Campfire

The next few days flew by. Despite what Danyar had said, his attitude towards me hadn't gotten much warmer, and I couldn't blame him.

We spent our days hunting, extracting cores, and salvaging supplies from abandoned towns. We were headed west, hopefully towards one of the towns Medina had mentioned. But one thing was bothering me.

“My MP keeps going down,” I commented offhand one late afternoon.

Danyar chuckled in that dry and almost haughty fashion so proper to him.

“Well, it can't be this soul seal,” he replied.

He returned to digging out the window of a house, the insides of which had been protected from the sand and heat by a thick, uneven glass.

Right, that ability Carol gave me!

< Abilities: Summon. Soul-bond.>

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the text to give me any more detail than this. The only thing I could figure out was that this soul bond was consuming 3MP/minute, which was less than what I regenerated per minute, but still created a noticeable dent in my MP every time I dipped into its pool to summon my train.

“No, I think it is the soul bond,” I replied.

Danyar paused his digging efforts once more and gave me a quizzical look.

Should I just dismiss that ability? It's such a waste.

Danyar jammed his dagger in the dry wood of the window frame and pushed, trying to pry the glass away.

I approached him and knelt by his side. I pressed my hands around my eyes and stared into the house. There were blankets and furniture, but nothing really worth breaking in for.

What if the owners come back?

“Let's go,” I decided.

“Really?” Danayar looked like he was about to add something else, but he ultimately decided against it. “There might be a map in there,” he added instead, in an attempt to convince me.

“Yes, but it's so well preserved, let's keep it this way.”

He put the back of his hands over his lips and looked to the side.

“What?” I insisted this time.

“Do you really believe this… whole nonsense talk of the desert retreating and people returning to their homes once the Demon King is defeated?”

“Huh?”

“No one is coming back. They’ve either moved on or are dead and buried. You can’t possibly believe anyone would ever come back to this cursed place.”

He knocked on the window to prove a point. The sound echoed inwards, from and to the barren walls.

“Think of it this way, as unlikely as it is for the owners to come back, they’d lose more than what we would gain from breaking in, come on,” I tapped Danyar's shoulder.

He jerked away ever so slightly, and I promptly apologised before urging him to follow me once more. Slowly and reluctantly, he got up and we both walked back to the train.

“What did you mean with the desert retreating?”

A soft breeze blew over, burring our footsteps in the sand, and covering up the window Danyar had worked so hard to uncover.

He glanced at me, a neutral expression on his face.

“Just as I said. I don't think it's true. In fact, I have it on good credit that the Demon King has nothing to do with the desert swallowing up Dunija.”

“Oh?”

He nodded.

“No man can bring down what the gods have built. No man can bring it forth,” he quoted.

It was a translation, by the sound of it, and how the words didn't quite match together. But I got its general meaning.

“So what brought this desert forth?”

I glanced back at the hurried house. It wasn't hard to believe that the dunes had only recently claimed these lands.

“A calamity.”

Danayar stopped in his tracks and looked up to the sky.

He rested his spear on his shoulder and pointed towards the horizon, where we could just about make out the white outline of the larger moon.

“You must have been too young to see it, but that trail came down. The skies burned for several nights, and then the long winter came. We lost a lot of cattle that year, and when it was all over, the Demon King brought his army south.”

A meteorite? But there is no way Danyar witnessed that, and the desert appeared within the same generation. A lot of these houses have been abandoned for many decades, and this much sand couldn't have just mysteriously appeared.

“I am 22,” I said instead, taking the opportunity to inform at least one more person that I wasn't a child.

Danyar's eyebrows jumped up like they were about to perform a pole vault. His thin lips parted, but he ultimately didn't comment on it.

“How would defeating the demon lord make the desert retreat, though?” I returned to the original conversation subject.

“I wouldn't know, that's something your people have come up with,” Danyar shrugged.

We finally arrived at the train.

He climbed up first, and I put a hand onto the metal railing, while I watched him disappear inside the cab.

Should I just release the seal? It's a waste of Mana…

I thought about it, and as per this strange video game system's usual logic, nothing tangible happened. But when I went to check my Mana regeneration, it had returned to its former quick self.

“Hey Danyar,” I called out as I climbed up. “I'm not too sure what I did to the soul seal, but it's no longer draining my mana. I could, if needed, summon the train in fights now.”

I got inside the locomotive just in time to watch Danyar go ‘huh’. Arms crossed in an almost defensive stance, and a wary expression on his face, he asked:

“Aren't you worried about what will happen - what I'll do now? Before you get a chance to re-activate it?”

What does he mean?

“We're in the middle of the desert, there's nothing much either of us could do.”

I shrugged before pulling on the throttle and sending my train forth.

—

The sun set. And we found ourselves sat around a small campfire. The wagon adorned with the number 3 now served as a shared storage for a still sizable collection of chicken jerky and various supplies we'd found, including firewood.

Danyar stirred the embers with the end of a long stick, checking on the root vegetables that were cooking in them.

“Chiyo,” he called out. He put down the stick and sat back, arm resting on one folded-up knee. “Excuse my question if it's too direct, but what exactly are you doing out here in the desert?”

“Hunting monsters. You've seen my routine by now,” I plainly replied.

He tapped his knee and glanced to the side.

“What I meant is - why?”

Oh, I get it.

But I didn't have an answer to that question. Danyar frowned, as he must have thought that I was hiding my goals from him, but there was nothing more to that story.

“What else is there for me to do?” I asked. When a few more instances passed without him replying or softening his accusatory expression, I continued. “I never meant to - no, I never even thought I would end up in this desert with nothing but my water bottle of all things. Even these clothes,” I tugged at my green double collar, “were not mine. Neither is the train, nor anything in it. Even the language we’re speaking now is not my own. It’s all translated so we can understand each other."

I brought my knees under my chin and rested my arms over them. I waited for Danyar to reply, to call me out, or to give some helpful advice. Instead, he seemed to be lost in thought.

“I’m not like you in that sense,” He said, with a tone that was almost not bitter. “I’m not stuck in this desert, but I’m skilled enough that I could buy my own clothes, my own weapon, my own house.”

Except his own freedom. At least not from those people in that town.

Danyar frowned, clearly disappointed by something. I chose to overlook that and focus instead on a more pressing question.

“How did you end up in that arena?” I asked. My tone was calm, as I didn’t really mind if he didn’t answer this very personal and intrusive question.

“Why are you in this desert?” He replied, his tone shifting to match mine.

I signed and shook my head.

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know. There’s nowhere else for me to be, and there’s nowhere else I could possibly be. This is where I got dumped, and every single time we fight one of those giant things, I can’t even stop myself from thinking that this is where I will die. And all this,” I dropped my knees under me, and crossed my arms, “Is because of some mistake some assistant deity, or whoever - whatever - it was made.”

Danyar didn’t reply. He looked away, into the distance, perhaps trying to spot something interesting that could redirect this conversation. His tail dragged over the sand in small, almost nervous movements, and his hands were pressed into tight fists.

“Just say what you’ve got to say,” I shook my head. I brought my knee up and rested my arm on it, mimicking his pose. “Whatever it is, you’ll be feeling better once you get it off your chest.”

He stared into the distance for a minute longer before finally turning towards me and locking eyes.

“I don’t think I will, Chiyo. I don’t think there’s anything any of us can say to remedy the shit situations we’re in.”

He poked the vegetables once more, before kicking them out of the fire one by one, and tossing two charred and burning-hot balls to me. He cracked one open and watched it let out a puff of white smoke, and I mimicked him. These things were not quite like potatoes, tasting a fair bit bitter and being a swirling mixture of green and white on the inside, but they were similar enough.

“You asked me how I ended up in the arena, and the truthful but pithy answer is that I don’t remember.” He began his tale. “I got recruited by a group of adventurers some five years back. That cataclysm was fresh in everyone’s mind, and teenagers were looking for solutions to these problems, none of us really had a full grasp of. Recruited isn’t really the right word, I believed in their nonsense about the Demon King at the time, despite the obvious,” he gestured to his horns. “You know how it is at that age,” He nodded towards me, “When you’ve just realised that the world needs fixing, but are still for some reason still deeply convinced you yourself need fixing too.”

How old was he at the time, then, fifteen? He looks older than me, that can’t be.

I nodded. I had my phase of trying very hard to convince every single one of my family members to sell their cars because of their environmental impact. I was ten at the time, though, and it all ended with my uncle showing me a documentary on all the jobs car manufacturing created.

“How old are you now?”

Danyar scoffed, but he seemed genuinely amused by the question.

“I was definitely too old to be that stupid back then. I’m 24 now. And, before this story ends, where our story begins, it’s not like it was all bad. I learned a lot. About the world, about how far the Frjin Empire was ready to go to get some minor trade agreements with Duinya. But, anyway,” He gestured away.

I nodded.

“There were four of us at the time; Damir, Dianra, Rogier, and myself. We had a good party balance for a team without a healer or heavy magic user. Rogier dabbled, but all his skills were spliced from mage classes, and you’d know better than anyone what that means.”

I shook my head, but Danyar either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it.

“The talk of disbanding the party got more and more frequent. Rogier and I were thinking of heading back south, while those other two were dead set on ‘liberating’ the Cielese Sea and formally enlisting in the Frjin-Marteese military. One thing led to another, and we went sword to fangs with a blighted mille-pattes. Damir didn't make it, and the last thing I remember is being bitten in the chest.”

Danyar undid the string holding the folds of his shirt together and partially revealed a large semi-circular scar angling down from his biceps downwards.

I winced, just thinking how painful that must have been.

He nodded, silently confirming that it was indeed as painful as it looked.

“I never got to find out what happened to Rogier and Dianra. When I woke up, I was soul-bound to Carol, who despite appearances, never retired from adventuring.”

That sucks. Did she just find him out in the desert? Or did his friends leave him at her doorstep?

I didn't want to overstep, so I didn't ask.

“I'm sorry,” I said instead.

Danyar scoffed and looked away. He brushed aside a bang of green hair, and I could swear I saw him wipe away a tear as he did so.

“You mean it too, Chiyo,” he said with an accusatory tone.

The roots he'd cooked had now cooled down, so when we were done eating, I asked:

“What will you do next?”

He didn't reply, but turned to face me. He looked upset, a strange mixture of annoyance and regret pushing down the corners of his lips and eyebrows.

“Next after what?”

“Well,” I nodded towards the train. “I think we'll hit the 70 Rolai mark with another scorpion, so in the next town over, I'm guessing …”

Why do I struggle to say these things lately…

He raised an eyebrow.

“We'll see.” He sounded resigned, although perhaps he could have just been tired from the day. “Unlike what I said earlier - never mind.”

He shut down any start of a conversation that happened after this, and eventually extinguished the fire, as we both headed to the locomotive for the night.