Chapter 2:
The Manic Mage and the Would-Be Demon Lord
My parents might have found it wondrous that two sets of similar ruins existed in such close proximity, but to me, it was nothing but a nuisance. Maybe if they had at least been different, but they were so similar I felt that I had just spun in a giant circle and ended up where I began. Of course, the ruins I awoke in were devoid of the thick vegetation engulfing this one, but everything else, down to the markings and the pottery shards were damn bear identical.
Thanks to several thick trees and vines that spiraled up into it, more of the roof was still held up, and shadows buried the ruins where the vines had taken over. In some places, the thick foliage even acted as a makeshift roof, small pinpricks of light barely breaking through. It looked and smelled like the forest around it.
I snatched a leaf off a nearby plant and gave it a quick sniff. It smelled fine to me, but not like I knew anything about flora. I used it to wipe off some of the blood on my knee. It was just a shallow scrape, and the bleeding was already stopping, but it still looked messy. I scrunched up the leaf when I was done and tossed it to the side.
I sighed and turned my attention back to the temple. If the other one was where I started, perhaps this one would work as an ending point. Maybe all I had to do is find another strange slab and lay on it to go back home. And maybe pigs could fly. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
At least it didn’t hurt to check it out. I mean, what else was there really that I could do? I could keep wandering around hoping to find some big clue, but I didn’t even know what I was looking for. I almost regretted not learning more about my parents’ research, but it was bit a fleeting thought. I’m sure I’d know when I saw it.
The structure inside was laid out very similar to the ruins I woke up in (it may have been identical, but I didn’t try to map it out). The walls and ceilings were broken apart differently, but they jutted around to create tiny rooms. I even found another stone pit, though unlike the one in the original ruins, the ceiling above this one was still intact and there was no water filling it. Instead, it housed a number of plants that tried to swallow it. Too bad; it would have been nice to refill my makeshift water jug.
I wandered around looking for the room with the slab. I knew it wasn’t far from the stone circle, but I wasn’t sure which direction it was in either. I tested each side slowly, going around rooms and leaving marks that I had passed through it to remember. I tore leaves from the vines and kicked shards of pottery together to form small piles. I walked in circles several times, coming back to these makeshift markers despite my best efforts. I went back and tried different directions, making progress slowly but surely.
Even so, I was quickly getting frustrated. My water was empty so I discarded the pot as a marker in one of the rooms I passed through. The absence of the added weight was a brief reprieve, but my feet were starting to hurt and I was exhausted. My throat was hurting again and my stomach growled angrily from hunger. I cursed under my breath and angrily kicked a loose piece of stone across the floor.
There was a loud ‘thunk’ and my eyes followed where the stone had stopped. Right before me, just one more room over, was the damned slab I was looking for. However…it looked quite a bit different than the one I had awoken on.
I cautiously approached it, stopping a few feet away from it. Unlike the one in the original ruins where it was just empty, this one held a large ornate box on top. Based on the size and length, I couldn’t help but see it as a sarcophagus.
I hesitated to approach it any closer. There was something off about the sarcophagus, but I couldn’t really explain it. It was just a feeling. The sarcophagus was carved from dark black stone, decorated in symbols and pictures that had no meaning to me whatsoever, but some of the carvings didn’t look very nice. My interpretation of them was people burning and monsters tearing them apart. It was all in very bad taste, but maybe my guess was wrong. Maybe rather instead it was a tale of the heroics of whoever laid inside to rest.
The chill that ran through my body wouldn’t dissipate as I stared at the sarcophagus. There were several things that struck me as odd. First off, if this was a tomb for someone, shouldn’t it have been kept in better shape? Not only were the ruins dilapidated, but the forest had been allowed to swallow up this place. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but looking closer, I could see chips and scratches even on the sarcophagus itself. I mean, of course, ancient places got left behind and forgotten all the time, but this place felt more like it had been intentionally abandoned. No, what was I thinking? I was losing my mind.
In any case, I wasn’t going to find out anything just staring at the thing from across the room. I slowly crept closer to it. I felt a buzzing in my ears, and it only grew louder as I inched forward. I brushed it off as just a bad case of tinnitus, but something in the back of my mind told me that wasn’t it.
I tried to swallow down my fear, but the lump got caught in my throat. I hacked out my breath, trying to calm myself down. I’m sure that whatever was in the sarcophagus was already dead, probably nothing more than a skeleton, or maybe at most, a mummified corpse. Either way, there was nothing to worry about. Whatever uneasiness I was feeling was just because of my fatigue and confusion. I was getting myself worked up over nothing.
As my luck would have it, I was only a couple feet away when the toe of my shoe caught on a raised part of the stone floor and down I went. I managed to catch myself along the edge of the sarcophagus, but not without first jamming my already injured knee into it and tearing the scab back open. I cursed under my breath and angrily slammed a fist into the lid.
I felt a jolt of electricity run up my arm. I stumbled backwards, landing hard on my back. My vision spun for a few seconds before I was able to shake the stun away. I clambered back to my feet, my knees shaking beneath me. What the hell!?
The ruins started to rumble around me. The sarcophagus shook with it, the lid nearly bouncing off from the force. Drips of black goo oozed out from the gaps and dripped down the side of the sarcophagus. They traced the shapes carved into the stone, zigzagging down towards the slab then sloshing angrily onto the floor. A large glob of ooze bubbled up from within it, throwing the lid off and across the room. I ducked and covered my head with my hands. The sound rang out when the lid slammed into a wall somewhere behind me.
What the hell!? What the hell!? What the hell!?
Okay, okay, so maybe…this wasn’t good at all. I should have just trusted my first instincts, but nooo, I wanted to investigate this damned place more. Why would the dead have anything with me returning back to my world? I let myself get too excited and caught up in nonsense! I needed to get out of here quickly.
I started to run, but something grabbed me roughly by the shoulder. I stumbled back towards the sarcophagus just as a black oozing figure slid down in front of me. It landed with an unnatural grace and rose up to tower over me. It loomed closer to me, the black sludge dripping off in clumps around me.
I just stared up at it, eyes wide with horror. What could I even do? I took a step backwards, but I ran into the slab and the sarcophagus in just a couple steps. I clung to the goopy side, not even minding for the moment how it stuck to my skin and clothing. The bigger problem at hand was decisively the monster watching me.
From deep within the large ooze form came a booming voice. “HNグルBMアルCHENカバSCAン二VEデンTHAシャ!?”
Its voice sounded human, but there was nothing else human about the monster. It dripped and oozed with every movement. There were no eyes, no face, nothing that gave it any definition. The creepy thing moved closer to me, stretching out towards me.
“HNグルBMアルCHENカバSCAン二VEデンTHAシャ!?”
I shrunk back. I heard sounds I recognized, but it came out as gibberish. I don’t know what it wanted, and I had no way of understanding it. My mouth flapped open but no sounds came out.
The monster lurched forward, roughly grabbing me by the head. I felt claws dig into the sides of my skull as ooze dripped down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed out, trying to swat the monster away from me. My head felt hot where it touched me. The ringing in my ears was back again, but this time even louder. A burning pain rushed through my head. All I could do was scream out louder.
Then just as suddenly as it grabbed me, the monster let me go. I stumbled to the side this time, skirting the sarcophagus. I quickly wiped the ooze from my face and the tears from my eyes.
“Geez, you don’t have to act like I’m a monster or something! Calm down there, girly!”
I blinked and looked over at the monster. What the actual hell!? Now it was speaking words I could understand? I continued to stare slack jaw at it.
The monster finally realized what it looked like. It lifted up something (an arm maybe) and gave it a shake. The black ooze flew free, and for a brief moment, I thought I saw something human-like beneath it. The thing dropped to all fours and gave its whole body a whole shake. The ooze covering its body flew off in every direction. I covered my face with my arms and turned away to getting any more of it in my eyes.
“Aah, much better! Sorry about that, been a while since I went in there.”
Turning back towards the monster, I was surprised to find myself instead staring at a tall, muscular and very shirtless man. I felt my face heating up, so I turned my attention to any other part of him instead.
While he looked human at first glance, there were some telltale signs that he wasn’t quite normal. His nails were abnormally long and curved. His wild purple hair almost hid his pointed ears and the two brown horns on top of his head. His eyes were a bright red that almost seemed to glow as my eyes met him.
“Ahem, so let’s try this again…thank you for letting me out of there! Who might you be?” He asked, tilting his head to the side. He was sort of mesmerizing…
I blinked at him. “Uh, I’m Akari Kanakubo. What’s going on here? What do you mean I let you out? And what did you do to me?”
He chuckled and leaned against a broken pillar. He folded his arms across his chest. “My, that is a lot of questions! I’ll answer them one at a time, okay, Akari? I just woke up after a really long nap so I’m still getting my bearings.”
He covered a yawn with a clawed hand. I glared at him.
“Just what are you? And you can’t just call me by my first name-”
He jumped to his feet. “I’m glad you asked! You can just call me Agnar, sorta my nickname ‘round here. I’m guessing you realize I’m not human. I was stuck in that big ol’ box here, but thankfully you came along and were able to undo the seal with your blood magic.”
I gave him a glare. “Agunaru? What are you talking about? Blood magic?”
“It’s Agnar. But of course, another question! But the seals on me could only be undone by the blood of an extremely powerful mage. One seal on this box here and one on the ruins itself. Ya can’t have just coincidentally removed them, right?”
I felt my face heating up again. “I-I may have tripped…”
He let out a loud laugh. “Man, they don’t make those mages like they used to! But anyways, Akari, let me move on to your next question. I have no idea what yer doing here, but my guess is ya woke up in that other set of ruins across the way. So, I suppose that just means it’s time for another battle...”
The smile on his face faltered for a moment. He dismissed whatever thought brought him down with a flick of his wrist. “Ah, but never mind that for now. That trick I did on yer head was to simply align yer magic better with the leylines of this world. Ya should be able to understand all the languages in this world with it. Cause ya clearly weren’t understanding me when ya first got here.”
This was starting to sound like some cliché anime. I rubbed my forehead. “Okay, okay, so let me guess…I was brought here from another world? And now that I’ve awoken you, you’re going to give me some crazy mission to go on and I have to save the world?”
Agnar raised an eyebrow at me. “What the heck? That really is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Ya really have no idea what yer doing here, do ya?”
I was back to glaring at him. “Of course not! I already told you that! I have no idea what’s going on here or even where here is! I wasn’t even sure anyone else was still alive in this place until I find you stepping out of a freaking coffin covered in black goop!”
I was panting by the time my little rant was over. He looked over at me, rubbing his chin. He mumbled something to himself, but I thought I heard him say something about the black ooze he had been coated in.
He finally settled back down on the broken column. He crossed his legs and shrugged. “Well, I ain’t got yer answers, lil Akari. Best head into the nearest village and ask the people there. I’m sure they already realize what’s going on.”
I angrily gripped my hair. “I would be in a village if I knew where one was!”
He let out another laugh. “Oh, now that one is something I can answer. Just cut through those trees there and ya’ll be at the village in no time. Ya can see it almost immediately when the trees start thinning.”
I felt ridiculous, even if there was no way I could have known any of that. I muttered my thanks to him and stormed off. He certainly wasn’t going to be of any help to me. I hoped that was the last I saw of him, but something told me, it wouldn’t be.
I took one glance back at him and caught him grinning and waving. I groaned and shook my head, turning my back on him. Right now, getting to the village was more important. Maybe then I could finally get some answers.
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