(31) Back From The Dead

May 31, 2010. Monday, 3:01 AM, Hemptonburg Cemetery…

A figure of a man hopped over the metal fence.

Rocky, in his thick cotton jacket and pants with twenty-four pockets steadily approached a gravestone. He brought along a black duffel bag filled with jars of animal blood.

He didn't wear his favorite red bonnet and instead put on a black one that covered his entire face. He even wore black gloves just for this.

The moment he was in front of the gravestone, he looked around if there was anyone else nearby.

Rocky snuck in the cemetery in order to try out the pentagram drawings.

He took out his phone from his left pocket and checked the image of Dominic Paulsen's room.

If one were to look at it casually, they might conclude it as an attempt to be scary. However, by looking at the trails of blood on the walls very closely, they weren't random blood splatters.

No, it was Morse code spelling out two words.

(Demonic Indulgence)

(East R)

At first, it didn't make sense and rightfully so. However, in GOTG, there is an artifact with the name Demonic Indulgence.

It was a stunning bracelet made of dark purple metal with clear diamonds to represent a human in the midst of an agonizing failed demonification process. The function of the artifact is to revive someone from death once, but it decreases total damage by 90% for a few minutes after being saved from death.

When Rocky found out about this, he didn't know where to start. The other message 'East R' didn't make sense at all. So he hopped on GOTG and went towards the eastern region of the map and from there, he went right to see what the 'R' meant.

But after countless hours of aimlessly searching, he found absolutely nothing.

Since that didn't work, maybe 'East R' wasn't a clue to be explored this early on. He checked the Demonic Indulgence for any other clues that he may have missed, and all he got was that the most obvious detail of the bracelet, the diamonds, were 13 in number.

In a tarot deck, 13 meant death. And there's a boss themed after death as well.

In the Masgracia Mountains, if the story progresses enough, the player finds out that there's the Masgracia Catacombs responsible for the abundant soul energy in the mountains. And there, the boss Masa Iniwa Gracia, a powerful and bloodthirsty True Spirit sealed deep inside.

And since Masa Iniwa Gracia also happened to be the 13th boss in the game, he knew he was onto something.

So, as anyone with lots of free time would do, Rocky fought the boss and it did the usual thing that it would do whenever it was defeated.

Masa Iniwa Gracia would tell the player that there's a path to the left full of traps and a path to the right filled with treasure. They were only revealed after the boss was defeated.

But the thing is that the boss always lies. The left path is always the safe one and the right path is always the dangerous one. Rocky went to the right path multiple times even though he knew that it would always kill him. He even wore the Demonic Indulgence in hopes that it would change something.

He also had doubts. Dominic Paulsen once laughed in an interview and dubbed that part of the game as the infamous 'Wrong Way.'

What's weird about it is that he chose to spoil that part of the game and nothing else. So Rocky felt that it was his way of saying that it is indeed the wrong way to take if anyone were to solve his riddle. That also implied that Dominic Paulsen planned this out years ahead of time.

Rocky backtracked his steps.

He looked for other hidden meanings that the number 13 had. There was no monster, NPC, quest or item that was strictly associated with the number because the way the players could encounter them wasn't in any order.

But during his search, the loading screen messages showed him something interesting. It was a message that he had never seen before in his years of playing GOTG.

'The Kingdom of Holyfeather is the 13th kingdom to rise in Adhaesit. Despite the negative connotations to death and the number 13, the Kingdom managed to be the holiest out of the rest.'

Rocky decided to go to the Kingdom of Holyfeather with the Demonic Indulgence in hand.

Immediately he got shushed by NPC's that he shouldn't wear such a demonic item in a holy kingdom. Rocky didn't care and after a few real life days of puzzle solving, he found out that the description of the Demonic Indulgence had changed.

'You have completed the hidden prerequisites. Player, whoever you are, go to my gravestone and draw the pentagram. I'm sure you know what that is.. Everything will be explained soon enough and if I'm correct, my parents would likely want me to be buried somewhere in Hemptonburg, my childhood home.

- Dominic Paulsen.'

"…"

And that is what led to this moment.

Rocky took a deep breath and laid the duffel bag on the ground as he took out a jar of blood. He also brought a paintbrush because he didn't know what would happen if the pentagram was drawn incorrectly.

He dipped the paintbrush into the jar and copied the pentagram from his phone. He made sure not to overdo the strokes just in case he messes up.

"God I hope this is real…" Rocky didn't know what to do once this turned out to be a prank of some sort.

Was it desperation that drove him to put this much effort or anticipation for the unknown?

It didn't matter as he had already finished drawing it.

Suddenly, the air around the cemetery fell down by a few degrees as if it was plunged into a freezing tundra. The winds howled as they flew harshly, shaking the trees in an erratic manner.

Rocky involuntarily took steps away from the gravestone.

"No way… I was right..?" Rocky was happy that he didn't waste all his time on something that he barely had any hopes for.

But then again, if everything was true, he wondered what was in store for him.

The winds howled continuously for some time before pausing abruptly. The blood pentagram began to fade into red smoke as if it was evaporating.

Rocky waited for something to happen, he was ready to go home in disappointment if it was truly just in his head.

He shook his head. "No, I had my suspicions… Plus, that message clearly stated that -"

*Crack!*

A powerful blow struck the coffin buried underground, muffling the sound quite a lot. The ground shook slightly as if something was digging its way out.

Rocky then saw a finger emerge. He hurriedly went over and helped the person presumably to be Dominic out of the soil.

*Cough, cough*

A man with black hair with an undercut climbed out of the ground. He wore a white suit paired with white pants and polished black shoes. He was naturally covered in dirt, but his face was all too familiar.

Without any doubt, he is indeed Dominic Paulsen.

Dominic glanced over to Rocky as he patted the dirt off his face and clothes. "You're the one who must have gotten my message.. Tell me, how did you find out?"

Rocky couldn't believe his eyes.

This was nothing but magic! It exists!

"Mister Dominic, I- I'm friends with Owen… Owen Ivory… There's this mass coma that happened and I don't know what's causing it. I believe that Abyssal Confinement is behind it though.. I found your message because I decided to dig in a bit further into the matter." Rocky regained his composure and told everything to Dominic.

As he listened to Rocky's story, he nodded.

"You must have analyzed the image of my room, isn't that right Rocky?" Dominic flashed a bright smile despite his current appearance.

Rocky nodded before asking, "Wait, how did you know my name?"

"I watch Ivory11 on MeTube. I recognize your voice from your appearances in some of his videos." Dominic didn't feel like it was that hard to decipher the truth.

"Ah." Rocky found the reason acceptable. "So if I could ask, what exactly is going on? You're suddenly alive, there's people going into comatose and Abyssal Confinement is somehow behind it?"

"I just don't understand what's going on." Rocky scratched his head irritatedly.

Dominic was about to open his mouth when his stomach grumbled loudly. "Mhm.. I'll explain everything to you but first, can we go grab some lunch first? I'm starving."

Rocky nodded. It was reasonable to let the previously dead man eat something first. He took his keys from his pocket and said, "My dad's car is that way."

"Sweet.. where will we eat?" Dominic checked his pockets half expecting that someone would leave him money, only to be disappointed with an imaginary fly buzzing out.

Rocky touched his chin. "I don't know? Do you vibe with Chick N' Burgz?"

Dominic in a collected manner, shrugged. He used to eat at a lot of fast food restaurants anyway. "Yeah I'm down for CNB."

They soon left the cemetery and hopped on to Rocky's dad's car. Rocky started the engine and drove out.

Soon, they arrived at Chick N' Burgz. Surprisingly, there were already quite a number of people ordering.

Most of them were either sleep deprived or early working adults.

When Dominic felt the cold air entering his system, he narrowed his lips and blew out of his mouth. "Phiuuwww… This place is cold."

"Are you going C or B? Specify right now because I'm about to order." Rocky took out his wallet and checked if he had an ample amount of cash.

"Can I go for both? If not, get me the Supreme Roasted Chicken and make it a large." Dominic looked around for an empty table and said while pointing towards it, "I'll be right there by the way."

"Gotcha man." Rocky walked over to the counter and waited for his turn to order.

Dominic sat down on the spot that he picked.

He looked around while tapping his fingers on the table. It was unbelievable that someone who wasn't from Abyssal Confinement would find out his message that quickly.

Dominic wasn't anxious at all. In fact, he knew that he was currently in the clear.

He cannot show his face too much in public, but that was easy enough to do. He had the means to hide himself.

Later, Rocky arrived at his table with their order.

Dominic smiled at him while looking at the food with a ravenous appetite. When Rocky sat down, he gave him his order while Rocky removed the wrapper around his burger.

Dominic held the utensils and began chowing down on his meal.

Rocky ate as well. He could tell that Dominic was only going to talk once he's satisfied eating.

The two of them minded their own food without ever talking.

Dominic gave him a glance and said, "You can ask me about stuff now.." He said after eating a good chunk off the chicken.

Rocky was delighted. It seems that he wouldn't have to wait that long after all.

The burger wasn't big, so Rocky finished the entire thing after a few bites. He wiped his fingertips with the tissues, placed his hands together and then leaned forward to ask,

"What's up with this stuff happening around us? Tell me everything from the beginning."

Dominic emptied the contents of his spoon and replied with a ruminative expression. "Gods."

"Excuse me?" Rocky furrowed both of his eyebrows.

"The game GOTG is a bridge to another world that takes away the souls of people from here so that the Gods of that world could achieve a certain goal. I do not know the details about it, so please refrain from asking me for more."

"I happened to overhear the CEO of the company talking about this with unknown people. But from what I can guess judging from their appearance, they must be closely related to the other world."

"From my nosiness, I also found out that I will be the first to enter the other world. And obviously, I'm not liking the idea very much… With my abilities alone, I wouldn't be able to escape without help." Dominic continued eating for a short moment, giving Rocky time to catch up.

"So someone helped you get out of that fate? Let me guess, a God?" Rocky was no stranger to a concept like that.

Dominic's eyes brightened, clearly liking the fact that Rocky could piece things together himself. "That's affirmative.. That specific God helped me get out of the comatose state by dying in advance. So, I planned this out for years… And I made sure that the code will only show clues to those unaffiliated to AC."

"I did that by making sure that the code hides the clues to those who are messaged by me directly in the game. So with that, I pretended to be a friendly developer doing his job, and he was just there to talk to the official accounts of the company to try and hide certain tracks." Dominic appeared quite proud of what he did judging by his facial expression.

"How are you so sure that the clues you laid out will be found in the first place?" Rocky felt that the plan Dominic devised had a lot of holes in them.

Dominic understood Rocky's doubt. He said nothing and merely pointed upwards while looking straight at him.

"Oh, God helped you…" Rocky nodded in comprehension. "You better not be an atheist."

Dominic merely chuckled at the joke and went on to speak, "The God instructed me to destroy AC from the inside so that the ritual would stop. Preventing more souls from getting abducted and essentially pulling back the transferred souls back to us."

Rocky felt some reassurance from Dominic's words.

Dominic lifted his fork and pointed it at him, "So, any more questions?"

"Yes.. and that is, how can I help you?"

Dominic's mouth stopped chewing in a short interval and gave him a meaningful look before resuming.

"Wow, I'm impressed. I was not expecting for you to accept the information I just laid out that easily.. Maybe it has something to do with the fate that 'He' set." Dominic spun his glass to gather all the bubbles in his soda to the middle before drinking a portion of it.

"That makes sense too. The one who finds my message this early on couldn't be a pushover." Dominic rolled his lips to savor the taste of the soda.

Rocky caught on to Dominic's choice of words and what's between the lines. "I may not look like it, but I am a reliable person.. I can also tell that your guy, the God, did some manipulation behind the scenes like a puppet master to make it possible that someone will find your little puzzle."

Dominic didn't reject the shot in the dark. "I can confirm, for my plan to work, obviously someone had to find the message. A little fate manipulation here and bam! I'm back."

"And if you want to help me, that's not impossible, but you have to understand that there will be risks alongside it." He added.

Rocky shook his head and gestured with his arms in a rejecting notion. "If I'm not willing to take risks, then how would Owen wake up earlier? I can't just sit back knowing my brother from another mother is kidnapped by literal Gods."

"I'll be honest, your entire role in my plan was just to revive me while I slide off and be on my merry way, destroying all that's left of AC. But… Now that you're offering to come to my aid, my plan could become easier to accomplish depending on your skill." Dominic grabbed his fork and finished his meal.

"However, you can't use soul arts, so I need to teach you how before we start on our master plan… Give me your phone, I got someone to call to help us." Dominic then reached his hand out.

Rocky took his phone, gave it to Dominic and asked, "So am I going to learn how to use magic?"

"Yes, and trust me… It's as cool as you're thinking." Dominic looked around to see if anyone was looking or if there's a security camera looking at them.

Seeing that the coast is clear, Dominic pinched his thumb and index finger together and slowly pulled them apart.

A light blue magic circle spun on his palm while a small electric current buzzed on his fingers.

Rocky couldn't help but let his jaw open in astonishment.

Dominic waved his hand away, cancelling the magic circle's activation. "Whoosh– That's magic… Cool, am I right?"

Rocky nodded with the astonished expression still plastered on his face.

Dominic left his contact information on Rocky's phone and gave it back. "My number is right there.. I'll be giving you a call soon, but right now, I have to recuperate."

"Do you have a place to stay? Sir Dominic, I am ready to offer my dad's attic." Rocky nodded inwardly after realizing that his name rhymes with attic.

Dominic waved his hand in a refusing notion. "Don't worry about me. Just turn around for a second.."

Rocky furrowed his eyebrows at the request. He slowly turned his neck to look behind him to notice nothing worth his attention.

"There's nothing ther-" Rocky almost bit his tongue when he turned back to see that Dominic was no longer there.

He leaned towards the table while reaching his hand out to touch where Dominic was previously sitting to confirm that he wasn't just invisible.

"The hell? Am I tripping?" Rocky checked his phone and saw that Dominic's contact info was still there.

But Rocky had to confirm if everything was just some kind of hallucination that he had.

'Hopefully I don't have schizophrenia.. I'm sure my family's medical history only had something to do with diabetes and nothing else.' Rocky thought to himself as he approached the woman who took his order.

When the waitress saw Rocky approaching the counter, she smiled and asked, "Is there anything you require assistance with, sir?"

Rocky scratched his head. "Uhh, yeah… You saw a man with a white suit eating with me, right?"

The woman tilted her body to catch a good look at where Rocky used to sit and replied, "Yes, I happened to recall that gentleman being there… Did he go anywhere?"

Rocky heaved a sigh of relief as he slumped forward.

"Thank god I'm not crazy…" He straightened his back and said, "Alright miss, thank you."

Without a second thought, he left the restaurant.

The waitress was caught in a daze, trying to make sense of Rocky's reaction.

"Weird guy…"

— Saefarria, Caophre's Carriage…

It's been two weeks since Owen's fight with Gurmed.

The four of them went through the journey to Mysteriea with minor hiccups involving rain, sleeping and the horses needing rest. Aside from that, no bandit shenanigans of any kind happened once again.

Because the road from Wiunlen to Mysteriea is long, it converged with another road that led to the town which could be said to be Wiunlen's brother town.

Just eight days ago, they met a small merchant caravan from the town of Liunden.

It consisted of a few fish merchants, some of the merchants sold fruits and vegetables, some sold clothing, and two merchants sold domesticated animals transported through cages.

Although they were friendly, Owen saw no need to befriend them too much except for one person.

A merchant named Geafle was the most recognizable to Owen. After all, this guy is a merchant who players tend to buy from a lot. Unlike the tall burly man with ginger hair in Owen's memory, Geafle was still a young boy.

The merchant caravan minded their own business and occasionally conversed with Caophre, Owen and the two kids.

Right now, Owen decided to walk along Caophre while talking so that he wouldn't get bored.

At first, Caophre thought that Owen would talk with her for a bit before sitting back with Oslan and Riang to rest, but no.

Caophre noticed that Owen seemed to never get tired at all. But he dismissed it since it made sense that a God's apostle had strange qualities.

So, realizing this point, Caophre paid no heed to Owen's stamina and talked with him to pass the time.

In fact, the two of them were in the middle of a good discussion about the Lanuz Bandit Group.

"... The reason why Lanuz, the bandit leader of those guys that we fought back then, but mostly killed by me, fled is because Lanuz is one of those who are viewed by the leading church to be an anomaly needed to be eradicated at all costs." Caophre didn't seem to show much of an opinion when it came to the decisions of churches.

"He's a Soulless. I know about Eslahai's hatred towards them." Owen's response remained natural.

The churches each worshiped a God to spread their faith and protection. In the Eslahai Kingdom, the religion with the most believers is the God Of Mystical Knowledge, Malous Dag-Ekin Gweldon or Malous Gweldon for short.

A religion in Saefarria with an active God is referred to as a 'True Religion' or 'Orthodox Religion' to separate them from those who did not have a god blessing their believers.

The believers of Malous Gweldon are all seekers of soul energy knowledge and everything mystical. However, there are some who are born with peculiar qualities.

Lanuz for example, is a Soulless.

It is said that a weak soul is a weak mind, a weak mind is an incapable body, and an incapable body results in a weak soul.

So, what happens if there isn't a soul? Only the mind and the body?

It results in a vegetable mimicking a comatose state.

That's the lame truth, but that only applies if their mind is linked tightly with their soul.

A true Soulless is what people call a human or any other intelligent living being in a physical body without a soul, but can function with only their body and mind. They are born with exceptional physical strength and an infallible mind.

Without using soul methods, a Soulless can touch spiritual entities or objects normally as if they were in the physical plane.

Because the Eslahai Kingdom solely focuses on magical knowledge, they developed a sense of prejudice towards all the Soulless. So, they kill them.

Owen had known of this piece of information a long time before, so this was old news to him.

Caophre was about to say something to Owen until something caught his eye from far away.

"Now look at that…. We're here…" Caophre's lips shifted into a smile as a large city came to view.