Death, Devotion, Dissonance

Chapter 100 - The Cliff By The Beach

An hour later, Evin found himself alone once again, heading towards the 'Unspoken area'. The flight was silent and awkward, but that was to be expected.

Although he was very happy he finally found some reliable allies to explore the Island with, Arza was diagnosed with mana-core exhaustion and had to rest for at least a day (though he became conscious soon after he was brought to the infirmary), so Phel didn't want to leave red-haired boy alone while he was in such a state. 

And although Evin wanted to accompany them and explore the Island together afterwards, Arza explained that he was going to explore the Island alone, anyway, so there was no point in Evin waiting together with him. 

As for Phel, the boy said he'd escort Arza till he got better, saying that he wasn't planning to aim for Helm or anything grand like that. Arza insisted otherwise, but under the two others' pressure he eventually relented. 

Then, everyone got their skin and other wounds fixed through magic, exchanged some cards with each other (Evin received a Find Person Card, and also finally got another Castle Card, but had to lose his two Slaver Cards, as Arza and Phel possessed two others in total), and started to exchange information.

Phel immediately asked Evin on whether or not Byron was still alive. Evin found it hard to explain, and just replied that he was probably okay. He then confessed that he might've hit Byron a bit harder than he intended, but he didn't do enough to kill him. After all, everyone knew that Byron was a competent World of Life user.

Phel still looked worried, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was the one who betrayed the group of nobles in the first place, so it would be awkward for him to go back there again.

Evin felt guilty for lying to Phel, as he clearly saw the Voice shooting Byron's heart and liver, and the huge amounts of blood that were spurting from his wounds. In his opinion, it would be impossible for Byron to survive that.

But Evin wasn't willing to reveal the truth, because he was hell-bent on insisting that it was the only left for him to survive the ordeal. Decatur was definitely going to kill him, and if he didn't hit Byron hard enough, he would've died in the Temple. Obviously, he didn't mean to kill anyone.

In any case, Phel nodded stiffly, and Evin tried to direct the conversation towards a different direction. He asked Arza questions about his Conditional Absolute. Although Evin saw glimpses of what was happening beyond the rock, naturally he couldn't see the entire picture. Hearing from Phel how Arza saved him sent goosebumps through his skin. Naturally, he also became excited to learn about the spell. 

Arza explained that it wasn't an Absolute in the truest sense, just a spell which had powerful effects at the cost of drawbacks and conditions. If it really was an absolute, the defensive spells wouldn't have been able to block him, and Arza would've been able to dash towards his designated opponent regardless of what they did to stop him.

But Phel and Evin knew that the feat he achieved was amazing enough on its own. They both understood that Arza was one step closer to creating his own Absolute, and now he just had to make it more powerful. Arza mentioned that if he became good enough at Gestures, he'd most likely be able to achieve his goals.

Then, they each talked about their general experience on the Island. Like Evin expected, Arza spent the yesterday morning exploring the Temple, and then went towards the Volcano immediately after. Decatur's group, on the other hand, explored the mountain-peak and went straight towards the Temple afterwards. 

Eventually, they promised each other to meet once again two days later, and parted. The two went towards the Shelter, while Evin resumed his exploration of the Island, starting with the unspoken area.

He actually wanted to go to the other places and wait for Phel, but the Voice insisted that Evin explore the place as soon as possible.

<At this point in time, it's best for us to explore that place now. From what we heard from Phel, Decatur's group still doesn't know much about the unspoken area, so we should be able to explore it without being interrupted.>

'How can it act like nothing happened?' Evin thought inside, but decided not to say it.

He felt it was unfair of the Voice to lash out like that when Evin mentioned the act of him murdering someone in broad daylight. Obviously, the Voice was the one who performed the deed, but no one was going to believe something like that during a trial.

'Is he so confident that we won't be punished for what we did?' 

Once again, Evin wanted to mention the subject, but since it even threatened to stop casting spells for him, Evin could tell that it really didn't want to talk about it. But something told him that the faster they discussed this the better it was. After all, they should at least prepare what words to tell if they ever got interrogated. 

'But I don't want to argue with it any more than I need to…' Evin thought. 

He realized that the Voice was in a bad mood for a long time now. It became obvious when he thought about it with how easily it lashed out at Evin, and even that murderous feeling that Evin felt when it overlapped its mind with his. In a way, it was natural for it to lash out like that when it saw Byron blocking the path outside like that. 

At that moment, it shouldn't have even thought about the consequences, it should've just wanted to vent out its anger on someone. Evin, of course, did not agree with its method of stress relief, but when he confronted it about its actions, the Voice turned angry.

Evin remembered it talking about cases, where people got angry when others poked at their sensitive subjects. Surely this was something similar to that? If Evin approached the topic like that, the Voice would also understand, right?

'Ah, but it's so hard to bring up the subject…'

Evin was suddenly reminded of the time when he broke a random cup in his house, and hesitated to speak about it to his father for days, fearing that he'd get scolded and beaten up, but also thinking that he'd be let go with a lighter punishment if he confessed his wrongs first. The Voice at the time wasn't as helpful as he was now, so it was just enjoying the situation as a bystander.

But those days spent in hesitation and agony were unneeded, as his father never mentioned the broken cup. Evin even started to wonder whether his father knew they had a cup like that in the house in the first place. 

'Maybe if I let this matter lie, nothing would happen to me, after all?' Evin thought for a bit, before shaking his head. Byron wasn't a random cup in a 2nd grade family. If he suddenly died, there was definitely going to be a lot of trouble.

With these various thoughts, Evin came to the place marked on the map. For the time being, he decided to focus on the task at hand. 

If the map was to be trusted, the entrance to the area was located on a cliff located between the beach and the forest. There should also be a castle very close to the place, so Evin would be able to claim one as his own while he was at it.

It didn't take Evin much time to find the cliff, but it took him some time to find entrance, as it became apparent that the people on the Island made some effort to hide the unspoken place lest a student randomly stumbled upon it. The cliff being covered by vines and leaves also didn't help the situation. But eventually, he stumbled upon an iron door hidden behind a thick layer of foliage. 

'Now that I've found the door, the place's design is starting to make more sense.'

Evin quickly began to suspect that the trial's avenue was hidden inside the cliff itself. Evin wondered how long would something like that take for him, and decided that he would have to toil for at least a month to achieve something similar, even with the mana-rich atmosphere on the Island. 

First was his abysmal talent with the World of Earth, and also the fact that using Tenarak's energy to affect rocks took his mana-core an ungodly amount of effort. 

After appreciating the effort needed to create the place, Evin approached the door with expectant steps. He immediately noticed that the rocks adjacent to the door were made of ketricite, and felt a bad feeling appear in his head. 

'Don't tell me the whole place is made of ketricite…'

But when he opened the door, he wasn't met with the beginning room of a trial, but four easterners laughing loudly, as they played cards around a table. They noticed Evin at the doorstep, and hurriedly got off their seats, with weapons in their hands. 

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"