CoESC Book 18-8.3: Truthseeking (Patreon)

Well, Yuriko supposed there was a reason it was called an exclusion zone after all, though she expected a military presence. Instead, for the past hundred longstrides of road, there was nothing. Until she reached a hot zone. 

The seaside town looked like it had been abandoned for years. Grass grew from cracks in the pavement, ivy slithered up the walls, and dust covered windows. No one living was within sight, but she could feel something. A malevolence within the air that made itself known as soon as she crossed an invisible boundary. A sense of someone…or something, watching. 

Yuriko frowned while she spread her Anima perception. She touched the cracks on the roads, the walls, and the interior of the houses, with her aura, though she took care to keep Radiance at bay. Who knew what kind of reaction that would cause? That pale woman and the bearman certainly felt it when she flared her perception. 

No response. She was curious, however, and knew that this was likely what she would encounter past the border mountains. 

The seaside town was probably half a longstride across, and about a quarter longstride wide. The coastal road cut right across it, and the crossroad was where the town centre that held the administration buildings. The other road probably led to farmsteads or perhaps another town deeper into the country. She wondered if it was abandoned as well. 

Soon enough, the coastal road ran across the docks, which was a single pier that stuck out into the water. The waves sang a steady lullaby even as the false sun painted a road towards the east. 

The gaps between the buildings, as well as the one between the pier and the rest of the town—or perhaps village would be the better descriptor?—was covered in tall weeds. 

It was the weeds moving against the ocean wind that tipped her off, followed by mounds shaking and rising. Yuriko watched curiously as the…things pried themselves from the ground. Silent, save for the thuds their footfalls made against the hardpacked dirt. She got off her bike and scanned the village. There were two shambling mounds in front of her, but she could see more rising in the distance. 

“So what are you?” she murmured, not truly worried considering how slow the creatures turned out to be. Each mound was of different heights and statures. The one directly in front of her was about a pace taller than she was, and was as wide as it was tall. It didn’t have separate legs, and more like its torso just connected all the way to the ground. It pulled itself along with its arms, which were thicker than her thigh. The thudding came from fists as they impacted the ground, followed by scrapping as they dragged themselves ahead. The other mound was distinctly bipedal, but was much scrawnier than the first. 

Her perception aura bounced off the grassy covering, though the act created a couple of sparkles. Yuriko hummed as she stepped back and to the side, and confirmed that the shambling mounds were targeting her when they shifted directions. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw another couple of mounds round a corner and head directly at her. 

She opened her rucksack and pulled out her bike container, shoved the mountain bike into it, then secured it behind the rucksack so it wouldn’t affect her balance. She couldn’t secure her luggage with Animakinesis which turned out to be more of an inconvenience than she initially expected. She could use Helping Hand, but the 1-circle spell was rather conspicuous even if it barely took any focus from her. Ah, there were runescript lines she could apply to the rucksack to aid with balancing and she should have thought of that while she made them in the first place, right?

Either way, once the bags were secure, she pulled out her two combat knives and prepared to probe the shambling mounds. The first one took another minute to close, which would have given her more than enough time to run away if she wanted to. However, the other mounds, specifically the ones that came from farther away, were smaller and far more agile. Hence, the first and second shambling mound actually reached her at the same time, but also weren’t smart enough to try to flank her. 

She had little doubt that her combat knives would do little to hurt the thing if she didn’t enhance it with either Animus or Radiance, but she was suddenly reminded that she could infuse different parts of her Truth of the Sword into the blade just as easily. As such, an Invisible Edge rode the tip of the knife as she stabbed centre mass. The Edge cut right through whatever made up the shambling mound, but as she stepped back, it was rather apparent that even a hole in its midst didn’t affect it. Her perception was able to slip through the gap, however, and as she danced away from the clumsy swipes, she…observed. 

The creature was caked in layers of mud, seaweed, and grass. The hole revealed a dense cluster of white, wiry roots, that were probably the weeds’. She only caught a glimpse before the hole closed. 

The second shambler struck with much more agile blows, though nothing that a mortal wouldn’t be able to escape from. They were painfully slow to her senses, and she determined that they were barely more than a nuisance. To her, anyway. 

A minute later, another three shamblers managed to reach her. It wasn’t as if she remained at the same spot, though she was dancing around the things. Rather unexpectedly, they didn’t get in each other’s way despite not being able to work together in a fight. They didn’t hit each other when she dodged blows, unless she helped it along with Unyielding Guardian Sword, and even then, she could see that the shamblers managed to pull back enough that the strikes only glanced off their outer shells. 

Soon enough, they surrounded her at five points, while she worked on her footwork. Having been used to flight, her ground work had stagnated, and the dance allowed her to stretch her body and get used to the changing dimensions. Radiant Physique continued to improve her 2nd-incarnation body, but even if she was close to her original stature, small differences in the base added up. Adjusting to it helped her be more efficient in her movements as well as helping her highlight where she needed to focus the changes. 

The clatter attracted more shamblers, and she spotted another dozen closing in. She slipped out of the net and approached the denser cluster, and at the same time, she pulled out a Satellite Sword from her core. She allowed it to return to its original size, but she didn’t let it act as a Flying Sword. She could feel the plane attempt to siphon the stored energies within, and it was better to keep a tight rein on it by keeping it close. 

Swoosh! 

A single cut was enough to bisect a shambler. 

Fwoom!

And it caught on fire from the heat. 

Earlier, she cut off a shambler’s limb, but all that did was force the individual to stop and press the stumps together. Which also allowed it to reconnect the severed limb, even if it took several long moments to do so. 

Still on fire, the bisected shambler twitched as it fell down. The flames spread from the edges of the cut and across the weeds covering it. The strands caught fire as if they were soaked in oil, and soon enough, a plume of black smoke rose from the broken mound. Ashes swirled from the mound, and drifted with the wind. 

Yuriko frowned as her perception probed the burning shambler. There was something inside that wasn’t just layers of mud and decaying plant matter, but the flames ravaged it quickly. And… the ashes were cloying. They stuck to her skin and clothes, which was quite annoying since her aura would have protected her from the filth. Oh well, thank the Ancestors for the Cleanse spell. 

Well, considering how vulnerable these things were to Radiant fire, she bisected the rest of the shamblers in short order. Without fail, they all burst to flame and started spitting out plumes of smoke, the clouds of ashes. That was what eventually tipped her off. The amount of ashes was far too much for the number of mounds. 

Well, that and her skin suddenly stung, and she felt her aura just underneath her skin come under attack. 

She’d moved down the road towards the north already, though she hadn’t brought her bike out of its container just yet. And she’d begun to cast Cleanse on her rucksack and other bags. A splotch of ashes on her arm suddenly felt as if it was acid eating into her skin, and when she reflexively flared her aura, she felt her Radiance react to it. 

She hurriedly cast Cleanse on her body, but unlike the usual, only about half of the filth was removed. The darkness of the ash gave way to pale sediment, and those were what dug into her flesh. Flaring her aura and Radiance removed them easily enough, but she lost motes to the plane—about a quarter of what she produced an hour. Not a big loss, but quite unexpected. 

She removed her bags from her back, then enhanced her sight to allow her to see tiny things. Sure enough, there was a smattering of the pale substance on the rucksack and the bike bag. It was also eating into the canvas so she hurriedly flushed it with concentrated Radiance which pretty much set her Radiant Conversion back by a day. 

“Rotter,” she muttered with more than a little frustration. Well, no matter. A day’s effort lost could be recovered if she focused on producing Radiance, but knowledge of what lay in the exclusion zone as well as what she was likely to encounter across the Nurev Mountains was just as precious. 

Her ears twitched as she heard more shamblers approaching, and she wondered if she should even fight back. Evidently, fire and heat just added to the problem, and it would take Radiance to solve it. 

Radiance. It was always Radiance that was the solution, she sighed. Just like violence, huh? Can’t solve it with Radiance, then she just needed to apply more. Yuriko chuckled to herself, and pulled out the mountain bike. She pedalled away from the abandoned town, and as soon as she crossed some invisible boundary, the sense of being watched quietly disappeared. 

She already knew the answer to the question of what she’d find, or at least, an answer. There was the possibility that she’d find different answers, and perhaps she could thread the thin line of safety between here and her destination. Her children were likely to be in Solinar and the Rosen Empire, and getting there was a big problem. Leaving was also another issue, and it was one she didn’t know the answer to. Irisvaile wasn’t easy to infiltrate, and it was just as likely that it wouldn’t be easy to exfiltrate either. She wondered why her children were here in the first place, but she had an inkling it had all to do with the time flow differential. That limited the amount of time she could spend idling away. 

On the other hand, the better path was probably to increase her personal strength. She could spend her hours forging more Sword Seals so that it could support more Satellite Swords. She could tell that the three layer Seal couldn’t support more than the two she already had, and if she added a third, it would probably tear the Seals apart. Her greater self, or rather, her true self wouldn’t have that problem as an orb of self sustaining Radiant energy would be more than capable of holding the thousand Satellite Swords needed to progress her Truth to Colligia. She’d be lucky to make ten by the end of the year. 

Still, she could work on the Seals with her spare strands of consciousness, and she could continue to look for information. After all, while she was certain that the Bellemer magi were benevolent, it paid to have a second plan.