Even as the Ranger officer led Ondun from the edge of the lake and the broken and bisected bodies of the Gloomcubs and Gloomhounds he had littered the earth with, Ondun reflected on how things had happened. Even as Aquepup was looking up at Ondun with a worried expression, Ondun came to a conclusion: This was a different world. Yes, he had fought for the scared human child, but he didn't just have to be a dealer of death.

  "Excuse me, good sir, one moment. I believe I can be of help here. My arts aren't just those of dealing death. I am also a skilled healer. May I demonstrate?"

  The man turned quizzically and nodded. "No funny business, or my people will sic our Mons on you, or just shoot you."

  Ondun nodded and raised a hand to his chest and drew on the power of the Medicus. In a flash of soothing blue light, the robes and spelliths formed about him. He lowered his visor and began scanning everyone nearby.

  The child had some scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious. Ondun sighed with relief at this. Aquepup was in similar condition. His most dangerous foes were his own lack of motor coordination and the harsh terrain of the woodlands about the lake.

  When Ondun turned his gaze to the monsters he'd bloodied, it was a different story. Many shapes shone with the grey outline that signified death—a lack of animatic activity. However, a few Gloomcubs were still alive. So it was that Ondun activated his spelliths and went to work alongside a young female medic. He carefully mended the wounds until the medic indicated to stop, whereupon she took a black and yellow capsule and tapped it against the monster, who was absorbed into it. The medic and Ondun repeated this process a few times, quickly saving a few monsters who would have died as a result of Ondun's own efforts.

  Eventually, Ondun stood, the blue and silver robes stained with crimson. He shook his head. "That's the last living foe handled. I can treat the scrapes of my Aquepup and the boy, but I think my healing powers have seen their usefulness completed here."

  The officer and most of the other Rangers who had been watching were whispering among each other, clearly impressed. It seemed to Ondun that, contrary to his own expectations, folks at arms in this strange new world were not used to having adequate healer support. Ondun made a mental note to have a word with the Guardian about this deficiency.

  He nodded to the medic, who smiled gratefully until she saw her officer shake his head. Ondun continued until the boy ran up to him, presenting a scrape, which his basic mending spell healed almost instantly. Aquepup was right behind the child. Ondun reached down and petted his new friend and ally.

  "You did good, small one. Thank you for helping me save this child when we barely know each other yet."

  "Aquepup!" it barked happily. It then fell in beside its adventurer coach as the officer, now very obviously done with the detours, carefully led Ondun back to town, with Rangers on overwatch for both threats and also Ondun and his partner.

  In Ondun's short life, he'd gathered more crowds than most bards or thespians he'd heard of. His return to Yongqi Town had simply added yet another crowd to the ever-expanding list of crowds to that count.

  The young boy ran straight to his mother, crying despite being perfectly fine. To be fair, though, so was she and the well-built man who rushed forward in a very plain-looking shirt and sweater. Ondun smiled even as he kept walking, this time genuinely buoyed by that familiar feeling of having made some kind of difference, however small. While misfortune might visit this family in the future, it hadn't afflicted them now.

  "Excuse me, good sir... I wanted to thank you. You saved our boy." He gave a distinctly eastern bow, and the boy and wife did immediately after, followed by most of the town. "We thank you from the bottom of our hearts."

  Ondun returned the bow a little more shallowly, as in the Far Eastern custom. "It is nothing; I was merely in the right place to help. I apologize for...well, the mess."

  The man shook his head and waved a hand. "I don't know where you're from—clearly not here—but these sorts of things are important lessons for our young. Mons are our friends, yes, but they are dangerous." He turned to his son. "Doing dangerous things causes death. Never forget this."

  "Yes, Dad..." the young child said.

  "By the way, you're grounded until further notice," the woman added sweetly.

  "Yes, Mom...I understand." Even as his parents nudged them away, Ondun nodded and resumed the march with the rest of the Rangers, straight back to Dr. Wusiji's lab.

  After a knock and the Rangers letting themselves in, they were all standing in front of a vibrating Dr. Wusiji. "We brought him here. Make sure you actually tell him useful things this time, like how to not break the law. And no experimentation."

  Dr. Wusiji just cackled. "Fine, I'll give him a more in-depth education..." he grinned an evil grin, though. "But no promises on that last part."

  The Rangers looked at each other with a profound expression of, We did our job; let's get out of here. One gave Ondun a pat on the back. "You're on your own. Let this be a lesson in why you don't kill Mons." They then hurried out. Even as Ondun turned back, the massive, empty syringe was in the doctor's hand.

  "Now, while I'm teaching you a few things, I'm going to need a few...samples. If I understand correctly, you can heal yourself. That'll make this all go so much faster."

  Ondun was rapidly developing a fear of doctors for some reason. Aquepup just whined and hid behind Ondun.

  Meanwhile, on Arcanis...

  Aenora stood in front of the Skyward Industries engineers, holding a pale crystal in one hand. They were all back in the chamber from which Ondun had been dimensionally displaced. The room looked a lot different this time; there was no dust, which meant that the inactive Allemandian technology and the more ancient runes that had been inexpertly integrated were all clear to see. The plinth glinted a metallic black, and the lines on it pulsed dark blue, as it was in a low-power mode thanks to the efforts of the engineers over the last hour.

  Kelse Skyward, the "president" and chief engineer of the company, was standing at the head of his men. There were no junior Knowing Circle people present; care of the comatose senior members had been handed off to the junior members who could care for the bodies of their brethren, while Aenora, and presumably Ondun, were hard at work on the mystery of how to reunite their allies' souls and bodies again.

  "So, Aenora. It seems like you've made a breakthrough of some kind," he started, bringing the impromptu meeting to order.

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "That's certainly a way to interpret it. Rather, I like to think of this as an experiment, that my own animological talents are ill-suited to executing alone. I have a firm grasp of the theory—oddly enough, the runes used here are actually well-documented, just in many different contexts than this. In a few hours, I was able to learn each rune's function and anima flows, which, in combination with the readings you took, Master Kelse, I was able to use to reverse engineer the mechanism by which Ondun was displaced."

  The engineers looked impressed. The massive Garlon laughed. "So what do you need us for?"

  Aenora fixed him with a sightless stare from behind her ornate veil. "I want to repeat the feat, only with a test object instead of an unwilling warrior whose services are dearly needed elsewhere. As it is, we're having to...outsource...our operations while this mystery demands our attention." Aenora held up the crystal. "Now, can anyone tell me what's special about this crystal?"

  The Garlon Engineer, McCoy, once again answered with a hearty laugh. "Absolutely nothing! That's just a corrupted Light crystal."

  James, the red-headed assistant to Kelse, kicked him in the shin, but Aenora held up a hand to limit the amount of percussive maintenance done to the hulking engineer. "That is actually completely correct. While corrupted Light crystals are rare, I want to use this because the runes here serve one sole purpose: they control the space and time coordinates of the magicks this plinth is built to channel."

  Kelse grinned. "That means this device is a transmitter to a specific location."

  Aenora favored the ex-Imperial human with a nod. "Just so. If we can recreate the phenomenon, then by analyzing the process by which this crystal is transferred to the other realm—which will destroy the crystal by decomposing it into raw anima—we will have a nice bright trail that will tell us, relative to our world, where our friend has been deposited."

  James nodded too, catching on. "Which means we can scry, send probes, and plan."

  Aenora nodded again. "Master Kelse, would you be so kind as to reactivate the plinth once we are all clear and the crystal is prepared?"

  He nodded, so Aenora closed her eyes and began channeling her own anima into the already anima-dense crystal, weaving a special series of instructions that would unravel as the crystal was unmade by the process of dimensional travel. When that was done, she inspected her work with her magic sense and found that the spell she'd woven into the anima had taken. A few steps were taken to place the crystal on the plinth, and then she jogged to the outside of the room. Everyone else followed suit, and when she was sure no one was in the likely splash zone of the teleportation effect, she nodded to Kelse, who activated the ancient animatic machinery.

  With a pulse of purple, the crystal was lifted up and then slowly became more distant without moving, just like Ondun had, until it was gone.

  Aenora put a hand to her earring. "Everyone, the test seems to have worked. Now...where does the trail lead?" After a few moments, her eyes went wide. "All-Mother forfend...you can't be serious."

  Kelse and the engineers were paying attention. "Well, where does it go?" She turned to the waiting engineers. "It's in the Far East. Whatever world Ondun has found himself on, he's right back where much of this started—Xin-xia." She put her hand back on her earring. "Lady Suzumi, I must request an audience with Lord Shun. Our journey will lead through your lands, it seems." She paused and sighed. "Yes, I know he 'called it.' That man spent far too long among the Draconians, including Ondun."

  Back on Monastria...

  "Hmm, your blood results show little deviation from a baseline human, though your titanium levels are a little high. This could account for the bluish pigmentation. Fascinating. It also seems like, in the tests where you'd been casting... HEY, TEST SUBJECT, WAKE UP! You're disrespecting the science!"

  Ondun jerked awake. "Is it over? Aenora? You there? I was dreaming all this, right?" He met Dr. Wusiji's sinisterly shining eyeglasses and promptly put his head down. "Nope, this is a dream; going back to sleep."

  Aquepup nudged Ondun and started licking him, which caused the warrior to giggle at the ticklish quality. "Ok, fine. Aquepup, you're the best part of this dream." This just caused Aquepup to whine pathetically.

  "Oh, don't worry about your human, young water puppy. I'm done with the test. I can practically taste my new research fellowships, and more importantly, grant money!" He restrained himself from drooling at his own daydreams of his work on cataloging the biological similarities and differences of extra-dimensional sentients from those of their own world and the monsters that inhabit it. "More importantly, we're still crunching the data from the tests of those jutsus.

  Why that data alone will either fill in the gaps in many of my theories...or it may lead to us finding more theories!"

  To Ondun, this was the oddest part of the man. His life was spent trying to answer questions; Dr. Wusiji seemed to delight more in finding them. This was making Ondun's head hurt, and not just from blood loss. Dr. Wusiji saw him sway and tossed him another piece of candy.

  "Anyways, as I was saying, it's perfectly legal to force Mons to flee or lose consciousness, but killing is off the table. We enjoy a precarious relationship with the Mons, you see. There was a time in antiquity when humans hunted Mons for sport and food. While some Mons are farm-raised and produce edible products—including meat—this is highly controlled and usually negotiated carefully with the region's legendary Mon before a human does anything. I'll say, lad, the Guardian has her work cut out for her. You don't do anything by half-measures, do you?"

  Ondun just nodded. "What do you mean by legendary monsters?" He was getting vague shades of his conflict with the many Astrals that had plagued his homeland.

  "Oh, they're Mons; they're just...unusually powerful. Some may be immortal; we're not sure. Researchers who try to study legendary monsters typically become dead researchers. There have been some unusual cases. About twenty years ago, some madman created an artificial clone of a legendary mon, but it broke out of his control—the data was useful, though! A young trainer was able to defeat it and calm it down. To this day it roams the world, sometimes harming, sometimes helping, with seemingly no rhyme or reason."

  Ondun nodded. "So if I encounter one?"

  The researcher smiled. "Run, or you will surely die."

  "Good to know." Ondun patted Aquepup gently, letting the young monster nap in his arms now. "This world looks very, very peaceful, but the more I learn about it, I'm starting to think it's only barely less horrifying than my own."

  Dr. Wusiji turned to him. "Hmmm, an interesting insight. Perhaps, one day we will be able to explore your world and find the truth. Yes, this 'anima' you've told me about, the recounting of the battle against the Corrupted Gloomwolf... I wonder if not only the mon abilities, but also the Auric Arts are all tied to this anima. A fascinating proposal, I'll grant...but it must be tested!"

  Something about that sentence jogged a memory in Ondun. "Question. Are those corrupted Mons a common occurrence, or weird?"

  The doctor nodded. "Hmm, actually they're very strange. They were first reported in the last week. No one knows what caused this effect; it's literally never been seen before. Our own Guardian checked the ancient archives of each city leader and came up with nothing. You have no idea how rare that is."

  Ondun did have an idea of how rare that was. It would be like Aenora consulting a library and not finding any trace of the development of magic or the understanding of anima.

  "Anyways...you've debriefed thoroughly, and all this data will be passed to the Rangers. Now, it's time you went to Mrs. Li and got your room and some rest. Same for your mom. We can't all be heroes of myth and legend like you, Mr. Ondun!"

  Then, somehow, Ondun was outside again, the door closing in his face. I need to learn how he does that, Ondun thought. That's got to be a jutsu.

  Ondun turned, and this time people were going about their business, but treated him less with a scared and curious demeanor and more respectfully and deferentially, even friendly. It felt better this way as Aquepup slumbered in his arms, clearly tired from the day's events. The sun was getting low, and the blue of the sky had faded to violets, oranges, and yellows, with the green of the trees turning dark, presaging the oncoming night.

  Somehow for Ondun, this time of day was the most peaceful, the end of something good that had run its course, and the beginning of a restful time. Ondun wished Aenora could share this sight with him, the first night in a new world. He resolved to take it all in just as soon as he'd reached his new lodgings and checked in with Mrs. Li.

  His footsteps quickened; he already knew the way. Before he knew it, he'd reached the small house near the town's northern gate. With a smile, he looked to the stars. "Good night, Aenora, wherever you are." Then he knocked and waited for the lady of the house to come and speak.