Adtraic Verity: Journey For The Truth
Chapter 103

Despite their best efforts, the wanderers had no luck. They couldn’t find any way across the scaling ravine.

They tried to trek across the mountain but were blocked by what looked to be poisonous flowers through the streams, but it all led back toward the ravine.

With no choice, Asahi and Aletha were forced to follow their tracks back to where they came from.

Aletha complained shortly after, her face practically drenched in sweat.

“There’s no way to cross it!”

Asahi scratched his head, looking over to the scaling mountain, the fields, and finally back to the surrounding topography. All of it was plastered in a beautiful hue of light green, brighter than the foliage in Pladtioa. The environment gave him a sense of peace and joy, watching wildlife sprawl here without care below. It was a perfect origin point for distractions.

Asahi shook his head and mumbled while inhaling the fresh air.

“No, stay focused.”

As his boots crossed a line of glittering blue flowers, Aletha approached him and asked.

“So, now what?”

Asahi sighed deeply.

“I have no idea. I never knew we were going to get this far.”

Aletha knelt down, touching her chest and gritting her teeth, looking as if she was in pain. Asahi hurriedly raced to her and bent over, whispering.

“Sis, are you alright?”

She tried to keep a grin on her face, rubbing her arm and forcing herself up.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just felt something weird in me, that’s all.”

Asahi sighed in relief, disbelieving that Aletha would ignore that so quickly. He grumbled to her angrily and confusingly.

“Don’t scare me like that, sis! I thought something happened to you.”

Aletha shrugged and snickered.

“No, no, bro, it’s fine! It didn’t hurt me at all. Stop being so worried, Asahi. Didn’t you say you have Telos’ soul inside your body? Why not speak to him while we are waiting?”

“…Waiting for what?” Asahi retracted.

She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her chin to the clouds.

“I don’t know… I guess for some stranger to appear and help us. I’m sure someone’s around here somewhere.”

Asahi rolled back with a nod and keeled over to the ground, pulling out a brown book and pen, resting his back against the soft frolicking bristles of the grass. While Aletha knelt over and slumped onto the ground, staring at the sky, Asahi pressed his pen against the book and wrote.

[From what I can gather, it appears this nation is more extensive than I initially thought. There is so much out there. We got swept into a tornado, and not only that… There were so many different people in the ceremony. I honestly wonder where all of them went. I hope they didn’t die.]

---

“Hey!” A voice sounded out from a distance.

(That soon?) Telos muttered.

Asahi shook his head.

“Quiet Telos.”

(Well… I was looking forward to guiding you, but if that person there could help you… then I have no business to speak of.)

“I’m going to talk to her.”

Asahi dropped his book, turned over, and saw beyond a hill leading to the forest and the colossal mountain; was a girl with long martini-colored hair, stockings, and a half skirt.

He raised an eyebrow and pushed himself upward, excited to see someone arrive so quickly but also confused about her choice of attire. Asahi greeted her while shouting at her from down the hill.

“Yeah? Who are you?!”

The girl gasped in shock, pacing down the hill, and whispering.

(Oh my goodness, they CAN speak my language!)

She jumped up and screamed.

“I’m Chloe! I was looking for help too! Do you know where everyone is?!”

Asahi’s face grew pale, his leg stiff, and his body paralyzed, seeing what was behind Chloe. His fingers pierced through the luminance on his h**s, unsheathing out a glittering dark blade and forcing it upward.

After weeks of being restricted from using the blade, at last…

“AH!” Chloe screamed.

He was too far away to interfere. In an instant, a four-legged creature made of steel, gears, nails, and unknown mechanisms launched toward Chloe’s back, knocking her down the hill.

Aletha quickly caught guard of the scream and raced to the girl, screaming confusedly as the creature rolled down the mountain.

“What happened?! Who are you?!”

Without reaction, the metallic creature opened its sharp jaw and sprang at Aletha, fighting the sword quickly pointed at it.

She hastily kicked and vaulted backward, scurrying away from it, screaming.

“HELP!”

Asahi gritted his teeth and clenched his blade, trailing after the creature and making rapid strikes at the four-legged mechanism.

Its body was made of black steel, its eyes were a bright white, and the wires were made of cyan and magenta. Each leg scraped off from Asahi’s hilt on his blade before finally launching itself into the air and wrapping its tail around Chloe.

Aletha’s eyes widened.

“What is that?!”

Asahi darted to the monster, jumping in the air and yelling.

“I don’t know! Just HELP me out, will you?!”

Aletha nodded and took flight at the creature, both the siblings clenching their blades while trying to dodge the swift strikes it had unleashed with its tail.

But as they continued to jump and avoid, they felt their bodies ache, their arms worsen, and their stamina depleted quickly. The mechanism screeched as it scraped its nails on the dirt.

“SCREE!”

Taking advantage of this, the metallic creature grew five more legs and crawled toward them like a spider, screeching and injuring the wanderers.

Swiftly, Telos’ voice shouted at Asahi.

(TURN ON YOUR TENTH EYE!)

Just before the creature could grapple Asahi, he forced his eyelids shut and pried them back open, revealing the interface of the “Tenth Eye” in his vision.

A stream of colors bounced back, showing a green health circle relatively low, followed by a red bar flickering on and off.

(Your stamina is low. Stop fighting and run!)

Asahi, overwhelmed by this, accidentally caught himself on a group of vines, feeling his body fall backward toward the opening ravine below.

His heart leaped to his throat, feeling the coldness of the gorge below him touch his back.

“Help!”

The monster’s steel legs loomed to Asahi, extending its enticing jaw and forming a blinding white luminance in-between its sharp teeth. Its gears twirled and chucked a sparkling shine, its tail weaving over and hauling against the grass. Footsteps sounded behind,

“Don’t worry, I GOT YOU!”

Asahi’s hands slipped off the fragile edge, feeling his weight pressure down quickly through the strands of vines dangling in-between the gaping ravine. Falling several meters, the daylight grew distant from him.

His feet pierced through the exceeding depths, weight pushing down on his as his vision darkened gradually. Aletha’s scream sounded out with a loud volume.

“ASAHI!”

Aletha clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, swinging at the creature rapidly, with each spark following the pace of her heart.

“I’ll KILL YOU!”

Asahi helplessly reached his hands upwards, thinking it was the end. Telos himself couldn’t believe it, shouting.

(What are you doing!?)

But just as the specks of rays vanished, a tight grip wrapped around his wrists.

(CLING)

Suddenly, several ropes hastily flew down, grappling Asahi’s legs and arms, aggressively enfolding him all over, stopping his fall. Asahi caught his breath and felt himself ascend several meters upwards, away from the dark ravine.

“W…What?!”

(SNAP)

The cords snapped, thinning and stressing together; Asahi’s weight pressured and slowly went back down, but suddenly more ropes flew downward at an unimaginable speed, wrapping and holding Asahi in place.

A young-sounding voice hollered out from above.

“D…Don’t worry… I got you! DON’T MOVE!”

Asahi shouted, sweating nervously, thinking that he was about to die.

“O-Okay!”

Quickly, the ropes hurled Asahi several meters upward like tossing a ball, propelling him back to the surface, away from the ravine, and flying in the air.

“YES, got him!”

His eyes darted down and saw a boy wearing a heavy turquoise coat, a bowtie, and long vintage-colored hair, unleashing a swarm of ropes magically from his hand, all stopping and cushioning Asahi’s fall.

Aletha’s leg forced and shoved itself through the creature, but her arm was caught by its legs. Cuts covered all over the skin, releasing an intrusive pain straight at the bottom. She gritted her teeth and screamed.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!”

She couldn’t move, her body paralyzed from the several legs placed on the creature.

“Please… I can’t…”

The creature recklessly pried its steel jaw, sparked a white luminance inside its mouth, and shrouded Aletha’s face in a gradually increasing burning white glow. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing heavily and feeling her life essence empty from her. Her arms lowered down.

“I…can’t move…”

Asahi’s eyes flared in rage, sprinting straight after his sister but getting caught by the ropes wrapped around him. He reached his arm to her and yelled while the mysterious boy and Chloe cowered behind.

“Aletha!”

(Ting)

Luminescent green lines glowed inside her skin, surging from her feet, arms, legs, and head. Aletha’s eyes sparked a green luminance, wincing with a solid wooden surface formed and shielding her body.

The mechanism growled in irritation and forced his jaw further, attempting to radiate the lethal light and slaughter Aletha.

But as the creature struggled–

“Stop playing around with them!” A barrage of crimson lasers unleashed and pierced through it, exploding and shredding the metal skin of the creature’s body.

Instantly, everyone darted their eyes to an approaching girl, who cartwheeled her way to the creature and snapped her fingers, giggling while unleashing lasers out of her hands.

“HAHAHA! Take that, sucker! Oh yeah… and THAT too!”

The creature closed its jaw and moved its chin, forcing its tail and charging straight at the girl. But quickly, the girl clutched the creature’s sharp tail and swung it like a lasso, tossing it several meters into the air, kicking and dancing.

“This is FUN!”

While Chloe and the boy were confused about the mint-haired girl’s actions, Asahi darted to his injured sister and asked, watching the wooden armor dissipate off her body.

“Are you okay, sis? What happened?”

Aletha’s eyelids parted, and her arms lifted, revealing a different color on her pupils.

“Eh?”

Instead of Aletha’s iris being a dark gray, it was chipped in an emerald color, matching the hues of the grass. She quickly hopped over and exclaimed at Asahi with a sparkle shimmering in her vibrant eyes.

“I have NO idea! But, whatever I did… It made me feel one-thousand times better than before!”

“What…? How does that even work–

“ALRIGHT!”

After being physically harmed and broken just a second ago, a sudden burst of copious amounts of joy, exhilaration, and energy exploded in Aletha, forcing her to leap several kilometers off the ground like a kangaroo on steroids.

Asahi saw her floating in the sky, smiling and screaming like a drunk child.

“WEEEE!”

The mysterious boy wearing a green coat and the energetic mint-haired girl tilted to the blue sky and noticed a white-haired girl plummeting down into the creature.

“What the…”

The mint-haired girl snapped her fingers and made an infectious smile of pride.

“OH YEAH! Now she’s gettin’ it!”

Asahi sneered at the mint-haired girl and questioned while Aletha rapidly struck the beast with powerful green explosions.

“What is she doing? Why is she like that? Who are you?!”

She smiled and threw back her head, laughing like a chihuahua as her red skirt and white scarf flew with the whimsical winds.

“HA HA HA! She’s just having fun! I think we have met before. Aren’t you that boring guy I’ve seen back in that snoozy, smelly room?”

Asahi’s face flushed crimson in embarrassment.

“B-Boring? I’m not boring! Who told you that I was boring? Wait, are you Pridia?!”

Her pink eyes widened; she slapped her thighs, pushed her red skirt into the air, and snapped her fingers while winking at Asahi.

“BINGO! Yes, that’s me! Is that your sister, too? My, she’s pretty… Look at her and that bright smile on her face! She’s having the time of her life!”

Abruptly, Pridia removed her scarf, grasped Asahi’s legs, and lobbed his entire body toward the creature, his eyes, including Chloe’s and the boy’s, widening in absolute shock.

“AHHH!”

Pridia slapped her thighs and teared up, unleashing her chaotic red lasers toward the monster. Aletha blasted up into the air and couldn’t help but chuckle, feeling invincible from her blinding joy.

“WOO, HOO!”

Aletha and Pridia teased the living crap of the beast by twirling, cartwheeling, and screaming like lunatics. The white-haired girl teased while squeezing her nose and mocking the poor robotic creature, jumping up and down like a buffoon.

“Aww, are you going to cry like a baby? Wah!”

Its wires were strangled and torn apart, gears fallen over on the ground, with sparks of electricity shrouding all over its disjointed metal jaw. As Pridia and Ecstasy-Consumed Aletha taunted the creature, Asahi’s body unexpectedly plummeted onto it, crushing it into a flat rectangle.

Pridia tripped over a twig, fell onto the ground, and burst out in laughter, wheezing and laughing like a monkey. She stared at the destroyed mechanism and expressed with a loud tone.

“Hmm, that chocolate cake is dull. Here… let me see if I can… SPICE it up for ya.”

Pridia pulled a seasoning straight from her back and dappled the glittering spices onto the quivering mechanical beast, smirking.

“Mmm…”

She licked her lips and smiled, grabbing a fork and giggling while Chloe, Asahi, and The Rope Boy stared at her with a confused expression.

“This will be one fine treat for me!”

Asahi shrieked.

“That robot is not a snack!”

Pridia bit her bottom l*p and grinned menacingly.

“I know it’s not…:

She tossed the silver fork into the air, landing straight on Asahi’s buttocks, poking at his behind while harassing him.

“But YOU are!~”

The moment he felt the fork poke his cheek, hearing the fork fall onto the ground, Asahi stammered with a bright pink face.

“H-Hey, you didn’t h-have to say that. J-Just, who do you think you are?”

Pridia giggled.

“HA HA! Don’t be such a whiner, guy! You two are drop-dead gorgeous! Of course, I’ll find a way to tease you two. Anyways…

She snapped her fingers and sighed, rubbing her face and trying not to blush.

Asahi couldn’t take the jokes anymore and raced to his dazed sister, noticing the green color in her eyes fading back to grey.

---

His energy leaked dry. Asahi felt he couldn’t move another centimeter without collapsing onto the ground. He sighed and laid down, hearing Telos’ voice speak in Asahi’s mind.

(Although you have never asked, I feel you need to know this. Your sister experienced the manipulative powers of Ecstasy and The Sealed Beatific. For some reason, it found its way inside her and had noticeably amplified from some sort of outside figure.)

Asahi slowly peered at Pridia, mumbling quietly to Telos while she introduced herself to the green coat boy and Chloe.

“So, you say my sister never chose to absorb that energy? It wasn’t her fault? I know I have seen Aletha jumpy before, but what she did right now was on a different level.”

Telos’ voice replied while Asahi saw Pridia playing rock-paper-scissors with Chloe.

“That’s the Sealed Beatific’s power. Manipulative energy could consume minds and shroud them in intense feelings of ecstasy. Some have rumored that Combat Magic in Linuxinia is based on how happy you are. Even powerless people can use magic if they are happy enough….”

Asahi reeled back in surprise.

“Woah! So that means, even though I’m powerless… if I’m happy enough, would I share the same power as my sister?”

Chloe walked to Asahi and glanced at him, staring at the S tattoo flashing on and off his front. She analyzed him while her chains jingled.

“He looks so different compared to the people I saw.”

Telos’ voice continued as Asahi noticed Chloe standing in the background.

“Yes, but your happiness must be genuine for you to manifest its incredible power. It may take time before you can gain the ability to wield The Sealed Beatific. It’s not an easy task. And judging by how your mind works, it would be a daunting effort for you to do so.”

Asahi sighed and scratched his head, watching Chloe approach him.

“Y… Yeah, ever since the day of the calamity, I could never truly feel happy. If only…”

Chloe kneeled down and bent over, asking in her native language.

“Hey? Are you the guy that answered me before?”

Asahi nodded.

“Yes, I am. Who are you again? Didn’t you say you were lost or something?”

Chloe’s face blushed.

“Y… Yeah. Um, do you know where we are now?”

Asahi half-shrugged.

“Nope, I’m just as clueless as you are.”

Chloe beamed with excitement.

“OH! So, did you get summoned into this world like me? I have noticed that you speak my language fluently. So…”

A quiet wind blew across the patch of turquoise flowers in front of them. Asahi turned to his attire and scratched his head, expressing confusion and surprise.

“No… not at all.” Asahi scratched his head, mumbling while the excited look on Chloe’s face faded. “I don’t recall being summoned here….”

Chloe’s bright mocha eyes peered upward, staring at his eyes.

“So, did you just forget?”

Asahi raised a brow.

“No. I was never summoned here. But I was born here. Anyways, where did you come from? I have never known people could get summoned into my world.”

Chloe fiddled with her grey skirt, took a deep breath, and replied with an anxious tone.

“I come from… Earth.”

“Earth?”

“Yes. Um… it’s a world where humans rule, well… after these creatures called Dinosouars roamed around. I don’t know what they’re doing now. There are cities, communities, planes, cars, televisions, and cellphones everywhere.”

Asahi leaned over to Chloe, showing genuine interest in her.

Despite meeting her just now, he discussed with her as if they were friends. The very idea of someone being summoned into a world fascinated him.

“…cell… phones? That’s a strange name. Perhaps, that’s some sort of cell and photon mixture with it? Is it some sort of place?”

Chloe’s face turned pink, giggling and shaking her head.

“Ha ha! No, not at all! How can I explain this to you…?” She twiddled her thumbs, thinking of the tool.

“Um, it’s some tool that can… erm…”

As Chloe was thinking about a way to describe this strange alien device called a “Cellphone” to Asahi, she gave up and said a different thing instead.

“U…Uh… never mind that.” She scratched her head.

“I ran down to you because I wanted to talk to someone like you for a long time. Ever since I was summoned into this world, I have had difficulty socializing with others because I never knew their language.”

Asahi fell silent.

“I couldn’t ask for help, I couldn’t trade with anyone, I couldn’t make alliances. I was practically all alone for a couple of years. Not to mention, I was stuck wearing these clothes as well. Sigh, role-playing. Why did I wear that before? Stupid stupid me…”

. . .

“A-Anyways, now that I have finally found someone I can communicate with, can I ask you something?”

Asahi leaned over, seeing Aletha, the roped boy, and Pridia walking over to him. He replied swiftly.

“What?”

Chloe bent her head to the grass.

“Can you… be my teacher? I want to learn this world’s language so I can finally communicate with people and do stuff like you and all other people in this world do.”

Telos’s voice sounded in Asahi’s mind.

(It’s all up to you, Asahi. Every single person in this world has their own story to tell. If it makes you any happier, I will be willing to assist you with your teaching.)

Asahi bounced up.

“Really?”

(Absolutely. Even if it doesn’t include anything with my goal, I will be delighted to assist you. As long as it helps you become a better person in the long run.)

Asahi grinned and nodded his head. Even though he had never asked to be a teacher, changing someone’s life could be the very thing that could make him happy.

“Okay.”

Chloe turned over.

“Huh?”

“I’ll do it. I agree to become your teacher.”

---

But as silent flowed with the tame winds of the present, something arose in Telos.

(gasp It… it can’t be…)

Asahi mumbled.

“What?”

(I feel a presence lurking in here. An aura that I’m very familiar with. It can’t be… is that… Asahi, look over to the forest for a moment.)

He agreed and turned to the forest, seeing what looked like a woman with long dark hair, wearing a dark robe, gray eyes, and chains decorating all around. Though her appearance was difficult to see for Asahi, Telos knew precisely who she was.

(Morwenna. My beloved wife, I found you…)

But just as Asahi could catch another glimpse at the woman, she sprinted back into the forest and dropped an earing on the ground. Telos gasped in shock.

(NO! Asahi, grab your sister and chase that dark-haired woman now! You don’t UNDERSTAND how long and far I have gone searching for her. SHE is my goal!)

“Okay.”

As the group was discussing, Asahi hurriedly pulled Aletha and yelled.

“Sis, follow me!”

“But, why?! I was in the middle of talking–

“Just… listen to me. It’s important!”

Racing up the hill, passing through the forest, Asahi forgot to ask if Pridia and the others would come with him. However…

“Hey, where are you going?!”

The three were already following him.