Moments after the young man’s death and Sunny’s escape, the mist overtook the area once again. It brightened, forcing us to close our eyes by instinct. Once we opened them again, we found ourselves back in the real world, staring at a statue in the dark. The statue had changed shape, however.

Where previously a heroic young man once stood, now stood a boy, embracing the kneeling figure of a young man’s corpse, that was pierced by a dozen blades from different directions. I recognized him as the person we had seen in the vision, who had thrown sunny into the distance.

For a while, I just stood there and took it in. The melancholy, the sadness and the determined look in the boy’s eyes… Something about it was captivating and felt far more real than the statue’s previous form.

“Where are you, Arthur?” Emeri asked. Oh right. She couldn’t see in the dark!

“I’m here. The statue changed.” I hurriedly explained.

“What?! What happened?! Did we break it?!” she asked, panicked. I explained the new look of the statue, which made Emeri turn contemplative.

“That vision… do you think that was Helios himself? A prophet, maybe? But why turn a triumphant statue into such a sad one…?” she wondered aloud.

“I think he was just trying to show us… the truth. What kind of things he really went through? Honestly, your guess is probably better than mine. For now, we have to get out of here, or we’ll be blamed for the destruction of holy property and heresy.” I joked half-heartedly, not thinking such a punishment existed.

Instead of a chuckle, Emeri nodded seriously, making me realise that there probably was such a thing… I took her by the arm and led her to the exit. After inching the door open to see if the coast was clear, we stalked out of the church and headed to the inn where I had rented a room. Only when we got there and closed the door to our private area did I breathe a sigh of relief, which Emeri copied.

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad would it have been if we had been caught?” I asked after a while.

“Eleven.” Emeri commented stoically.

“…That bad?”

“Absolutely.”

“…huh. Good thing we got out of there, then… Let’s not desecrate any more statues, agreed?”

“…”

“…Please?”

The torn look on Emeri’s face did nothing to assuage my fears…

-Scene transition-

“We are not doing that again, Emeri!” I told her sternly.

“But what if Helios wants us to?!” she countered for the umpteenth time. We had been arguing about this for hours on end these past few days. Ever since we left the little desert village near the first temple of the pilgrimage, Emeri had gotten busy trying to convince me that Helios was sending us on some kind of ‘divine mission’ and that we had to ‘right the wrong interpretations’ of the past…

A load of cow dung, if you asked me.

“If Helios wanted his statues replaced with new ones, he would have asked his high-tier believers, Emeri! I’m not risking a fight with the templars for the sake of a few temples! Besides, what if that knife is connected to an enemy god, one trying to weaken Helios? You would be turning traitor inadvertently!”

“Helios’ holy depictions aren’t so weak that a single knife can weaken or get rid of his influence, Arthur!”

“My previous point still stands! We’ll just die!”

Like this, our argument continued in circles, and we got nowhere, so we both let it drop for now. Our next stop lay at the edge of Alterian’s more densely populated lands, which meant that once we reached it, traveling between each temple would become far easier and less lengthy. In fact, we had already completed two of the three major hurdles of the pilgrimage: the dark forest and Caltian’s scorch. On top of that, we were in the middle of clearing the third, a wide, dry plain known only as ‘the savanna’.

Dry, long grass covered this plain, with the occasional tree or pond breaking up the monotony of the endless grasslands. Many monsters and animals lived in this area. Therein lay the hurdle. Just like the dark forest and Caltian’s scorch, the deeper parts of the savanna held tier 4 creatures. The difference this time, was that the savanna was notorious for being even more dense monster-wise, than both of the other two areas combined. That rule only applied to tier 4 monsters and up, though.

Large herds of creatures galloped through these lands, and we were warned that many of them had at least a dozen tier 4’s among them. That wasn’t a force we could fight. In fact, even running away would we difficult. In short, the area we were about to enter could very well spell our deaths, if we weren’t careful.

The only positive about the area was that the ground beneath our feet was solid, and there weren’t many trees to hinder our progress. We made good time and crossed large distances very quickly using movement skills. Larger, stronger creatures stayed away from the edges of their habitats to avoid the kings that ruled over neighbouring habitats. As a general rule, large open areas like this were only dangerous in the inner reaches, which is what we had been counting on. If anything, our continuous arguing would have lured some wandering titan over to our location, if we hadn’t been in the outer reaches.

Now that we were entering the deeper areas, however, things were changing. We knew we had arrived when we came across a small village hidden in a giant tree. All trees of the savanna had wide, low-hanging crowns. This one, though, looked like a gigantic version of the other trees. Its crown alone spread across a large part of the horizon and dozens of tiny wooden houses hung from vines attached to its branches. The houses themselves looked like ball-shaped bird nests and were interconnected to each other with wooden bridges that swung with the wind.

“A village? Out here?” I asked when I first saw it.

“Of course! Despite the danger, the savanna is littered with small villages. They’re usually hunting villages that make a living by selling monster materials to the nearby cities and towns.”

“Huh.” I responded lamely, never having seen such a village before. I had grown up around rickety shacks that let in water when it rained. Living in a giant tree like this one would have seemed like a dream at the time…

In hopes of getting some proper rest after a few days of travel, we approached the village. It took us nearly five minutes of casual walking to reach the base of the tree from where we had been earlier. Yet all five of those were spent in the shade that the tree provided. Only the dark forest’s trees could compete with this one when it came to height, but its width was something else.

At the base of the village, we found a small outpost surrounded by wooden stakes and manned by a few dozen guards. Each of them wore armour made out of exotic monster parts and even their weapons looked like they were made of monster bones.

These men and women seemed to be none too fond of strangers, though. We approached slowly and carefully, but their eyes didn’t leave our form once. One of them, a woman carrying a bone-made battle-axe, eventually called out to us.

“Why are you here, stranger?”

I looked at Emeri, hoping that she knew how to talk to them. She just shook her head and smiled at me, gesturing for me to take over. I sighed, but did so anyway.

“We are here to rest ourselves before we continue our journey, if possible. Both of us are tier 3, and therefore of no threat to you and your folk. Furthermore, we can pay for temporary accommodation.” I tried.

The woman grunted, before turning to one of her companions and making some noises I had never heard before. Was that… another language?! I had been told that there existed a few languages outside of common, but to actually encounter one… Mom and dad would never believe this!

After her companion replied in the same language, she turned back to us.

“We have no inns as your kind has in your cities, but we have unmanned houses, which we could loan to you… for a price.” She proposed.

I, however, was in no state to respond, still shocked to encounter not just one person, but a whole group of people that spoke another language besides common, the language of the system. Instead, Emeri replied for us.

“That would be wonderful, we thank you.” The woman grunted in response, before signaling her people to open the gates to the outpost. They stopped us when we tried to enter, though.

“Before we allow you entry, a question.” The same woman from before asked. “Do you believe in the lord of the sun, Helios?”

I had to do a double-take, not seeing such a question coming, but quickly nodded.

“We are both believers of Helios, like most on the continent. In fact, my friend here, Emeri, is a holy maiden.” I bragged, smiling and holding a hand out to her. Emeri awkwardly tried to smile as well, but it came off as a grimace.

Instantly, the mood changed. The woman’s eye’s widened, and all of the guards including her fell to one knee and lowered their heads.

“We greet you, chosen of the sun!” They shouted in unison. I felt Emeri pinch me in the arm.

“You’ve gone and done it, fool. The savanna tribes are very religious, now they’ll baby us for the rest of our stay.” She whispered in frustration. Knowing Emeri, she didn’t like being treated better than others for her position. I liked that about her. But I liked the banquet the village threw for us even more! Granted, they threw it for Emeri. Not for me. But still!

The villagers, which were apparently called ‘tribesmen and tribeswomen’ around these parts, treated us like a king and queen. Many a time, Emeri had to decline offered gifts, and she had to stop to accept prayers a few times. Quickly, I found out that Emeri actually knew some of the words of their language, which earned her an accusatory glower from me. Once we retreated to the giant house we were offered to stay in for the night, Emeri wondered why I had been staring at her like that all day.

“What is it?” she asked eventually, already worn out by the day’s happenings.

“You know another language besides common.” I accused her.

“More than one, actually.” She replied, a teasing smile tugging at her lips.

“You didn’t tell me…” I continued, squinting.

“I didn’t think it was a big deal…” she countered.

“Not a big deal?! Do you understand how rare other languages are?! That’s like meeting someone that can turn into animals or… make trumpeting sounds with the elbows!”

She stared back at me, unimpressed. “Trumpeting sounds?”

“You wouldn’t believe what my dad is capable of, once he puts his mind to it…” I explained conspiratorially.

Emeri sighed. “Go to bed, Arthur. We have a long day ahead.” She chastised, before closing the woven wooden door to her room, effectively ending the conversation.

Oh well. If she thought she could get away with not teaching me some new languages, she was dead wrong…