Chapter 197 (3/12): An Uncertain Reality

Camilla opened her eyes, finding herself lying face up on something soft yet prickly. For some reason, the endless blue sky stretched high above her with clouds riding on the wind, slow and lazy.

The sweet scent of flowers wafted into her nose. She wiped her eyes that were still heavy from blacking out and shook her head to chase away the grogginess. When she tried to sit up, her hands tugged on something heavy and she looked to see Kagriss beside her, still asleep.

When Kagriss laid in that bed of white flowers and verdant grass, with her eyes closed and her long, dark eyelashes standing out against her pale skin, she looked so serene that Camilla was reluctant to wake her up. However, despite having just gotten up, Camilla’s mind was as clear as could be. She remembered quite clearly the events that occurred before she blacked out.

There was a flash of bright light that seemed to consume everything, followed by encroaching darkness, and then… nothing. She woke up here alongside Kagriss.

Camilla looked around, only to find the field of flowers empty except for the two of them. No one else from the Trista team came along with them. They were alone. Her heartbeat quickened with apprehension.

“Kagriss, wake up!” Camilla snatched her hand from Kagriss’s grip, and as Kagriss began feeling for the missing hand in her sleep, Camilla shook her awake. Slowly, Kagriss’s eyes fluttered open and stared up at her.

“Milla? What’s wrong? Wait, where are we?” Kagriss started out calm and as disoriented as Camilla was, but as she freed herself from the shackles of sleep, her mind cleared enough to see the abnormality immediately. “Why can we see the sky? Are we outside?”

“We were deep in the mountains just now. How can we be outside?” Camilla replied. She looked around and tried to convince herself of her own words. But it was hard. The field of flowers they were in sat sheltered in a tiny valley between three gently sloping hills that were covered with grass and flowers themselves. Beyond that was a great rolling, hilly plains. “…this must be an illusion.”

“Impossible. I can feel the grass and smell the flowers. The wind is clearly there and wherever we look, there’s sky, grass, and flowers. No illusion can replicate this,” Kagriss insisted. “Someone must have used spatial magic to transport us outside…”

“But why? Why us together, and not the others? Where are we anyway, for that matter?”

She wasn’t questioning if it was possible that someone teleported them, since they clearly experienced spatial magic in the tunnels, but Camilla couldn’t wrap her mind around the purpose of separating her and Kagriss from the rest of the group and dropping her in the middle of nowhere.

“Wait, what’s that?” Kagriss pointed a finger into the distance. Camilla looked, squinting as she tried to make out whatever it was that Kagriss saw. It was something sparkling so faintly in the distance that she had missed it the first time she scanned their surroundings.

From the way the light twinkled on the ground, Camilla realized that it was sunlight being reflected off of moving water. The flower field that had once seemed to stretch on endlessly suddenly became a lot more interesting, now that the monotony was broken.

“It’s a river or stream,” she said. “Let’s go check it out!”

Kagriss nodded in agreement and they took to the skies side by side. Camilla grabbed Kagriss’s hand and pulled her along to save Kagriss some effort.

Rising higher up in the air, more of the landscape was revealed to them. Things that had previously been hidden by the terrain were now visible, including the water of the river they had previously only been able to see the light of.

The water coursed through the shallow, winding river, shimmering in the sunlight. The reflected light dazzled their eyes the longer they looked. But that wasn’t it.

A city sat in the distance, not too far from the waters. It was truly breathtaking, with snowy white stones to make up its huge walls, formidable ramparts, and looming towers. The buildings inside were hidden by the outer walls, yet there was a second layer of inner walls that was visible even from the outside, and at the center of it was a castle that overwatched the city.

Camilla blinked. The city gave her a strange sense of nostalgia, as well as something else—a feeling of familiarity that was sharper and fresher than the nostalgia.

“Let’s get closer,” she said. A flap of her wings sent her gliding toward the walls with Kagriss following close behind.

“Milla, don’t you think that city looks familiar?” Kagriss asked.

“…You think so too?” So it wasn’t just her. What cities have they both been to? Not that many, in all honesty. Then, as she searched through her memories, one clicked. “Amaranthine Point! Amaranthine Point! That’s the city!”

She pointed at the walls and the gatehouse. “Look! It’s the exact same. The ramparts, the moat. That fortress in the center too where we’ve never managed to get to. It’s there!” Excitement rushed over her as she recognized the building.

It was surreal to see that ancient fortress of death here and now, thousands of kilometers away.

However, she soon managed to get her emotions under control and the more logical side of her mind took over. “It’s Amaranthine Point, but at the same time, it’s also not. Something looks different.”

She compared the fortress in her memories to the fortress before them and quickly found the issue. “Where’s the forest? And this stream wasn’t here before,” she said.

“The walls don’t look very worn either,” Kagriss added. “I’ve only ever seen the walls from the outside at night, but I know for sure it does not look like that during the day.

“Correct. The Point we know is gray, with cracked stones, looking like it’s fragile and on the brink of collapsing if it wasn’t for its massive size. So is this Amaranthine Point or not?” Camilla asked.

“…Who knows. Maybe we should head in.”

“My thoughts exactly. For now, that’s the only thing we can do.”

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The flight toward the city didn’t take long, but the feeling of unease grew stronger the longer they flew. Camilla soon realized why. Except for the wind blowing past her ears, everything else was silent.

Despite it being a beautiful, clear day, there were no birds in the sky. There were no little animals in the ground, foraging for food. There weren’t even any insects that seemed so pervasive before. It was like the whole world had died.

Her heart thumping, Camilla extended her life sense toward the grass and flowers and was shocked, yet unsurprised at the same time, to feel nothing. Despite the vibrant appearance, the grass and flowers were not alive. They were fakes.

“This… isn’t the real world,” she muttered.

“Why do you say that?” Kagriss asked. She still hadn’t noticed.

“Can you feel any life around us?”

Kagriss didn’t reply as she used her life sense. Her expression darkened when she felt the same thing that Camilla did: nothing. “Impossible. Why… wait…” She dropped down to the ground and felt the grass with her hands. She stiffened. “None of this is real. All of this is made of magic—a grand illusion of sorts. You were right.”

Camilla tried to not look smug. Now wasn’t the time for that. “If those aren’t real, then what about the city? Is this world real? Where are we?” If nothing here was real, then they probably weren’t in the outside world, teleported out by someone as Kagriss claimed.

Part of her—no, all of her hoped that Kagriss was right, because at least then they had something familiar around her, yet now they lost the only sense of reality they had left, except for each other.

She slinked closer and grabbed Kagriss’s hand. “Come on, let’s go to the fortress. There might be some clues there.”

Without giving time for Kagriss to protest or resist, she shot back up into the sky with a powerful flap of her wings. No longer was she leisurely cruising along in the sky, gliding on drafts. She was now giving all she had to get to her destination. Kagriss didn’t complain as she dangled below her and eventually the weight that Camilla felt disappeared as Kagriss began flying under her own power.

With newfound urgency and speed, they soon appeared in the sky over the city. The city was pure white, as clean as freshly fallen snow. The ruins that Amaranthine Point had been reduced to in the original world was nowhere to be seen.

“Was this what Amaranthine Point was supposed to look like?” Camilla asked. “Do you remember if the city ever looked like this?”

Kagriss shook her head. “No… When I woke up, the city was already in ruins. It was always dark except during noon because the walls blocked out the sun most of the other times. Now that I think about it, there’s someplace I want to go.”

“Got it.”

This time, Kagriss was the one pulling Camilla along while Camilla drifted on spread wings.

Kagriss didn’t hesitate. She didn’t even need to look. It was like she had the location already in mind and memorized.

They approached the inner wall. The difference between the architecture of the houses on either side was practically night and day. While none of the houses looked shabby by any means, the dwellings in the inner city looked like works of art, each with the personal touches added by their masters.

While some of the outer city houses were modified as well, the scale was much smaller.

Right before they reached the secondary moat that defended the inner city from the outer, Kagriss dropped down and landed in front of a house. It was simple yet elegant. Space was limited inside the city, so the whole house didn’t take up that much space. The door was made of a strange wood that was as white as pear blossoms with the little glass window in the center of it stained in floral patterns.

Kagriss reached for the doorknob and twisted. It wasn’t locked. After a tiny moment of hesitation, Kagriss entered, with Camilla following close behind.

They found themselves in a cozy little living room with a stuffed chair sitting in a corner on top of a rug. Next to it was a low table with a book on it, but there were no words on the book. Aside from the lack of life, this was the first imperfection that Camilla found. Yet, Kagriss’s hands still lingered on the cover, stroking it slowly before finally drawing away.

There was also a dining table and enough seats for four. There was a kitchen and a bathroom on the first floor, and two bedrooms on the second floor.

When Kagriss got to the bedroom, she flopped onto it and stared up at the ceiling quietly, her expression impossible to read. Camilla didn’t say anything then, nor did she say anything the entire time they were in the cozy, little house. What they found inside didn’t need words to convey.

Finally, they left, walking on foot over the lowered drawbridge, into the inner city, and then crossed the inner city to enter the castle at the center of Amaranthine Point.

There, they felt holy mana, pulsating at a sluggish rhythm. The origin of the pulses were clear this time: in the center of the castle immediately ahead of them. It was in the throne room where the ruler held their audiences—a fitting location for the beacon that was drawing Camilla and Kagriss in.