Early Afternoon - Early Fall : The Grand Mountains | Temnota

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  *Wooooosh* Standing atop a towering mountain ridge, the thin, frigid air crystallized ice all over my armor while I looked out toward the horizon.

  But while I thought it felt great, Eve wasn't so fond of the cold. "S-So, what exactly are we d-doing all the way up here?"

  Glancing over my shoulder, I found her shivering, looking into the wind with rosy cheeks and glossy eyes before pulling out a small cup with some wyvern blood in it. -Geez, she's worse with the cold than her mom...-

  As she reluctantly took a sip, she grimaced before the ice on her body started melting into steam, and her shivering eased.

  "We're looking for ruins, specifically, for anything with religious ties like a church." After making sure there wyvern blood was warming her up, I rather quickly turned back to the horizon.

  "Yeah I get that, but.. why, exactly..?" Slowly getting used to the blazing heat surging through her body, she started relaxing.

  "It's because of the mission."

  "The 'Low-Intel Assassination'?"

  Nodding, I turned to look in another direction. "Typically, the reason they are 'low-intel' is because there is a lack of administrators in the world, so there isn't much information on the target, the system just recognizes them as a threat that needs to be removed." Squatting down, I looked down the mountainside into the forested valley below, my eyes darted around. "From my experience, the best places to find information on them are in religious centers since the 'threat' usually played a role in the world's demise." -And although that's not always the case, it's a good place to start.-

  The issue was just that, with how old the ruins in this world were expected to be, they were so overgrown that a birdseye view could only do so much. -The only ruins we've found so far, we had to be essentially standing on top of to notice...-

  But we didn't stop looking.

  Just like we had over the last few days, we trekked forward, finding monsters to max Eve and Bella's experience caps whenever they reset while looking for any sort of man made features.

  However, while I knew finding more ruins was just a matter of time, after wandering the continent for nearly two weeks without finding anything more than the collapsed chimney of a settler's home, I started questioning if we should have just turned around and looked closer to the original city we found.

  At least that was until Eve noticed something. "Uh.. Evren?"

  "Hm?"

  "Do you think that could be old terracing over there?"

  Quickly looking toward where she was pointing, I found the grassy base of a distant mountain with the familiar pattern of rows of stone on it, mostly evenly spaced climbing up the mountainside. -But.. it's not perfect...- Although the rows of stone in a single column were fairly even spaced, as terracing would be, looking at other parts of the mountain showed that the spacing varied greatly, and rarely matched other rows. -It might just be weathered though...- So, after glancing around some other areas, we decided to go check it out.

  In my experience, terracing was something that would remain as a remnant of civilizations for an incredibly long time, however, after weathering, landslides, or simply the rock in the mountain settling, over time, the distinct look of terracing would fade and it would be harder to recognize versus something like sedimentary layers being exposed by erosion at a distance.

  But while I was quite pessimistic about it, as we got closer and could notice more details about it, the more conflicted my thoughts became.

  By the looks of things, the 'terracing' was sectioned off steps of with solid, uniform rock rather than man-laid rocks as you would expect from a man-made structure, but at the same time, outside of the weathering on the edge of the rock steps making them look like grass waterfalls, it was actually quite close to what I would expect from terracing. -Interesting... They almost look.. carved...-

  Finally making it up onto the mountainside, I wasted no time trying to force my aura into the dirt to check its depth on each step, and sure enough, it was almost identical every time. -How fascinating...- "It really is terracing," But rather than being formed on top of the mountainside, it was carved into it. "But..." Looking up the mountain and down over the surrounding plains, I saw nothing else. "Where is the city?"

  To carve an entire mountainside like this would take not just a lot of manpower, but a lot of demand. -And with everything around here being plains, it makes no sense for them to terrace in the first place unless the city was on the mountain.-

  But no matter how hard I looked, there was nothing nearby. -Hm... That makes me wonder...- Closing my eyes, I slowly shifted my focus to my aura, doing everything I could to flesh out the image being painted in my mind before eventually, I found a series of sizable, unusually round cave entrances scattered around the surface, all leading into a large space inside the mountain. -Bingo.-

  Opening my eyes again, I wasted no time calling over Eve and running into one of the entrances, rather quickly shaking Eve's skepticism as we found incredibly rusted metal torch holders still embedded in the wall. "Oh my... Is this.. a dwarven city?"

  Considering Eve came from a world with dwarves, the concept of a city in a mountain wasn't such an odd concept. -But...- "In worlds like this, it's not always dwarves." Continuing while reminiscing for a moment, Eve started using light magic to light our path before I continued. "When the survival of your world hinders on your city, hiding it in a mountain is an incredibly powerful survival tactic. Unless the monsters you're fighting can cave in a mountain or are small enough to fit through cave entrances, there isn't really a limit to how long you can survive, at least theoretically. The issue is you still must be able to cultivate crops and harvest wildlife for food, and if the monsters take all the food you and your people eat, the civilization will starve."

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  "Interesting..." Mumbling under her breath, she quickly sank into thought. "Is that what you think happened here? Do you think they starved?"

  "I'm not sure yet," I simply shrugged. "But I can at least say that the lack of small fauna in this world isn't exactly favoring a different outcome."

  Continuing deeper into the mountain, the cave slowly tapered down before eventually, we reached the cavern my aura had been showing me since we were outside.

  Having slowly gotten used to layering my aura over my vision, I no longer needed light to see rough shapes, even in complete darkness.

  But Eve wasn't quite like that. *hmmmMMMM* Increasing the intensity of her light magic as she raised it over her head, light filled the cavern and exposed a massive city carved from stone, and forged from iron, littered with the mummified corpses of countless.

  "Looks like I was right."

  "Huek..." Finally recognizing what the thick, earthy smell was coming from, Eve's expression darkened with a gag.

  But disgust was something she would just have to learn to cope with. "Since there aren't any monsters in here, we'll split up. Take special note of things like libraries, bars, and churches, anywhere recorded text could be found, and meet up with me if you find anything interesting or need help with something." -With how isolated this place is, we might be lucky and find some readable paper...-

  "A-Alright..."

  But we weren't so lucky. After sending Eve off, and taking the time to scout for points of interest, I decided to start with the central palace, a structure built around a huge stalagmite connecting the floor and ceiling, but despite it being isolated from the elements for countless years, and being far better preserved than anything exposed to the elements, time had taken its toll on the place.

  From living rooms full of tarnished furniture and mummified bodies, to the vast libraries being reduced to endless seas of dust, there wasn't much left.

  That was at least with the exception of the carvings, statues, and gold-embroidered scriptures.

  By the looks of things, the kingdom was one of the final bastions of the 'humanoid races' in this world, protected by a god known as 'the Grand Turtle' from a being known as 'the cataclysm'.

  From my experience, I expected it to be a dragon, especially considering it was described many times as being capable of wearing 'the skin of a human', but as I read more that slowly seemed less and less likely. -Why.. is he never described fighting..?-

  Throughout the scriptures, 'the cataclysm' was constantly depicted as a humanoid commanding an army of monsters rather than being a monster itself, and was painted more as a figurative, god-like figure than something that actually existed, but at the same time, seemed to act almost like an administrator. -I wonder...-

  Questioning if the figure could have been an administrator who took wiping the world clean into his own hands, I had to reconsider what the assassination target of my mission really was. -It couldn't be an administrator.. right..?- It was a possibility I had never even considered, not in this world, or any other... -Even in my hardest missions, nothing ever got close to that extreme...- And with only a small portion of my peak strength, if my target was indeed an administrator, it wasn't just me that was fucked...

  Looking over toward Eve's aura, a few kilometers away, emotion drained from my face, and my mind exploded with thought, racing to come up with a way to make sure she survived if the worst-case scenario came to fruition.

  But there was nothing.

  If the target was an administrator, while I could keep myself alive, I wouldn't be able to do anything if it targeted Eve. I just had no way to kill it, or even slow it down.

  However, there was one piece of evidence that gave me hope.

  The estimated class of the assassination target was listed as 'upper-demigod', not a god or administrator. -If it were an administrator.. the system would classify it as such.. right..?-

  So, simply praying that upper-demigod just wasn't just the highest possible class that every enemy above a certain level got thrown into.. weeks passed inside the city, Eve and I brainstormed how we would continue forward, and I didn't waste a single second of practice with my aura.. even if it didn't get me even near the level I needed.

  After a while, we had eventually found some carvings depicting a place that was the home of the cataclysm, a large volcanic mountain range some eight thousand kilometers north, and set our sights on it.

  Or at least.. I did...

  "We still don't know for sure that it's an administrator, right? What if it's just one of the monsters randomly roaming the world?" Noticing my pessimism, Eve tried her best to stay optimistic.

  But optimism wasn't what kept me alive for half a millennia. "No, you need to stay here. I can't protect you if shit hits the fan, and if the target does end up being an administrator you will die before the fight even starts..."

  Planning on leaving Bella with her to alert me if anything happens, my plan was to travel north to the 'home of the cataclysm' on my own, in hopes of completing the mission without Eve being put at risk. My thoughts were that, if the target was an administrator, I could at least stay alive until I could either figure something out, and if it wasn't, I could either gain more information on it, or straight up kill it without needing to worry about my surroundings. -Because at the very least, it will be a step up from the wyvern...-

  But Eve was adamant. "What if something invades the mountain-"

  "Nothing has for thousands of years, why would something now?"

  "W-Well-"

  "Eve." Sharpening my gaze, I shot a glare into her eyes.. into her soul. "Coming with me will almost certainly get you killed. Do you want that to happen? Do you want to experience the pain of your body being blown apart? Do you want all those who care about you to mourn after realizing you didn't return from the mission?"

  She instantly shriveled up.

  "Your life is the most valuable asset you have, so why are you trying to give it up so badly? To 'help'?!" Noticing her shying away, I pulled myself back and pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a deep sigh. "Haah... Look, Eve, I'm not abandoning you here, if your instincts tell you something is wrong, you can contact me through Bella, but I'm far too weak to fight with you next to me Eve. I'm not in my prime, I can't just swat a demigod into a thousand pieces on a whim, and even if I could, administrators are on a completely different level. If you come with me, one wrong step and you'll die without recognizing what even killed you, so.. just sit tight for me.. please..."

  Taking a step back, her gaze fell and her expression darkened.

  She was afraid... She knew the moment I left, she was the equivalent of a newborn lamb in the eyes of the monsters of this world. Even if she was hiding away, she was fighting against the odds.

  But those odds were better than if she came with me...

  So.. she stayed. I took out Bella gave her some stuff in case Eve needed it, and left the city, heading north, unsure whether I was going to be slammed face-first into the ground by an administrator, or wring the neck of a chicken...

  It was all up to chance.. up to fate...

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