– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 62 –

Terry heaved heavy breaths and wiped the sweat from his brow. He stood up straight and slowly walked to the corpse of the brightblaze tiger. The corpse of the last monster he had chosen to face that night.

Terry retrieved his keen dagger and cut out the monster core that was now soulless. His gaze lingered on the keen dagger. Even though he had the option of upgrading his entire equipment in the Lands of the Four Towers, he still chose to use the dagger he had earned as a reward in his first unsupervised dungeon delve.

In the very dungeon that had then whisked him off to Tiv.

A part of Terry had expected the cored beasts to react to something in the realm. However, nothing had happened. Just like before, there appeared not even the slightest sign of dungeon activity in this cursed realm.

Terry still wasn't sure what to make of this.

His gaze wandered to the soulless monster core and he placed it at the back of his sheath belt.

No one truly understood how some mana cores could spontaneously spawn souls, but if it was at all comparable to the recharging of primers in imprinted items, then it would require ambient mana to work.

Terry, Samuel, and the Spirit Tower had spent some time coming up with theories and that was the closest connection they could come up with. They were all aware of magic involving the soul and, at its core, souls appeared to be just another manifestation of mana.

After a death in a dungeon, the souls dissipated into mana.

A soul spiritualist could intervene in the process and instead capture the souls into one of their soul spots.

Certain magic techniques allowed a mana user to exploit the fact that souls imprinted the minds of their owners to allow a person to survive the death of their bodies, potentially possessing or creating a new body.

The souls carried memories of imprinted minds as well as their magic. When they dissipated into ambient mana, the realm remembered. Martialist resonance techniques triggered those memories and summoned visions of the past.

That much was known, or at least old theory.

Now there were a few new pieces to add to the overall puzzle that was the relationship between souls and mana, and Terry's strange summoning skill was only one of them. The differences between souled and unsouled core summoning. The difference between slimes and other beasts.

All of it added new information about the known phenomenon of monster cores spawning souls.

At one point, they realized that another important puzzle piece had been sitting right in front of their eyes the entire time.

Sometimes even literally.

Martialist resonance techniques triggered a vision of the past. Normally, but evidently not always. The proof was sitting right at the ruling table of the Lands.

Apex.

All heretical cultivators, really.

Terry had paid it little mind before, because the martialist explanation for it hadn't held any point of relevance for him. Some people deemed the magic beasts sacred. Any deviation from the sacred image was sacrilege. Any offender was deemed heretical.

It took the structured discussion about the relationship between souls and mana for it to stand out in his mind.

Apex and those with heretical cultivation like her couldn't possibly summon a vision of the past. Their cultivation styles and techniques were deliberate deviations from the real thing. In the case of Apex, her father had altered existing techniques to fit the aspects of his daughter. It would be quite the coincidence for him to accidentally unveil a memory of a beast that had really existed, but never been heard of before.

No, that coincidence seemed implausible. Possible, but too implausible.

They had reached an alternative theory. If all the realms carried memories in mana, then how far did this metaphor really stretch? Thinking about heretical cultivation in terms of human brains strongly suggested one hypothesis.

Heretical cultivation worked just like regular martialist cultivation, except for one single thing.

Heretical cultivation triggered a false memory.

Heretical techniques resonated with a vision that never was, but could have been.

Terry stepped away from the corpse. It had been a challenging fight and there were a few things he would change if he had to face another brightblaze tiger. The reason he placed its core at his sheath belt instead of returning it to his storage was precisely that. He had a limited supply of cores. If he wanted to perfect his approach to the fights, he might have to recycle a few cores of his favorite sparring partners.

As soon as Terry had stepped away from the core, the little spectator squad was rushing in, which caused Terry to smile.

His monster sparring had taught Terry a few things outside of combat. A few things about the shroomans to be specific.

First, the shroomans didn't seem to have any fighting capabilities. Their approach to dangerous situations from which they couldn't escape appeared to consist of throwing themselves in front of others to protect them. Without any fighting capabilities, this was a terrible strategy on its own, but even worse when all of them appeared to try to do the same.

Second, the shroomans were eager to retrieve the corpses of magic beasts to use as additional food supplements for their domesticated insects, which eagerly devoured a wide range of mana aspects.

Third, the higher-level insects not only appeared to listen to their shrooman tamers, but also developed several movement abilities. One of which they used to transport corpses of unsuitable aspects directly to the shadow plane, where they served as fertilizer to the shadow shrooms instead of being fed to the insects.

Most importantly, Terry had learned that his initial instincts regarding the tracking construct had been right. He would have regretted it if he had sent the artificial hummingbird on its way to deliver a message.

In the past few days, the entirety of Shroomville had already changed locations twice.

Literally.

Every single shrooman had abandoned their camp. Most had dispersed or somehow shriveled into the ground. Some, like Shroomling, had moved as a group. Walking for an entire day and night until settling down again.

Terry had naturally followed Shroomling and Bugsby. He didn't really understand why the shroomans were repeatedly shifting their little village around. It seemed like a huge bother, given that they had to move around their whole herd of insects and supplies to feed them.

Terry was undeniably curious. Unfortunately, the topic was too complex to inquire about with nothing but gestures and facial expressions, so Terry resigned himself. He sent out another set of signal amplification constructs with every location change, and he continued observing shrooman society.

The longer Terry observed, the more intrigued he became. They appeared kind, hard-working, and overall fascinating. Their magic was strange. From the way their summoned rain somehow caused shroomans to sprout from the earth, over the cultivated vegetation in the shadow plane, all the way to the mysterious insects they nurtured.

The insects.

Terry's mind frequently wandered back to the insects. He had seen beast tamers before, but this appeared different. These insects took care of the vegetation in the shadow plane, which wasn't a simple task. The longer Terry observed what was going on, the more complex the task really appeared.

To Terry's mind, the complexity stood out like a shining beacon of light to draw his attention. He could accept the insects being tamed or even full-out domesticated, but such a complex task?

There were no shroomans in the shadow plane. There was no one that supervised and coordinated the insects in this complex task.

The insects themselves appeared perfectly ordinary. At least as far as mana-corrupted beasts went. They didn't demonstrate any impressive intelligence. They didn't show any hierarchy to explain the organization and task distribution.

So how?

How did this work?

On one level, the insects acted independently, which was what made Terry think of beast tamers as opposed to soul spiritualists.

On another level, they appeared to follow the instructions of someone more intelligent, but if the shroomans were the tamers, then there was something missing to explain the complex behavior in the shadow plane.

There were no shroomans in the shadow plane. And yet, the insects acted like tamed beasts whose tamers were right next to them.

Terry busied himself with helping the shroomans during the day, and following his own training during the night. He trained against his summoned dungeon beasts. Between battles, he practiced his mana compression and experimented with ideas to reach the state of liquified mana in his channels.

***

Terry was carrying a huge barrel of water infused with the magic particles he could often sense around Shroomville, no matter how often the shroomans relocated.

Terry understood that these magic particles must be some kind of nutrients either for the shroomans themselves, or for the vegetation they cultivated together with their symbiotic insects.

Understanding that, Terry made himself useful by providing some magic muscle to the daily logistics of Shroomville life. He had a few more barrels in his dimensional storage, but he carried one to allow the insects to already start doing whatever they were doing as part of their water processing.

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Occasionally, Terry glanced at the beetlefolk next to him. Bugsby was carrying a small bucket filled from the same water source.

Terry was still not sure how the beetlefolk fit into the picture of Shroomville. Bugsby was still the only beetlefolk he had encountered. While Bugsby appeared friendly with all the shroomans, none of them appeared as close to the beetlefolk as Shroomling.

Terry had wondered if Bugsby was somehow involved in the insect domestication, but dismissed the notion as nothing more than a flimsy idea based on the beetlefolk looking insect-like. He couldn't perceive any magic interaction that would lend credence to the idea.

Granted, Terry didn't perceive much of anything that could explain the insects' complex behavior, but simply going by the behavior of everyone involved, the insect domestication appeared like a shrooman project.

The shroomans were the ones feeding the insects and taking care of them.

Bugsby appeared to simply lend a hand to Shroomville society, just like Terry was.

Terry got the feeling that Bugsby was warming up to him. Usually, the beetlefolk was always sticking close to Shroomling. At night, that was still the case, but during the day, Bugsby was increasingly helping next to Terry.

Terry did not fail to note that Bugsby's head frequently turned towards Shroomling, though. He couldn't help but get curious about the range of Bugsby's sensor abilities. Terry intentionally increased the distance between Shroomling's location and his own place of work to determine the beetlefolk's sensing range.

To Terry's surprise, neither the extent of Shroomville nor the entire section of the forest they were currently in seemed to be the limit. No matter where Terry and Bugsby worked, the glances of the beetlefolk would always find the right direction towards Shroomling.

As far as senses were concerned, Bugsby's perception might even rival Siling's life sense ability. Terry didn't know if Bugsby was tracking Shroomling with mana sight or another sense, but whatever it was, it was impressive.

With a perception range like that, it's no wonder they got flustered when they crashed into me.

Probably not used to being surprised by things.

Definitely not used to falling Terrys.

Terry couldn't help but note another thing about the frequent glances. This thing might be of lesser interest to his inner Academy student, but it spoke to a brother and a friend who had gotten separated from the rest of his expedition.

To Terry's eyes, Bugsby looked worried about Shroomling. He couldn't help but recall the worried glances from his siblings after his return from Tiv. The looks of constant worries. The frequent check-ups to ensure that he was still around. The panicked expressions when they feared another dungeon incident.

Dungeon.

Terry had detected no signs of dungeon activity yet. He didn't know the exact source of Bugsby's worries, but he was sure there was something going on. At least unless he misread the whole relationship between the two different folks.

Terry had already pushed the matter out of his mind when he sensed an unexpected mana distortion on the other side of Shroomville.

Before Terry could process what was going on, Bugsby already dashed forward in the air and skipped ahead with short-distance teleportation. The beetlefolk's destination was clear from their trajectory. They were rushing to reach Shroomling.

From one moment to the other, all of Shroomville burst into frenzied activity. Everyone circled around Shroomling in a similar manner to their first encounter with Terry, only this time with a lot more anger… and fear.

Terry was already bursting his mana and darting forward before his brain had caught up with all the different sensations from his mana perception.

A primitive spatial gate. Unstable and fragile, but effective.

Ancient spellwork targeting the shroomans. Ranged attack spells.

Humanoid figures covered in cloaked armor. Marching through the gate.

A raised hand with a finger pointing at the one shrooman that stood out. Pointing at Shroomling.

Mana contracted and a wave of disruption eviscerated the incoming spellwork.

The forest glowed with translucent golden light and a divine hammer slammed into the charging vanguard.

Terry arrived with a blast of lightning. His king spear cut a sizzling line in the forest floor between the attackers and himself. A barrier of divine mana appeared behind him to shield Shroomville from whoever these people were.

Elves. Alive. Not like in the folded space.

Not taken over by the fungus-infested curse, but…

Terry furrowed his brow. Something about their mana signatures reminded him of the curse he had sensed in the folded space.

More distracting than the mana signatures, however, were their armors. These elves were not dressed like the fungus-zombies in the folded space. Unlike that seemingly random assortment of equipment, these elves were dressed in obvious military-style armors. Heavy armors made of black metal.

Same style.

Horrid style.

Terry scowled at the armors that were covered with sharp edges and symbols of death. Even their faces were hidden behind a mask displaying the front of an elven skull. It inevitably reminded Terry of the Lich Kingdoms, which did not elicit any goodwill from him.

Just great.

The elven commander barked at Terry, which caused Terry to flinch. Not because of the words themselves, but because of how he perceived them.

Terry understood the words, but it wasn't their common tongue. No, this was something he could only perceive, because he, like any other child in Arcana, had received the traditional set of language impartation scrolls. Besides the common tongue, this included the native tongues of humans, elves, and dwarves before the languages converged.

These elves spoke something close enough to the ancient elven tongue that the knowledge gained from the magic language impartation was surfacing for Terry. He could understand them and switch to their language as well.

"So I'm finally meeting someone I can understand and it's some creep in a skull mask," groaned Terry. "Of course, it would be like this. Just great." He straightened himself. "What's your business here?"

"Out of the way!" barked the elven commander.

Disruption mana rushed forth and the fragile dimensional gate collapsed while Terry glared at the commander. He was satisfied to see his opponent flinch at the display of power. "Let's try that again. What's your business here? And let me add that, right now, I find it very hard to believe you're the good guys in whatever scenario is playing out here."

Not in those outfits.

Terry could see them whispering to each other. He didn't care to point out that he could hear them.

The elven commander removed his helmet. "You're not wearing the colors of the Sun, but you're too strong to be any random elf."

'Elf'?

Oh right, my helmet. They can't see my ears.

They can't feel my outline like I can theirs.

Terry didn't bother to correct them.

"Don't stand in our way." The commander spoke flatly.

Was that pleading or a threat?

Terry honestly couldn't tell.

"We might be intruding on the lands of the Sun, but only because we have no choice," continued the commander. " We have the means to stop this curse, but we can only do it this way. Even if the Sun doesn't believe the Moon, this is not worth fighting over. We will leave as soon as we have what we need. We even chose to enter directly to avoid drawing your ire by marching forces over your lands…"

Terry was trying hard to control his honest face.

He failed, naturally.

Fortunately, his barrier visor hid some of his expression and the longer the commander talked, the easier it was for his inner Academy student to take over and treat the conversation in a more detached manner while sifting through the puzzle pieces provided by the chatty commander.

Sun? Moon?

Two different factions, I guess.

These skull enthusiasts appear to be from the Moon Faction. Moon Elves.

Are they assuming I'm with the Sun? Why? Just because I displayed some power? Are there only two powerful factions around?

Terry pushed back against the commander's words. Not just because these moon elves appeared suspicious at best, but also because the commander's justifications provided him with more information to work with.

Terry got the impression that the moon elves were hesitant to face him in battle, but also determined to not let this go.

Whatever 'this' was.

Which reminds me…

Terry had to admit he wasn't made for intelligence gathering. In the end, there were only two things he cared about knowing. He doubted that these moon elves would be helpful in locating the rest of the expedition – or at least that they would come to an agreement he could live with in exchange for their help.

That left only a single point worth discussing.

"That's nice and all, but you haven't answered my question." Terry pointed out. "What's your business here? What exactly do you 'need'?" He held the commander's gaze. "You said that you would leave as soon as you have what you need, but you haven't clarified what this would be. I saw you attack the…"

Terry stumbled, because he couldn't exactly call them 'shroomans.' He had made that name up. So he chose to gesture behind himself. "Them. Unprovoked, I might add."

"Unprovoked?" One moon elf soldier exclaimed with scorn and incredulity. "You're talking like the Sun, alright! Get it through your head that not all life is sacred! These abominations are tied to the curse haunting our realm. Their very existence is a provocation!"

One point in the shroomans might be connected to the curse column.

Crap.

Terry frowned. He had dismissed it before, because the only connection was, well, their fungus-based nature. He had not sensed any magic connection to the curse. Even the moon elves in front of him carried a stronger resemblance to the curse than the shroomans.

Who's to say what this soldier is claiming is the truth? Perhaps they also didn't think further than equating fungus spores and mushroom folks?

Does it matter?

Thinking back to what Terry had actually seen from the shroomans, he couldn't see any other path for himself. There was only a single path the person he would like to be would walk. "If what you 'need' is to exterminate an innocent folk for their mere existence, then…" He flared his mana and lightning snaked around the king spear. "That's not going to happen."

"Innocent?! We're all cursed! Cursed from birth! You must know that!"

"Quiet." The commander cut off his soldier. He caught Terry's gaze. "We don't need to kill all of them."

Terry really didn't like the way he had phrased that.

"To create a cure, we just need one…"

Terry felt like cursing before the commander had even lifted his arm fully. He knew how this was going to end before the commander had finished pointing.

Crap.

The commander was pointing at the one shrooman that stood apart from the others. A darker stem and brighter gills. The shrooman that was currently cradled by a beetlefolk.

Terry could sense Bugsby's gaze on him. He could also sense that some magic ability was readied around them. A mixture of space and void aspects.

Bugsby.

Getting ready to flee with Shroomling?

Terry could finally see why Bugsby constantly worried about Shroomling. The shroomans appeared entirely defenseless. Even helping a single shrooman flee would be an impossible task for them without Bugsby around.

Terry inwardly sighed.

He could neither confirm nor deny the moon elves' words with confidence.

Perhaps the shroomans were connected to the curse. Perhaps not.

Perhaps the moon elves could create a cure. Perhaps not.

However, something about the moon elves rubbed Terry the wrong way. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Not until he connected the different statements with their particular phrasing.

'We don't need to kill all of them.'

'We just need one…'

"When you say that you need that one…" Terry clenched his fist. "You mean that you'll have to kill them for your cure?" He already knew he wouldn't like their answer.

While voicing his question, Terry could finally put his finger on what irked him about these moon elves.

Sacrificing an innocent life. As innocent as life could be.

Sacrificing others for the sake of their realm.

These creepy moon elves reminded Terry not just of the Lich Kingdoms. They reminded him of Anand, specifically. Of the pride with which the monster was 'protecting' the realm.

No more talking.

Terry had to remind himself to not go too far. He still didn't know a lot about what was going on in this cursed realm. He refused to let them harm even a single soul in Shroomville, but if possible, he wanted to avoid killing them.

They might remind him of the monster, but in the end, they still weren't Anand.

***

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