Year 183 (part 2)

The beetles stopped outside the tunnels. The place was unassuming, but the heroes could tell the presence of my camouflage and illusions abilities here.

“This looks like the perfect location for a trap.” Chung said as he took in the tunnel.

Kei nodded. “That is the intention. Aeon is located somewhere that’s perfectly defensible.”

Prabu just tapped Chung’s shoulder. “It’s alright. We survived the demon king’s deathbomb, we can take whatever this tree can throw at us. No need to be overly suspicious.”

Colette smiled. “Let’s go. I think it’s fine for Chung to be suspicious. We can’t all fall for the same trick, right?”

Hafiz just grunted and started walking. The tunnel was relatively short for them and they were out on the other side, and in my own personal valley. The home of my giant trees, and the still burning flames of the dark mana. These days they are a lot smaller, so it's just little embers, small flames that lit up from the branches.

I liked the flames. It gave the valley a very unique look and feel. A burning valley, yet not hot because the heat had been transmitted outwards by my roots.

Colette’s eyes lit up. “Oh this is so...”

“Anyway, the journal is in one of the trees. We won’t be seeing Aeon, not unless you guys want to.” Kei said and led the way to the tree. The tree had a magical door, and they walked through to see the book.

The book was a large tome, it grew slightly after Kei inserted her own memories some time ago.

“Well, it’s here. All you need to do is touch it and it’ll interact with you. I’ll leave now so you can have your own time with it. The rest of the hero items are downstairs.” The tree had expanded to have a few floors internally. The journal was first, the rest of the items left by the previous heroes downstairs.

Chung held up his hand. “I’ll do it first.”

Prabu shook his head. “No. It’s clearly magical, so I’ll do it.” Prabu walked up and touched the journal and he just stood there.

“Prabu?”

He just froze there. Chung immediately turned to Colette. “Is he alright?”

“He’s alive.” Colette said. “There’s a lot of magic swirling inside.”

Prabu turned. “I... I need a while. I need to process this.” He magically moved a chair close and he just sat down, one hand on the tome. “Just, uh... relax?”

Colette, Chung and Hafiz shrugged and soon settled on the chairs and cushions in the tree. The entire area was decorated like a comfortable library. Prabu just sat and closed his eyes. After an hour or so, he stood and turned.

“Yeah. I’m alright now. You guys want to give it a shot? I need to pee now.”

“What was it?” Chung asked.

“It’s... it’s like the condensed memories and personalities of the heroes before us, and their lessons. What they saw, what the gods said, what they’ve seen from the demons. It’s just like... a bit of everything. Even Kei’s in there.”

Chung nodded, and sat down where Prabu sat, and he too touched it. He froze, and sat there for an hour too. At some point his face changed to show various emotions. Like pain, like sorrow. In the end he stood.

“...I was wrong. Ken needs to see this.” Chung looked at Colette and Hafiz who were both still waiting for their turn.

“Huh. Hell of a drug for it to change your mind.” Colette looked at Hafiz. “You think we can both touch the book together? Doesn’t make sense that only one of us can touch it at the same time.”

Hafiz just nodded in agreement. He waited for Colette, and they both pulled a chair close and touched it together.

Chung stood, and around the same time Prabu came out of the washroom. Prabu went straight for the snack bar at the corner. “How did I miss the snacks?”

Chung rolled his eyes. “Seriously, Prabu. Is it time for snacks when we just saw that?” He pointed at the book. Prabu snorted and started eating. “Really?”

“All I’ve seen made it pretty clear we’re just pawns. May as well enjoy ourselves first.” Prabu munched. “And I’ll start with eating snacks when I want to.”

The archer merely rolled his eyes. From here, in the tree that held the journal, I could observe and listen in to their conversations. The archer and the archmage took opposing sides of the snack-covered table. Chung just frowned. “That’s a very negative way of looking at it.”

“Those before us clearly thought that way, though.” Prabu munched. “Some of them descended into debauchery and having many lovers, perhaps as an act of vengeance.”

Chung’s frown continued. “It’s just an excuse. The gods may have put us in a spot by giving us this shambolic hero role, but we are still responsible for our own actions.”

“Not if they are clearly influencing our minds.” Prabu just kept eating. “Now that we can step back and reflect on what we’ve been doing, we’re pretty crazy. Young teens sent to another world on a mission to fight demons with superpowers. The way we are dedicated to that cause and kept on doing it despite the horrors we’ve seen, I’m pretty sure the gods have a hand in it. All four of us didn’t crack at the deaths or the horrors. I’ve seen so many mutilated body parts.”

Chung didn’t seem to expect that from his compatriot..

“So the god’s magical influence is clearly not just to make sure we do our job. It’s probably to assist us to face the horrors of the world too. It hardened our senses, numbed us to death and gore. I mean, it does seem like the gods’ touch attempts to hammer these ‘goals’ into our mind, and somewhat converts us into these robots. Okay, robots are a touch too strong, the gods make us obsessed with demons, and I see in our predecessors that they attempt to deal with that obsession with other obsessions and vices. I already see it in me, with snacks.”

Chung snorted. “Does being an archmage make you so suddenly intelligent?”

“Occasionally. I’m pretty sure the system made me a mage because I’m smarter than I look. And you’re an archer because you’re all tense and all that. Like a highly strung bowstring. Like, you gotta like chill, man.”

“Fuck you.” It got a laugh out of the archer.

“I’m serious Chung. The demon king’s dead, but with all that tension you are carrying, your muscles gonna knot itself up and choke you to death.” The archmage handed him a bowl of snacks. It’s deep fried crunchy leaves coated with some kind of mixture. I probably should ask Lumoof to have a bowl one of these days, so that I know what it tastes like.

“There’s always the next demon king.”

“That’s like saying you statistically have a 0.0001% chance of dying when you take a bus.”

“Which happened to us.”

Prabu paused and realised he seemed to have said something stupid. “You’re right there.”

Chung took a bite this time, instead of abstaining. “You know what, this is actually pretty good.”

“I know, right.” Prabu nodded.

“But seriously. We need to do something, I mean, we know the demon king can see us. They can see us once we have crossed a certain level and stuff. The demon king will be hunting us.”

“We could do what Kei did. Camp here and if the demon king comes for us, blow the shit out of it and then we land the finishing blow.” Prabu said. “I honestly thought that was a very clever move. We engage in battle on our terms and stack the odds in our favor.”

“But that means working with this... tree.”

“What’s so bad about that? We’re pretty much divine mercenaries. Ken seemed to think so, and now we know he’s pretty much right.”

Chung paused. “I should drop him a message.” He activated a magical glowing ball, and spoke to it. “Hey Ken. I know you’re out there, but just wanted to let you know that we’re safe, and we’re on the Central Continent now. And uhm... you should get here and see this journal left by the old heroes. I think it's quite similar to all that stuff you’ve been talking about, that this whole thing is a ruse.”

The ball of magic transformed into a glowing arrow with a letter wrapped on it, and the arrow just wooshed into the immaterium.

Prabu just smirked. “We should ask Kei to come in. She saw this before.”

“I think we should have our own discussion first. Just four of us before we ask her to come in. She was a hero, sure, but we’re not sure how much her new form is subject to the control of this... tree.”

“You’re implying she’s not who she says she is.”

“She could just be a golem of crystal combined with the copied memories of the real Kei and the real Kei is long dead and we’re dealing with essentially, identity theft.”

Prabu rolled his eyes. “You’re sometimes just a step away from being as crazy as Ken.”

“I know. We are best friends, you know.”

“Seriously.”

Colette and Hafiz were done too. Colette didn’t seem particularly phased, but Hafiz was straight out weeping. But they both soon collected themselves and sat with the other two heroes.

“Didn’t take it very well, dude?” Chung said.

The knight or paladin, I wasn’t sure what his exact subtype was, nodded. I wonder how Hafiz would stack up against Edna, and whether their powers were comparable. He let out a huge sigh. “...bad. It’s so bad.”

Colette could still smile though. “Felt like I was in a movie, you know, like watching their lives flash by before me. I found it rather sweet that they took the effort to make this memento for us who came after them. It’s a really good idea.”

Chung then asked. “Alright. Important question. Did you share your memories with the book?.”

Hafiz, Prabu and Colette nodded. Chung frowned. “I didn’t.”

Prabu thought for a moment. “It’s okay. Not everyone should share, actually. It’ll be a good thing to test whether this will have drawbacks.”

Chung nodded. “Exactly. You’re not stupid after all.”

Prabu materialised a wooden staff and attempted to bonk Chung on the head. He blocked it with a wooden plate.

The female archmage took a bite. “Alright. I feel we all need some time to digest what we saw today. So, let’s just go check out the previous heroes’ items instead. It’s just downstairs.”

They all nodded.

-

Nothing much happened when they went downstairs. They were rather fascinated with the Harris era items due to the summon-mechanics it employed, and Kei’s ‘tower-mechanics’.

“We’re like vanilla heroes.” Prabu complained. “Two archmages, a knight and an archer. Seriously.”

“We’re missing a healer though.” Chung responded.

Colette frowned. “I feel like I’m missing some context about all these game stuff you guys speak of.”

“It’s just game-classes.” Prabu said. “Kinda like traditional RPGs.”

She frowned. “Traditional RPGS are weird. I only played a few mobile MOBAs, and they don’t split classes this way.”

Prabu paused. “That’s actually a good point. Guess this world gods are like from the older generation where their rules are more 3E than mobage.”

They didn’t take anything. Not yet, anyway. They wanted to think about it a bit more, and the rules left by the previous heroes required them to essentially exchange their own hero made items, or add their own, before they can take those made by the prior heroes.

-

They returned to Freshka where Kei placed them in a nice inn. When it was late at night, Chung snuck out alone. Prabu and Colette slept, while Hafiz walked the city alone.

I followed them, of course. Chung ran all the way to an open field outside Freshka, where there’s nothing but shrubs. Then he activated a set of skills, and then, activated a magical glowing ball, again.

“Ken, you there?” He asked softly. He had a magical bubble that protected himself.

“...are you really safe?” A voice was on the other side this time. Ken. I could still listen in, after all there were shrubs and grass all around, and he neglected to cover the ground. “Yeah. It’s... it’s quite safe here. No, it’s so safe, it's jarring when compared to what we’ve seen the past few years.”

“Hmmm. So, that book that you saw, I should see it?”

“I think so. It’s similar to what you talked about. I mean, they don’t have your angle to it, but I think, I think their perspective would be valuable.”

“Think I can sneak in?”

“With the right spells, probably. I’ll make a hero item with a marker so you can find it.”

“I see. Got it. How are the others doing?”

“As you expected, they’re taking this way too easy. No, actually, I’m even surprised at how easily I am accepting all this.”

“I knew those guys weren’t entirely honest with us. Who the fuck gets outworlders to do their dirty work if they have nothing to hide. If they are gods, they should have tonnes of entirely gullible followers to manipulate, so it didn’t make sense at all why they needed us.”

Chung just nodded quietly. “Where are you?”

“You know I won’t answer that.”

“That book says that the demon king can sense our star mana. When our levels cross Level 100, the demon king could probably sniff us out.”

“I suspected that. The heroes and demons are opposite polarities of a magnet meant to collide. They must collide or they will mess things up.”

Chung sighed. “So what do we do? After I saw that book, I’m convinced you are right, but I don’t see a way out of us. Not without dying. It says something that all previous heroes die, and I think we’re meant to die.”

“We’re designed to die. We’re essentially disposable band aids. I feel we have two ideas if we don’t want to die.”

“Which is? Get stronger and defeat the demon kings consistently?” Chung stated the obvious.

“No. We know the gods tell us that the demon king changes every time, and so, each demon king will stack against us differently. I feel, we should figure out a way to trick the gods to summon more heroes.”

“By letting them think we are dead?” Chung paused. “You mean like Kei?”

“The golem? That’s not my ideal result, honestly. I would like to keep my powers, not just retain a fragment of memories in some other form.” Ken responded on the other side. “We’ve got slightly less than 10 years to prepare, and personally, I want to know whether we can run away. If we do, or somehow vanish from the eyes of the gods, do the gods summon new ones?”

Chung looked around. It’s dark in the middle of the night, but he’s well covered with a heavy cloak. The wind was strong, but it didn’t affect him all that much. “Huh. Want me to look out for it?”

“I’m a mage too. I’ll figure it out.”

“You don’t have to do this alone, you know.” Chung said.

“I know, but I want some independence to pursue slightly more... unconventional ideas.”

“Blood magic?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

-

Freshka. The heroes walked around and explored the city, and noted the presence of strangely modern facilities. Of all the cities on the central continent, Freshka is the most magically-modern. There are magical equivalents of most common machines, like fridge, magical wagons and trains, magical lifts, with a healthy dose of trees between everything.

Kei walked with them.

“There’s a theatre!” Colette’s eyes immediately homed in. “What do they play? Anything from our world?”

Kei shook her head. “Nah. The lords and nobles of this world love political drama, so the theatres here are more like episodic sitcoms. The nobles come to watch the writers of the imaginary story of nobility go through the challenges of life.”

“Seriously.” Colette frowned.

“The paying group are mostly wealthy nobles, and they have huge egos so they love stories about them, even if indirectly. Theatre is something enjoyed by the elites, not the masses.”

Colette stomped her feet. “Things like this really reminded me how horrible this world is.”

The other three boys chuckled.

-

Kei brought them to one of the Valthorn-maintained segments of Freshka. She knocked, and led them to one of the houses that very much resembled a modern home.

They saw a middle aged lady sitting on the table.

“Astia, these are the heroes.” Kei said to Stella. “Heroes, this is Astia, she’s from earth too, but, as an accident.”

“An... accident?”

They met, and Stella gave a brief overview of how the accident happened. At this point, Kei is also aware of the Frozen Tree, but not aware of Aria’s true nature as another ‘accident’. Edna and Lumoof wisely kept their mouths shut about Aria and Aispeng. The discussion between the heroes and Stella was polite, and didn’t touch on much. Stella did not mention her nature as a void archmage either, perhaps she thought they would have known, if they made any research.

“Well. At this point, this is it.” Kei said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve brought you here, and introduced the surviving outworlders to you.”

“You won’t introduce us to the tree?” Chung wondered.

Kei paused. “You want to meet the tree? I mean... I could ask, but...”

Chung paused and looked at the other three heroes, they shrugged. Prabu paused and then asked. “Actually, we were wondering whether we could somehow cook up an arrangement like you.”

“Me?” Kei responded.

“No. I mean your strategy of softening the demon king with traps and bombs. That’s smart stuff.”

“It worked because we could detect and pinpoint the exact location on the central continent. If the next demon king doesn’t appear on the central continent, that would not be possible.” Kei said frankly.

“This detection ability, is it something that can be shared? Is it an artifact or a tool?” The archer asked.

“I’m not sure, but my gut feel it’s something like Aeon’s own sense. If it is his senses, then it wouldn’t work outside of the continent.”

“Unless we move him to another continent.” Prabu said, and I mentally flinched at the idea.