The fall (TBATE)

1. Time, part III

Arthur Eralith-Leywin POV

The world shifted as my perception stretched and the currents of aether appeared all around me. Letting the threads of spatium feed information to me, I was able to find the wormhole route that led me to a known place in the forest of Elshire.

Night breeze touched bare skin of my neck and shoulders as I instinctively shivered, infusing my body with mana.

"Whew! I still can't get used to this sensation," Aya whined behind me as she tried to remain composed and looked around in wonder. I just shrugged, not really bothered.

In truth, I myself still couldn't get used to the sensation of traveling through wormholes but my body of Asura was adapted enough to recover faster, not to mention was naturally stronger, especially after assimilation. Even without augmentation and mana arts I could kick augmented yellow-stage mages ass quite easily. As long as they didn't use fire or water magic. Probably with electro and ice tho, but seeing as there are no deviants in elven country, I couldn't test it.

"You are talking as if real teleportation is a normal thing," Alea, on the other hand, already recovered from the travel and grumbled at her associate, clearly not satisfied at all, "better yet, where are we? And what is this... camp?"

I silently walked in the forest camp, lighting wooden branches up.

Taking a flask of hot tea and a few servings of fresh-made meals from my dimensional rune, I sat down.

While Alea watched me with a suspicious eye, Aya's eyes gleamed at the sight of a seemingly fresh and hot feast as she sat down, eying me with curiosity, "It seems you used to visit this place often?"

"Yeah. This used to be our final camp, back then when I found Tess and escorted her to... our parents," I gave an awkward smile, since I still wasn't really used to calling Tess parents as my own parents-in-law. But I had to. I deeply sighed, feeling how heat touched my ears slightly. Pouring some tea in their cups I handed Aya her portion with a shy smile, hoping she would like my handwork, "Though I still visit this place often when I want to be alone or relax..."

"I'm here, you know."

"Yeah, but since you can keep silent... sometimes, it's not counting," I smirked at grumbling Regis and stretched my back a bit, smiling then at giggling Aya and... Alea who just sat down the moment ago beside us, eyeing food with greedy eyes. Her show of dignity was amazingly stoic as she swiftly regained her composure and averted her gaze, but accepted her portion nonetheless. Seeing a faint blush on her ears and cheeks I couldn't help but giggle at her behaviour. Really, who was a kid here? Even having (now partially sealed, since I asked Regis to block the personal side of Grey) memories of another man's life, I was more of Arthur Eralith-Leywin than some other man. And my mental age - as I and Regis estimated - was that of a fourteen-fifteen years old teenager at best. At some parts even way younger, at some, like knowledge and tactics, older by a decades.

Still, it could be a bit hypocritical of me to do the sealing but I wanted to live like another, real person, not some cheap replica. Plus the seal didn't prevent me from using his knowledge and experience anyway.


Looking at out silent exchange, Aya, on the other hand, didn't even try to hold herself and hearfully laughed. But after she finally regained her composure, Grephin couched awkwardly, "Anyway, why did we stop here Art? Isn't it wise to make the final jump straight to the Royal Palace?"

I simply shrugged, "Yeah, If I was alone, I could make about five godsteps in about an hour. Having you two along kinda makes this number less than two sometimes."

"Oh... But didn't you last time do three... godsteps? And when we were going on a mission, you made eleven straight, no?" She seemed confused now.

"Well, first off, when we were leaving the Royal Palace, I had about five crystals infused with Aether. Two of them were used on all Steps of a God(except our way back), others in battles. On our way back, I drained out one of the mana beast cores to make some progress in breaking to the mid silver stage of mana arts..." I sighed and bit my lip with irritation, "and in the end it wasn't enough, anyway... But I digress. After purifying my Core, I had some spare energy left to make one extra Step. And now I'm completely drained again."

Silence fell upon the camp after I finished talking, but after a few minutes of pondering on my words Aya asked, her face shifted into a worrying expression and her voice gentle, "You still can't break through?"

I nodded, shrugging my shoulders, "Mmhm, yes. I made no real progress since I was four because of these years of assimilation. Except for the Aether part."

Aya stayed calm then, yet a bit saddened on what I said.

Alea, on the other hand, exclaimed with wide eyes, "Wait, you were with silver mana core at the age of four?!"

I blinked as confusion probably showed up on my face expression. I thought Viron told them everything he knew after all, "I don't have mana core."