Beast Slayer Saga

The sun beat down on Al, Calandra and Kuzma with the strength of a desert sun. It was as if the torrential storm from before was a lie, there was no longer a cloud in the sky. Sweat coated Albert's skin like a film, his bangs acc.u.mulating it and dripping it onto the bridge of his nose every few seconds. He grunted with effort, the muscles in his good arm burning each time he plunged the tip of the shovel into the dirt. In other areas in the valley, Calandra and Kuzma were also excavating dirt, for what Albert didn't know. After the earlier mishap with the mana stone, the storm had dissipated. Without even allowing time to dry their clothes, they handed Albert a shovel and got to work without saying anything else.

As Albert plunged the blade of the shovel back into the earth, he hit a large stone, the vibrations traveling up his arm. He dropped the shovel in pain and kicked it away in disgust.

"What the hell are we digging for?"

"You'll know it when you see it," Calandra grunted from the hole she was digging, lifting an astonishing amount of dirt each time she raised her shovel.

She didn't look any less comfortable than Albert felt. She had tied her hair up behind her to keep it out of the way and wore a grimace on her face. Worse than that, she had taken off her outer shirt and was only wearing a thin white undershirt. The fabric clung to every crease and crevice of her c.h.e.s.t, the vibrant sky-blue color of her bra visible through all of her sweat. Albert would have retorted back at her angrily, but he looked away, unable to stare at her for long without his cheeks flushing. Try as he might to resist, he couldn't help but allow his eyes to wander along the lines of her body, each time they focused back on the sky-blue fabric of her bra.

"She just had to be s.e.xy and beautiful, didn't she?"

He shook the thought from his head and g.r.o.a.n.e.d, grabbing the shovel again and began trying to unearth the unwieldy stone. Shovelful after shovelful, he coaxed the dirt from the earth and away from the boulder. Finally, cursing the earth, he managed to pry it from the hole by using his shovel as a lever and continued digging with renewed fervor.

The longer he plowed deeper into the earth, the more his arms burned and, despite trying not using his injured arm, it began to ache and bleed through his bandages. Albert's world narrowed until it was just him and the dirt below him and then, as it became too difficult, he retreated even further inward to the place in his body where the moon-like pool of numen and the sun-like numen orbited each other.

His spirit floated in space, glittering stars observing him far, far in the distance. The fiery golden essence and icy silver essence took up all of his attention, pulsating and morphing as the orbited around each other. After a moment's indecision, Albert decided to investigate the golden numen, he urged his spirit forward and it began drifting towards it.

It was much further away than it originally appeared, the closer his spirit moved towards the fiery sphere of numen, the larger and more sun-like it became and the more sweltering the heat became. The sun that he had been toiling under before was like a pleasant breeze compared to this.

The numen had begun to take up his entire vision by the time he could bear the heat no longer. He felt as if his very bones had melted and were eating away at his body from the inside. Desperate for release from this heat, Al turned his spirit around and dove towards the icy, moon-like, pool.

There, ahead of him lay salvation. He almost thought that he could see flames l.i.c.k.i.n.g his spirit, he was so clad in the fires of the golden numen. Eagerly, hungrily, desperately, he drove himself towards the silver Numen before him. If only he were to plunge himself into it, everything would be better.

--

"Al, you can stop digging now, you've found it."

"Al?"

"Hah, the foolishness of youth. I'd almost forgotten in my millennia of sleep."

--

Al was freezing, no he was already frozen. The world around him was ice and snow, silent. The cold stabbed into his soul like daggers, yet he couldn't even squirm to avoid them. All that was left was the piercing pain and the silver tinted blue around him. The only blemish in the otherwise unchanging scenery was the golden blur above him, mocking him with a warmth that he would never reach.

Or would he? The blur was getting closer, the light and warmth becoming clearer. The icicles that had pierced him began to melt and meld into the silver around him and retreat from the golden light approaching. Al squinted, trying to see through the golden din. There was form in there, he could see a head, hands and legs and a body.

"Really, Al? I take my attention off you for one moment and you get lost in your inner realm? It's not time for you to be here yet, come you've uncovered the ruins."

Al felt the golden being's hand touch his shoulder and all of the cold left in him rushed away, along with the rest of his inner realm. He opened his eyes and he was back under the blazing sun, standing amidst a massive hole with a single pillar sprouting from the earth like an ivory sapling.

Reality wasn't the only thing to pop into being, Al's aches and pains also returned with a vengeance, seemingly having multiplied in intensity during the time he had retreated inward.

"You'd best call the others, Al, you found what they wanted and you'll need time to recover," Myrin's voice said gently, filling him with the same kind warmth that he had felt from the golden being. "Your soul and body have both taken a beating today."

"I found something," Al croaked, his throat parched after hours of digging under the sun.

"Finally!" Calandra's voice said from somewhere.

"Excellent work Albert, " Kuzma said, appearing at the crest of the hole, gazing downwards at the vibrant white pillar.

"Hm, fascinating, this ruin is indeed a remnant of the Golden Age," Kuzma said, hopping down the deep hole as easily as someone might take a step down stairs. "Despite Millenia buried underground, the dirt isn't even clinging to the stone."

Kuzma turned to Al, blinking in surprise.

"Good Gods, son, I know I said we would only leave after we finished finding what we were searching for, but you should really take better care of your body."

"What can I say," Albert said, wincing as blisters on his hand popped and began leaking blood over the wooden handle of his shovel. "I got lost in thought and got carried away."

Kuzma chuckled and wrapped an arm around Albert's waist.

"Hold on then. This, er, might sting a bit," Kuzma said, swiftly rising into the air, the air flowing past them as if if they had been shot from a cannon.

He wasn't wrong. At this speed, Al's was jerked along by his side, his body protesting strongly at the sudden movement. An instant later, Al was placed delicately on the ground above the hole.

"That did more than sting, old man," Albert grumbled, plopping to the ground and peeling his hands away from the shovel.

Kuzma smiled apologetically but shrugged.

"Would you have preferred to have been hauled up with a rope instead?"

Albert rolled his eyes and said nothing, finally managing to pull his hands off the shovel. He grimaced at them, his palms were sticky with blood and the flesh that was left was red and irritated. To make matters worse, the dust in the air continually stuck to them, stinging the s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e flesh.

Calandra bent down over Al, looking at his hands with an indescribable expression.

"What are you stupid? Who told you to work so hard that you skinned yourself?"

Before Al could offer a scathing retort, Calandra ran off and disappeared over the crest of the hills overlooking the valley. Albert spat on the ground and turned back to Kuzma, who was gazing down at the pillar as if looking at a lover, c.a.r.e.s.sing the curves and carvings with his eyes.

"So, mind telling me what I've ruined my hands to dig up?"

"Of course, it's the least we can do for dead men!" A boisterous, booming voice called out.