Exactly one day has passed since I’ve entered this dimension. A lot of questions still remain to be answered. Why did Master throw me inside this dimension? In a quest to discover the answer to that question, I’ve encountered with a person who is about my age, I think. His name is Zakarias and he is far stronger than I am. Even after training for years to rise up my status to a considerable amount, Zakarias is truly awesome.

He has an Atlas, which is something that I wish to obtain soon, but the idea of how it’s done or achieved is nowhere to be seen. Though he did say that the Atlas wasn’t his, thus he gave it to Lodya. Soon after, he asked the Atlas back for some reason. Ah, Lodya is a girl who was in trouble because she was kidnapped by a weird group of evildoers essentially.

In the end, through a lot of plan executions, we managed to rescue her which was the end goal, realistically. While inside this dimension, I’ve managed to discover these two people. Zakarias, a hard working self-righteous person and Lodya a wild person who is still a mystery to me.

Soon after that, from the long walk, both I and Lodya reached the village only to find an Atlas flying around. That Atlas was the same Atlas that Zakarias has. I didn’t know that Atlas could automatically do that. Master did talk about the Atlas, but he also mentioned that it would be meaningless to tell me about Atlas because it would amount to nothing basically. Why does Master have to be like this…? Either way, the Atlas that was turbulently flying around guided us to where Zakarias was.

Fortunately, as soon as the Atlas guided us to his location, we found a little girl crying and so we immediately rushed over to where she was. Zakarias was pretty hurt honestly. He was bleeding all over the place. Soon after a brief observation of what was around me, all that could be seen was a burned down village, several ashes, and a headless man.

Lodya was pretty shocked as she cried for quite a bit when she saw that Zakarias was not showing any signs of waking up. I tried to ask the little girl what had happened but she kept begging for me to help Zakarias.

That was when I decided to seek out someone that would help, essentially, the rest of the village. Ultimately, a wide refuge site was discovered. At first, they were scared because perhaps they thought that I was a threat. Who knows what might have happened earlier, but it was clear that the past event had inflicted an incredible amount of fear to those people. Ignoring that, I direct myself to the person who could be identified as the elder.

Zakarias talked about someone known as the Elder when we ventured to bring back Lodya. Therefore, as soon as I saw someone that truly resembled the appearance of an elder, I talked to him about it. It appears that I was wrong at first since the person I asked was not the Elder. Eventually, by explaining the situation, that man decided to allow me to speak with the Elder.

After speaking with the Elder, some villagers came for Zakarias’s rescue, thus ending the confusion. And now, as I reflect the past events of yesterday, the bright blue horizon could be glanced at by this position. Currently, while standing at the borderline of the rock bridge outside the village, the wide ocean is visible to all eyes, including my own. Call it boredom if you may, but I call it indecision.

Indecision because I’ve got no idea what to do next. The initial question keeps haunting my mind every now and then. What exactly am I supposed to do here inside this dimension? Furthermore, when will I be able to return to my own dimension? It’s not exactly convenient to be stuck inside a dimension when you have duties inside another. Not exactly duties, now that I think about it, but mostly just self-proclaimed ones.

“Yo, what are you looking at?”

“Nothing in particular. In my world, this is what you do to erase boredom.”

“Looking at nothing but the ocean right in front of you? Haha, that’s hilarious, Rei.”

That’s not really true, what I just said. It’s something that I do often when bored, to look at nothingness in any shape or form. Thus, my words are quite false; however, it’s possible that a lot of people do the same as well. Still, the blonde man who interrupted my bored glance serenely like that was no other than Zakarias, the man of the topic in my mind.

“Shouldn’t you be resting? Your body is a mess after that fight, right?”

“It’s no big deal. I was just tired after all. After having slept for seven or so hours, I’m completely healed.”

It’s probably a lie honestly. The way he walks isn’t exactly normal; he might have difficulty moving around. Though, it’s somewhat impossible to determine why he has difficulty walking like that. If I saw his fight, assuming that there was ever one in the first place, then I could have achieved an answer here.

“How is everyone?”

“Most of the people are at the refuge site. I didn’t know we actually had one, to begin with, I was quite surprised. I suppose it’s really a good thing. Lodya is taking care of everyone and all that, but…”

As the sea eagles pass through us, Zakarias clinches his teeth and forms a fist while standing up. Since I’m currently standing down sitting on the rocks up front, he produces a sorrowful glare that represents immense guilt. Whatever the situation was, he feels immense guilt about it.

“Don’t stress about it. You did what you could, right?”

“Yeah, but… What I can do is never enough…”

Once upon a time, that feeling was with me too. In fact, it was more like a heavy chain that remained no matter the circumstance with me. Therefore, his desire of wanting to do something more isn’t so rare. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty common. A common desire. This isn’t to say that I don’t have that feeling anymore, I do, and it’s just that I’ve learned to control that feeling over the time, thanks to him.

“Isn’t that normal though? We are both weaklings. So, it’s only normal that we aren’t able to do anything, and of course, that also means that we aren’t able to do enough in the first place.”

A sad reality, really. To do what we so want can be simple sometimes, however, to do what is enough to accomplish something that so requires you to do what is enough, isn’t such an easy task by itself.

“I will protect the village. And for that, I will get stronger!”

“Can you get stronger here though?”

“…Eventually.”

From observing the monsters inside the jungle, they are quite weak. Of course, they are stronger than me, in the leveling sense, however, aside from that, they don’t really pack a punch. I went hunting down a few and they give terrible experience. If Zakarias were to endlessly level up here, he could probably take his whole life and it would still not be enough to rise up to level 40 or something.

“You know, don’t you? That if you remain here, you will never be able to truly protect them.”

He probably wants to reject my own argument, but whatever happened must have enlightened him to a certain point of truth. Thus, he takes a deep breath as if to take all those doubts away.

“I thought so. It really is like that, isn’t it?”

“That is the situation.”

“If so, then what am I supposed to do about it?”

The easy answer is to tell Zakarias to get stronger. Although, that’s quite obvious. I also need to get stronger eventually. Master told me to not skip training whatsoever, thus I’ve done it this morning. Getting stronger is a goal for anyone who has something that they wish to protect.

I do not wish to get stronger at the moment, but instead, I wish to find answers. For example, why this dimension? Where is Master? When will I be able to return to my own dimension? How will I be able to return to my own dimension? What is the reason behind Master’s actions? I really don’t understand no matter how much I think through my head.

“For starters, shouldn’t we leave this village?”

“We?”

Ah, I guess I spoke way too soon about this…

“…I was thinking that we could team up to do other stuff…”

“I think that you are an interesting individual but I’ve got to stay here and protect the village. Who knows when they might attack?”

True that. Zakarias is constantly worried about the possibility of the Fogal Edones attacking the village again. I wouldn’t want to use this but…

“But you owe me, remember? You said you would do anything as long as I helped you to rescue Lodya.”

“I suppose I did say something like that. Can’t be helped then, what exactly are you thinking?”

“I was thinking of leaving the village and explore other parts of this dimension. To tell you the truth, I was sent here with a purpose. And I feel that if I find that purpose, I will be able to return to my world. Therefore, I need your help. I am weak on my own, but with you, I might be able to achieve my purpose. Plus, you need to get stronger right?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t really grow stronger here. So finding new places in Ceulonia should allow you to grow stronger. What do you say?”

“That’s a fancy proposal right there. I can accept it since I own you. I’m a man of my word. However, give me one month.”

“Is there any specific reason for that?”

“Yeah, the village needs reconstruction. One month should be enough to put it back to how it was.”

“I understand. Allow me to ask, but what exactly happened inside the village?”

It needed to be asked, being in the dark for so long only allows one to create speculation after speculation, which is not entirely good. Therefore asking for the truth here is mandatory.

“The village got invaded by one of the Fogal Edone’s. I strongly believe that he burned the whole village down for the sake of his own enjoyment. After a prolonged battle, I killed him. That was really all that happened.”

That explains the headless man lying on the ground earlier. Still, to think that Zakarias actually killed him. Killing someone must require a tremendous amount of courage on its own. I’ve never killed someone, though, I’ve been close. Past aside, I wonder what went through Zakarias’s mind right at that exact moment as he killed that man.

“Was he much stronger than you?”

“He was a level above me. Naturally, he had the upper hand thanks to his status being above me. But in the end, it was as you said, levels aren’t everything.”

Though vague, something that wasn’t directly connected to levels alone must have delivered him the victory shot, supposedly. It doesn’t really matter what it was, but it’s still impressive to have accomplished such feat. I wonder if, given the circumstances, I could do the same thing…

“Zakarias-san, I’ve been meaning to ask, but you have an Atlas page, right?”

“Don’t be so formal around me. It’s awkward. But yeah, I do have an Atlas page. Though, that’s not really the truth. It’s more like a fragment of it…”

A fragment of it…? For a long time, I thought that what he had was a page that belonged to an Atlas in the first place… Maybe my guess was wrong.

“Though, if you want to know more about Atlas, you should ask the Elder honestly. He knows quite a bit about it!”

“Ah, it’s just that it sounds really powerful and it could come at handy in the future.”

To be more precise, Master Tiddal has quite a few Atlas, which makes me wonder about them because they seem to be a high source of power overall. More so, Master gets crazy powerful with one around. Crazy powerful might be an insult, maybe the correct description would be ‘out of this world’?

“Atlas are really powerful, but you have to be compatible with them, this also applies to artificial Atlas by themselves. So it’s not something that you can simply gain the control of and enjoy the power of it. It’s somewhat the opposite; you need to be powerful, at least a little bit before they accept you see. Or at least, that’s what the Elder told me.”

It seems that consulting the Elder really should be my starting point here. I still wonder why Master didn’t bother to grant me this knowledge in the first place. Given Zakarias’s words, there are apparently artificial Atlas, according to the Elder. Furthermore, you need to actually be compatible with them. That still doesn’t really answer one thing.

“Zakarias, what do you mean by being compatible?”

“That’s a good question. Even I don’t know that, surprisingly. Although, recently…”

“Recently?”

“Ah, nothing. Anyway, let’s head to the village and ask the Elder about it.”

Hearing that, I decided to get up from my seat. Truth to be told, this seat is quite nice, though it’s rocky and stiff, it’s somewhat nice to be on. Also, the very fact that it has proximity to the ocean is great too. Plus, if you focus your eyes far enough into the blue horizon, creatures of unknown origins can be witnessed splashing at very high altitudes. This makes me wonder what they are, really.

“Is it normal to have such large creatures in the ocean?”

“It’s currently a time where it contains a lot of heat. From time to time, it changes alternatively. Sometimes it doesn’t leave for a huge amount of time, so the sea lords just enjoy the tremendous heat around here and decide to take over the waters from far away. Though, once the heat is gone, it gets quite dangerous because giant tidal waves from far away start to rise!”

“Eh… You know a lot about this… So it’s summer now?”

“Summer? What do you mean?”

After that, until we reached the village, I and Zakarias talked about our dimension’s differences for the most part. He suddenly started to take interest in the differences between our dimensions. Once that was issued, the thought of him being curious about my dimension made me think that he acknowledged the existence of my dimension. Although, for him, it’s probably nothing more than a simple time killer.

For instance, there is no concept of seasons here because the sun and the moon are constantly up, which makes it hard for them to obtain something close to spring or autumn. However, according to him, there are times that this island gets a lot colder than usual, which he also said that could very well resemble the winter. A time that has an immense cold and low temperatures.

The cause for this phenomenon was the following, once every five years the sun and the moon remain at the horizon while only showing 90% of their existences. In other words, they both hide for a very long time, but not totally; otherwise, this island could very well cease to exist. Once I told him about the seasons as a whole, he started to accept that summer and winter might exist, but not the spring or autumn because there was no such time, he says.

If possible, I wouldn’t mind taking him to my dimension, but that’s a futile wish at the moment since getting out of this one isn’t possible for the time being. Ultimately, once we reached the village, Zakarias explained that we could shorten our wait time for departure if I helped out to reconstruct the village. Never in my whole life did I bother to construct something. Ah, right. This is a new life supposedly, so the correct saying would be that, in my previous life and in this life, I’ve never constructed something.

Since the topic is at hand, amongst one of the things that represent a huge question mark inside my head is the very possibility of Zakarias also having a previous life too? No, I doubt that’s the case. He seems very familiar and attached with this island; therefore he probably was born and raised here without a previous life behind. Either way, what needed to be done was to build up fifty wood houses in the first place.

Our causalities were quite severe, about eight people died during the fire. Thankfully, there is a little girl, the girl that was crying for Zakarias when I and Lodya arrived at the village, that girl didn’t lose her parents. Though Zakarias had no intention of showing his happiness, once that was confirmed, he showed great resolution. I suppose it was also haunting his mind, maybe.

By building fifty wood houses, it would suffice homes for the rest of the villagers. Yet the village was not burned down completely, there were still some things that remained intact. For example, the cultivation fields managed to remain, thus it wasn’t a problem to actually worry about food as long as it was constantly cultivated once again. The villagers are people who work hard.

Despite the death of their fallen ones, they continued to move forward for the greater good of the village. How nice, I wish I could share their kindred spirit; however, I hardly have anything to stand for inside this dimension. Realistically, the only thing that’s keeping me here is my interest about Atlas and lastly, it’s just so that Zakarias and I can leave this island. It’s also not a thirst to go on an adventure; I need to go back to my dimension sometime soon for reasons. This is a quest of necessity, in the end.

1 month later.

Unfortunately, even though Zakarias did say that with my help to rebuild the village, the time gap would shorten, it didn’t. As a matter of fact, it stayed the exact same. Which gives birth to the question, how long would it take to reconstruct the village without my help? Apparently, building fifty houses were not enough; we had to build about one hundred and thirty.

At first, my construction skills were really poor, but with lessons from Zakarias and with a little help from Lodya, I managed to get the hang of it. But, in reality, Zakarias is simply insane at construction. Under four hours, he could very well build a house on his own. Sometimes less, the guy really is a monster when it comes to things like things. Plus, other things required construction as well, such as the water sites and the plazas. And some attractions too. It was beyond tiring, actually.

“Ah….”

I let out a monochrome sigh as if to relieve some tiresome pain.

“That took longer than I initially expected.”

No joke here. I don’t want to make myself arrogant over here, but without my help, this could very well have been delayed for another month. At the moment, we both stand on the main plaza enjoying the dinner that was served. It’s simple plain soup. It’s also neither bland nor breathtaking, it’s, again, simple.

“Do you think the Elder will grant us an audition now?”

“Um, let’s see here… We did finish everything right? That should really conclude all the requirements for an audition. After dinner, let’s go to his house.”

I suppose I forgot to mention something. The moment we made our arrival to the village, the first thing we did was to go right to the Elder and ask away about the Atlas. However, to our surprise, our knowledge requirement got completely denied as he said that we had to fulfill some things first before he tells us anything about it. Mainly, we have to reconstruct the village. Initially, I was pretty pissed about it, but Zakarias told me that the Elder wouldn’t lie. Therefore with a little hard work, we have managed to achieve success once and for all.

“We got worked to the bone. This better be worth it.”

“What better be worth it?”

A girl fiercely invades our table and asks away what I was implying with those words.

“We are tired, so we are desperate to get some sleep, you see.”

“Ah, really now?”

“Do we look like the type of people who would lie so casually?”

“…Well, I’ll let you off the hook for today. Good sleep, thanks for the work.”

The brief exchange of words between Lodya and Zakarias ends there as Lodya leaves the scene. Nice going, Zakarias! This way, she won’t know our real motive and what that talk was all about. Eventually, we end our soups and make way to the Elder’s house.

Elder’s house.

“Liars. Drop dead.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

Against all odds, Lodya came to the Elder’s house literally one minute after us. The surprising part is that the Elder also kept his silence just like us. Did he have something else to hide too? Anyhow, this was a complete failure.

“Rei, let’s come back tomorrow.”

“Agreed. There’s no rush.”

“See you tomorrow Elder.”

“Y-Yes.”

Now that the Elder has given us his permission to leave, we shall take our leave and everything will be good. There is no need to suffer more causalities, especially unnecessary ones.

“Hold on. I knew you two were lying from the get-go, but grandpa, you too?”

“Lodya, I-I never lied to you!”

“Really now? What was that earlier…? Ah ‘I’m very busy now, so I don’t have time to hear you out’ was it!? You filthy liars! Start talking!”

It appears that the situation has worsened and it is by no means showing signs of getting better, this is bad.

“Elder, isn’t it alright, to tell the truth?”

“I-I suppose, it's fine…”

“Lodya, I’m leaving the village tomorrow.”

While the cracking fire continues to make an annoying sound, as usual, it gives an appearance fitting for this scene, because Lodya somehow knew that Zakarias was not lying.

“…That’s a lie, isn’t it?”

“…Sorry.”

“What about the village?”

“…What about it?”

Though in a monochrome tone, that was perhaps the whole meaning of using that sort of tone here, as a way to mask away from his true feelings.

“…You don’t… care about the village?”

“There is no reason as to why I should anymore, really. It’s all back to normal now. That was the whole point of the past month, right? Or am I missing something here?”

“I thought you were better than this… WHY DON’T YOU JUST GO AND DIE!!!”

By letting that huge shout, Lodya leaves the Elder’s house with haste. I might be seeing it wrong, but I think I saw a few tears coming from her face while leaving.

“…Sorry about that, Zakarias.”

“It’s nothing. She’s always like this. One day she will mature and see beyond a point where I do not matter anymore. Nature is compelling, just like that.”

Interrupting the conversation here would be quite disrespectful. Obvious as it may be, Zakarias deeply cares for this village and everyone in it. He hates the very fact that he has to leave the village, but what he probably hates the most is the fact that he had to lie, especially to Lodya. Lying, in my opinion, is always the correct choice.

If one tells the truth constantly, then unfolding consequences are bound to reach the surface, some might say that’s a good thing, while it could very well be the opposite. Lying, on the other hand, hides the truth and a lot of other things with it, which brings more benefit to the one who has the truth.

“Young man. You wish to learn about the Atlas, do you not?”

“Ah, yes. I don’t have one and after seeing what Zakarias could do with it, my curiosity reached its peak.”

“For what reason, do you wish to learn this?”

For what reason, really. Telling him that my reason for learning about the Atlas is because I wish to learn my Master’s strengths could very well be the case. It feels as if lying here won’t do the trick honestly.

“To tell you the truth, I come from another dimension.”

“D-Dimension, you say!?”

“Elder, you know about it?”

“Well… It’s a myth passed down in generations in this village. Would you care to listen to a little story?”

Nodding at the same time, Zakarias and I firmly embrace ourselves for a story which is beyond our expectations at the moment. Also, it seems that Zakarias was surprised about the fact that the Elder asked me about the word ‘dimension’.

“This village runs orthodox traditions in comparison to the other parts of our world, Ceulonia. It is said that the ones who can transcend the virtuosity of those who remain above at the top of Ceulonia will achieve something beyond comprehension. Some people call it ‘God’s vision’, but it’s heavily implied that once one achieves God’s vision, that person can visit other lands that no other person normally could. Those lands are called dimensions. Although, the only ones who are able to achieve God’s vision are those who are heroes. In the end, this is nothing more than a myth, but young man, could it be that you have been blessed with the presence of a hero?”

What I just heard is a really confusing story. So confusing that I’m not even going to bother to acknowledge it in the first place. But if the Elder asks me if I’ve been blessed with the presence of a hero, then my answer would be yes. Master is supposedly a hero in my eyes. My hero, more concretely. Though, I don’t think that’s the appropriate answer here.

“No, I don’t think that’s the case, sorry. I’ve got no idea how I got into this world.”

“Elder, isn’t that just a myth though? It sounds highly unrealistic as well.”

“That’s my guess on it too. I’ve never given it much thought, but after hearing the word dimension, I couldn’t help my surprise.”

“Continuing on, I come from another dimension and a person that I know inside my dimension uses Atlas as well. So I wanted to get one for myself too. Yet I’ve got no idea how to get one. I was hoping to find answers with the Elder.”

“I’m sorry young man. There is only one Atlas in this village. As you already know, the one that Zakarias holds now is an Atlas that is passed down from generations to generations. Eventually, it will be given to my granddaughter Lodya. Aside from that, there are no other Atlas in the village. The origins and how one is made are beyond my knowledge. However, there is a bit of information that could help you. To my knowledge, there are two types of Atlas, an original one and an artificial one. Think of it as the difference between a real Atlas and a fake Atlas.”

“Then, Zakarias, what about that page of yours, what is that?”

“This is neither an Atlas nor part of one. It’s a recipient.”

“R-Recipient?”

“Young man. Have you noticed that inside an Atlas there are weird letters among the pages in it?”

That’s certainly true. The first time I gazed at the Elder’s Atlas, there were words written there which were beyond my knowledge. Unlike any language which I already know, the words in it were something completely strange to me.

“Yeah, the pages had weird words that I couldn’t understand.”

“A recipient is essentially a page that is part of an Atlas. However, it’s not a complete Atlas until it fulfills certain conditions, therefore it’s a recipient.”

“I obtained this page from my father when I was younger, basically. That’s how I got it in the first place.”

I see. So that wasn’t an Atlas but a recipient in the first place. Though, just what exactly is a recipient? Also, there are a lot of questions that are not being answered right now, I would say that this conversation seems shady but we are all basically in the same place, we know nothing about the subject at hand. Prolonging this conversation will get us nowhere, really.

“Ah, Elder, just a quick question… Earlier, I was having a talk with Rei and I noticed something that you haven’t explained to me…”

“Hm? What could that be, Zakarias?”

“You said to me that an Atlas and its user need to be compatible, right? What did you mean by that?”

“Exactly what I meant. For the Atlas to accept you, you need to be compatible. In other words, you have to fill unknown conditions for the Atlas to accept you. But, that’s not a problem nowadays, because artificial Atlas’s do not require such a thing. Only real Atlas’s do in the end.”

“…I see. Is the Atlas that will be given to Lodya, a real one?”

“That, I know not.”

“Then, how does one know that the Atlas has accepted that person?”

“I’m sorry Zakarias, I, once again, do not know.”

Compatible huh? I wonder if Master’s Atlas’s are real or fake.

“Sorry about that. It’s getting late. Give this to Lodya tomorrow. Tell her that I’m sorry.”

Searching through his left pocket, Zakarias takes out the mini rusty black book also known as Atlas and hands it over to the Elder.

“She will be mad you know?”

“It wouldn’t be like her if that wasn’t the case, right?”

“Hm. How soon do you two leave?”

“The boat to Kralima departs early, at eight in the morning. Therefore we will need to leave at least two hours early since the port is quite far away. So, six in the morning is the ideal time.”

“Mhm, that’s a good time to leave. I bid you good luck with your trip.”

“Thank you very much” We both simultaneously say to the Elder

With the conversation done, the time for us to sleep had come. We then, after saying goodbye went to our mini houses and slept until the dawn.

Twenty-nine days ago.

“Rei, quick question, but what exactly is your plan after we get the village constructed?”

This question was inevitable of course, also, it’s no matter, because I’ve given some actual thought about this. There are just a few problems honestly…

“Yeah I’ve thought about it, it’s just…”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

I know absolutely nothing about this dimension; I don’t even know where to go next!! Though, telling that out loud is quite embarrassing.

“W-Well, do you have any suggestions?”

“Hm, well you were interested in the Atlas right? Then we should go to where we can find more answers about them.”

Nice going, Zakarias.

“With that said, on the day of our departure it would be wise if we go exactly twenty-nine days after this day, because the boat to other citadels is monthly, thus we can’t afford to be late or else we are stuck here waiting another month.”

Ah right, this is an island, there is no way for us to leave on foot, instead to make our way towards new lands, there is the necessity of going on something like a boat. That much was obvious, but I hadn’t thought about it for a quick second.

“Also, the boat can only take us to Kralima.”

“Kralima?”

Not having heard of the word or what it means, asking about it couldn’t be helped.

“Our starting point to be precise. Our end goal should be the capital, which has all the answers that we are currently looking for. But it won’t be that easy. To get to Ralcultak, the capital, we need to go on foot for about eight regions.”

“E-Eight regions!? Isn’t that crazy long?!”

“I wouldn’t know. After all, this information comes only from my map. First things first, we need to get to Kralima. Along the way, we should be able to find some things that could very well help us to get what we want. Although Kralima is a little bit more civilized and constructed than this, I think.”

“Doesn’t the boat cost money to ride on, though?”

“Normally, but I also told the Elder that if construct the village in exactly one month that he will have to pay the fees for the boat.”

“Wasn’t our plan to end the construction in less than a month? What happened to that?”

“That’s only a speculation. Just to be safe, we should follow the surefire idea of ending everything within the length of one month. If we somehow end up not being able to achieve the one month time length constructions then we are done for and have to wait another month. But, if we work hard then we can finish all the constructions within one month, if not less. Think about it, this is a safe path.”

True that as long as we are able to finish all the constructions then we can get moving on. I’m fine with that, in fact, I’m satisfied with that, since leaving this village and finding answers as to why I’m here is a very promising deal to me. And it seems that Zakarias will also be able to find something that could help him gain even more strength. Let’s hope he doesn’t become a monster in the end.

Present time, 6 am.

“Guahhh…. I’m sleeepyyyyy….”

“Same… Though we can’t lag behind or else we really will miss the monthly boat, you know!”

“Ah! That’s true, let’s hurry up!”

Right now, Zakarias and I are leaving the village, thus making our way to the main gate of the village. Although it was still early in the morning, the sun was already up, therefore huge silhouettes formed on that compass right on our backs. But, there was an even bigger silhouette standing in front of us.

“Hey…”

“…”

Is Zakarias really not going to say anything about this?

“Let’s just ignore her; pretend that she isn’t there in the first place.”

No, that’s not possible. Not because we don’t want to acknowledge her existence but because she will make sure we do, through secondary methods. Please no.

“Where are you going, Zakarias?”

“We are going to get some fish outside the village. A morning effort.”

“Really? Then I’ll come with you.”

“Sorry, I lied, we are actually going to kill some monsters to gain experience points.”

“I guess I’ll come with you.”

“I lied again. We are going to the top of the mountain, where there are monsters that could probably kill us within a blink of an eye.”

“It can’t be helped, I’ll come with you.”

“…ARE YOU CRAZY YOU IDIOT!?”

“Don’t shout, you will wake everyone up!”

“No, no, there is something wrong with you, I literally said that we are probably gonna get ourselves killed and you just accepted that.”

“Actually, you implied, thus you never said it.”

“…Why exactly are you here?”

“Why are you, here?”

“Hey, I’m the one asking the questions here, don’t change our positions!”

“But I was the one who started the questioning in the first place. Therefore, I’m right here.”

“…Rei, let’s go.”

“Aye.”

What a hot fired conversation that was, let’s just hope that we can get moving on. Standing here for too long isn’t going to help us in any way or another. It also seems that Zakarias is quite determined to not tell her the truth. But, he did say last night to her that he was leaving the village, so it doesn’t actually matter if you hide the truth here or not, since, in the end, she already knows it.

“…Why are you following us?”

“No real reason.”

“No, there’s definitely a reason for that! Also, how the hell did you know that we would be here in the first place? It’s six in the morning for crying out loud!”

“I didn’t know honestly. But the Atlas just kept on moving on its own and in the end it stopped right in front of the gate. Who would have guessed that it would lead to you two liars?”

“That damn Mi- Listen, I know what you are trying to do, but the Elder won’t approve of it, give up.”

“Well…”

As we continued to walk by past the main gate, on the left side, a familiar face could be recognized. I certainly wasn’t expecting this, but Zakarias seemed as if he was losing all hope. Agonizing as it may sound, it was awfully relatable.

“Hello everyone. How are you all doing?”

“Well, skipping the formalities, grandpa allowed me to go with you. Right, grandpa?”

“Are you serious, Elder?”

“I’ve noticed something yesterday. This village by itself is rotting and never moving on. The fact that we had to reconstruct something only to return to a past point proves that, don’t you think?”

“It’s just as grandpa says! This means I will be going with you.”

“Elder, please reconsider.”

“I’m sorry, but once she decides to do something she will. It’s in her blood, hohoho.”

“Agh, you can’t be serious…”

“I win! Take that!”

I wouldn’t want to be in Zakarias’s position right now. For surely, he wants to leave the village with the goal of protecting the village afterward, but one of the main goals that he probably had in mind was to gain such strength to the point of being able to protect Lodya. Yet she says that she is coming along now. Well, I suppose it’s more fun this way. Seeing Zakarias and Lodya argue constantly is surprisingly refreshing. Unlike situations which surround me of constant boring circumstances, this is fine. Ultimately, that was the last time we saw the village for a very long time. Unexpectedly, we took Lodya with us as we went down the road to the port to catch the boat to Kralima.

End of volume 1.