The nearest cloud city was a two-hour flight away, but before they could go there, there were a few things that had to be prepared. The first was finding an adequate iron deposit. Due to the furies’ way of life, technology of that aspect was beyond crude. In theory, a number of scientific methods were devised, but from Dallion understood the practice was: if one could see evidence of ore veins that was considered good enough. It was no coincidence that most contested areas were mountains. On the bright side, that gave the group an advantage, although it was uncertain whether Dallion’s forging stills would be of any help. Jiroh—whose local name turned out to be Jikaifa—appeared to have lost all the special bonuses of her own skills. She could still perform the actions and the knowledge, though not at a rate she could in the awakened world. She wasn’t able to sense metal, either.

“This looks like a good spot,” Dallion said, as they passed over a piece of land. Now that none of Jiroh’s siblings were tagging along, he had returned to using the human language common in Nerosal.

“You sure?” Jiroh flowed the air currents, putting him and Katka gently down.

Concentrating, Dallion combined his music and forging skills. Back in the previous world, he would be certain of something down there. However, there was no telling whether he was right in this one.

“Feels like tin,” he said. “It’s not too deep, although there’ll have to be some digging. Keep a lookout for me.”

Dallion took a deep breath, then struck the ground with his fist.

The force went through his entire arm, resulting in a near explosion. Dirt rose up in the air like a mini-geyser as a five-foot hole had formed in the ground with Dallion standing in the middle of it. One thing was for certain, he hadn’t lost his ability to perform point attacks. And just as before, his entire right arm felt slightly numb from the experience.

“It’s definitely here.” Dallion leapt out. “Might be deeper than I thought.”

“Alright. I’ll take care of this. You two step back.”

Things like picks and shovels didn’t exist in this world—they would be considered a huge waste of metal. What furies did instead, was use air currents to do the same work when preparing the ground for their crops. In this case, the digging had to go a lot deeper, but Jiroh had experience with such matters.

Meanwhile Dallion and the mage sat on the ground a short distance away and waited.

“If I had my magic, I could have dug all this up already,” Katka said in a critical tone. “I could even have extracted the ore without having to dig the place up.”

“You don’t have magic,” Dallion reminded. He felt the internal pain the comment had caused her, and in that precise moment, he was glad. “You killed Armalion, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Armalion?” Surprise echoed through the mage’s being. “I’m impressed you know the name. Yes, I did. It wasn’t particularly difficult, either.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you have to kill him? You didn’t take the skill gem.” And you also let the shadow there to wreak havoc throughout the region.

“It wasn’t the skill gem I needed,” Katka replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Armalion was a good candidate, but didn’t pan out. There was a chance that the cloud citadel might have been, but now we’ll never know.”

Dallion couldn’t believe it. The mage was actually blaming him for not being able to extract a skill crystal from the cloud creatures. She was just as bad as the Star! If Nil were here, he’d probably come with some valid explanation to make the distinction, but one thing was for certain: the old echo didn’t like the Academy much either, and now Dallion could see why.

“You’re thinking of killing me, aren’t you?” The mage’s lips curved into a smile. “Good. That’s the only speck of joy I get from being here.”

“You’re betting a lot.”

“Actually, I’m not. It took me a while to figure you out, but now that I have, I know that staying close to you is the safest place to be.” She turned towards him. “You want to go back. Even if the world wasn’t poisoning us, you’d still want to go back to the place where dreams are possible. I’ve no idea what you were back on Earth. Maybe you were rich, maybe famous even, but you definitely were no god. In the awakened world, you might well become one.”

That was exactly the type of arrogance Dallion expected from a mage. He had heard it from the stories about the mage incident in Nerosal. And that had only been apprentices who had shaken an entire city. Katka was a full mage with powers that he couldn’t imagine. If she had even a trace of them now, there wouldn’t even be this conversation.

“The truth is that you need me to get back,” she continued. “I still have the knowledge to open a path back, I just need the energy.”

“Then why not run off? If there’s a secret organization, as you say, they’ll make it so you reach them and then you can make your demands.”

“Possibly, but risky. I prefer to be in control. Besides, it’s always nice to hedge my bets. You’re still favored by a Moon. It’ll try to pull you back stronger than any spell could.”

The digging continued for half a day. It was little wonder that Siri—one of Jiroh’s sisters—managed to find them. Dallion’s knowledge of metal explained away why they were digging for ore, but still everyone had to switch back to fury speech.

Eager to impress, the young fury had initially offered to help Jiroh out. Soon enough, though, she had gotten to what her goal really was: to learn as much as possible about the fake moon cult that Dallion was part of. Thus, he had found himself forced to come up with a backstory for something that didn’t exist. Katka would have been far more suited for the task, but she conveniently hid behind the silence vow story that Jiroh had come up with and let him suffer.

All explanations followed nonsense logic that Dallion came up on the spot. Many aspects were taken straight out of what he remembered from net browsing and shows from Earth. While coming up with ludicrous stories, an interesting thought came to mind. It was clear that Flora had a moon of its own, and while it was difficult to say for certain, it seemed to be within the size range of those in the awakened world. If so, was it possible for there to be a link between the two? Possibly even a living Moon entity that helped with the transfer? That was definitely a notion worth exploring.

By nightfall, well after Dallion had come up with an elaborate system of rules and philosophies, it was decided that digging would end for the night. Jiroh had managed to go deep enough to reach rock, which means that in a day or two the actual ore extraction could start.

Everyone went back to the house, where Dallion was politely, but firmly, asked to join the family for dinner again. Kafka wasn’t, but to be on the safe side, Jiroh made sure to tie her and her fingers up while lasted, lest she got any ideas. Fearing what the fury might do if she didn’t comply. The mage didn’t argue.

“I hear that you’d be teaching Ji to forge metal,” Jiroh’s father—Kaikenfa—said.

“Only if it doesn’t cause issues with her family,” Dallion replied.

“They say that metal forging is the job of the future,” the fury said reluctantly. “Nothing good will come of it, but if there’s an opportunity, why not take it? If one’s forced to live on the ground, best make the most of it.”

An unusually strong sense of pain filled the room coming from Kai. Something had happened in the past, something heartbreaking and life changing. Unfortunately, without his awakened abilities working at their best, Dallion couldn’t know what exactly had happened.

“Becoming a thunder fury is a good start,” Jiroh’s mother said. This was the first time she had spoken since Dallion had gotten to know the family. “A few job offers arrived today, including from you’re the terrible job you used to have.”

“Anything good?” Jiroh asked, marginally intrigued.

“Waitress,” the older fury said with a sigh. “Thunder furies have become fashionable lately.”

There was something that she was hiding, though. Dallion could feel it emanating from within her, including a faint sense of guilt.

“They’re in your room, if you want to look through.”

“Thanks. I will.”

The rest of the dinner focused back on metal and digging. Kai did most of the talking, with Dallion doing his best to reply. The younger members of the family tried to ask a few questions now and again, but they were quickly shut up. When it was all over, Dallion went back up into his room, where Katka was patiently waiting. Shortly after, Jiroh joined them as well.

“You took your time,” the mage grumbled the moment she was able to speak. “Anything to worry about?”

“My father’s too interested in the forging,” Jiroh replied. “That’s untypical.”

“A lot could have changed in three years. Your kid sister also showed enough enthusiasm to seek you out and find the dig.”

“That’s different. They’re young and want to get out of this place. It was my dream as well when I was young. That’s why I took all sorts of terrible jobs in the city, as long as it was far away from here. I even tried to rent a place, but that didn’t turn out well.”

“How many siblings do you have?” Dallion asked.

“Nine. More relatives used to live here as well, but even before I went to the other world, they started moving out.”

“I guess you living was the trigger for a lot more to go,” Katka said, somewhat amused. “All the better for us, and you respectively.”

“She was lying,” Dallion said all of a sudden. Both Jiroh and the mage stared at him. “Your mother was lying when she said that you didn’t get any interesting offers. There was something, but I couldn’t tell what.”

There was a long moment of silence. Various emotions rippled through from everywhere.

“I was wondering when that would happen. I’m surprised it took so long.”

Barely was the able finish when an invisible thread tightened around her neck making her choke. Katka desperately grabbed her throat, in an attempt to loosen the thread, but to no avail.

“What did you do?” Jiroh asked.

“N-nothing,” the mage managed to reply, struggling for air.

“I find that very hard to believe.” The fury tightened the air currents. “Do you know the main reason I went on so many solo hunts back in the awakened world? It wasn’t because I was dragging the rest behind. It was because most of the rest couldn’t keep up, even when I wasn’t using my awakened powers. Hurting someone is only difficult if one has to constantly hold back from killing them. Am I clear?”

The mage eagerly nodded. A few moments later—just to make her point—Jiroh loosened the air currents. Meanwhile, Dallion remained perfectly still. He had felt the explosive anger that had come from the fury, just as he knew that she had no intention of killing anyone. However, that also explained why she had been the leader of the Nerosal hunters. Euryale was strong without a doubt, one of the strongest beings Dallion had seen. Yet Jiroh had been the real powerhouse.

“Electricity,” Katka coughed, her hands still on her throat, in an attempt to protect it from further harm. “Electricity goes with metal. Thunder furies make that. Since the furies have started to discover metal, it’s only a matter of time before they start combining it with electricity.”

“In which case, they’ll need thunder furies once more,” Dallion finished the thought. “So, we go to them directly.”

“No. Not yet.” The mage cleared her throat, attempting to act as if nothing had happened. Even after everything, her pride remained bigger than the world. “Not before we get some metal. Offers will keep piling on. If she responds to the first ones, it’ll be on their terms.”

“I don’t like this.” Dallion shook his head. “There are too many uncertainties. We should—"

“We continue with the original plan,” Jiroh interrupted. “We should find enough ore tomorrow for an ingot. I’ll use that to buy when we need to make more. If by then no one from the cities has come to us, we’ll go up to them.”