was much higher than the density in the Overworld, thus creating a completely new environment.

Many professors had already discussed that topic and came to the conclusion that it was because of 'ether'.

Although they didn't exactly know what ether was, just like mana, it existed everywhere.

However, the difference was that no matter how hard one tried, no one will ever be able to use ether, as it isn't absorbable by Overworldlers.

Nobody could utilize ether...

..except me, that is.

However, I didn't know the reason why I could utilize it or how I got that ability. I theorized that it was just something that I got from my birth.

Ever since I was a child, I couldn't use mana.

No matter how hard I tried, I always failed.

However, now at 17 years, I understood the reason.

My body was made for absorbing ether, not mana. In a way, I'm more like an advanced version of the depth monsters in human skin.

I looked at my hand, spacing out and thinking about the rumors that I had overheard over the course of last week.

Many professors and so-called 'scientists' theorize that the reason for the Depths being so different and transcending the logic of the Overworld is ether.

They theorized that ether was fundamental for the Overworld.

No, to be more exact, it is the basis of our world.

They said that ether had something to do with such things as space, time, logic matter, and similar things.

Although I had the ability to use ether, I, too, couldn't understand the extent of this power.

Who knows? Maybe they're right?

I raised my head, snapping out of my thoughts, as I realized that everyone's eyes were on me, not having the intention to let go, as long as I was there.

Silently, I walked to the receptionist, my 'ether body' emitting pressure that shut up the whole hall.

Nobody said anything and just silently stared at me, waiting until I was finished to keep talking.

Arriving at the receptionist, I blankly stared at her as I opened my dimensional storage, ejecting every single monster corpse that I had killed out of it, filling the whole floor of the mercenary guild with corpses.

"I've finished the mission."

"..I..see.." The receptionist gave me a strained smile. "Then please take this audio device and report everything to your dear customer. We'll send the rewards to you by using transportation magic, as usual."

Leaving the corpses behind, I grabbed the audio device before turning back and leaving the hall again.

As I left the guild, before the doors closed, I could hear how murmurs started again, spreading faster than ripples.

*

After I arrived back at my room in a nearby inn, I threw myself onto the bed.

Although this inn usually wasn't a place where adventures or mercenaries came by, as it is located in a small village, the quality was outstanding.

As I was the only customer of the elderly inn owners, I frequently decided to give them more coins than they had asked for, as to let them keep continuing their business.

"Now..let's look at this." I took out the audio device, pressing a grey button on the side of the small black box.

Almost immediately, a bubbly, high-pitched voice echoed through the speaker.

"Hello, Voidwalkerrr~! Here's your cute magician girl! Once again! You did great! Now please give me your report on the mission!"

I couldn't help but form a faint smile at the voice of my regular customer.

"Yes, cutest magician girl. So...."

I reported the mission in the utmost detail, not leaving out a single thing.

After around forty minutes, I finished my report, shutting off the audio device and putting it on the table next to my bed.

Closing my eyes, I recalled the warm feeling that I had while listening to her audio.

She was the only person who did such a thing, but I liked it.

For some reason, her voice gave me a warm, familiar feeling.

Every time I heard her voice, the same name kept popping into my head again and again.

Aura.

Although I knew that the name was important to me, I couldn't remember anything, but the warm feeling that it gave me when I think about it.

After my first mission in a war, two years ago, I was so overwhelmed with stress that I suffered from dissociative amnesia.

I shuddered at the memories of all the blood, torture, screams,, and killing I had to go through.

While I could still remember most pieces of information about myself, like my name and my childhood, I couldn't remember anything that had happened a year prior to the mission.

I knew that something important had happened that year, but I just couldn't remember anymore.

Still, I knew that 'Aura' was a name. And that person was someone important to me.

Even though I still couldn't figure out what kind of relationship we had, I knew that it was a deep bond.

Ding!

The familiar ring of the transportation magic notification rang out, notifying me of its arrival.

As transportation magic usually was a 'sealed type of magic', it required both users to unseal the magic circle to be able to use it.

In a way, it was a lesser form of teleportation magic, the only difference being the extent of things one could transport.

While teleportation magic could transport people, groups, or in the most outrageous cases, even entire kingdoms, the only thing transportation magic could do was transport a few objects.

Looking at the magic circle on the ground, I put the audio device on it, before unsealing it and pulling the sealing paper up.

I sighed.

It would've been nice if I could keep at least a single audio device to listen to her voice whenever I needed to, but that would be too creepy of a request, wouldn't it?

After all, she was just a customer. Someone I had never met before.

Even if her voice strangely calmed me down.

Almost immediately after I unsealed it, the audio device disappeared and was replaced with a bag of gold.

Forming a weak smile, I sighed.

Honestly, I would rather have her keep the gold and just let me keep the audio device.

Finishing the transaction, I crawled to my bed again, trying to get some sleep, hoping that she would request my services again soon.

For a while, I kept listening to the rustling of the leaves near my open window, until my eyelids started feeling heavy.

And then slowly, but surely. I closed my eyes while smiling, thinking about the warm feeling that her voice gave me.

***

***

Meanwhile, in the empire, Acedia squirmed around in her bed, rolling and screeching into her pillow as she listened to the audio provided by her dear childhood crush.

She looked over to the corner of her room, where a packet filled with tons of audio devices were laying.

She giggled creepily as her eyes narrowed into two crescent shapes. "Hehehehe..."

"..that was my report, cutest magician girl."

Click!

And then the audio device turned off.

"Kyaaa~!" she screamed into her pillow. "I love you so much, Voidwalker!"

That kept on for around six years.

Every one or two weeks, she requested his services and enjoyed the minor exchange between the both of them.

Even after she became the head of the empire's mage tower at 22, her favorite activity was just listening to her voice.

However, when she woke up one day and tried to request his services once again, she was shocked by the news.

Voidwalker had retired.

And once again, she lost him.