Chapter 30: Missing in Action |
After tending to everything she could offer to the town, Illyana sat on the roof of the town hall, helping herself to a whole array of foods. They were nothing special: simple bread, roasted jerky, and some seasoned vegetables, whatever she could get hold of from the inn. To her starving stomach, though, it mattered little.
She munched through them, chewing fiercely while watching the sun dip below the horizon. Illyana had been starving since last night. The only things she had ingested were mana recovery potions and a couple of fasting pills.
With a gust of wind, a lanky figure appeared behind her.
She looked up with a mouthful of food.
"You are late, Master," she managed to say, gulping it down.
The Saint of Seynhold smiled as he sat down next to her. Despite his advanced age, he looked to be in his late twenties, with a darker skin tone and silvery hair that shone brighter than the moon. Most times, her master appeared like a common scholar, and acted as one too, going about his merry way without imposing himself on people. He liked being unrecognised and conversing with all kinds of people.
Even in his enchanted shirt and trench coat, he still appeared more like a scholar, though there was a hard edge to his aura. She could imagine why.
"Well, I came a few hours ago,” her master said. "I did check on you from afar before making my trip to the wilderness to take care of the situation."
"Is it bad?" she asked.
“Not a challenge to you then.” Her Master had never told her his exact level, but she was certain it was well over 400. He could take care of a horde of silver creatures without breaking a sweat.
"It is quite concerning,” he muttered. “The situation in the far north seems to have gotten even worse. I plan to make a trip after this."
Illyana eyed him quizzically.
"That is of little concern to you.” He flicked her forehead. “You have done well here."
She pouted. "I didn't do much, though."
Her master smiled and said nothing to that. "Well, are you ready to leave now? I would say you have enough experience for the admission test."
“Only if we go by the wind.” She grinned at him.
Getting an affirmation, her smile widened. She only had to collect a few of her things, bid goodbye to a couple of people she had befriended, and she would be on her way.
Then she remembered something. A little oddity she had noted with a little boy named Ember.
She told her master about how he could still graft his Will despite being unconscious.
A thoughtful look crossed his face. "Are you certain that he was grafting Will and not some residual intent you felt?"
Illyana tilted her head, unsure. "I am seventy percent positive." She paused. "Can it be some kind of skill?"
"It can," he said, "though it is unlikely for the boy. A skill related to Will grafting or Spirit manifestation is at least of Silver rank, while the truly powerful ones start at Gold rank and evolve beyond."
"Well, he merely seemed tier 4." He might have had slots for silver skills, but she thought it was unlikely, considering his age.
"It isn’t impossible without a skill, though there needs to be some special circumstances for it, though oftentimes the circumstances are more unfortunate than anything good."
*
“I’m home,” Ember announced, sliding into the house. “Mom! Rain! You wouldn’t believe what happened during the mission.”
He found them perched on the couch of the drawing room, with his mother’s head resting on Rain’s lap, who tousled her hair gingerly.
“My Em!” Rosanna slowly opened her eyes and sat upright with Rain’s support. She opened her arms invitingly. “Come.”
Ember let go of his stuff and hugged her, feeling something strange in the wind. “Did something happen?” he asked. “You seem sick.”
“I’m fine,” his mother said, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. “It's your father... he...”
Ember waited for her to finish, but no more words came out of her lips, while she began shedding tears.
He eyed his elder sister with a quizzical look. “What happened to Dad?”
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“Dad, he...” Rain exhaled a dejected sigh. “There had been an incident during his expedition. A total of seven rifts had manifested out of nowhere, some even acting strangely, that... that...”
“Is Dad alright?” Ember cut in. “Tell me he is.”
“We all hope he is.” Rain bit her lower lip. “Dad went missing with a rift.”
“What do you mean he’s missing with a rift?”
“His whole company, even many from House Oberon, including Lady Evelyn, was there with them. They all vanished with the rift.”
“When was this?” Ember asked, sitting straighter. “Did they send reinforcements after them? Lady Evelyn is the daughter of the Patriarch. They should already have begun the rescue mission, no?”
“They have sent reinforcements. Even Lord Edrik Oberon himself joined to recover his daughter, but... there’s no sign of them. They all disappeared with the rift.”
“Disappeared with the rift?” Ember repeated. “How is that possible?”
“We don’t know.”
“There’s no entrance to the rift?”
Rain shook her head. “They are trying with the remaining rifts to see if they are connected in any way. Well, that’s what Grandfather told us.”
“Has something like this ever happened before? A rift disappearing with the people inside it?”
As far as he knew, rifts always exploded if left unchecked, spewing out all the monsters, flora and fauna from inside.
“There are some records of it in the clan, but...” Rain didn’t complete her sentence, turning towards their sobbing mother.
Ember grew silent and bowed his head, a dozen lines of thought racing through his mind. His knowledge of rifts was merely superficial. Most people saw them as dimensional bubbles where monsters spawned without stop. Many believed they were the Abyss's stab at devouring Perennial Zion. Supposedly, their continent, Parrenial Verdance, was far safer compared to some other regions. Mostly, the Northern Folded Plains were infested with monsters and rifts.
Safe Havens like Seynhold had some form of ancient apparatus which resisted any dimensional tears forming within its walls.
Of course, it wasn’t all a disaster, as these rifts released a wide margin of ambient mana into the world, not to mention the rich materials and rewards an ascendant could obtain from them.
The best analogy Ember had read about rifts compared the mana apertures of an ascendant’s body to those dimensional bubbles. If the world did work like an ascendant’s body, even in theory, then there was much truth to this analogy.
But analogy aside, what did that mean for his father? Ember gazed at his mother. She had looked so rosy when he left for the hunting assignment, but now her face was pale, looking sickly as if she hadn’t been eating at all.
“Is there really no way to find where the rift took them?” Ember mumbled, leaning back as he clasped her palm.
Rain seemed like she wanted to say something, but ultimately kept it to herself.
“Don’t worry, Cliff will be fine,” Rosanna said. “Your father will return safely. He’s a knight after all. Nothing can stop him from returning home.”
Rain asked him to accompany their mother to rest while she prepared the food. Even with Rosanna’s insistence that she could manage to cook, Rain didn’t let her. Her winning argument was the baby Rosanna was carrying. It seemed his sister had been preparing the meals for the last couple of days.
“You look thinner,” his mother said. “You mentioned something happening during your assignment.”
“It’s nothing.” He couldn’t bring himself to burden her with more worry, even if there was no risk to his life. Still, she asked more about it, and Ember had to exclude all the heavy stuff from his recounting.
“That Autumn girl is too haughty,” Rosanna said. “I know her mother. She, too, was utterly imperious and spiteful.”
Ember didn’t want to leave her alone, but she asked him to refresh himself after the long journey, insisting she was fine. Before heading off, he first went to Rain, who had already diced a bowl full of vegetables, with another dish on the stove.
“Is she fine?” he asked.
Rain peered at him. “She had fainted a couple of times. With the pregnancy, the news came at a bad time.”
Thankfully, they had a healer at home.
“How did your hunting go? You seem somewhat out of it.”
“I’m fine. I have gotten the Hunter title and even reached Tier 4.”
“You have?” She arched her eyebrow, eyes wide. “Well, I’m not even that shocked.”
“It’s just...” Ember wondered if he should share about his experience and, if so, how much. Ultimately, he decided to say a few words, mostly about the death of Autumn and Lark, and the monsters they faced.
“I was out of danger, though,” he added before she could ask a question. “There was someone who took me back to the town before those powerful creatures came knocking.”
“The skies have mercy,” Rain prayed. “There’s already so much misfortune in our family recently. It's good that you’re fine.”
Then she told him about their grandfather’s condition. He was one of the few who managed to get out of the rift, though not in any fair condition. Not only had he lost a limb, his mana foundation had been ruined. Without a specialised Gold-rank healer, it would be impossible to restore either of them. There was always a drought of high-ranking healers. While Lifestyle classes took ages to grow, the second slowest classes after them were the healers. A battlefield healer might be able to keep up with a fighter’s level gains, but there was also too much threat to their lives there.
An hour later, by the time Ember had fully refreshed himself, and Rain had served the meals, the old man came to their house to check on him. He had already heard the news from Zephyr, it seemed. He came with just a stump to support himself, his mood clearly far from the best.
Still, if there was any pity Ember felt for the older man’s condition, it all evaporated when Timber Blackstone announced about his ordeal without warning. His mother, who was already depressed, broke down into another spree of tears.
She held onto his arm for over an hour, despite him telling her he wasn’t going anywhere.
Ember felt like kicking the old bastard in the face. With his haggard, crippled state, Ember might even succeed.
The old man clearly didn’t take the hint and told him all about what happened during the operation at the rift.
“And Cliff and I had just set aside our differences,” Timber shook his head bitterly. “Pity, a pity. Neither the Sky nor the Abyss has any mercy.”
He seemed more unperturbed about the whole situation. Then, for minutes, he lamented about losing his shot at the patriarch seat, and Ember understood the old fuck had already given up all hope of Cliff returning.
Higher mental acumen or not, Ember almost broke into violence, if only restrained by Rain.
Who knew what terrible things had befallen his son, and the bastard was still weeping about becoming the patriarch?
Ember threw his spoon at him before his sister restrained him. Despite her healer class, she was still stronger than him, and kept him in place as the elder man carried himself out.
But Rain couldn’t stop him from cursing at the old fuck.
“Some father he is,” he cried. “He still has the nerve to come in here and talk all that shit.”
“Calm down, Em!”
“I’m calm.” He lowered his voice as Rain hugged him. “I’m calm.”
The tears came unbidden. Ember sobbed, hot tears streaming down his cheeks in a torrent. “Rain,” he wailed, snot running down his nose. “Dad is alright! Mom, tell me he’ll come back!”
“Cliff is not dead,” his mother joined in, sobbing. “He’ll return. Your father will return."