3 bar menu

Return of the Fallen Volume 2 Chapter 21

Author: Blue_Rat

ch21

It was difficult for Shin and Asuna to believe that Mei was really a plague of death. A being that needed to either be completely controlled or snuffed out once and for all. Kazuki wondered how such a child wound up unleashed in the first place.

Following the old man for almost 30 minutes, the group of four arrived at a large stone door. It stretched 15 feet high and 10 feet across. Other than that it was a plain door with no decorations or markings of any kind. The weight of this door could easily surpass 4 or 5000 pounds.

“Old man, is this what you wanted to show us? What a waste of time.”

Shin snapped a bit. He felt the old man was wasting their time when they could be trying to come up with a plan to rescue Kimi and Danny.

“Why would I drag you all the way down here for a door? And can you all stop calling me an old man, my name is Atoh.”

“Atoh, my friend here isn’t totally wrong. What is it exactly that you wish to show us that you couldn’t have simply said.”

Atoh ignored Kazuki’s words for a moment and flipped a small lever on the side of the wall and a small trembling shook the door in front. With Kazuki’s enhanced hearing, he could hear the grinding of gears meshing and turning with one another behind the lever. Soon the large stone door slid horizontally into the wall itself, disappearing from sight.

With a wave of his hand, Atoh said.

“Have a look for yourselves.”

Once more a gentle glow came from crystals and gems embedded in the ceiling, however, the sight below was truly one of unbelievability. The cave opened up and stretched out as far as the eye could see and the ceiling itself stretched upward for hundreds of feet. Far into the distance, one could see other branching paths where the cave system led to god knows where.

All of this though was nothing compared with the Magnitium rocks. In every single direction, the ground was littered with hundreds of thousands, no, millions of Magnitium rocks. It wasn’t just rock’s though. There were tens of thousands of boulder-sized magnitium black rocks and even bigger than that were thousands of column-sized Magnitium rocks that stretched all the way into the ceiling. The worth of such a find could be considered to be in the 100’s of millions of gold Zeni. You could easily buy up several small countries with the wealth that laid within this cave.

Asuna and Shin, both of their mouths hung open like fools. Hell, even Kazuki was no exception.

Atoh’s next words sent a pulse of electricity to their brains, it was that shocking.

“This Magnitium cave runs underneath the entire forest. With the village at the very center, this cave encompasses 600 plus miles in every direction. The Magnitium is like a river, the energy from one rock connects with another and another. The power flows through every winding path under the forest’s surface. This is the reason why Tsura and Mei can’t escape this great forest. Or at least that’s how it should be but with our power source gone, the remaining energy is quickly fading. Soon the Magnitium won’t be able to link together with the rest of the Magnitium and the effect will be completely gone. At that point, Mei and Tsura will be able to leave this forest with ease. At the same time, without the power source, my sister Abah is forced to use her own power to feed our sacred stone tablet to help suppress our transformations. But her power and the tablet are not fully compatible and so every time she uses it, it becomes slightly more damaged. It is on the precipice of destruction. If my people’s transformations can’t be halted then Mei will have full control and my people will become nothing more then her dolls.

“Whoa whoa whoa whoa, old man, you’re saying too much too fast. First things first, you said this Magnitium is the reason they can’t leave, I don’t get it. My friend said something about it blinding them or blocking their senses or something but if that’s true why don’t Tsura and Mei simply fly up high enough to see the end of the forest?”

Atoh snapped at Shin.

“Stop calling me old man. It’s Atoh…Ahhh…Tohhhh.”

“Hehehe, a toe a toe, I got it, now explain things already old toe.”

Atoh shook his fist.

(This insulting boy. Haa, whatever, this is for your people. A little humiliation is nothing if it can save them.)

“Shin, knock it off. You mentioned wasting time, how does you insulting the chief get us any closer to saving Kimi and Danny. How does it help us come to understand our foe’s capabilities? Atoh, continue.”

Shin grumbled a bit under his breath but he knew Kazuki was right and backed off.

“The friend you mentioned earlier is partially right. The Magnitium does indeed block some senses but that’s only if the Magnitium is closer to them. Down here we are hundreds of feet below the surface. Plus the natural interference from the solid rock from the cave above, mixed with the many layers of dirt, the Magnitium here can not disrupt their senses. On the surface though, within the village, the Magnitium causes them to see a void of darkness. Entering it seals all of their senses completely. Not being able to see, hear, feel, taste, smell, it becomes an existence of nothingness. You no longer know if you’re really alive, in other words, it’s a feeling similar to death. As for the sky, once the power of the Magnitium reaches a certain height a certain property becomes amplified. Like oil and water, the Magnitium’s magnetism increases exponentially while the other properties decrease in strength. Us Mangshi are highly affected by magnetism. Something about it throws off our sense of direction, destroys our balance and even causes us large amounts of pain. Once you go about 20-30 feet above the treeline, the pain we experience from the magnetism becomes almost unbearable, like a thousand needles prickling our brain. Add that our balance and direction is thrown off, it becomes almost impossible for us to fly. So even if Tsura or Mei wanted to, the Magnitium would normally prevent them from flying high enough to see a way out of this forest.”

What Atoh was saying made sense but something bothered Asuna.

“Chief Atoh, this still doesn’t explain why they need a map. Can’t they just walk long enough in one direction? Won’t that eventually lead them out? Plus with their transformation, no beast big or small in this forest will pose them any danger so shouldn’t they be able to just leave by foot in their Mangshi form?”

Old Atoh shook his head.

“Young lady, this forest isn’t flat.”

Everyone looked confused and Chief Atoh continued.

“As I said, this cave system runs entirely under this forest, which means there are many hills and the land goes up and down. Many of those hills, underneath their surface are a part of this cave system which in turn means there is Magnitium beneath those hills. If normally the magnitium is hundreds of feet underground just where do you think the Magnitium is if there’s a hill that stretches a few hundred feet up. If they were to go near a piece of land and there happen to be Magnitium near the surface, that feeling of death, the dark void will swallow their minds. How long do you think you could last in a state of nothingness until you go insane?”

A feeling of dread swept across Asuna and Shin. Chief Atoh pointed at Kazuki and tapped his chest gently.

“Ryuta, on the map it shows where all the void spots are. Like 10’s of thousands of booby traps, even if you move slow and are cautious to the extreme, no matter what you will eventually hit one. This is why my ancestors picked this place. To maintain our peaceful lives, no Mangshi is to ever leave this place. If Mei or Tsura were to escape, how long until someone finds out who and what they are. We are in the land of humans, once they know about Mei and Tsura, naturally, they’ll want to know where they came from. How long before humans know about this place and seek us out to destroy us?”

“What you say may be true, but then why do you trust us. We are humans and yet you’re telling us all of this. Are you not afraid that we might blab and betray you for a bit of Zeni?”

Chief Atoh actually smiled at Kazuki’s words.

“I trust you.”

“You trust me, and why is that, I wonder?”

“There are a few reasons. When we met last night, it clearly looked as though I and my people were assaulting a young woman and her daughter. You and your friends didn’t hesitate to step in for even a moment. Then when you took me to the cave, you could have started out by simply demanding the map, instead, you began with bargaining. Finally when I told you about what me and my people truly are. In these lands, monsters and Magical Beasts are to be destroyed on sight, yet you did not attack us even when I told you what we were. Instead, you asked for a reward if you helped us. You treated us Magical Beasts fairly. I don’t know you at all but one that is evil would not behave the way you do. One such as yourself, I believe, once you have given your word you won’t betray it no matter what. Am I wrong?”

Asuna became somewhat proud of Kazuki and stared at Kazuki in admiration. Shin, on the other hand, felt down. He was the person who repeatedly suggested that they should just do things by force and take what they need but reflecting on it now, seemed too bull-headed. It was like Kazuki said, some opponents you can talk too, some you can simply knock out and some you just kill. In this particular case, it was the first.

Kazuki though had other thoughts.

(I might have killed him had Mei and Tsura died at the time. If I rushed over that hill and saw two corpses of a mother and a child, I would not have even hesitated about killing Atoh and his men. They only survived because of the situation.)

“I do keep my promises, they’re one of the reasons I keep going. Without them, I don’t think I would have the courage to keep living.”

Atoh was taken aback by such words and felt his heart warm. Nodding repeatedly he said.

“Right, right, it’s exactly as you say. As expected of a brave warrior.”

Asuna though felt something off about his words and wondered what he meant by that.

(Ryuta.)