PreCursive

  Kazuma of Higanashi, de facto Lord of his ….

  Found himself feeling terribly flicted.

  So much was happening all at ohat he was having trouble settling on a single emotion.

  There was the betrayal, of course. The campaign that the fn exiled Sect had scouted him for had been months in the pnning, with him involved every step of the way. Grandmaster Shacklock himself had sought him out, the infamous madman finding him slumped over a bar all those months ago in Nagizawa. He had been on the verge of weeping from the failure of his test venture, whehump of a e had cut through the noise of the bar.

  Insane, ambitious whispers in his ear had given him a hope that was now dashed.

  There was the expected anger, from multiple different sources. Not only that Captairom, who had been nothing but courteous to him, had dared to stab him in the back. But also that a figure that his family had presumed to have died out on this accursed isle was still among the living.

  The ant man, Venix.

  The name had been among the roster of students his great-grandfather was said to have trailing in his wake. Not much was said about him in the records, aainly not his race. The only thing of note in the scrolls was that he took after the Twin Fang himself, in choosing to bear multiple bdes at once.

  He hadn’t expected that to mean four over the damn things.

  By his own admission, the i was at least partially responsible for the death of his great aor. There had been a palpable guilt in the shoulders of the bug when he had spoken of his master.

  Not much was actually known of how Gozen had died. Not even Jiro of the Flickering Storm had been able to tell them, much less the historical remnants of the test Ryumetsu Matsuri. The way his grandfather had spoken, Spirits rest his soul, the man had been half delirious wheumbled into the then pound. He’d picked up some form of deadly jungle iion that haunted his grievous wounds, and no amount of Healing had been able to save him. The only words the man had been to utter before he passed was that the bde still existed, in a…cryptic way. The iion had taken his mind by that point.

  As his grandfather had told him, the exact words Jiro had said before dying were,

  “It never fell…the fang never fell. Eyes in the dark…fme that stalks…it took it. Lost not lost but still there. She waits…where silence burns…”

  Suitably cryptic, to the apparent dismay of his . But his father had spent decades of his life trying to decrypt the dying words of a delirious man, and had shared what he’d found with Kazuma. It hadn’t been much.

  But it was enough to vih Kazuma and Grandmaster Shacklock.

  Kazuma wao demand answers from the Ant man. Maybe he possessed a crucial clue that would help to fit all the pieces together, and from there he could save his family from the proverbial gutters.

  His pride sealed his lips, though, and thus he hadn’t so much as looked in the cur’s dire. But over the st few days, he had certainly felt Venix’s eyes on him.

  Because the group of strange partisans who insisted they were not members of the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn had invited him to travel with them. Since he no longer had any rades of his own in these savage wilds, he had of course accepted.

  And so he’d been apanying these odd people for two days now.

  They were the cause of the third emotion that was uling him.

  fusion.

  What an…eclectic group they were.

  Firstly was the dwarf. Kazuma could t on one hand the number of times he had personally met one of his people. Nagizawa, the city his had settled down in after their exile from the capital, ort city. It mainly dealt in fish, though, and not expensive goods. That meant that Dwarven merts were somewhat unon on the docks of the stinking city. The Vens had their own fishing sources, and most seldom had need of what Kawamara could sell to them in that regard.

  However, this Azarus was unlike any Dwarf he had met. He spoke and acted differently, simultaneously both with wisdom and blunt disregard. Kazuma’s studies from years past told him that the at that colored the crimson-haired dwarf’s words pced him from the distant mountain holds, a he was clearly educated. Strong in the arm, too, from how he had dispatched a group of Wyrmkin his new group had entered.

  A tradi.

  The Gnolls were a puzzle in and of themselves. They were so different from each other. These were actually the first of their kind Kazuma had ever met before. The Throng was currently barred from venturing onto the shores of Kawamara, due to some courtly faux pas from when he was a child. As a result, you didn’t normally see Gnolls in the Land of Twinning Rivers. These two both were and were not what he had expected from their kind.

  The female was almost what the tales told of these strangers of Vereden. She was elusive, rarely iing with the group in favor of serving as a scout. She spoke little, and what she did say was in a quiet, shifty too his ears. He had yet to have the ce to speak to her, and it almost seemed like she was deliberately avoiding him.

  Of course, the male was a Healer and had saved his life. Kazuma had pledged to guard him on this treacherous isnd, and taken up one of the guard positions in the ter of the formation. This Renauld was…fairly easygoing, from his versations with him. Kazuma uood that he was a student at the Academy of Mystic Arts, and had gotten caught up in the Herztalian’s civil war before falling in with this group. The fox man was a tad mercurial in his moods, but friendly enough. From the tales, he hadn’t expected that from one of his kind.

  Which left only the humans of this troupe.

  Both of which frustrated him, if only for different reasons.

  The woman, Bel, he had learned irate. Upon disc that, Kazuma had begun to deliberately shun her presence. He refused to eain a murdering criminal, and it stung at him that he had fallen so far that he must call one of her kind a rade. She didn’t seem to care a whit about his disapproval, only smirking at him whehought he wasn’t looking. If not for the man stopping her, he thought she would have spent the entire journey across Goryuen mog him.

  The man…

  Who actually was a human.

  That had surprised him. This Nathan Hart had long, pointed ears in the manner of the savage Elves from the mainnd. Kawamara had none of those long-disgraced barbarians upon her shores, and the sight of such features had initially shocked him. Upon that beach when he had first seen the man, it had been his appearahat initially made Kazuma wary of the group. Not just him, but Wernstrom and the rest of Solstice’s Fme leadership.

  Nobody that journeyed with an elf, much less ohat had odd patches of what looked to be bed scales dotting his body, could be trustworthy.

  But Kazuma had e to learn that the quiet man was just that. A man, and not an Elf. His strange appearance arently the result of some form of curse, inflicted upon him by the Camity that had briefly risen iy of Elderwyck, in the dying days of the struct War. In a shog and somewhat sdalous move, the man had even invited Kazuma to Observe him to prove the truth of his words.

  Kazuma had tentatively done so, only to see that Hart was nothing more than a mere Human. Nothing strange had been visible on his Status at all.

  That had relieved him, he had to admit.

  However, Hart was still a mystery to him. This group almost treated him like the true leader, and not the hulking, almost certainly more powerful Antium that led the formation. They sulted him on decisions, and more often than not, followed his advice. Kazuma had also learhat their entire expedition arently Hart’s idea. The other man was tight-lipped about what they sought here on the isnd, only saying that they sought something at the base of Mt. Gorenzan. When Kazuma had pointed out that that was the most dangerous p the isle, as the Oni hordes encircled the throne of Tatsugan himself, Hart had merely he man seemed entirely unfazed by the potential danger, when even Kazuma himself, who had quite literally chosen to give his life for his , rehensive of that treachere.

  Kazuma had been able to discover nothing of this strange, Elf-like Human’s ins. He spoke little of himself in Kazuma’s earshot, and his panions almost appeared unfalteringly loyal to him. Kazuma only knew a few things about the mysterious man. The first was that he was a Mage, in parison to his own path of the Cultivator. The other was that his Professions were Smithing and Enting.

  He could, at the very least, admire the strange armor and ons this Hart seemed to carry, apparently borne of his own two hands. Kazuma had never actually seen Oninite smithed in that manner, aainly not in such abunda felt almost extravagant, truthfully. Kazuma doubted that the Emperor himself had such a plement of Oninite.

  He was at least petent, though. The man seemed to realize that he didn’t o tinue guarding the Healer with Kazuma around. He also appeared to have scout training like the taciturn Gnoll woman. Hart had joined her in being a scout, choosing te around their fnks to ward off dahat may be approag.

  But he didn’t o for long, because the jungle was ing to an end.

  On the m of the third day since Kazuma had joihis small, odd troop, the sery began to ge around them. The trees started to thin out, the sounds of the jungle began to fade, and even the is died down.

  This was a relief to everyone. Eve man seemed grateful the vicious, bloodthirsty things were no longer poking at his chitin.

  By the time lunch had rolled around, they reached the absolute edge of the jungles of Goryuen.

  The transitionary point from the outer isnd…

  To the inner.

  The group gathered to stand in a line on the deliing point, shoulder to shoulder. The two scouts had returned by now to join them.

  And stare out across the peaks of the horizon.

  Kazuma had heard tale of the mountains of Goryuen. How they were the you, most treacherous spires upon the face of Vereden. How they were unnatural to the extreme, haunted by ghosts of the endless struggle with the Immortal Wyrm. And how only the foolish would brave their depths, when not bound by duty.

  It turned out…those tales were true.

  They seemed endless.

  Stretg far off into the horizon was a sea of bde-like peaks and treacherous valleys. The stone of the range was bed, and their summits almost seemed to gleam blue in the light of the shrouded sun overhead. Because the light of Tarus did not seem to fully touch the ey of the span, no. Instead, angry, roiling grey clouds shrouded the sky as far as the eye could see, and the occasional spire of lighting reached down to touch the tips of those upthrust spears. Thunder rumbled among the clouds, a muted growl that reached the group from even this distance.

  A, no rain appeared to be falling upon the range. No floods rushed through barren corridors of stohat threaded throughout the mountains. It was bone dry, nearly desert-like within that hell.

  Uhe jungles, nothing could live in there. No water, no animals, no greenery.

  Only monsters as.

  It was a good thing, then, that Kazuma didn’t io venture inside.

  Yet.

  He only had to vince his newfound allies of the pn. Such as it was.

  Kazuma’s introspe, and the silence of the group, was broken when Hart spoke first.

  “Hmm,” He uttered in a mild tohat doesn’t look fun.”

  The lord of Higanashi couldn’t help but turn a disbelieving eye upon the man.

  “Fun?” Kazuma uttered under his breath disbelievingly.

  His panions had a differeion.

  Renauld smirked, seemingly put at ease, where only moments before intimidation had painted his furred face. “Dht spooky, even.”

  Meanwhile, the dwarf actually looked a bit impressed. “Some damn fine mountains, though,” He said, strangely admiring. “The old holds ain’t got nothin’ on this. They’re a dht cakewalk in parison.”

  “I’ve never been,” Liora said, turning an ied eye towards Azarus. “Is there truly such a difference?”

  “Oh, aye,” Azarus nodded. “Y’see…” To Kazuma’s disbelief, the two of them began a versation on parative geology.

  Meanwhile, Hart had turo Bel, who had taken out her far-eye and was examining the range. “See anything iing? I borrow that?”

  Bel lowered the instrument and turo him with a taunting smirk. “Nothin’ hy, just a few beasties. Think I saw a movin’ Oni horn, but it wasn’t part of a violence. And…maybe ye look. If ye ask nicely.”

  Hart returned her smirk with one of his own. “Oh, I’ll ask nicely. Just…ter.”

  The two of them chuckled to themselves, to Kazuma’s fusion, before Bel handed Hart the far-eye. The odd man took it but didn’t look through yet. Instead, he turo Venix. “So, where should we enter? Straight ahead?”

  The ant opened his treaouth to answer, but Kazuma had shaken off the oddity of his ally's behavior. He co-opted the versation by clearing his throat. When a majority of eyes turned his way, Kazuma made his py.

  “There is somewhere else we should go first,” He began firmly. “The tral range-”

  He was cut off by Hart. “Is our destination,” The pseudo-Elf said sharply. “Do not fet, Kazuma Higanashi, you are uest. I extended an invitation to you because you might have died, alone in the jungle. But we have our own pns on this isnd.”

  Kazuma grit his teeth and tried not to lose his temper, aware even the versation on mountain geology had died down. “I’m aware,” He said, suppressing his temper. “But I believe I know where the Shōmetsu no Kiba be found.”

  Venix took a step forward then, attention sharpening. “Where?”

  The Kawamaran samurai took a deep breath. “The dying words of Jiro of the Flickering Stave my ough to work off of for our research. We believe it might be there,” He said, pointing off to the right side of the horizon.

  Towards a curl of smoke that wafted into the sky, inating from a short, squat mountain. This one had no bde-like tip like the rest of the range, and y outside of it as well, croug between it and the jungle.

  The party followed his finger, as Kazuma spoke again.

  “The volo of Mt. Umetsuji.”