by Nefarious
The night passed by painfully slowly.
38. Kajan
* * *
Orion walked half-dazed, the soil squelching under his boots. It had been a month since the Seekers had left Visgamar, and the time spent in the wild showed on his body. His skin was tight, and his body was thin, burning through the food he had eaten a day before to keep his legs moving. There were dark bags under his eyes and he had a bronze tan.
A howl washed over the party, then another, and another. Orion stopped, listened, then continued trudging through the Kajan rainforest. Over the course of the journey, he had toughened and learned to use his limited energy effectively. The most important aspect to this skill was judging what was threatening and what was merely fear-inducing.
The surrounding rainforest was teeming with life. Battle cries and mating calls were alike the breath of the forest, as common as the droplets of rain sliding off leaves - rushing to arm yourself for each one was foolish. There were many smells around them, berries releasing crisp, sweet scents while the mud gave off an overwhelming tasteless scent. To a Westerner like Orion, the damp and heat together were a constant pain, condemning his thoughts to barely coherent passages.
His fellow Seekers around him reacted similarly to the howl, apart from Cyae. She somehow had the willpower to stay both vigilant and march over mud and branches alike. Orion had begun by respecting her for it, but after they had to butcher their horses for quick supplies, he began to hate her continued diligence.
Either way, it was little comfort but comfort nonetheless to know Kora and Lilith hated this trip as much as him. On the other hand, Joiroa tread through the mud with ease, his expression as passive as always. Maybe that was the benefit of being tortured, Orion thought, smirking a little.
As they toiled through the forest, the distant howls grew close. Scanning his surroundings, Orion slung his bag off his shoulders and onto a dry patch, nodding to Kora as she gave a thumbs up. Digging through his quiver, he picked several arrows rough with dried blood and put one to his bow, pulling the string and holding his stance. His breath slowed, and his heartbeat faded from his mind, his focus solely on the bushes in front.
He heard a howl from his side but didn’t stir. It didn’t surprise him the pack had circled them, and as much as he hated and envied Cyae’s mind of steel, he equally trusted her to act as a deadly buffer in case of such a flank. Suddenly, a dark figure burst out of the wet clump of leaves in front; he released the bowstring, the arrow zipping through the air. He drew a second arrow and turned, releasing at another Tawny wolf as it emerged.
In his rush, he jabbed his finger against the shaft of an arrow but ignored the pain and kept firing, incapacitating the wolves. Moments later, he grasped at the quiver and grabbed thin air: he had held off making new arrows due to his daily exhaustion and now felt its price. Grinning manically at his fortune, he pulled his longsword and sidestepped an open-maw lunge. He struck as the wolf retreated, before rushing to end all the wolves he had crippled.
It was a matter of minutes before the forest grew momentarily quiet, Orion huffing as he skinned the fur off a wolf with his knife. Lilith joined him in this task while Kora leaned against her greatsword and Cyae surveyed the area. Joiroa eased down the tree he had scrambled up, coming to watch over Orion and Lilith as they got on with their task.
In less than an hour, they left the bloody area with enough meat for a day. Conversation had drawn to a still a long time ago so they followed the weather-beaten directions in the forest in silence.
While they got into two more minor fights along the way, Orion’s wish for weeks came to fruition several hours later as they were trying to decipher which way the wooden post had pointed before being clawed down by a cruel beast. A young man with strands of ginger in his beard, alike Flynn from long ago, strode from the bushes, a taut shortbow in his hand, the arrowhead gleaming in the light.
“Seekers?” he called in a friendly manner, his slitted eyes telling a different tale.
“Yes, we’re here for the Awakening,” Cyae replied, meanwhile her hand edged towards her shield.
“Good,” the ginger man said, lowering his bow. He ignored the party gripping onto their weapons as he continued, “It’s best you follow me – these posts are far too old and broken to get you there,”
“And you are?” Kora asked, voicing the concern they all held.
“An instructor, I guess,” he replied. “And it’s best if you don’t test me – I don’t show mercy to idiots,”
“And where’s the proof?” Kora said.
He shook his head. “You’ve already been lucky to get all the way here without running into anything dangerous, you might as well trust that luck a bit longer. Now, come on,” He paced away from them.
The group looked at one another, each asking the same silent question while Joiroa stared into blank space. Lilith nodded and the others slowly came to, jogging to catch up to the ginger man who sped through the rainforest as if it was his garden. The man replied to their questions with short answers, keeping them on hold for tens of minutes until they came to a wide clearing in the forest.
In the clearing were several wooden huts with few people around. There was a large flag in the centre with the Seeker’s logo, a silhouette of a figure holding a sword. The ginger man led them towards another older man. This old man was clean shaven with heavy jowls under his neck and a large belly. He had been staring intently at the newcomers since they had entered his sight.
“Who are these, Leo?” asked the fat man. “Fresh blood?”
“That’s what they say, Jowler,” answered the ginger man.
“Where are you kids from? Who sent you, eh?” Jowler asked.
“Smith from Visgamar,” Cyae answered.
Jowler burst into laughter, all too similar to Smith. “Oh, that idiot. He gave you a letter or something, yeah?”
Cyae dug through her pack and gave him the letter.
He stared at it for several moments before smiling at them. “I knew the dark one wasn’t with you. Why’s he here?”
Joiroa, who had gotten bored waiting, was now looking around. The other Seekers turned to Orion at the question, including Kora.
“Uh, he’s a friend,” Orion said.
“What is he? A desert raider who spent too long in the sun? Does he speak the common tongue?”
Orion gulped and shook his head, the impulse of his earlier action now striking him as stupid.
“Well, the closest I’ve seen to such dark skin is from the Metoles and he certainly ain’t no Metole. And his eyes, I’ve never seen red eyes from anyone, not even the savages,” Jowler continued.
The emotions in their voices had attracted Joiroa back to the conversation, and he figured they were talking about him from the way they looked at him. He passively stared at Jowler, who scrutinised him back. Deep inside, Joiroa knew he should have let them kill him: better to have died than have entered this foreign land with no hope and no knowledge.
“Normally I wouldn’t let anyone in, but you know what, I’m interested in this guy. How about this, I’ll let him stay if you order him to stay with me over the period,” Jowler said.
Orion looked at him incredulously, wondering why he needed Orion’s permission for that. If Jowler was the boss here like he seemed, it wasn’t like Orion could deny him. Eventually, though, he regained his composure and nodded, to which the fat Seeker grinned.
“Good lad. Anyway, Leo, take them to their rooms. Let’s show them some hospitality after their tough journey,” Jowler said, to which the ginger Seeker grinned as if sharing a joke.
39. Training for life by death
* * *
Dropping his bag to the ground, Orion stretched his body. Taking his shirt off, he looked at himself in the dim light. His arms were lean, his muscles more defined than before despite shrinking. There were bruises and scars all across his body, mostly light wounds but some heavy. Kora had treated him several times during the trip, but the w
ounds still showed.
He spent what little time he had laying on the bed, one with a frame made of wood and a mattress made of giant leaves. Just as he dozed off, he heard a bell ringing from outside. Pushing himself up, he dressed himself. Each of the Seekers had a separate hut, his around 5 metres in diameter with a thatched roof. It was furnished with a bed, a wooden table with a drawer, and a glubber’s wax lamp on top of the table.
He stepped out at the same time as Lilith, who gave him a tired smile. Cyae and Kora already stood by Leo who held the bell. They had both changed into cleaner, lighter clothes, as had Lilith, singling out Orion from the get-go.
“Hurry up!” Leo shouted, his earlier calmness morphed into a stern anger. At least his temper fit his role as an instructor, Orion thought.
“Follow me,” the ginger Seeker said when they grouped together, bringing them to a towering tree.
From a glance, the tree looked like its neighbours, just a little larger. But as Orion gave a closer look, he noticed scars along the tree’s bark and around the branches.
“You’re lucky Jowler gave you twenty minutes of rest. Now, I want to see how fast you can climb this tree,” Leo said. He pointed at Cyae, “You go first,”
The short-haired Seeker didn’t fluster, instead, she immediately circled the tree, searching for the best place to start from. Once she found a branch low enough, she began climbing, swinging and pulling her way up, reaching the top in twenty minutes.
“Well, are you going to come down?” Leo roared, seeing her resting at the top.
Once she was back on ground, Leo looked at the group with disgust. “Pathetically slow, I can’t believe how much the Seekers have deteriorated. Since we don’t have all day, you three go up at once. Remember, fast, not slow,”
Since they had watched Cyae’s attempt, the three of them found better routes, each going faster than she had. Lilith was the slowest, using the same technique as Cyae, while Kora was faster due to her pure strength, allowing her to swing off branches with greater force. Still, Orion was the fastest because he was light and nimble, allowing him to zip up and down in fifteen minutes. Leo nodded at him and waited for the other two, Kora touching ground in twenty minutes and Lilith in thirty.
“Better, but still lacking. Not one of you could last against a 5-star solo, let alone a 6-star in a group.” Leo said. Receiving incredulous and confused expressions in response, he continued, “Yes, I know you’ve all killed 5-star monsters but you must be able to do that by yourselves now, otherwise you’ll drag down any team hunting a higher ranked monster. Based on how fast you went, Cyae, do 4 laps of the tree, Lilith 4, Kora 6, Jax 8. You’ve got 2 hours to finish your laps; I will make sure anyone who fails in that time starves tonight!”
The instant he finished, the four Seekers began climbing up the tree. Orion cursed his luck as he pulled himself to the top – he had considered it a speed exercise and had wanted to impress. If he had known it to be an endurance activity, he would have gone as slow as Cyae.
By the time the first hour passed, Orion was on track for dinner having completed 5 laps. The following hour, however, was a downhill battle. His muscles ached, and he feared they had torn at one point; his chest heaved and he was constantly out of breath. But worse than these was his mind. During the sixth lap, his mind went off track, the 100m drop down suddenly seeming awfully attractive. It was a challenge to keep his body in one piece, one he almost failed on his last lap as he tripped on the way down, diving through 50 metres.
Even when Leo caught him, he didn’t faint from shock, much to his misfortune. He suffered the following minutes as his body felt broken, simply broken. They must have somehow walked back to the main camp without his awareness because the next time he came to, he was gorging on charred meat by a bonfire. The more he ate, the less his pain became. After enough mouthfuls, his body felt refreshed, but looking down, he saw his hands trembled in fear.
Glancing around, he saw around twenty Seekers enjoying meals around the bonfire. He spotted Cyae convulsing on the floor, he spotted people pointing at him and her and laughing, he spotted Leo walking up to him with Kora and Lilith behind.
“You should feel full after eating that much 6-star meat. You’ve got too much energy now, I bet you want to spend that somehow. Come on, after me,” Leo said. He said similar words to Cyae, soon bringing the four back to the giant tree. “You look a lot better now. I want 5 laps from Cyae and Lilith, 7 from Kora, and 9 from you, Jax,”
Seeing them standing dazed at the enemy they believed they had destroyed, his mood changed. “NOW!” he roared, the anger behind his voice driving them up the tree.
Orion managed to do 5 laps before the pain rapidly mounted up. He vividly remembered the sixth one, the searing pain and his pride at finishing it. The rest of his memories were fuzzy: some from his seventh lap, slipping from a branch; some from his eight lap, losing his grip and falling, and one from his ninth lap, him heaving under the lowest branch of the tree, headstrong on pulling himself up while his body denied him.
When he awoke the next day, somehow in his hut, he didn’t see the same nightmares as always, the ones of the fateful day his life had changed, the day his family’s lives had been reaped. Instead, he awoke to a lack of sense from his limbs, feeling alarmed as he desperately tried to move the limbs that had turned to stone overnight.
Eventually, Leo came in and piggybacked him to breakfast, where he met and fell in love with his limbs all over again, swearing to them he would never push his body so hard. It seemed Leo didn’t care for Orion’s promises as he forced the four to lift stones all day. Orion was the weakest, Lilith just above, followed by Cyae, and Kora who was far above. It turned out Leo didn’t give a shit about their strength either as he pushed them all to breaking point anyway.
Even when Orion tried to go against the man by plopping on the ground and swearing not to move, Leo would just take him to the food court where the temptation for food was too much for Orion to resist. The second he was full, he was lifting stones again, breaking his back along the way.
The day after that was dedicated to willpower building. Leo took them to a waterfall where torrents of water cascaded down to a ferocious river. There was a rope fastened just above the river which they were meant to hang from, taking the force of the water with their bodies and not letting go. When they did inevitably let go each time, they were fished out. Death was a close companion throughout the training, and while Orion never held hands with the bony man, there were times he swore he saw him while sinking, his breath depleting by the second.
Even when refreshed by the meat, Orion felt the impulse to run from Kajan to live as a hermit somewhere. But when seeing the others go through the same trials as him, seeing them endure, it pushed him past boundaries he had thought immovable. It was only much later he would learn Leo had an equal part in keeping him in the torturous training, after all, the man had gained peculiar skills from his awakening.
On the fourth day, Leo told them it was sense training, grinning after that. Along with their usual 6-star monster meat, they were fed a mix of leaves, stalks, and mushrooms. They then entered a simple obstacle course, told to complete it in a limited time. While Orion could swear he saw Death the day before, he knew for certain he met the Reaper during senses training, multiple times at that.
Their lives at Kajan carried on like this, their trainings repeating regularly for an immeasurable amount of time. Immeasurable because Orion gave up on counting after a bit, instead, solely using his energy to face his days. Leo spiced up the trainings as time passed as he added new sorts such as speed training, agility training, weapon training, and such.
The day when they would awaken neared, and soon enough, without any of them realising, they were thrust into the Seeker Guild’s greatest secret.
40. Seeker’s Elixir
* * *
The Laeshi swooped low, dodging a high hanging branch. The trees below him were massive. Yet, they appeared in poor health, the
ir trunks painted in dull and rotten colours, their branches drooping as if all life had been sucked out. There were few animal cries despite the size of the forest and even those sounded desperate.
Rising in the air, the Laeshi saw what seemed to be a mirage in the distance, a colossal castle shimmering in the mist - he knew better than to believe that though. He had been flying for several months, almost nonstop. Midway, he had even abandoned his crew, too blinded by the reward to wait any longer, and he knew for certain the castle in front of him was all too real.
It was the Fullhorn’s House. They rarely allowed visitors in but he would be, he was certain of that much. The Laeshi smirked as he thought of their name - Fullhorn. It proved how stupid humans were, to believe the Cruorems were humans all this time and not doubt a thing, and this showed why humans were unwitting prey in the food chain.
Minutes later, landing on the cold stone, the Laeshi folded his wings in and straightened his clothes and hair. His steps echoed in a haunting manner as he paced down a dark tunnel, navigating his way to the bottom layer. But as he was passing through a corridor, glancing over his shoulders every few moments, he found a large, muscular man leaning on the wall by the end of the corridor, seemingly waiting for him.
“You have balls, Laeshi, I’ll give you that. To enter our House without permission, you certainly have balls. Though, I guess you won’t be needing them after today,” the muscular man said, his eyes still shut.
“No, lord. I come with news,” the Laeshi answered.
The muscular man didn’t bite the hook, instead remaining quiet, perfectly still like a statue.
“It is to do with your lost lamb, Bian.”
The muscular man opened his eyes, his expression tightening into a scowl, the feeble light casting a deep shadow over his face. “What?” The man faced off the Laeshi for a while, before beckoning him to follow. “Either way, you’ve lost all say in your life already. Be it true, you will be a king. Be it false, the dogs can have a treat tonight!”