Chapter 144: Coward

Inari woke up in a dark world. Thunder boomed as lightning loomed into deafening roars, lighting the world for one instance. Then it was dark again. The wind swirled with the gathering clouds creating tempest that any normal man could not bear. Even for mana users who were lower rankers, it was hard to stay not affected.

Some creatures were flying in the sky, like debris, ruins of tall skyscrapers spread everywhere her vision went. She was certainly not regular to these kinds of building structures, but she had seen them before. It was not the way of Mother world—at least not the places she had gone—which was tragically not many.

She was wondering why she was here. A moment ago, she was preparing with Elior for the second day's quest, and when the wind and darkness hit her, she found herself here.

[Secret Quest: Nightmare!

You are in a strange land with a strange environment, finding out whatever is causing all these dilemmas.

Conditions for clearance: Unknown.

Rewards: Unknown.]

Inari sighed in relief. This was certainly not like the nightmare of the other day. Yes, that was certainly a good thing for her. At least she did not have to face her true nightmare again. How hard this could be than her original fear.

Inari gazed at the sky again and found those creatures again, flying screeching. They were certainly not birds, more like bats, with the size of her head to double her size.

"Flies," she muttered, and her heart turned cold. Not just anyone kind of flies, there were plenty of common undead flies, to the corpse flies, as well as the legendary soul-sucking flies.

Oh, Immortal lord, where am I? she wondered, keeping an eye on the creatures, terrorising over the place that was once a city. For some reason, the flies did not attack her, as if they could not see her. They kept on going, flying after humans, fighting with some guardians in their weapons and armour. It appeared they did not notice her as well. It was as if nobody could see her."

"Right, this is a test," she muttered. Though there was no description of what she had to do to pass or what the rewards will be, she would not mind clearing it, since it was the trial in the first place. Completing the task was the only way to move further. What she had to do was search for the source of the chaos.

Well, that would be nice and easy, since nobody seemed to see her.

Abruptly, she felt a tremor and her heart skipped a beat unconsciously. The whole world was shaking for a blink of an eye and then it was the same again.

Inari narrowed her eyes and looked around. Just then, the tremor came again and her heart skipped a beat again. It was as if something was beating after her chest. Inari was waiting for the third time and it came again.

And again, and again.

It was coming down in a nice rhythm, and that brought a frown to her brows. Shouldn't that be the source of something? The source she was looking for?

With that in mind, she crept on the way as the earth continued to tremble in the rhythm. As she went, she came before more people fighting against those flies and dying. They struggled and led the civilians, scarifying their lives for the common people. Such a scene brought down an upheaval in her heart, but she crushed it, keeping the quest in her mind. But whatever she tried, it was all crushed down by the tremors.

The scene before her seemed to be a staged play, as she was only witnessing it, not living through it. Some kind of illusion, perhaps.

Inari ignored the guardians, battling against the huge flies, the flies sucking their blood, soul, crushing their skull with their horrifying teeth. She ignored the common people who tried to flee, but in the end, a good number of them turned food for those undead flies.

Inari felt like fighting against them. But then again, she felt like fighting against a lot of things, her own clan for all the contempt, the trouble they gave her, but she never did. Of all things, Inari considered herself a coward. She would not do anything that would be troubling to her, not something for someone else in the slightest.

'I tried to help Roy, didn't I?' she told herself and got the answer at the very moment. It wasn't that she helped Roy, she didn't just betray him, like the other two. If she truly was the selfless type, then she will be fighting together alongside him, not running away.

The only reason she did not go after the submarine, at first sight, was that she might get to hate herself to the core if she did that. She already hated herself quite a lot. She did not want it to reach the limit, where she could not even look at her reflection. That was why she did not betray her saviour. It was not for him, but because she was selfish.

Inari gritted her teeth. This realisation did not make it anything easy. On the contrary, she fucking hated it to realise that now.

Without anything in mind, she started running towards the source of all the tremors, ignoring everything. Even if it was the end of a world.

The path becomes busy as she runs, but nothing obstructs her, as she fazes through everything. The flies could not see her, not even touch her.

She ran for a good quarter of an hour to finally reach the source of the tremors and, seeing the scene before her eyes, it was as if her mind had been struck with lightning.

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The tremors, the earth-shaking tremors were not some earthquake or other natural disaster, but someone beating his hammer in the middle of all things, and she knew that certain someone.

It was a youth of her age, maybe younger. He did not see him in the mysterious light as usual, but it all looked like a broken man doing what he could to get by.

Elior lurched the hammer like there was no tomorrow, eyes vacant and empty, ignoring the sky collapse before him. The battle against the flies kept on going, but Elior kept on hammering, creating horrifying tremors onto the earth, but that tremor was something he and Inari could feel, for the ones fighting in against the flies, it was nothing.

Men died, devoured, but Elior kept on hammering, not even giving them a single glance.

Civilian collapsed, but Elior kept on hammering.

Children cried, But Elior kept on hammering.

Thunder roared, lightning charged, but Elior kept on hammering.

Again and again and again. And again.

"ELior," she called, bellowing, running towards him. 

He did not seem to hear her and kept on beating the hammer in the hot anvil, as it produced flickers of flames.

Just like the world did not affect her, it did not seem to affect Elior in the slightest, but she would be damned to believe that. 

This nightmare was certainly not something her mind has created. Neither was she that similar with that kind of set-up nor was she having any encounter with undead flies, all she knows were from books that her sister made her memorize. The trial partly could produce something like that, but she has heard, they don't do anything unnecessary.

Well, their necessity and her or Elior's were entirely different things. If they were the same, they wouldn't start with slavery from the beginning. For all she cared, they think slavery was necessary for this trial, so why not play with some youth's trauma? 

Could Elior possibly go through all this? She wondered as she run. Shouldn't the lower world be safer than Mother world?

Whatever it was, it was something related to Elior's trauma. He was so full of life and comical when he talks to her, but here he was like a machine, doing what he was told, which was beating the hammer.

"Elior," she called, coming before him, "Can you hear me?"

No answer. 

It was as if he was like the others, the flies, the guardian who were fighting, and illusions.

Without considering, she tried to touch him, to feel if he was like she was just a record. Not an illusion, she could very much feel him. 

She touched him on the back and felt it very humane, but Elior did not seem to feel her, he kept on hammering.

"Elior, can you hear me?" she said again.

NO answer.

She screamed in the next turn, shaking him hard with all her might. The dark sky showered with rain, and the cloud seemed to break into oblivion.

And Elior finally noticed her. He looked at her, blinking as if he did not know him.

Then the sky broke, and her vision cleared.

[You have failed the quest.]

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