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Chapter 34 - Where on Klantea am I?

Merlin tried to block out the pain he was feeling, but he was unable to. He finally gave up and stop trying to resist the pain, at the exact moment he did so, he felt himself falling down at a breakneck speed. He didn’t understand what was going on, for he knew his body wasn’t moving from his bed, yet the feeling of falling down felt completely real to him. After falling within the darkness for a while, he started to see some light and finally could observe his surroundings, he was in the air, above a lake encircled by mountains, plunging toward its center.

Crashing against the surface of the lake with a big splash, Merlin continued diving down a few feet before he managed to return to the surface and swim to the lakeshore. Once there, he looked around and made sure no one was around him before taking off his clothes and wringing them. He waited until the clothes were completely dry and then put them back on.

Merlin had no idea of what was going on, he didn’t know how he had gotten there nor how to go back. He took a moment to consider his options before moving in a random direction. The lake was at the bottom of a valley, there was a prairie in a radius of two miles from it, where he could see the boundary of a forest which occupied the valley’s side of the surrounding mountains. In one of the mountains, Merlin saw what looked like a cave on the top side of one of the boulders protruding in the forest. Ignoring what dangers might be luring within the forest, Merlin’s choice was to look for a shelter, after securing one, he would have time to scout the surroundings and find food and water.

Strangely enough, the excruciating pain he was feeling before falling into that place was gone, but the fatigue of swimming to the lakeshore remained, so Merlin considered that, however improbable it might have seemed, what he was experiencing was real and not a dream. Accepting that fact made him be wary of the surroundings and rack his brains for a solution, but he didn’t have any luck, so he chose the second best option: instead of staying idle and waiting for something to happen and go back, he looked for shelter and a way to survive, he would have time to think of a way to go back later.

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Merlin’s POV:

*Where on Klantea is this? Please, don’t tell me that I died again and was sent to another world!* No… if that was the case, I would have been reincarnated into a baby again and I might even have lost my memories, I have retained my body, so I am still alive… for now, anyway. The hole on that boulder looked like a cave, let’s just hope it isn’t inhabited by any wild animals or monsters, my magic seems to be sealed here, so I would have a hard time if any were to appear.

I advanced forward, paying attention to any sound or sign of movement which might indicate the presence of wild animals in the vicinity of my position. There were even occasions in which my own steps sounded strangely and scared the heck out of me! I may look like a scaredy-cat, but I had grown accustomed to being an OP character with my magic skills, and neglected the training of my physical skills, they are ok when fighting against humans, but when fighting against wild animals or monsters I might not be able to fight back. Having my magic sealed is a bitch!

This forest is similar to the ones I explored on Earth, back in my days as a boy scout, my classmate Johnny had convinced me to join… and I left six months later, fed up with spending there the precious time I could use reading manga or watching episodes of my favorite anime. Who would have told me that, so many years later, the experiences from back then would be useful to me: what are the best places to look for shelter in a mountain, how to get directions within a forest, where to look for sources of water, what plants might be edible or not… Life-saving lessons that I had completely forgotten about until I had to put them to use today. Of course, being the city boy I was, the thought of a situation such as this happening to me never crossed my mind, how wrong I was!

It took me 4 to 5 hours to get to the boulder with the cave, the distance to the lake could be easily covered with a 2-hour walk, but I advanced very carefully, trying not to make a sound as to not alert any wild animals or monsters in the vicinity, so it took me more than twice that amount of time to get to my destination. I was shocked when I observed the boulder, two parallel rows of indentations deep enough to put in a fist or foot, which run from the ground level up to the entrance of the cave.

That wasn’t a natural occurrence, it was obvious that those indentations had been carved there by someone. *Is someone living there already?* I ignored my uneasiness and climbed up to the cave. Upon seeing the interior of the cave, I confirmed my suspicions of someone living there the provisions of food and water clearly proved that point, but what shocked me the most was the set of clothes next to the provisions.

They were similar to those a certain bald martial arts master, who used to wear a big tortoise shell on his back, gave a certain child with a monkey’s tail for his apprenticeship, but without the kanji 亀 on them. The moment I saw them, only one thought crossed my mind *cool!*. I seriously wanted to try them on, but afraid of the owner of the cave returning and catching me by surprise while I was distracted, I dismissed the thought and sat down to meditate.

No matter how I tried, I was unable to gather any mana, as if I were back on Earth and mana was inexistent. Not long after starting my meditation, the fatigue from the day ate away my forces and I unknowingly fell into slumber. When I woke up, it was already dawn of the following day. I looked around the cave, fearful of the owner’s reaction to my intrusion, but I didn’t see anyone, *either he didn’t come back, or he didn’t mind me staying here*.

I checked the provisions and the set of clothes, but both were untouched, as in the previous day, so I thought it would be wiser to assume that the cave’s owner hadn’t returned yet. I was about to descend when I saw a three-eyed deer looking at me directly into the eye, I didn’t feel like going down anymore… that three-eyed deer looked evil to me, and it gave me a bad vibe. I had never heard of a three-eyed deer before, not as a monster, and definitely not as a normal animal. I once more doubted whether to question my sanity or to give up on trying to figure out where I was and how I had gotten there.

With nothing else to do until the three-eyed deer went away, I practiced several moves from my martial arts, but I quickly got bored of that and try to meditate again without any success, which confirmed that it wasn’t me being too tired the previous day, it really was impossible to collect any mana there, wherever that place was. The three-eyed deer was still on the same spot it was before, and I was really hungry, so, despite feeling very sorry for the owner of the cave, I attacked his provisions, with the intention of replenish them after I was able to go down and get my own.

The three-eyed deer not only didn’t go away, it even brought some friends, it wasn’t until the second week that they went away. Fortunately for me, the cave’s owner had enough provisions to last a month or two. I still waited for 3 days before going down, after the three-eyed deers went away, I didn’t want to discover the hard way that they were intelligent enough to lure me out of the cave by faking their leave and then eat me. It wasn’t the case, they didn’t seem to be anywhere around the cave.

After calming down, I went looking for provisions, but it didn’t go quite as I had expected. I gathered enough edible plants to replenish the food I had taken from the provisions, but the problem was the water. The lake had salty water, which made it unsuitable as a water source, and the only natural spring I had managed to find, had blue water.

I tested the water, just in case, but just one gulp of the blue water made him instantaneously vomit my last meal, that added to the metallic taste, and the blue color of the water, made me remember my classes of chemistry back in high school. I was pretty sure that the spring’s blue water was the result of its water being contaminated with copper (II) sulfate. As the night was falling, I gave up on trying to find a water source that day and returned to the cave, I still had enough water for the following three weeks, so I didn’t need to rush it.

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Somewhere in ???.

In a meeting room created through magic to hold its form inside the magma, six people were heatedly arguing around a hexagonal table. Five of them were seated at the table, while the remaining one was standing next to it. The illumination was constantly changing, due to variations in the magma streams which formed the columns in the room, giving an eery feeling to it. A person suddenly teleported inside the room and occupied the remaining free seat at the table. He immediately asked about the situation.

???: “What is this commotion for?”

As soon as he asked that question, everyone else in the room froze and didn’t speak a word more. The first one to recover was the man standing next to the table.

???: “My Lord, something terrible has happened. The staff of Fate broke down when we tried to ascertain the outcome of the next Holy War!”

???: “It isn’t that surprising, we used most of its power several years ago, it was on the verge of breaking down ever since. Why should you cause a ruckus because of it?”

???: “It would seem that the situation is not that simple. Please continue and tell him what you told us before!”

???: “Yes, my Lord. My Lord, actually we couldn’t get a clear reading before the staff broke dawn, it was almost like the staff of Fate was rejecting our commands and rebelling against its masters… We poured more power into it trying to get a clearer reading, but the interference remained and the breaking down process accelerated.”

???: “We already knew that the staff of Fate would be of no use to us on the oncoming Holy War, that doesn’t change our plans in the slightest. Did you understand something despite the interference on the reading?”

???: “Some words, my Lord. They look sort of like a prophecy, though.”

???: “So? What are the words?”

???: “Right. Sorry, my Lord! The words were ‘Devils of old, run, for a god has descended’. Those were the words which could be understood.”

???: “Hahaha, I wonder which one was the old fool tired of living who descended into the mortal realm… It’s really hilarious. I wonder if they have already forgotten that descending to the mortal realm means taking a mortal body, and that is the only time in which they can be destroyed, allowing us to take their power for our own… I’m dying to know which one of the old all-haughty suckers was the fool to descend, a free meal for us! Hahaha!”

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