A Monster (I)

The afternoon sun shone harshly on my bare skin as I sprinted back towards the distant buildings. As a result of the Elkardian guards confiscating all my personal belongings, what little human currency I had stored up in my wallet was lost altogether. This meant that I wasn’t able to use public transportation to return, though I wasn’t planning on relying on buses or taxis in the first place, given the battered state my clothes were in. The light blue undershirt was at least cleaner than the suit I had on before, but it was still far too dirty to be socially acceptable.

On top of that… Dashing alongside the dirt road, I furrowed my brows. Public transportation is almost synonymous with unreliable speeds. Traffic, detours and delays, not to mention the overall speed limit. I need to rely on myself to get back to Martha as soon as possible.

The ground beneath my feet slowly changed from sandy dirt to a slightly more paved road, then to asphalt. More and more little buildings flew by my side in a blur, but I ignored them for the most part, focusing on getting to my final destination as quickly as possible. As I arrived in the outskirts of the city, taller buildings now surrounding me from every side, I slowed my pace down to a normal running speed. Checking my breathing, I found that I wasn’t even out of breath. That’s to be expected. I used both Abyssal Well for stamina and Raptor’s Wind for speed, after all. However, I chose to cancel the effects of the work energy at that moment, already feeling the magic fatigue seeping into my bones. Better conserve my energy from here on out. It’s only a few minutes to the apartment at a normal running speed, and it would probably be a bad idea to run at superhuman speeds in front of all these people.

I realized that I didn’t exactly have a complete grasp on the city’s layout, but I was able to locate significant landmarks, such as tall buildings or public art structures that I recognized. Following one landmark to the next, the sights around me grew more familiar, before I ultimately ended up on the usual road Martha and I took to the Oasis. I had considered whether to search for Martha in the Oasis itself, but I deduced that it was still too early for her to head off to work. Not to mention… she would probably still be in low spirits, and not in a working mood. As I turned a few corners, I reached the local supermarket, and then a few minutes later, Ms. Owen’s clinic. Stopping for just a second, I slowed down and attempted to peer through the windows, but the reflections were too harsh to let me see anything inside.

Connor… I felt my body turn towards the entrance, but my outstretched arm stopped just before I opened the door, and I slowly retracted it. Later. There's something more urgent right now.

Just as I broke away from the clinic’s entrance, a blaring noise drilled into my eardrums, and I clapped my hands over my ears as a splitting pain rushed through my head. Regaining my senses, I looked over to see a large red automobile rush past me in a blur, its orange lights flashing dizzyingly.

If I recall correctly, those noisy red trucks are the non-magical method for putting out fires in this world. If there’s a fire nearby, it’s sure to cause people to gather. I frowned, setting off towards Martha’s apartment at a slightly faster pace. To make things worse, it’s heading down the same direction as I am. Finding Martha will be troublesome if I have to do it through a crowd of panicked citizens.

Running the last couple of streets, I looked around, and realized that it was just as I had feared. The street Martha’s apartment was on was now littered with people, and I had to awkwardly shuffle my body through a bustling horde just to reach the foot of the apartment. A dense circle of people had built up near the entrance, and I spotted the large truck parked nearby. Some of the people where whispering in hushed tones while other had got their cellphones out to begin filming the situation. Craning my neck, I was met a mix of brilliant orange flames and acrid black smoke, escaping out of one of the cramped apartments’ opened windows and balconies.

Damn it, this is no time for a setback like this! I struggled to push my way to the apartment building’s glass doors, only to be stopped by the burly hand of a uniformed man.

“Let me in!” I grumbled irritably, attempting to swipe his arm out of the way. “There’s someone I know up there, and something bad could have happened to her! I need to go and see if she’s alright!”

“I understand your concern, but I’m afraid it’s too dangerous right now,” the man replied politely, though his arm was firm and wouldn’t budge. “Though, rest assured, we’re hard at work putting that fire out. And we’ve made sure to issue an evacuation to all residents of the apartment building, since potential gas leaks or open flames happen more often than you’d expect.”

“Evacuation?” Impatiently turning left and right, I saw no sign of Martha in the small crowd filling the street. “No, she’s not here! She’s still got to be in the building!”

“I’m sure she’ll turn up in a few minutes, given the alarm. Your…” The large man looked me up and down with a pair of concerned eyes. “Girlfriend? I promise that our firefighters are doing the best they can to find her, so you just relax down here. Additionally, if you have the proper investments, any of your damaged furniture or belongings can be reimbursed.”

“What? No, no, I don’t care about any of that!” I knew the man was just trying to do his job properly, but the tiny seed of anxious desperation that Kin planted in my mind had grown to a point where it became hard to think properly. “Just hurry up and let me –”

Hold on. Suddenly, I stopped struggling against the man, and glanced up to the plumes of flame flickering out from above. That fire… it’s coming from the third floor. Yes, third floor, two windows from the building’s corner, facing west… A stone-cold arrow pierced through my chest, and I stood there motionlessly, paralyzed with a feeling I couldn’t describe.

That isn’t Martha’s apartment, is it?

Wildly stumbling out of the packed crowd, the noises around me suddenly became too loud for me to handle. The inside of my head felt nauseously light, and I gasped for breath, feeling every beat of my heart throb against my ribcage.

Why? Why, why? Why would her apartment catch fire at a time like this? Some of the people around me darted away in shock while others tried to reach out to me in concern, but the world was spinning too much for me to pay any heed to them. Grabbing ahold of a light pole to steady myself, I stared up in denial at the scorching flames above me, though it felt more like a twisted dream than reality.

No, there’s no need to panic! It could just be a coincidence. That man said so, didn’t he? These things happen often! My erratic brain scrambled to find an excuse, anything that would put me at ease. Yes, it was nothing more than a coincidence. That was what I repeated to myself over and over, trying to convince my mind that this was the truth. But my legs still felt like they couldn’t support my body, and I slid down the pole to the ground, my surroundings still gyrating sickeningly. While trying futilely to process all this, I was unable to avert my eyes from the horribly dazzling inferno the whole time. But that can’t make sense! If this were an accident, surely, she’d have evacuated by now!

By now more and more people had gathered near the base of the light pole in an attempt to either help or assuage me, but I could only stare ahead with my eyes unfocused, their comforting words sounding subdued and murky. What am I supposed to do? Martha’s apartment is burning down, and she’s nowhere to be found! Either Kin was right and I was too late, or it was an accident but Martha couldn’t escape in time! Clasping my hands over my head, I dug my fingers into my disheveled hair. No matter which is correct, I still don’t know what happened to Martha or where to find her! And if that’s the case, what the hell am I even supposed to –

Abruptly, an animal’s cry weakly sounded out from a distance. It was much softer than the distressed voices of the people around me, and yet it managed to shatter my meaningless stupor. Blinking my eyes open, this voice seemed to anchor me in place within the swirling world, and I was met with a pair of distrustful orange eyes. Taking a surprised breath, I scrambled away from the base of the light pole, causing several of the people watching me to recoil in surprise. Their eyes turned on me with peculiar expressions, some with pity and others with looks of distaste, but I couldn’t be bothered to really notice them. As I approached it, the creature mewed again in suspicion, but it kept its eyes trained on me. Looking down its fuzzy body, I recognized the sunny orange fur and distinctive brown stripes that I had grown to scorn, and despite myself, I let out a ridiculous chuckle of relief.

“Never in a hundred years did I ever think I’d be happy to see you, Chestnut.”

Hissing back indignantly, almost in retaliation, the cat slowly dragged its body over to my feet where it collapsed in exhaustion. Placing my hand on its soft, warm back, I felt that it was trembling slightly. On closer inspection, I realized that there were small burn marks along the side of its body, along with the tips of its fur being singed black in some places. And, based on the way it was limping earlier, almost like it suffered a fall from some distance… My eyes widened, and I snapped my head up at the still-burning apartment in surprise, three stories above me. Don’t tell me this cat jumped from that height?

But with this reunion also came a new revelation, and as I continued stroking Chestnut’s silky fur, my gaze hardened. No matter how annoying this cat was, Martha loved it to death. There’s no way she’d escape without it in the case of an accidental fire, which could only mean…

“Sorry about this, cat.” Narrowing my eyes, I placed both palms on Chestnut’s head, and it shrank away in alarm. With a sigh, I softly rubbed the back of its head, and it settled down again rather reluctantly. With it docile and in my grasp, I closed my eyes. “Second Eyes!”

A flash of magical light flooded the darkness behind my closed eyelids, and a series of colorful, hazy images flashes into my mind, before finally focusing and turning clearer. With that, a view of my weary face finally showed up in my mind, from Chestnut’s perspective.

This is what he’s seeing now. If I rewind his memories a bit, I should be able to see what happened to the apartment. With another brief flash of light, the image that I saw began to shift backwards, rewinding to Chestnut crawling through the brush to the open road, then showing it falling from the apartment window into a few hedges in reverse. The images began rewinding faster and faster, until there was a flash of vibrant orange, which faded away in an instant. That’s probably the memory of the fire, I thought, stopping the rewinding of memories.

I stopped a little short, and I was met with the view of the apartment shrouded in darkness, only faintly illuminated by the feeble glow of the clouded moon. Figuring it was probably just some unnecessary memory of yesterday night, I prepared to turn the memory forward a little bit, before Chestnut turned its head into a different position and my breath caught.

Martha’s teary-eyed visage was looking down at me, while holding me, rather, Chestnut close to her body. Swallowing, I was temporarily stunned by this image, and as a result I neglected to fast-forward the memory, just letting it play out. From the puffy red areas around her eyes, I could determine that she had just finished crying, and only a few tears remained to line her face. Chestnut squirmed a little, letting out a confused purr, causing Martha to give a little ironic laugh.

“Must be nice, huh? Being a cat and all,” Martha whispered in the quiet of the dark room, affectionately stroking Chestnut’s head. “You eat, sleep, play around… and that’s about it. Cats don’t have to deal with stupidly complicated things like human relationships. If I were a cat, I wouldn’t be…”

Her voice trailed off, and she hugged Chestnut tightly to her chest once more. As the memory turned away from Martha’s face, I was able to release the breath that I didn’t know I was holding, feeling a fresh sense of guilt flood my body. But I shook my head, and as I remembered my original goal, I tried to rid myself of the memory for now. A little… too far back.

Focusing on proceeding the memories, the images started to blur together faster and faster again, and then the flash of bright orange showed up in front of me again. This time, I made sure to catch it just before the memory accelerated too far forward. The image that was now shown to me was one of Martha’s apartment engulfed in flames, while the darkened back of a tall figure stood in the middle of it all, someone who’s body was too lanky to be Martha. I felt a bout of raw anger burn inside me, but for now all I could do was watch. Martha herself was nowhere to be seen, but I made out the long robes of a foreign mage, and the lighting was just enough to reveal a head of bound silver hair. Concentrating, I played the scene out, listening closely for any clues.

As the pillars of flame continued to consume the furniture and room, the figure in the middle didn’t look particularly panicked, and merely stood there calmly in the center of the fire instead. After a moment of contemplation, the person nodded their head. “Conqaide… knowing your skills, dull as they may have become in this world, you’re probably watching me right now through some convoluted means.”

The voice that I heard through the cat’s ears was masculine, but it also felt like oddly familiar, as if I had heard it somewhere before. Gritting my teeth, I glared at him through Chestnut’s eyes, but it wasn’t like I could affect the man through a memory. As such, the images in front of me just kept on playing.

“I’m going to put this bluntly; I have already taken the woman living in this apartment as a captive. Don’t worry, I haven’t inflicted any mortal wounds yet. After all, a hostage is no use to me dead,” the man continued with a low chuckle. “I’ll arrange it so that it will be easy enough to find me. Let’s say… come and find me at the base of the tallest building in this little town.”

With a crash, part of the ceiling came down, and the man sidestepped it casually. “Oh, it looks as if I’ll have to be taking my leave. And on the off chance you don’t receive this message,” the man rubbed his chin. “Well, that would just make me look silly for talking to myself this whole time. Though, I’ll make sure to reveal my location rather conspicuously, so you’ll most likely be able to find me either way.”

As more of the room came falling to the floor, Chestnut’s body moved to dodge the flaming obstacles, and the man disappeared from sight. With a gasp of air, I tore myself from the effects of Second Eyes, and the real world came pouring back into my eyes. Slightly dazed by the sudden shift, I fell back onto the ground, rubbing my sore temples.

After some time went by, the temporary nausea passed as well. Blinking my eyes against the rising sun, I saw that most of the worried crowd around me had dissipated, probably since they observed me regaining some sense after my reunion with Chestnut. The shaggy little cat itself had darted away from me, and was now hissing at me from a fighting stance.

Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Taking one last breath to fully collect my thoughts, I recalled the information that the man had given me. So, Kin was right after all. Martha really has been taken away by an enemy, and her apartment was burned down because of it.

That knowledge had burned itself into my mind, now as a fact, and yet for some reason I didn’t feel the same disorganized rage or shock as before. Of course, I was still boiling with a sense of profound anger, but now that I had a clearer idea of the situation that anger had worked itself into an effective driving force. Almost like my rage had forged itself into a razor-sharp weapon, my movements were now calculated and fueled with a fiery determination.

Turning my head upwards, my eyes began to scan the varied cityscape. In terms of tall buildings there were quite a few notable ones, but there was one that seemed to stand out from all the others, even from my low vantage point. It was a marble-white building, lined with a combination of modern looking steel and glass, and a spire on the very top of the building made it look much taller than it actually was. If we’re talking about tallest buildings, that one has got to be it. What did he mean by ‘conspicuous’, though?

Having little time to delay on vague wording, I decided to take care of my problems one at a time, starting with those I could complete relatively easily. Raising my hand, I called out to the air around me. “Kin, are you there?”

For a few seconds there was no response, and my call only resulted in a few members of the crowd staring at me in mild confusion. I could care less about how they viewed me, but it looked to me like Kin wasn’t going to appear anytime soon. Just as I was about to lower my arm, the air a few feet from where I was crouched began to sputter weakly, before a bothered voice rang out.

“You’re damn strict, master.” The tiny sparks merging into a single shape, Kin’s body formed in the air in front of me. Though he was only a little bit bigger compared to when I last saw him, the ailing translucent opacity from before was replaced with his standard lively flames. At the very least, he seemed to at least be in a healthier state, and not in danger of fading away at any second. And unfortunately for me, he was also apparently energetic enough to complain. “First you drain my power down to the very last drop, and then you summon me again just minutes later? I was on, like, my second squirrel.”

I didn’t want to admit it to his face, but hearing Kin grumble about trivial stuff like usual was kind of reassuring. Compared to before when he was too weak to even manage a full sentence, seeing him back to normal, especially when everything else was a hectic mess, put my mind at ease.

“Relax, I’m not assigning you a grand mission or anything like that.” Stretching my arms, I let out a breath, and pointed over to where Chestnut was glowering at me. “I’m going to go somewhere dangerous and be stupidly reckless again. So, while I’m gone, could you look after this thing in Martha’s stead? Just keep an eye on it, and make sure it doesn’t run into oncoming traffic or something.”

“Well…” Sighing, Kin floated down to Chestnut, who relaxed its stature once Kin drew nearer. “Yeah, I guess I could manage that.”

Giving a resolute nod, I picked myself off the ground, dusting the dirt and grime away from my already-stained pants. I looked up towards the distant marble skyscraper in preparation, but before I took off, I turned my head back to Kin. “Oh, and, thanks again.”

Kin had stretched out his circular body above Chestnut’s back and was relaxing there, probably to absorb some excess life force, while Chestnut purred in satisfaction from the warmth. At my words, Kin glanced up at me. “What, for staying here with the cat?”

“No, I mean, thanks for convincing me to leave that cage. As you can probably tell… well, you were right on the money on your prediction.” I pointed up to Martha’s charred apartment building, which was now releasing plumes of steam as the red truck showered it with water and foam. “If it weren’t for your tip, it might’ve been too late.”

The foxfire spirit gave a brief pause in response, before slowly leaning over Chestnut’s head to shoot me a tired smile. “What are you, an idiot? How come you’re talking like everything’s already under control?”

“Huh?”

“‘Might’ have been too late, you say? Don, it might still be too late if you don’t show up to save the day as the knight in shining armor,” Kin said as he shook his head, little embers flying from his scruffy mane. “What makes you think you have time to waste standing here talking to me? That robed guy’s got Martha, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Sucking in a deep breath of air, I readied my body for another dose of work energy. But as I activated the magic and felt the strength swell through my aching muscles, Kin called to me just as I prepared to set off. Turning back to him, I raised an eyebrow. “What is it? Weren’t you the one who told me not to waste time here?”

“Sorry, sorry. Just…” Kin scratched the back of his glowing head. “Don’t die, okay?”

“What’s that?” Tilting my head, I gave him a smirk. “You worried about me or something?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he laughed. “It’s just that… if you end up as a failure who died without even saving the damsel in distress, what would that make me, as your servant? For a prideful spirit like me, it would be the ultimate humiliation.”

“Ah, gotcha.” Casting my eyes towards my destination, I shielded my eyes from the bright rays of the afternoon sun. “Rest assured, I’ll make it back here with Martha, safe and sound.”

“I wouldn’t expect any less.” Letting out a breath of air, Kin gave one final grin. “Go get ‘er, master."