I stared at Ayra like she just slapped me.
"S-sorry…?" I ask.
"The Devourer, you said?" She raises her eyebrow at me.
I nod at her.
"T-the dark rank stray beast, i-it should be documented… I'm sure a young lady of the Astor family would also know of the Dev-"
She leans toward me, pointing her finger in my face.
"Listen here, boy, I'm not sure if you're trying to play me for a fool, but you shouldn't blabber your mouth about dark ranks." Her small frown turns into a scowl at me.
"Plus, if there was a dark rank you call, the 'Devourer' I'm positive anyone on the continent would know of it." She twirls her hand in a small circle as she speaks, crossing her legs in the meanwhile.
The sun shined from my left side, not that I could see it, but it highlighted the few small pieces of dust between us.
My eye widened.
"I… I see."
I slump back in the row I was sitting in, lost in thought.
Frankly, I was shocked.
I recall what happened, and Cronus just vanished, but…
…what the hell actually happened?
She sighs and closes her eyes, "And you said there was a god there, too?"
I snap out of my daze and turn my attention back to her.
"O-oh, yeah."
She leans in toward me again, "Describe their appearance. Don't miss a single detail."
I blink as I reel back, "Uhm… okay…"
I take a deep breath and begin to describe what Trinity looked like. He was hard to look at times because of his dozens of eyes.
I talked about his suit first, it was mostly black aside from his collar line, where a white collar was before his black tie. Then, his skin was a pitch black void, like staring into a cloudy night sky. Finally, his head, his many eyes that flickered, looked around constantly, and the top of his head that moved like a crackling flame.
Ayra leans back in her seat and puts one of her hands to her chin. Her crossed leg's foot begins to swing slightly. Like it was tapping on nothing in the air.
"None of those match our registered Deities…" She pondered, then she flicked back up at me, "...it must have been an Entity." Her expression looked a bit more stressed.
Then, her head turned around to the coachman, "Chandler, head back to Gate, we need to interrogate these two further, as well as the unconscious one."
She didn't bother to explain what she meant about Deity or Entity.
The man nods and grabs the reins and flicks them with his hands.
After, a bit of shaking happens within the carriage, then it smooths out as it turns the opposite direction it was facing.
I could only look outside with a nervous expression, glancing at Hale.
I didn't know what to think. Not one bit.
'How does she not know of the Devourer?'
My thoughts kept leaping back to what I felt when I limped toward it. I couldn't recall anything past that, except that something shielded me after…
My mind was a mess right now.
Ayra sighs and rests her chin on her hand as she stares at me from across the carriage.
"What exactly happened to you, anyway?"
I look at her for a moment, wondering what she meant.
"What do you-..."
I saw what she meant now.
I didn't notice it before, since I was alone, but my clothes are absolutely destroyed. A tear is in the center of my loose, black shirt, my brown pants are also ripped open and completely gone from the shin down.
Not to mention I was absolutely covered in ash and dried blood.
'The blood must be from when the Devourer hit me into the destroyed building, before I got this new body…'
"I… uhm…" I couldn't find the words.
"It's only because of your appearance."
I raised my eyebrow at her. She continued, "Why I somewhat believe you. Your appearance."
Ah. That makes sense, I guess.
"And the most intriguing part…"
She leans closer to me, my head cocking backward as she does so.
She reaches her hand out to my left side, and it exits my vision as it does so.
"Is this… what happened to your eye? Is it just cosmetic? An injury? What's this material?"
More questions that she bombarded me with.
"That's-"
"And the broken armor plates on your wrists and shoulders." She cut me off, "no cyan rank and certainly no green rank beast could do this."
I stare at her a bit, feeling my face heat up at her closeness, which she seems to notice…
..unfortunately.
She sits back in her seat across from me properly.
"The eye, show me."
I blink, then shake my head, "I'd rather not."
"I'm not asking, show it."
I swallow and sigh, my hands find the back of my head, where the silk is tied at. I fumble with it for a moment, searching for how to undo it…
…found it.
I begin untying it slowly. It slips off my head as I do so, carefully taking the silk into my hands.
I stayed looking down to prevent her from seeing it any sooner.
"Are you sure- ack!"
Suddenly, she makes my head tilt toward her by grabbing my hair.
I couldn't see out of my left eye at all, because it wasn't there.
My right eye constantly gauged her appearance, too. She looked way closer than what it felt like as well.
Frankly, I'm horrified. No one's ever been this close to me.
"Hmm…" She inspects the left side of my face.
I had no idea where she was looking exactly. I couldn't tell.
"Complete removal of the eye, an empty socket… it's surprisingly clean, no infection or signs of rot either…"
'This is way too embarrassing…'
"I- uh- it's…" I could only stammer.
"...but it can't be replaced. Unless you happen to have your old eye on you, we can't heal it."
Her words made me frown a bit. I more or less expected it, but actually hearing it made me feel a bit sad.
I looked back up at her.
I could see her form a little smile, or was it a smirk?
"So… what are we doing now, anyway…?" I lean away from her, getting her hand out of my hair.
I quickly start reapplying the silk around my head and eye.
"Well, we need to verify who you two are." She points at Hale, then me, "Then you need to clean up."
She looked at her hand and took the glove off.
Her fingernails were long.
After finishing tying the silk, I look out the window.
More flat land. Hills and planes of grass, and to the other side of the carriage, I could see the forest entry.
Dozens of warning signs lined across the opening of trees.
I looked away from it.
But looking out the windows made me realize just how fast we were moving. It makes sense for blue rank horses, and since she's a part of Astor…
Typically it seemed to take about a day and a half of horseback or carriage to make it to Gate City, but with this, we'd probably be there in a few hours.
The soothing movement of the carriage began to make me feel tired.
Really tired. I hadn't slept since this morning, and I spent most of the day making the burials for everyone I could find in town.
"I think I'm going to…" I feel my head lean against the window, my eyes feeling much heavier than normal, "...sleep, now…"
Ayra only silently nods as I close my eyes.
…
I didn't really think about it at the time, but the planes of grass outside of Tenna really do resemble the same ones in the grey world.
I, once again, found myself back here.
Grey grass, grey sky, no shadows. And those same black dots that somehow shine far above me.
Except, there were more, much, much more.
If the amount here before was a countable number, this many no longer was. It was almost like they were closer, too…
It made me a bit anxious, admittedly.
I couldn't shake the feeling I'd be back here again, especially after this time.
Before it felt like I was here by accident, now it feels like this time holds purpose.
So, I decided to step out of my comfort zone, as well.
I began to walk around. Nothing was here, literally. It was rather peaceful, a gust of wind came whenever I thought one would feel nice.
Like it was responding to me.
The dots above felt much closer, too.
I kept walking. I usually sit still here and wait to wake up, but I can't help but feel the need to be more proactive.
It seems my body here also matches my conditions in the normal world. I don't have the silk with me, for some reason, but my left eye was still gone.
I cautiously felt around the rim, and even barely inside the empty socket.
Feeling a shiver and my brain telling me to quit, I jerked my hand away.
I looked up again, my eye widening at what was happening above.
One of the stars was… lowering?
A smaller fragment, it didn't shine as radiantly as the others, but it was the same shade of black, nonetheless.
It continued to drop toward me, stopping until it was level with my nose, maybe a meter or so in front.
I swallowed a mouthful of saliva as I took a few more steps toward it.
I lifted my hand and slowly touched it. It felt weird.
It looked warm, but it was cool to the touch. It held a strange shape, mostly spherical, but every once in a while it turned more abstract. It shot outwards, then immediately went back to retaining the sphere shape.
It was small, but it still fit evenly on the inside of my palm.
I leaned closer to it, my thinking stopped when I saw it had a few words written on it.
-Cronus >Dark Rank< 1 of 1,098-
…?
What?