Chapter 452: 453. World of Stone and Clouds

“Mind your head,” Jiroh said as they made their way into the small building.

Back on Earth, Dallion would have called it a storage tunnel, though here it was the equivalent of a shack or cottage if one wanted to be extremely generous. Since they had the ability to control air currents, furies predominantly used two types of materials: cloud matter and stone. Anything made of wood or metal was considered too much effort and reserved for the well off. For some reason, that made Dallion think of the fantasy myths he’d read online as a child. There it was said that elves didn’t get along with metal either.

“Just put her there.” The fury pointed to what passed as a bed etched into the stone wall. It was going to be extremely uncomfortable by human standards, but beggars weren’t choosers, and it wasn’t like Dallion had any warm feelings towards the mage. While she appeared helpless and unconscious now, she had still tried to kill them.

Gently, he placed her in the “sleeping alcove” then looked around for a place to sit. Although not particularly small, the room was quite empty. Or rather, it was filled with various cloud objects stacked on one another or placed on stone shelves, as if he had walked into a cotton factory.

Yep, this definitely isn’t fit for anyone but furies, Dallion thought.

“Are you sure we’ll be okay here?” Dallion asked, still looking around.

“No one has come here since my grandparents,” Jiroh replied. “Most of the stuff is old or trash, so they won’t… Just sit down,” she said, annoyed. “I’ll make a chair.”

There was a slight moment of hesitation, but Dallion did as he was asked. The moment he did, he felt that there was something beneath him. It felt like a water chair, but without the chair; or rather, like one of those inflatable pieces of furniture. Definitely an experience that needed getting used to, although it did the job.

As he tried to adjust, his eyes fell on the stacks of clouds, wondering how they could go old. From his perspective, they looked almost identical. Clearly, furies had different standards.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asked. “I haven’t been able to enter my realm or anything else here. I can’t sense area guardians either.”

“I haven’t tried, but I think it’ll be the same for me. What possessed you to follow me? I’d have told you this isn’t a place for humans.”

“It wasn’t planned.” Dallion had thought back to the moment many times and he still couldn’t figure out exactly what had happened. He had replayed the final moments dozens of times in his mind, and still couldn’t come up with anything concrete. At this point, he wasn’t even sure whether the entire scene with the Moons wasn’t a case of him losing consciousness and imagining it.

By any logic what happened shouldn’t have happened: Dallion had split into instances in order to fight the mage at the same time Jiroh was pulled back to her world. He should have been able to choose an instance to become reality, but instead it appeared that one was chosen for him.

“Is there anything I could eat here?” he asked. “Furies don’t survive on air alone, right?”

“We eat,” Jiroh chuckled, though her smile faded away soon after. “Most of my family are farmers. That’s why we live on the ground.”

“I take it that’s a bad thing?”

“That’s where the expression dirt poor comes from. Only those who can’t afford it live in dirt. Crop yields are good when you can influence the weather. In most cases, furies only swoop down a few times per week to check on things and then during harvest. Those without the means just stay on the ground and do all the work there.”

“So, this is your world,” Dallion sighed. Back in his mind, he thought it would be a lot different—a lot more magical and full of adventure and mystery. In truth, it could be said the world was very much like Earth, only developed in a different fashion.

Also, he still couldn’t picture Jiroh as a farmer. In Neorsal, he imagined her anything but that. She was the epitome of adventure: the fury that did pretty much whatever she wanted, a hunter that roamed the wilderness with ease, a royal princess by adoption with the power to scorch entire neighborhoods if she wished. Here…

You gave up all that for this? Dallion looked at her.

“So, what do we do now?” he asked.

“For the moment, you stay here and keep an eye on her.” The fury glanced at the mage. “I’ve entangled her with air currents, but you’ll need to find something more solid when I’ve left.”

Dallion nodded. He had enough clothes for that. The important thing was not to allow the mage to move her fingers. If he had retained his awakened skills, so could she.

“I’ll go back home and see how things stand. For all I know, centuries might have passed. Either way I’ll try to come back with some food. If I’m not back in five days, it means things have gone wrong and you’re on your own.”

“Your clothes are the same, isn’t that an indication that everything is back as it should be?”

The fury shook her head.

“My skin’s still black. I wasn’t a thunder fury when I left this place. Not everything is the same.”

That much was true. With as little as a goodbye, the fury left the “cottage.” As she did, she closed and locked the cloud door that was at the cave’s entrance. Apparently, even if the place was full of “trash” there were people who would steal it.

Moments later, Dallion felt the air currents beneath him weaken. The “chair” was also made by Jiroh, so with her gone, they had returned to normal. Immediately, he stood up. This was a good reminder for him to tie up the mage’s hands. The easiest option was to tear off a sleeve, but with normal fabric being nonexistent in this world, he opted to just take the entire shirt off and tie up her hands with it. Given how weak she was, that was probably going to hold her, although Dallion also considered using some of the wiring of his additional armor as well. A quick look at the clouds around him quickly made him reconsider. This was a fury world. Without the sea iron gauntlets and the ore armor pieces, he wouldn’t be able to interact with most of it.

“You better not try anything,” he said, just in case the mage was listening in.

Time passed slowly. Back when Dallion first wakened, he thought that spending time in a small doorless room was small. Now it felt twice as bad—at least back then he wasn’t aware of what was outside.

A few minutes in, he attempted to combat split in order to explore while also keeping an eye on the captive. Alas, that proved impossible. No matter how hard Dallion focused, the result was always the same.

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I’m back to being a level one, he thought.

Curiously, he tried to stretch. That came easy, at least he hadn’t lost his athletic skills. Just to be certain he attempted a somersault, then a wall run. There was no indication that his skills had ever been lessened. If there was someone to fight, Dallion could check if the skill bonuses were still in effect. That would have to wait till Jiroh came back. Come to think of it, that wasn’t her name in this world. According to the memory fragment, her first name remained “Ji” but the rest had to be different.

After half an hour, Dallion was going through the clouds stored in the room. There was no telling what they would be. From the looks and sensation, he gathered they were clothes and mattresses, though even that was a stretch. Their colors were mostly the same—a dull white with a slightly gray hue. Instinctively, he tried pressing his face against the fabric. Nothing stopped him. The only sensation was a slight cold softness along with the faint smell of ozone. He was tempted to taste it, but ultimately decided not to. There was no telling what the effects would be, and even if it ended up being safe, eating other people’s clothes and furniture wasn’t going to make for a good first impression.

An hour passed, then another. The boredom was so extreme that Dallion felt like he’d been there for days. The room didn’t have any lights per se, but enough of the cloud matter emitted a strong enough glow to create the impression of a semi-dim neon light.

If Dallion had the ability to enter his awakened realm, he would have at least spent part of the time learning new languages, or reading dryad scrolls. Heck, if there was anything remotely similar to a book here, he’d have tried to read it as well. The sad thing was that there was no guarantee that there weren’t books among all the other clouds. If dryad books were wooden scrolls, there was nothing keeping fury books from being cloud matter. Thinking back, he hadn’t actually seen any fury books or scrolls in the awakened world, either. Most had been human with a smattering of dwarf. Dryad and Nymph ones were exceedingly rare, and Eury never spoke gorgon writing.

As Dallion was thinking, a change in the mage’s breathing caught his attention. Grabbing the thread splitter knife, he briskly turned around.

The mage looked at him. She was still on the bed alcove, hands tied up, and very much so awake. Her glance moved from Dallion to the weapon he was holding, then back to his face.

“Well?” she asked, fear ringing through her entire body.

Looking at her, she appeared in her thirties, slightly plain, though some would describe her as cute. Her skin was relatively pale, though not so much so as Dallion’s, and her jawline was quite sharp. Without Gleam here, Dallion had no way of knowing whether that was her real appearance or an illusion. One thing was for certain her hair was definitely not normal. During the fight Dallion was certain that it was black, but here there also was a dark blue reflection to it.

“I won’t hurt you,” Dallion said, lowering the knife.

The mage didn’t say anything.

“Can’t say the same for you.”

“Are you kidding me?” The mage frowned.

Dallion didn’t respond.

“You really don’t know?” she asked after a while. “Try awakening.”

“Part of our powers are sealed. I know.”

“That includes magic.”

That made Dallion look at the mage’s fingers. While her hands were still tied, the fingers were unmistakably free.

Damnit! Dallion thought. In future he had to be more careful. If circumstances had been different, the mage would have been free and he most likely dead.

“I’ve been trying to cast a spell for a while. Nothing works.”

By the sound of it, only the supernature skills were limited. That gave Dallion the clear advantage. His body trait was clearly superior.

“Congrats on sending Jiroh away. You won’t get to enjoy it long, though. Harm me and the circle will get you in a month. Let me go, on the other hand, and maybe I’ll be able to explain things away. You’re a rising star, after all.”

The circle? So, there were indeed several mages involved. That was bad, but at least it gave Dallion a hint of what he was dealing with. Judging by the feat still within her, it might have even been involuntary. Considering her state, maybe now was a good time to check if his music skills were still effective.

“Sure thing,” he said, adding calm and overconfidence in his voice. “All I have to do is let you go?”

“That’s right. I’ll even vow to the Moons.”

“Go ahead.” Dallion crossed his arms. Either his skills had worked, or the mage was really desperate. Either way, he waited for her to finish her vow, then untied her.

The woman wasn’t grateful in the least. Massaging her wrists, she got up and walked past Dallion, as if he were a houseplant.

“So, where did you take me?” she asked, heading towards the door. “Some underwater cave?”

“Not exactly.” Dallion followed her.

When the mage reached the door of cloud, she glanced at Dallion, giving him a smirk, then walked out. Mere seconds later, she rushed back in again.

“What did you do?” she reached to grab him by the collar. While her reaction speed was high, her body movement was almost sluggish in comparison, allowing Dallion to grab her hands before she could reach him. “You took us out! Now we’re stuck here and there’s no way back!”

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