Merlin mounted his echo and took to the sky towards the crimson spire, his echo glided around till it found a location safe from the multiple nightmare creatures that roamed the ground.
He didn't command the echo to land, but instead dismissed it mid air , as he was plummeting, he snapped his fingers igniting a dried grass at the safe location and completed a flame jump.
As he emerged from the flames, he immediately started moving towards a high ground in the distance.
'I'll just map out the terrain for now, then I'll make a plan an come hunt them, atleast this way more people will survive the seige of the crimson spire'
As he walked forward, he couldn't help but think.
'Since I'm destined to care less about humanity the stronger I get, then I'll just do my part for them now'
He kept musing in his thoughts as he arrived near the hill, as he moved closer, his danger sense activated and he immediately slowed down, he moved with caution towards the hill, at the bottom, he could see a nightmare creature that resembled a horse, except for it's two large protruding horns and it's legs held paws with sharp claws instead of hooves, activating his spirit vision, he saw three soul shards, and they were much larger and brighter than that of awakened creatures.
'A fallen demon huh.. fuck my luck, that does it.. expedition over'
Crack...
Just as he took a step back, he accidentally stepped on a dried twig and a cracking sound echoed through the crimson spire, immediately the eyes of the demon turned in his direction.
'Nope.. today is not my day'
The demon immediately lunged at him at an insane speed, completely covering the distance in a second as it's claws lashed out...
Snap...
Merlin had already flame jumped away, he emerged from the fire holding his chest as his heart thundered against his chest.
'Bloody hell, I'm not built for this shit'
Without wasting time, he summoned his echo and flew to the sky, from above he could see the demon chasing in his direction just below him.
'Come on man please let me leave'
In order to lose the demon he commanded his echo to fly higher into the sky, as he glided above the clouds for a few seconds confident that he had lost the demon, his danger sense flared again, as he looked behind he saw black dots approaching him on the sky, except these black dots weren't dots at all but Spire Messengers, about twelve of them.
'I... what.. what did I even do to deserve this kind of bad luck. I guess it's ninety nine days for Merlin Hermes and one day for the Forgotten Shore.'
'Except this one day the Forgotten Shore just used it's SSSR card on me'
Merlin commanded his echo to speed up, but before it could complete it's acceleration, the other spire messengers were just behind him. He immediately commanded it to descend at full speed to which it obeyed.
He felt the wind threatening to rip out his flesh as he descended swiftly, immediately he dismissed his echo and switched to free fall, as he fell, the spire messengers who dove after him flew closer to him, the next second and it was on him, it's claws slashed at him and he immediately split in two halves which turned into paper and was blown away by the wind.
Merlin who had completed a paper figurine substitute, appeared on the ground just below his previous position, he immediately snapped his fingers and flame jumped away, as he reappeared he immediately his behind a rock and used an illusion to hide his location, the spire messengers that had lost their target immediately began circling the area, but after a few minutes they left the area.
Down below he breathed a sigh of relief and undid the illusion after divining his safety.
'The one time I don't divine the safety of my plans and I almost end up as a side dish for a bunch of fallen nightmare creatures'
'I'm going back, that's enough exploration for a while, bright castle here I come..'
Merlin completed the rest of the journey on foot, occasionally killing weak nightmare creatures he came across, though weak for him now was probably the bane of existence for other sleepers, but what do you expect, with divination, he never fought anything he couldn't beat, and with flaming jump and figurine substitute he was an expert of hit and run till the creature died, plus he always made sure to restrict it's vision or even blind it completely with his newly constructed desert eagle.
After a relative few hours of walking, he finally arrived at the outer settlement looking like someone when just escaped hell, literally...
He walked directly to Effie's home and knocked on the door, and unfortunately or rather fortunately, the huntress opened the door completely bare skinned.
"Oi.. who's knocking on my door so late in the damn night..." Effie shouted as she opened the door.
"...Oh it's you pretty boy what's up" Effie said as her expression turned to one of surprise.
Merlin pinched his temple and replied calmly.
"Clothes Effie, summon a memory.."
Effie blinked then looked down "Ooh", then summoned a memory to cover herself.
"Hmm.. what's this, it's not every day you see a naked girl as beautiful as me you know" Effie said teasingly.
"Yeah yeah.. whatever helps you sleep well at night..." He replied flatly.
Without waiting for her he continued.
"...Hey I need somewhere to crash, you got somewhere?"
Effie stared at him then smiled mischievously and answered.
"Ho.. are you sure you're not looking for an excuse to come into my room"
"Yeah I guess, it would be an honour to visit your humble abode" Merlin said sarcastically as he made his way inside.
He entered her house, and as you would expect of her character, there was a bunch of things in the space, meats stored in bags and some on the ground lying around, skins and bones of a few monsters, and something that looked like a bed in the side.
'Anyone who didn't know would mistake this place for a dungeon, or the den of some wild animal... Then again that logic isn't too far apart either'
He walked towards what looked like a bed and layed down as he let the fatigue wash over him and the darkness claim his consciousness.
On the side, Effie was throwing a tantrum.
"Hey.. who gave you the right to take my bed"
After shouting and he didn't answer, she stomped towards him, and pushed him off to the ground, he stirred awake then drifted back to sleep not bothering to fight back.
...
The morning came and Merlin freshened up and Effie led him to the cohort, as they arrived, Sunny wore a strange expression with dark circles under his eyes as he spent the night thinking about what Merlin told him, Nephis and Cassie didn't have any obvious change.
Merlin walked to the group and waved.
"Yo, what's up guys"
"Hey Merlin"
"Hey"
"Hello Merlin"
Sunny, Nephis and Cassie greeted him respectively.
"I thought you'd stay a bit longer before coming back" Sunny asked him.
Merlin scratched his head as he spoke up.
"Yeah after you guys left I went towards the crimson spire, then I got chased back.. A fallen demon and a lot of spire messengers, I barely managed to escape them.
"..."
"..."
As he finished, a profound silence took over.
"How.. did you even get yourself into that situation?"
Sunny asked and Effie followed up.
"And how did you even escape?"
"To be honest i was just trying to map out the area when I was attacked by a fallen demon, I managed to escape to the sky, then a bunch of spire messengers came for my head, I had to make an early landing and walk my way back home, by the time I arrived it was already late so I just crashed at Effie's till morning" Merlin casually answered their questions.
"You're the only one who can talk about escaping fallen nightmare creatures like you just took a wrong turn" Sunny sighed shaking his head.
Merlin looked at them and spoke up.
"Well if you guys don't mind me, I'll be off to the bright castle to restock, I'll drop by again before I go back to hunt"
Cassie spoke up after he finished.
"Merlin, why do you keep hunting, why risk your life?"
Merlin stayed quiet for a while then looked up and spoke with a solemn voice.
"Why indeed.. well I guess it's just my selfish decision to save more lives, since I can't think of a better way to do that, I'll stick to what I can, with each monster I can save one life, in the multitude it may not seem like much, my actions may not even be recognized, but atleast I know I did something... I know I tried something..."
Then as if by magic Merlin reverted to his regular self with a smile.
"Sorry guys I'll be on my way, till later..." He said as he walked away waving at them.
After he left the others still sat quietly, still pondering over what he said until Effie asked.
"So.. does any of you understand what he meant?"
Cassie shook her head while Nephis turned to Sunny, Sunny looked at them then sighed and walked out of the room.
As he left he just had one thought..
'Just how many died that you're willing to go this far'
He looked up and shook his head and walked towards his tent.
...
On a random afternoon in the bright castle, a young lady was walking through the streets of the castle.
'Ugh, why is it my turn go get supplies, and did you have to send me alone, I'm sure they're other free handmaidens you could send with me'
The young lady made her way through the streets, occasionally stopping at different shops to get supplies.
An hour later and her hand was already filled with a number of things, as she was making her way through, she noticed a place where people where gathered together seemingly watching something.
"Huh... Is the bright lord giving a speech today?, why didn't he do it from the square.."
She made her way towards the group, by the time she arrived she noticed that from close the amount of people gathered was more than she expected, and due to her height she couldn't see anything beyond them.
'Haa.. sometimes I envy lady Seishan's height'
She leaned forward and tapped a nearby sleeper, the young sleeper turned at her, and when he saw she was a handmaiden he visibly straightened up as a little panic crossed his features.
'Hey why react this way, I'm not gonna hurt you.. Sigh.. a lot of sleepers are affected by the ruler's tyranny that everything concerning the castle is a threat'
She sighed then spoke to the sleeper.
"Hello.. I'm curious, what's going on over there?"
Although she spoke politely she could still feel the sleeper flinch a little as she spoke.
"Uhm... i-it's a magician, he's doing magic tricks to perform..."
She paused for a while, her thought were processing what she heard.
'A magician...'
'Is it a sleeper or someone with a strange aspect...'
'And what's with the open performance, are they trying to put a target on their back, Gunlang won't be happy with this...'
Her thoughts trailed until she decided to see the magician for herself, using the little of her status and confidence she gained from the sleeper, she was able to make her way through the crowd of people that were still slowly increasing
As she got to the front, she was finally able to witness the spectacle up close, what she saw was a young man in a magician costume with a long top hat and a clown mask, the strange magician was simply doing magic tricks of all kinds.
'Well this is definitely not something you see everyday'
As she witnessed, the magician took out a red ball from seemingly nowhere, as he threw up the ball, it bursted into flames that divided ito smaller parts before exploding into mini fireworks.
The magician then proceeded to take off his top hat, from it he pulled out a rabbit, the classic magician act, but infront of others, he squeezed the rabbit, as it swelled, it bursted into a flurry of white pigeons that flew to the sky before shredding apart like paper and dissolving in flames.
After his performance, the magician brought out a single playing card, the Ace of Spades card, in front of everyone, he threw it up, and as it fell, it fell with a thousand more cards on the magician, and infront of everyone he disappeared amoung the fallen cards, a moment after he left, all the playing cards floated up and ignited into flames that formed the words.
'A Wandering Magician'
Immediately after, the flames dissipated into nothing leaving behind a stunned crowd and a new rumour.
Moments after and the area was flooded with guards, the guards questioned the witnesses to no avail then forced everyone to return to their works. As she witnessed most of the ordeal, she was in a strangely lively mood as the magic act really lightened up her day, she made her way back to the castle with a light smile awaiting the next performance.
...
"Well that was a successful performance debut, I wonder how long they'll keep searching for me, hopefully not too long tho" Merlin said as he streched on the bed.
His day had been rather eventful, after restocking on his paperwork, cards and spices, he made his way to the memory market where he bought a memory 'Siren's Bracelet', it's runes read.
Name: Siren's Bracelet
Rank: Awakened
Tier: I
Type: Tool
Description: [The distant echoes of the siren draws out it's prey with the enchantment of their voice, luring them into their embrace.]
Enchantment: [Charm], [Mute]
Enchantment Description:
[Charm: The wearer will appear more approacheable to others.]
[Mute: When worn the wearer is immune to all sounds.]
Although the enchantment made him approachable, he was more interested in the Mute enchantment, when worn the user becomes deaf completely, as to why he needed the memory, time would later tell.
After he got the memory, he made a few preparations and went to perform to others, he mainly used his illusion and flame control ability to mimick some of the magicians show he had seen, even his dramatic exit had been nothing more than flame jump covered with illusion.
After a successful performance, Merlin brought out a few more fruits from his pocket and ate, he could feel the fragments rising with each fruit he ate. After a while, he sat down to begin his art and craft, after a few long hours, he finally finished, he also went out to eat the evening rations before returning to the room and laying asleep.