Kieron POV
It has been nearly three months since I came to this world now.
And only now it is hitting me.
This is the world of Shadow Slave.
I either adapt or die.
Accept the situation or be consumed by it.
I'm truly no longer a part of my previous world.
Nor am I a part of this world, as if there's a wall between us.
And this world...
Is wrong.
Its cruel to the weak, and favours the strong.
But to become strong, you have to pass through the stages of weakness.
This world forces its cruelty over to even those who are born lucky.
No one is an exception.
Cruelty is in its nature.
But no one is equal either.
I recalled something.
"Strength is the only thing that matters in this world. Everything else is just a delusion for the weak."
But is it?
What exactly is it?
When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible.
When he dies, he is hard and insensitive.
When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant.
But when it's dry and hard, it dies.
Hardness and strength are death's companions.
Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being.
Therefore what has hardened will never win…
This might be a misguided way to think, equating strength with rigidity.
Strength of survival draws its roots from wisdom, adaptability, and fortitude. Strength of sspirit draws its roots from compassion, understanding, and love.
To me, strength doesn't mean to be unyielding. It means knowing when it is right to give way, and when it is right to hold firm…
But this is exactly the reason why me and Nephis can never get along. She's the most rigid of us all.
She never knows when to yield back.
She was supposed to be the Changing Star.
But she ended up Changing everything but herself, by bringing everything to ruin, even herself.
The star of ruin.
The Unchanging Star.
Because there was no one to change her.
To show her, that her ways are not the best ones.
That she was destroying herself.
That she could have aimed higher.
This time...
I will be the one to show her that.
Why?
I can't be satisfied if I don't.
I will keep aiming higher and higher until there's nothing higher to aim.
I will not stop, even through the pain.
The pain will be proof that I'm still alive.
And that's why...
"Believing in oneself and becoming helpless, like children, is the only way to growth. Because weakness is great, and strength is insignificant." - Andrei Tarkovsky
After the forgotten shore, I really didn't like Nephis' character. Because she wasn't what she represented.
She represented change, without ever changing herself. How can you hope to change the world without changing yourself, your ways, along the way?
She represented strength, but she never had true strength. Only brute force. If something didn't work with brute force, she'd use more brute force.
She was always the leader, but never had the mentality of one.
Which is why I really liked Nephis the of the forgotten shore. She changed herself here. She weilded true strength. She was a true leader.
Where did it all go wrong?
***
Caster, together with Effie, had now reached the outer settlements after hours upon hours of hunting.
Still, it wasn't so bad. They were used to it after months of constant hunting.
"I'll go prepare some stuff... uhh, you can do your thing or follow me around it's upto you."
Immediately afterwards Caster started walking away, Effie on the other hand stood right there. Not knowing exactly what to do. But soon she just decided to leave Caster alone.
Caster had some preparations to do.
Caster and Kai had not met up even once after the talks they had a month back. The plan could be burnt to ground if Gunlaug caught a scent of their plan. So they were not communicating on purpose.
Because of this, Caster didn't know if Kai succeeded or not, so his first preparation would be to check if Kai had succeeded so far or not.
For that Caster called up a person from the camp.
He wasn't someone important at the camp, very unknown. Which is why he was the best person to utilize right now. After all, Gunluag's men had a chance of recognizing who the main people from Caster's camp are.
Speaking of that, Gunlaug had sent his men to spy on the camp multiple times, but they left without confronting them. None of them spied while they hunted though, too scared of Caster.
The man, whose name was Ren, entered Caster's hut.
"I have a little favor to ask from you."
Ren seemed to be a little spooked. But before he could reply, Caster spoke up again.
"I want you to go to the bright castle and ask for what a person named Kai is doing. I want to find out if he works for Gunlaug and how high his position is."
With a pause, he continued:
"...The payment will be this shard I am giving you. Use it to enter the bright castle but since you only need to ask around, there's no need to give it to them. Use it how you wish. If you wish to live in the birght castle, you can do so. But come with the information as fast as you can first."
Ren was sort of overwhelmed, but not lost. He agreed to help and left immediately.
'That's one thing down.'
While the guy, Ren, was out, he used the time to recover. He used the healing charm, [Spark of Light], to completely get rid of his injuries and fatigue. It took nearly thrity minutes for that, because its healing effect is relative, to an extent. It will heal the more serious injuries at a faster rate, and the less serious injuries at a slower rate.
Another thing he did was review his general plan what he'd say to Gunalug. It'd be hilarious if he just forgot what to say when the time comes.
'But I'd rather not be funny at that moment...'
After taking out another shard from the bag he played around with it for a bit.
Last preparation he needed to do was make a bookmark. This mark will be useful even in the future, to go to certain spells faster, so it's a good thing to make.
He didn't have good material to make it out of so currently it was just a thinly sliced bark.
Now all he needed was to wait for Ren with the information.
In less than an hour Ren came back with the information. And indeed. Kai had reached the ideal level of position in Gunlaug's army as he hoped Kai would have.
Now it was only a matter of what Caster would do.
'Oh boy...'
Walking out with Ren, Caster went to the castle with him. Ren decided to live there for a week.
'This will be an exciting week for you at the castle.'
Caster chuckled inwardly.
In just a few minutes, the two were at the Castle gates. The guard let Ren past, since he just came earlier, with a shard, but seeing Caster startled them a bit.
'It seems Gunlaug has warned them about me.'
One of the guards left, running, the other guard did not go against him, Calmly asked some questions from Caster.
"Sir, may I ask for your reason to enter the bright castle?"
'I see, so they don't want to make an enemy out of me instantly. They didn't even do that for Nephis though? Well, I suppose she just instantly came and asked for the right of challenge that's why? I've been way more passive comparitively.'
Caster simply looked at the guard with a sharp gaze, spooking the guy. With a deep, but unforced, voice he spoke up soon.
"Just... shopping. Memory shopping."
The guard nervously clapped once.
"Aha, that makes sense. Please wait here for a moment sir."
Ren looked at the situation with slight dumbfound but he seemed to understand a little about what was going. Anybody would be cautious of someone with Caster's strength.
"Why should I?"
"B-But sir..."
"I will do what I want to. This is clear discrimination against me? Do you wish for me to challenge you to a battle?"
The guy seemed to nearly combust from what he just heard. The strength in his legs seemed to give out.
'What sort of fear do they have of me? And why? This is not what I meant for to happen...'
Unnecessary fear from before would just get in the way. They'd be too cautious. But never-the-less, he had no choice but to move forward with the plan after revealing himself infront of them.
"S-Sir, p-ple-please understand. I-I have orders... I-I'm not the one... the one that is dis-disc-"
"Silence."
"Yes!"
"And Ren... go. Leave, do you stuff."
"Yes... sir."
'It seems they've told them not to mess with me, and possibly my people, for now and hold me at the gate.'
Sigh.
Looks over to the guard.
"I assume a lieutenant is coming."
"Yes... Well... yeah, in a way, yes."
The way the guard spoke catches his attention but doesn't talk about it, knowing he'd probably not tell.
"But why? What did I do to deserve that?"
"I do not know, Sir."
A slight pause occured between the two.
"Useless cunt."
"I-I'm sorry?"
The hostility shook him again.
"Oh, nothing. Nothing."
Caster decided to look scarier, in a way. He was already pretty scary in their eyes for some reason. So playing into that role might be the best decision.
Afterwards, he nonchalantly summoned the book of books and pretended to flip through its pages.
"What is that sir?"
"Very brave, aren't we? Asking questions? Well if you must know, it's just a diary, I've written things on it that I want to buy."
"I... I see."
Just a couple minutes later he saw four figures walk out of the Castle towards the gate where he was held up.
'Oh you're kidding.'
Four of the five lieutenants of the bright castle were walking in unison towards Caster.
Tessai, Kido, Gemma and Seishan.
'Why are they so on guard against me?'
However, Caster wasn't spooked. While he wasn't expecting this to happen, he didn't think this to be out of the realms of possibility.
Then he spoke, with the brightest tone that didn't seem fake:
"Hey guys~! Here to escort me?"