Ciaran continued working on the ring, deciding to expand the storage to twenty square meters while he could. It would take longer to make, but the result would be worth it. He needed to finish the dimensional storage before he headed back into the city. The dimensional space this spell created was frozen in time. No living things could survive, but if he were to store food, it wouldn’t spoil. He wanted to finish the dimensional pocket, put all of the belongings he’d been dragging around inside, and then begin stocking up on food.
He sat against a tree and lost track of his surroundings as he continued to engrave the spell he hadn’t finished before. Working on something he was skilled at helped him stabilize his emotions. Amidst the quiet, he began to think about his situation.
He had two goals: to break the curse before it kills him, because he wasn’t sure if what happened to his family would happen to him as well, and to find whoever plotted against them and avenge the deaths of the people he loved. He had no way of knowing how to do the second one. Although he had taken a few successorship lessons, they were all about managing the territory he would inherit. His mother had once told him that she would teach him about the political world and power struggles after his first coming of age. Now, he had to figure it out on his own, and he didn’t even know if his family had political enemies, or who they might be.
He could find out if he went to a city at close to the center of the empire and probed about or hired an information guild, but he couldn’t take that risk. He was dead to the world right now, too weak to defend himself from external attacks, unable to contend against political ones, and was still considered a minor. The best thing he could do right now is to lay low and let the enemy think they’ve gotten the best of him while he builds his strength and waits for his 20th birthday, when he would be an adult. He would have more options at that time, and by that time, his enemies would have let their guard down due to the five years of silence. Ciaran may have been reported as dead, but whether his enemies believed it or not remained to be seen.
Five years was a long time, though. He couldn’t just stay still and practice swordsmanship in the forest here. He had a chance to move around the outskirts of the empire without anyone noticing him because of the teleportation scroll that brought him here, and he wanted to take advantage of that by trying to get clues on the dragon’s location while he was “dead.”
Not that he had any idea where it was, or where any other dragons were. There were legends of an island deep at sea that was the home of the dragons, but no one knew its location. Those that went searching for it either never returned, or never spoke a word about their journey, no matter the effort to pry their words out of them. Their tales were recorded in history as a lesson to deter newer generations of adventurers from embarking on a fool’s errand.
Ciaran thought about whether he should try and find the island, but… he was doubtful about whether it was a good idea or not. It wasn’t like previous generations of his family, before and after the eruption of the curse, hadn’t tried to search for the dragon’s homeland. The results were much the same as every infamous adventurer before them. They either disappeared, never to be found again, or returned with their mouth shut tight about anything to with their journey out to sea and back.
There were too many risks. There was a chance that no human has ever been able to find the dragon’s homeland because the dragons cast magic to cloak the location of the island from outsiders. There was also a chance that humans had found it, but due to a spell, were never able to speak about what they found. Or maybe they wandered around the sea, never finding the dragon’s homeland but perishing instead.
Ciaran had never even seen the ocean before. He had been kept at Neix his entire life, venturing no farther than the meadows and forests within the outer walls. His mother had always said it was for his safety, and that he could leave after he became an adult, but now that he had left he understood just how little he knew about anything concerning the outside world. A few sentences from Envil made it clear to him that he was too ignorant.
As the inscription pen finished connecting a circle and began inscribing a new line of spellwork, Ciaran shared his thoughts with Envil. He wanted the opinion of the more experienced of the two of them.
[Going to the dragon’s homeland is definitely the easiest way of finding a dragon. There’s no telling whether the dragon we’re looking for is there or not, though. That’s not even mentioning the danger. How old are you, anyway? You’re so young. You just created a mana core last night and haven’t even become a mid-level swordsman, but you want to find the dragon’s island?]
Ciaran paused his pen for a moment and looked up at the air, where there was nothing. He sighed and lowered his head, continuing to work as he said, “Do I have another choice? What do you think I should do, then? I just turned 15 a few days ago. There’s only so much time until I turn 20 and the curse starts to appear. I don’t even know if the symptoms will be the same. What if I turn 20, and I die the same way my family did? One moment they were fine, and the next, they all started killing each other. I know it was because of someone else’s doing, but I don’t know how they did it. What if that happens to me, too? I just don’t have the time to care about risks or danger.”
He paused for a few seconds. “If the curse didn’t exist, no one would have died that night. Someone knew about our family’s weakness and used it against us. I hate that the curse exists, and that someone used it to kill so many people. I need to break it.” He clenched his fist around the pen, his nails digging into his palms.
There was a moment of silence. [You’re right, Ciaran. Waiting around is definitely not an option. What I mean is, if you have to go, you need to be prepared. I’m just going to tell you now, I won’t let you leave until you’re completely prepared for such a long journey at sea. As prepared as you can be in this situation, anyway. The first thing you need is a boat, and the second thing you need is at least a month of food rations. Before you leave, you need to become a mid-level swordsman. With your ability to control mana, if I train you every day, it shouldn’t take you longer than a month or two to cross that threshold. You have no way of knowing what you’ll encounter there. It would be even better to be a high-level swordsman, but you don’t have that kind of time.]
“I’ll listen to you, but it’s just as important to find your memories before we leave, Envil. I’m serious about that.” It was the best, and only, thing he could do for Envil right now, to help him in return for everything he’s received.
[Sure, kid. Sure. Just focus on making that storage right now.]
Ciaran stopped talking and continued to work, trying to stop his mind from wandering. A few hours passed, and he would take a break to go out and kill another rabbit or two for lunch, after which he continued to work. By the time the sun set, Ciaran had been speeding up the progress of his work. He was almost done, and he wanted to finish it already. He had been sitting down all day, though he was glad for the slight break from constant movement, even if it resulted in stiff muscles from staying in place for too long.
The inscription pen connected the final line, finishing the outer circle, and the spell glowed for a moment before shrinking in size and settling against the inner band, where Ciaran first connected the mana string. He looked at the small circle that hid intricate details and was satisfied, though he wondered how such a big ring would fit on him.
To see how big the size difference was, he put the ring around the middle finger of his left hand but was surprised when the ring shrunk itself down to fit him. “Wow.”
[That mage must have loved his sister. This sort of ring is something mages would be fighting each other to own, but he just gave it to his sister instead of using it himself. It makes me wonder if there’s anything else that’s special about it.]
“Even if there is, how would we know? We’re not mages. This is enough, anyway. I don’t really care about what magic benefits it could have. It’s useless to me.”
Ciaran stood up and walked over to his bag, which was next to another tree. He grabbed his canister and took a few deep sips of water before closing it and putting it in the ring’s storage space. He did the same with the rest of his belongings, leaving only the sword.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
[I’ve been wanting to ask you, but… does it usually take only a day to create a dimensional storage? In my time, that was a rather advanced spell.]
Ciaran began to stretch his body, warming up the muscles that had been sitting still all day. “Well, no. From what I know, it should take a lot longer. I just… made a few shortcuts for myself.”
[Shortcuts?]
“Well, you know. Some of the spellwork is just so long and tedious to write out, so I condensed it. When I first tried this a while ago, I wasn’t sure if it would work or not. I pretty much taught myself with a few different books about the subject and lots of practice. After trying this and that, I realized that there was a specific way you could shorten long lines of spellwork so that the effect was still the same, but the time used to write it was a lot less. If I hadn’t done that, I would have been here making that dimensional storage for at least another two days.”
[I don’t really understand, but it sounds impressive. It’s good that you can save time. Let’s get down to business now. Remember that you have two things you need to do, Ciaran: you need to stock up on food, and you also need to make a coat for yourself. Getting a boat can come later. Although I can’t tell how warm or cold it is right now, I can see the leaves on the trees changing color, so if it isn’t already a bit cold out, it will be soon. Those shirts you have may be long-sleeved but you need a real coat, especially if you end up going out to sea.]
Ciaran looked up at the trees at his words, and did see them beginning to show traces of yellow and orange. The weather the past few days had been a bit colder than at the duchy, but his long-sleeved shirt was enough to keep him warm, along with all the running and fighting he’d been doing. “But… I don’t know how to make a coat. Do you think there is one somewhere in the city?”
[No, I don’t think so. If there were usable clothes there, you wouldn’t be wearing these cut-up rags around. I can tell they’re too big for you, too. The only way to get a coat right now is to make one from skinning an animal that has fur. And what was it that you killed last night?]
He blinked. Then his eyes widened, and his head swiveled to look in a certain direction. “The yuin!”
[Yes, the yuin. I had you drag it out to another place not far from here because I didn’t want its carcass to attract other animals while you were busy with other things. Go there now and see whether its still in one piece or not.]
With the light of the setting sun, Ciaran walked through the forest, holding the sword with his right hand. He didn’t pay attention to the scattered specters around him; traces of hunters and gatherers from the past could be seen here and there, though not as many as he’d seen in the city.
When he found the yuin, he was glad that nothing seemed to have touched it while he’d been gone. He had placed it in a shaded area under a thick canopy, and now he dragged it back with him to his campsite by the stream. “So, how do you suppose… I can go about skinning this? The sword doesn’t seem like a great tool to use.”
[Yeah, you can’t use the sword for this. It’s too clunky and big. Don’t worry, just finish moving the yuin first.]
Ciaran dragged the yuin across the forest, dumping it a little behind the campfire, opposite to the stream. “What now?”
[Now, you should go back to the magic circle we found earlier.]
“The magic circle? Why?”
[Because usually, when you skin an animal in the wild like this, you’d have to use a sharp, solid rock like a flint. In your case, why should you go out of your way to search for one when we have something very sharp and durable not far away?]
Ciaran understood what he was getting at. He rolled up his pant legs and took off his boots while he crossed the stream, putting them back on after he reached the other side and walking past the trees and into the small clearing. He looked around at the crystallized objects surrounding the magic circle. There were nine of them in total, and every one seemed to be different. He looked around at the objects until he heard Envil’s voice.
[That one, on the right. The long, thin, sharp object.]
Ciaran walked over and pointed to something. “This one?”
[Yes. Pick it up for me. Don’t worry, nothing will happen. Just make sure you don’t grab it by it’s sharp edges, otherwise you’ll get cut easily.]
Ciaran picked it up by the bottom half and examined it, surprised to see that through the maroon, semi-opaque crystal surrounding the object, he could make out what looked like a dagger. The crystal formed a thin but solid layer around it and had formed sharp edges along the dagger’s blade. The part around the hilt was more rounded and smooth, so Ciaran examined it by the light of dusk.
[Now go back to the yuin, and I will tell you what to do.]
Ciaran walked back to the campsite, asking, “How do you know how to skin an animal? Did you learn it while traveling around?”
[An older swordsman I met by chance taught me. We were both deep in the Melosede Forest and crossed paths by chance, but I was starving and cold, and he had a fur coat he’d made himself and strips of jerky sticking out of his bag. He was a kind man and taught me a lot.]
“What happened with him? How did you make it out? That forest is…” An image of the map of the empire flashed in his mind. The Melosede Forest lay in the North-Western part of the empire, and occupied a rather large stretch of land. Rumors of mana beasts often came from there.
[We had the misfortune of coming across a manic mana beast. It was a Weyvin, of all things. At the time, I had just become a high-level swordsman, and the old man was a little better than me, but this mana beast… was the strongest one we’d ever encountered until that point. We fought it to the death. The old man… didn’t make it. I was heavily injured and had to recuperate for a while, using my mana to try and speed up the healing. I didn’t know anything else about him, so I buried him in that forest with a makeshift gravestone.]
Ciaran reached the campsite and was silent for a moment. He could tell from the tone of Envil’s words that the old man had meant a lot to him, so he wasn’t sure what to say. Although he knew there wasn’t anything anyone could say that could ease the grief and loss. “I’m sure he’s in a better place now. Who knows, maybe he’s made it to Alledia.”
[The afterlife in the world of the gods? I didn’t know you still believed in that, Ciaran.]
“Hey, I don’t! I’m just saying. Maybe it exists. It’d be nice to think that the people we loved were there. I mean, our starsight supposedly was granted to one of our distant ancestors by a goddess. There’s also the imperial family’s prophetic abilities.” Ciaran didn’t completely believe in the existence of the gods, either, but he wondered if some hereditary magic had really once originated from such legendary beings.
[That doesn’t mean it actually happened. Our empire may be named after the Sun God, but that doesn’t mean such a deity really exists, or that the imperial family is really his descendant, does it? Our starsight is just a hereditary magic that’s passed on through the bloodline, and the same goes for the imperial family. They love to claim otherwise so that the public continues to support ‘the Sun God’s descendants.’]
“I just like to think that if the gods were real, then Alledia would be too. And if Alledia was real, then I could sleep better knowing my family is living a new life there.”
[Don’t worry, Ciaran. Wherever people end up after they die, I’m sure they’re at peace.] Ciaran sat on his knees next to the yuin, unsure of where where to start. The conversation had helped to calm some of the unease he felt about digging in an animal carcass. [Please listen very carefully to what I tell you. If you have any questions, ask them before you do anything, because if you make too big of a mistake, you may have to go out and hunt another animal. Otherwise, after you finish skinning it, you need to hang up the hide and tan it for a few days before you can do anything else.]
Ciaran started a fire and then proceeded to follow Envil’s instruction while using the crystallized dagger, though he winced a few times while handling the remains.
He had never touched organs before, and while taking them out and placing them aside, he tried not to think about the smell of spoiled, raw meat or how it felt to hold a kidney and a liver. After he finished skinning the animal, he transported the rest of the remains to another part of the forest, where he buried it in the ground. He washed himself downstream of his campsite after, wanting to get rid of the smell that attached itself to him.
After he returned, he cleaned the skin as Envil told him to and hung it up in a tree. By this time, the night was deep and the moon was high in the sky. Ciaran hadn’t done anything strenuous that day but he could still feel the exhaustion setting in, his eyelid becoming heavier with every minute until he lay down and fell asleep.
~|(+)|~
Ciaran opened his eyes to find himself standing in a boundless black space. There was a faint source of light coming from somewhere, but he couldn’t see the source, and it wasn’t bright enough to make out where he was. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there, or what he was doing, but he knew he had a goal. It was very important, and he had to accomplish it, but no matter how hard he tried to remember, nothing came to mind. Frustrated, he turned around to get his bearings, but stopped when he saw what was behind him.
A big mass of… something. He wasn’t sure, because whatever it was, was as dark as the abyss surrounding them, but it had a distinct shape. He took slow steps forward until he stood in front of it. He raised his hand and touched it with the tip of a finger, surprised by how hard the material was.
He ran his hands along it, feeling bumps and ridges. He put his palm flat against it, and chills ran down his spine when he realized what it could be. As the word surfaced in his mind, the mass shifted beneath his hand. He jumped back, startled, and glanced to the side.
An enormous, yellow eye with a slitted, black pupil was staring at him. He couldn’t move a muscle before its gaze. If it wanted to crush him, it could do so with just a single thought. He couldn’t break eye contact with it, but the second he saw it, he knew what it was.
A dragon.
