Light (Buryoku Book 2)

by Aaron Oster

  “If…” he continued, talking over her. “You do something for me.”

  Aika shut her mouth, seemingly surprised by that.

  “What could we possibly do for you that you can’t do for yourself?” she wondered aloud.

  “That,” he said, “is none of your business. Let’s just say that I can’t do it for personal reasons and leave it at that. Now, are you prepared to do this or not?”

  “Depends on what it is we’re doing,” Aika immediately replied.

  “Fetching an item from a nearby Dungeon.”

  “A Dungeon dive?” Roy asked, surprised.

  He hadn’t been aware of any nearby Dungeons. In fact, Geon had the ability to sense them and would have mentioned it if he’d felt one in the vicinity. Even though Roy hadn’t been able to hear him when he’d been here previously, they had been here for an entire week already, which should have given him ample time to inform him of any.

  “Yes,” Hermit replied. “There is a Dungeon some hundred miles to the east of here. There is an item that is guarded by the Dungeon’s Guardian that I would very much like to have. If you can retrieve it for me, I will agree to become your teacher.”

  “How are we supposed to safely reach this Dungeon? And, for that matter, can the two of us even retrieve the item you want?” Aika shot back, her gaze calculating.

  The man sighed, as though he’d been hoping they would just accept and leave him alone.

  “I will escort you there myself. And to answer your other question, yes, you can survive.”

  “Alright, we’ll do it,” Aika said before Roy could even voice his opinion on what a truly terrible idea this was. “And when we retrieve the item, you will agree to be our teacher for the course of five years!”

  Hermit growled under his breath. Apparently, he’d been hoping they wouldn’t specify any set time. This would mean that he could teach them for an hour, then say he’d fulfilled his end of the bargain, but with Aika setting specific terms, he wouldn’t be able to wiggle free.

  “Three months,” Hermit countered. “There’s no way that single item is worth so much of my time.”

  “Oh, really?” Aika shot back. “An item that you want but can’t retrieve on your own isn’t worth five years?”

  “No.”

  “Fine, then make it four and a half.”

  “I won’t do more than four months…”

  Roy settled back, knowing this would likely take a while. Aika seemed to really be enjoying herself, while Hermit seemed to be growing annoyed with his apparent lack of ability to get her to back off. That was fine with him. Any time Aika used to haggle was time that she wasn’t beating him black and blue.

  In the end, they settled on a year and a half. In that time, Hermit would teach them what he knew of the Martial Arts and do his best to see them grow. In return, they must fetch something called the Borefruit from the end of the Dungeon. When Aika tried to press for answers again, Hermit simply ignored her.

  “We’d best be on our way anyway,” he said, rubbing at his eyes. “It’s a long journey, and I’d like to get this over with.”

  “Someone seems excited to be going,” Aika said with a grin.

  “No. Not excited. The sooner you fail this Dungeon, the sooner you’ll leave me alone. That’s all.”

  Aika opened her mouth to say something else, but Hermit simply turned his back on her and began shuffling through the forest.

  She shared a look with Roy, who shrugged, then began following him. There was only one way forward, and following the man was the way to do it. He didn’t know how long it would take to reach this Dungeon at the speed they were going, but he sincerely hoped it wouldn’t be too long. He was eager to get this over with as well.

  “This is it,” Roy said tiredly, looking up at the towering cliff rising up in the distance.

  They’d been traveling for four days, hardly stopping at all for food or rest. Hermit seemed eager to get there as quickly as possible and seemed to forget that Roy and even Aika, were still human. Apparently, he wasn’t. Hermit looked exactly the same as he had before they’d set out, while Roy shuffled along, his shoulders slumped, and his eyelids drooping.

  Ferry was much better off, seeing as she didn’t require sleep, though Aika seemed to be feeling the effects of the prolonged travel as well. Though she wasn’t nearly as bad off as he was, her eyes were still bloodshot, and she looked in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.

  Geon had pointed out the Dungeon as soon as they’d come within range. Apparently, it was set halfway up the cliffside, hidden behind so much vegetation that its entrance had been concealed for what was likely to be centuries.

  “Yes. Up ahead, you will find the entrance to the Dungeon. I will remain here while the two of you forge on ahead. No creatures will come near while I am around, so you need not worry about being attacked,” Hermit said, slumping against a tree and closing his eyes.

  Roy and Aika shared a look. Then they collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

  “Sure, we’ll get right on that,” Roy said. “Just as soon as we get some sleep.”

  Hermit grumbled something under his breath, but Roy wasn’t listening. He was already fast asleep.

  Roy awoke to someone lightly shaking his shoulder.

  “Come on, we’ve got a long day ahead of us, and we should really get going.”

  He groaned, trying feebly to push Aika’s shaking hand away. But it was futile as the shaking only grew more insistent. When he felt like his brain might become dislodged due to the force, he finally had to admit defeat and open his eyes.

  The forest around him glowed in a multitude of colors, and the sliver of sky visible through the trees was dark purple.

  “It’s barely dawn,” he grumbled as he sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

  “Exactly!” Aika said, sounding way too chipper for this time of day. “Dawn is the best time to begin any day!”

  He glared at her, even as she handed him a leather water bottle.

  “I have to wonder if it’s a Green-Belt thing, or if you’re just a freak of nature,” he muttered.

  “Oh, it’s definitely the latter,” Geon helpfully supplied as Aika busied herself tending breakfast.

  “Figures,” he muttered, slowly getting to his feet and wincing at his sore muscles.

  He spent the next few minutes painfully stretching, very much regretting not doing so before he went to sleep. This had given his muscles the opportunity to seize up, resulting in the discomfort he felt now.

  “Come on. Food’s almost ready!” Aika called over her shoulder.

  Ferry came slinking into their makeshift camp then, her nose twitching at the scent of the meat, which Roy found surprising. He hadn’t been aware that Beasts ate meat. They killed people, but that was simply to get their Essence and nothing more. It also seemed to him that she was a bit sulky. He figured it was likely because she wasn’t going to be allowed into the Dungeon with them.

  As the previous Guardian of Geon’s Dungeon, the Dungeon they were about to enter would view her as a threat and send everything it had at her. And in an unknown Dungeon with an unknown threat level, it was too great a risk to take.

  “Where’s Hermit?” Roy asked as he approached the fire.

  “No idea,” Aika replied, handing him a steaming piece of meat. “But I’m sure he’s somewhere around here. Now eat up. We really need to get going!”

  Roy sighed, accepting the flat piece of bark and going to sit by a nearby tree. In all truth, he was growing sick of eating Beast meat. Despite their variety, they all seemed to taste the exact same. Had they not offered the bonuses that they did, such as increased Essence flow and better overall fitness, he might not have eaten it at all.

  “You’re not fooling anyone by thinking like that,” Geon said. “You eat that food because it keeps your squishy body from dying.”

  Roy’s lips turned down, and he cut off the connection. It seemed that he’d allowed his thoughts to bleed throug
h. He was getting sloppy and if he wanted to keep his thoughts separate from the alien entity living in his body, he would have to be more careful.

  It didn’t take him long to finish his breakfast, after which he pulled the sleeveless mail vest over his head. It was light and wouldn’t impact his overall movement. He really hoped it would give him some meager protection in the Dungeon. Aika beamed at him as he tied his Belt off and nodded with his head to the nearby forest. In the distance, perhaps a mile away, the towering cliffs rose out of the wilderness.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered as she fell into step beside him, humming under her breath.

  It seemed that Geon had been quite right. Aika was completely nuts.

  ***

  “Why did you send them there when you are perfectly capable of going yourself?”

  Kai sighed, wishing the Core would just mind its own business.

  “You know, you can’t ignore me…”

  He continued ignoring the Core, watching the two children weaving their way through the forest toward the Dungeon.

  “If you keep ignoring me, I’m going to start singing,” the Core threatened.

  “Fine,” Kai finally relented.

  If there was anything worse than the insufferable nattering, it was the singing. Once, when he’d been a bit younger, he’d decided to put the Core to the test. He’d called its bluff, and the Core had indeed begun singing. After four days of its off-tune warbling, he’d finally given in and done as it had asked. Now, when he threatened to sing, Kai immediately caved, not wishing to repeat that horrible experience.

  “I’m going to have to go back, as you well know. My ideal demands it, now that I’ve seen how far the clan has fallen. I have been away for a very long time, and it would be nice to have someone there to take care of everything I don’t want to do.”

  “So, you agreed to teach them so they would do everything while you lazed around.”

  “I wish,” he said with a snort. “Those two wouldn’t last ten minutes in the Empire without me, and you know it.”

  “That still doesn’t answer the question. You found that Dungeon three hundred years ago. The item you’ve been searching for has been there the whole time, yet you still insisted on going out and hunting Beasts for it. I already told you what the chances were for finding it in one of their Cores, and you never did.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m not saying anything. Just asking why you’re sending them in there, when you could have gone at any time.”

  “I have my reasons…”

  “Don’t give me that! We’ve been together for far too long for you to be playing these games with me. Now give me a straight answer, or else!”

  Kai craned his neck up, his gaze easily piercing the foliage to gaze upon the Dungeon entrance. The rainbow-colored portal swirled and twisted, inviting him into another world, one where he could find the item he’d been seeking for so long. There was a simple answer to the Core’s question.

  “I didn’t go because I didn’t want to,” he answered with a sigh. “Getting it would mean moving on, and you know well what that would mean for the both of us. I wanted things to stay as they were, if only for the time being.”

  “So why send them now?”

  “They will need to grow stronger before entering the Empire. And I wish to enjoy what little time I have remaining here on my own. If they succeed, and I do not doubt that they will, I’ll have to set out immediately, instead of dragging my feet.”

  “But why hunt all these years when you could easily have done nothing?”

  He sighed once again, watching the children’s final approach to the cliff face.

  “If I had done nothing, my ideal would have forced me back a long time ago. When I hunted, in my mind at least, I was fulfilling my obligation.”

  “And what exactly is your ideal? It changed at some point. That’s why you left, wasn’t it? I’ve kept my peace about you hiding it from me up until now, but if we’re going back into that, you’re going to have to tell me.”

  Kai let out one last, long sigh. He truly despised the man he had been back in the old days. Itachi Hakai, the Sage of Ruin. Back in those days, he’d been proud of that name. Hakai, in the old tongue, meant destruction. It suited him quite well. He’d brought ruin and destruction to so many clans that he’d permanently painted his very soul with the color of their blood.

  Even now, hundreds of years later, he could not get rid of it. They still haunted him, manifested when he chose to sleep, and made his solitude necessary. Now, though, he would need to reenter society. What the Core had said was true. His ideal had changed. Back during the war of the Great Clans, his ideal had been his namesake. He’d lived for destruction.

  Now, though…now, things were different. He no longer craved destruction as he once had. He had rejected the name given to him, despised it down to his very soul, yet he could not rid himself of it so long as his Core remained stained with the blood of innocents. He had held off on what needed to be done, not because he had no other choice, but because he felt he deserved to feel the pain he’d inflicted upon others.

  “You want to know my ideal, but I’m pretty sure you’ve already figured it out,” he replied, leaning back in the tree branch, towering high above the forest floor.

  “It’s honor, isn’t it?”

  Kai nodded. His ideal had indeed changed, and to something he never thought he’d know in his lifetime.

  “Honor by any means. For myself, and for those related to me. To right the wrongs of my clan, honor demands I return. But for right now, at this moment, I can enjoy my solitude one last time.”

  34

  Sweat beaded Roy’s brow as he snared his hand in a set of vines above his head, then hauled his body upward. The cliff face was completely sheer, even from the outset. However, it was covered in vegetation, which they were now using to haul themselves up toward the Dungeon entrance.

  “How much farther is it to the entrance?” Roy asked as he stopped for a moment to rest his burning arms.

  Despite how much better off he was now, he still hadn’t quite recovered from the long trip here, and his body was making him pay for it.

  “Oh, about another five hundred or so yards,” Geon replied.

  Roy looked down, seeing the forest flood nearly a thousand feet below. He found that heights didn’t much bother him, though being this high up with only these vines and vegetation stopping his fall didn’t make him feel too good.

  “We’d get there faster if you just kept moving!” Aika said, her face tight and pale.

  Roy would have teased her if only to get back at her for this morning. It seemed Aika was deathly afraid of heights. He had to wonder how she’d managed to climb to the top of the Basin where they’d had their talk before her Green-Belt test. He decided he’d ask once they were safely inside the Dungeon.

  She would have moved on ahead if she could, but Geon was their navigator and seeing as the entrance was so well hidden, it would be easy for her to miss. And if anything was worse than climbing up, it was climbing back down. Roy couldn’t really understand the twisted logic but Aika had said that when she was going up, she at least didn’t need to see the ground. It would be a different story on the way down.

  Roy continued climbing, squinting his eyes as dirt showered down on him from above. The higher they climbed, the more they disturbed areas that hadn’t been touched in centuries. This led to some of the cliff face being treacherous, as it had never been subjected to any weight. His muscles were burning, and his arms were shaking by the time Geon said they were getting close.

  He looked down at Aika, who was climbing directly below him, then to the ground far down. They were nearly three thousand feet up by now and Roy could see the world spread out like a massive blanket. The Lighted Fields – which were more of a forest than fields – looked like a swaying rainbow, covering the land for as far as he could see.

  In the distance, far to the west and barely v
isible on the horizon, he could make out the towering stone wall of The Crater. It cast a long shadow over a good portion of the glowing forest, and thunderclouds could be seen hovering in the distance. To the north, all he could see was the forest, but far to the south, he could see the trees thinning out, turning into a massive field of swaying grass. Or so he thought. He couldn’t really be sure from this far out.

  “If you don’t move in the next five seconds, I’m going to toss you off this cliff!”

  Roy started, nearly slipping from his precarious perch as Aika’s voice broke through his musings.

  “Sorry!” he called down, quickly beginning his ascent once again.

  “A little to your left. Not that far! Back a little… now keep climbing, and…we’re here!”

  Roy stopped before a completely ordinary-looking section of the cliff face. The vegetation was just as thick here as it was all around.

  “You sure this is the right place?” Roy asked.

  “Of course, I’m sure! All you have to do is clear away the brush and you’ll be able to see the entrance.”

  Shrugging, Roy reached out and snagged a handful of vines, then heaved outward, dislodging them and a huge clump of dirt. He blinked and spat as it showered onto him, covering his face and going into his mouth. It was damp and soggy, as well as cold. While it had been relatively warm lower down, up here, it was a good thirty degrees colder.

  In the beginning, the cold hadn’t affected him much, but now he was starting to feel it. He heard Aika cursing from below as dirt rained down on her too, but he ignored her and continued working. His fingers were beginning to grow numb by the time he cleared enough of the brush away to see the swirling entrance.

  “Finally!” Aika exclaimed as he hauled himself up onto the narrow ledge upon which the entrance was situated.

  Roy offered her a hand in helping her up, which she gratefully accepted, pulling herself onto the ledge and huddling as close to the entrance as she could without actually entering. The two of them took a moment to catch their breaths, then shared a look.