Early Afternoon - Early Fall : The Grand Mountains | Temnota

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  *Wooooosh* Standing atop a t mountain ridge, the thin, frigid air crystallized ice all over my armor while I looked out toward the horizon.

  But while I thought it felt great, Eve wasn't so fond of the cold. "S-So, what exactly are we d-doing all the here?"

  Gng over my shoulder, I found her shivering, looking into the wind with rosy cheeks and glossy eyes before pulling out a small cup with some wyvern blood in it. -Geez, she's worse with the cold than her mom...-

  As she relutly took a sip, she grimaced before the i her body started melting into steam, and her shivering eased.

  "We're looking for ruins, specifically, for anything with religious ties like a church." After making sure there wyvern blood was warming her up, I rather quickly turned back to the horizon.

  "Yeah I get that, but.. why, exactly..?" Slowly getting used to the bzi surging through her body, she started rexing.

  "It's because of the mission."

  "The 'Low-Intel Assassination'?"

  Nodding, I turo look in another dire. "Typically, the reason they are 'low-intel' is because there is a ck of administrators in the world, so there isn't muformation oarget, the system just reizes them as a threat that o be removed." Squatting down, I looked down the mountaio the forested valley below, my eyes darted around. "From my experiehe best pces to find information on them are in religious ters sihe 'threat' usually pyed a role in the world's demise." -And although that's not always the case, it's a good pce to start.-

  The issue was just that, with how old the ruins in this world were expected to be, they were so rown that a birdseye view could only do so much. -The only ruins we've found so far, we had to be essentially standing on top of to notice...-

  But we didn't stop looking.

  Just like we had over the st few days, we trekked forward, finding moo max Eve and Bel's experience caps whehey reset while looking for any sort of man made features.

  However, while I knew finding more ruins was just a matter of time, after wandering the ti for nearly two weeks without finding anything more than the colpsed ey of a settler's home, I started questioning if we should have just turned around and looked closer to the inal city we found.

  At least that was until Eve noticed something. "Uh.. Evren?"

  "Hm?"

  "Do you think that could be old terrag over there?"

  Quickly looking toward where she ointing, I found the grassy base of a distant mountain with the familiar pattern of rows of stone on it, mostly evenly spaced climbing up the mountainside. -But.. it's not perfect...- Although the rows of stone in a single n were fairly even spaced, as terrag would be, looking at other parts of the mountain showed that the spag varied greatly, and rarely matched other rows. -It might just be weathered though...- So, after gng around some other areas, we decided to go check it out.

  In my experieerrag was something that would remain as a remnant of civilizations for an incredibly long time, however, after weathering, ndslides, or simply the ro the mountailing, over time, the distinct look of terrag would fade and it would be harder tnize versus something like sedimentary yers being exposed by erosion at a distance.

  But while I was quite pessimistic about it, as we got closer and could notice more details about it, the more flicted my thoughts became.

  By the looks of things, the 'terrag' was seed off steps of with solid, uniform rock rather than man-id rocks as you would expect from a man-made structure, but at the same time, outside of the weathering on the edge of the rock steps making them look like grass waterfalls, it was actually quite close to what I would expect from terrag. -Iing... They almost look.. carved...-

  Finally making it up onto the mountainside, I wasted no time trying to force my aura into the dirt to check its depth on each step, and sure enough, it was almost identical every time. -How fasating...- "It really is terrag," But rather than being formed on top of the mountai was carved into it. "But..." Looking up the mountain and dowhe surrounding pins, I saw nothing else. "Where is the city?"

  To carve aire mountainside like this would take not just a lot of manpower, but a lot of demand. -And with everything around here being pins, it makes no sense for them to terra the first pless the city was on the mountain.-

  But no matter how hard I looked, there was nothing nearby. -Hm... That makes me wonder...- Closing my eyes, I slowly shifted my focus to my aura, doing everything I could to flesh out the image being painted in my mind before eventually, I found a series of sizable, unusually round cave entrances scattered around the surface, all leading inte spaside the mountain. -Bingo.-

  Opening my eyes again, I wasted no time calling over Eve and running into one of the entrances, rather quickly shaking Eve's skepticism as we found incredibly rusted metal torch holders still embedded in the wall. "Oh my... Is this.. a dwarven city?"

  sidering Eve came from a world with dwarves, the cept of a city in a mountain wasn't su odd cept. -But...- "In worlds like this, it's not always dwarves." tinuing while reminisg for a moment, Eve started using light magic to light our path before I tinued. "When the survival of your world hinders on your city, hiding it in a mountain is an incredibly powerful survival tactiless the monsters you're fighting cave in a mountain or are small enough to fit through cave entrahere isn't really a limit to how long you survive, at least theoretically. The issue is you still must be able to cultivate crops and harvest wildlife for food, and if the moake all the food you and your people eat, the civilization will starve."

  "Iing..." Mumbling under her breath, she quickly sank into thought. "Is that what you think happened here? Do you think they starved?"

  "I'm not sure yet," I simply shrugged. "But I at least say that the all fauna in this world isly fav a different oute."

  tinuing deeper into the mountain, the cave slowly tapered down before eventually, we reached the cavern my aura had been showing me since we were outside.

  Having slowly gotte my aura over my vision, I no longer needed light to see rough shapes, even in plete darkness.

  But Eve wasn't quite like that. *hmmmMMMM* Increasing the iy of her light magic as she raised it over her head, light filled the cavern and exposed a massive city carved from stone, and fed from iron, littered with the mummified corpses of tless.

  "Looks like I was right."

  "Huek..." Finally reizing what the thick, earthy smell was ing from, Eve's expression darkened with a gag.

  But disgust was something she would just have to learn to cope with. "Sihere aren't any monsters in here, we'll split up. Take special note of things like libraries, bars, and churches, anywhere recorded text could be found, a up with me if you find anything iing or need help with something." -With how isoted this pce is, we might be lucky and find some readable paper...-

  "A-Alright..."

  But we weren't so lucky. After sending Eve off, and taking the time to scout for points of i, I decided to start with the tral pace, a structure built around a huge stagmite eg the floor and ceiling, but despite it being isoted from the elements for tless years, and being far better preserved than anything exposed to the elements, time had taken its toll on the pce.

  From living rooms full of tarnished furniture and mummified bodies, to the vast libraries being reduced to endless seas of dust, there wasn't much left.

  That was at least with the exception of the carvings, statues, and gold-embroidered scriptures.

  By the looks of things, the kingdom was one of the final bastions of the 'humanoid races' in this world, protected by a god known as 'the Grand Turtle' from a being known as 'the cataclysm'.

  From my experience, I expected it to be a dragon, especially sidering it was described many times as being capable of wearing 'the skin of a human', but as I read more that slowly seemed less and less likely. -Why.. is he never described fighting..?-

  Throughout the scriptures, 'the cataclysm' was stantly depicted as a humanoid anding an army of monsters rather than being a moself, and ainted more as a figurative, god-like figure than something that actually existed, but at the same time, seemed to act almost like an administrator. -I wonder...-

  Questioning if the figure could have been an administrator who took wiping the world into his own hands, I had to resider what the assassination target of my mission really was. -It couldn't be an administrator.. right..?- It ossibility I had never even sidered, not in this world, or any other... -Even in my hardest missions, nothing ever got close to that extreme...- And with only a small portion of my peak strength, if my target was indeed an administrator, it wasn't just me that was fucked...

  Looking over toward Eve's aura, a few kilometers away, emotion drained from my face, and my mind exploded with thought, rag to e up with a way to make sure she survived if the worst-case sario came to fruition.

  But there was nothing.

  If the target was an administrator, while I could keep myself alive, I wouldn't be able to do anything if it targeted Eve. I just had no way to kill it, or even slow it down.

  However, there was one piece of evidehat gave me hope.

  The estimated css of the assassination target was listed as 'upper-demigod', not a god or administrator. -If it were an administrator.. the system would cssify it as such.. right..?-

  So, simply praying that upper-demigod just wasn't just the highest possible css that every enemy above a certain level got thrown into.. weeks passed ihe city, Eve and I brainstormed hoould tinue forward, and I didn't waste a single sed of practice with my aura.. even if it didn't get me evehe level I needed.

  After a while, we had eventually found some carvings depig a pce that was the home of the cataclysm, a rge volic mountain range some eight thousand kilometers north, a hts on it.

  Or at least.. I did...

  "We still don't know for sure that it's an administratht? What if it's just one of the monsters randomly roaming the world?" Notig my pessimism, Eve tried her best to stay optimistic.

  But optimism wasn't what kept me alive for half a millennia. "No, you o stay here. I 't protect you if shit hits the fan, and if the target does end up being an administrator you will die before the fight even starts..."

  Pnning on leaving Bel with her to alert me if anything happens, my pn was to travel north to the 'home of the cataclysm' on my own, in hopes of pleting the mission without Eve being put at risk. My thoughts were that, if the target was an administrator, I could at least stay alive until I could either figure something out, and if it wasn't, I could either gain more information on it, or straight up kill it without needing to worry about my surroundings. -Because at the very least, it will be a step up from the wyvern...-

  But Eve was adamant. "What if something ihe mountain-"

  "Nothing has for thousands of years, why would something now?"

  "W-Well-"

  "Eve." Sharpening my gaze, I shot a gre into her eyes.. into her soul. "ing with me will almost certainly get you killed. Do you want that to happen? Do you want to experiehe pain of your body being bloart? Do you want all those who care about you to mourn after realizing you didn't return from the mission?"

  She instantly shriveled up.

  "Your life is the most valuable asset you have, so why are y to give it up so badly? To 'help'?!" Notig her shying away, I pulled myself bad pihe bridge of my nose, letting out a deep sigh. "Haah... Look, Eve, I'm not abandoning you here, if your instincts tell you something is wrong, you tact me through Bel, but I'm far too weak to fight with you o me Eve. I'm not in my prime, I 't just swat a demigod into a thousand pieces on a whim, and even if I could, administrators are on a pletely different level. If you e with me, one wrong step and you'll die withnizing what even killed you, so.. just sit tight for me.. please..."

  Taking a step back, her gaze fell and her expression darkened.

  She was afraid... She khe moment I left, she was the equivalent of a newborn mb in the eyes of the monsters of this world. Even if she was hiding away, she was fighting against the odds.

  But those odds were better than if she came with me...

  So.. she stayed. I took out Bel gave her some stuff in case Eve , ahe city, heading north, unsure whether I was going to be smmed face-first into the ground by an administrator, the neck of a chi...

  It was all up to ce.. up to fate...

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