Chapter 628 - 615: Still not as simple

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom]

[Pulchritudo]

Walking through the streets of the city, you would have thought the vast destruction that had occurred yesterday had never happened at all.

Morning had settled over Pulchritudo with normality. Shops were opening their doors. Merchants were arranging goods outside their stalls. People moved along the streets with items in their arms, carrying out errands, heading toward places of work and meeting one another on the way. There were conversations everywhere, ordinary ones that had nothing to do with the disaster that had shaken the city only a day before.

There were, of course, signs that yesterday had happened.

Some streets still had patches of dust gathered along the edges. Here and there, workers were already repairing minor damage, replacing broken fixtures or clearing away small debris that had been left behind. But for the most part, the city had simply continued.

That was what cities did.

They could lose buildings, lives, and entire sections of themselves, and yet by the following morning there would still be people who had to open their shops, prepare food, go to work, and worry about things that had nothing to do with whatever catastrophe had come before.

Mikoto walked among them without slowing.

("Makes sense. Barring those close to the estate, I doubt anyone else felt much of the tremors because of the wards,") Mikoto surmised as he moved through Pulchritudo.

The wards had contained far more than the people of the city probably realized. Whatever destruction had occurred within the estate, much of the force had been isolated from the surrounding streets. That explained why the city could look so normal the morning afterward. To most of these people, yesterday had probably amounted to little more than an unusual disturbance, perhaps some distant noise or a tremor that had passed quickly enough to be forgotten.

Yet he had little interest in dwelling on it.

Aside from the sweets he had found the previous day, there was not much about Pulchritudo itself that had managed to hold his attention. The city was extravagant in places, certainly. There were nice storefronts, elaborate decorations, expensive displays, and architecture that clearly reflected the wealth of the people living there.

None of it meant much to him.

His gaze passed over it all without lingering.

("But at least I have a clear destination; even if Albion isn’t with the fairies, they should have more information,") Mikoto internally mulled.

The Great Forest gave him somewhere to start.

The problem, however, was that every answer seemed to create another question.

("But if I kill one of the dragons, would that end this calamity and start the next?")

His expression remained the same, but the thought irritated him.

He disliked how little certainty there was.

If the calamities were simply a matter of identifying the source of a threat and eliminating it, then the solution would have been straightforward. Find Ddraig. Kill Ddraig. Find Albion. Kill Albion. End the problem.

But the circumstances surrounding the two dragons were too intertwined with fate to make the matter that simple.

Mikoto disliked that; he disliked situations where the obvious solution could not simply be applied.

("With how the calamities function, it should be more of that fate crap,") Mikoto surmised, passing a clothing shop and then a jewelry shop without even looking properly at either display. ("Meaning, essentially, Ddraig and Albion are fated to clash and destroy one realm after the other.")

The thought followed him as he continued down the street.

("So, in ordinary circumstances, killing one wouldn’t be enough. At least for the average person.")

Fate could dictate the course of events for ordinary people because ordinary people were forced to exist within the structure fate had laid out for them. They could resist it, perhaps, but resistance did not necessarily mean escape.

Mikoto was different.

Naturally, someone free of fate could clash against that fickle road, people like him. That was the one advantage he could recognize in all of this.

Not that it made the situation convenient.

It simply meant that the rules governing everyone else did not necessarily have to govern him.

("I remember that Ancestor mentioning there were two others like me.") The thought remained with him for several moments.

He had not forgotten the information, but he simply had no reason to concern himself with it yet. Whoever they were, wherever they were, they had nothing to do with what he needed to accomplish immediately.

At least, not as far as he knew.

Mikoto eventually dismissed the thought.

("Doesn’t matter,") he decided. ("I’ll kill both dragons just to be sure.") It was the simplest conclusion he could reach; if one was insufficient, he would eliminate both. Then there would be no kind of prophecy, cycle, or supposed inevitability that would matter if there was nothing left capable of continuing it.

Then again, that was easier said than done.

Mikoto’s red eyes trailed upward toward the gray, clouded sky as he kept his pace. The morning light was subdued behind the clouds, leaving the city beneath a flat atmosphere. He watched the sky for only a moment before lowering his gaze again.

He knew his own limitations; he was strong. Far stronger than most people in this realm could reasonably comprehend. That did not mean he had mastered everything at his disposal.

("I’m plenty strong, but I haven’t really made any progress in mastering Arcane Ascendance,") Mikoto thought. ("If I use that form, maybe I’d be strong enough, but the state I’d be left in leaves me way more vulnerable than I would be if I used Harbinger.")

It was annoying.

("For an ordinary Inheritor, Arcane Ascendance would mean tapping into their God’s power, or imitating it,") he continued internally. ("For me, it’s accessing the power of the Angel I used to be.")

His pace remained the same.

("So the best bet is still waiting for my body to naturally mutate.") Even thinking it irritated him, it was not a plan so much as an admission that he had run out of better ones. ("But I don’t even know if that’s happening.")

That uncertainty was more annoying than he wanted it to be; his body had already changed, and his soul had already changed. The distinction between what he had been and what he was becoming was no longer clean enough for him to understand. Yet he had no guarantee that simply waiting would produce the result he needed.

And waiting was something Mikoto had never been particularly fond of.

The solution was not a savory one, nor was it an easy one. It required him to rely on a process he could neither properly measure nor control, while simultaneously putting himself in situations where his existing strength might not be enough.

Irritation slowly crept across his pretty features.

He stopped walking.

His boots came to rest on the street, and for a moment he simply stood there, attention no longer on the people passing around him. His eyes moved beyond the buildings ahead until he spotted the old church.

And then the gate.

The sight gave him a destination for the thought that had been occupying him.

("The solution is to find a permanent way to strengthen the physical body while not changing the soul,") he thought idly. ("Enhancement magic clearly isn’t enough.")

He had already reached that conclusion before.

Enhancement magic could strengthen the body temporarily. It could reinforce muscles, improve durability, increase speed, sharpen senses, and push physical capabilities beyond their natural limits.

It was not a permanent answer because it was limited.

He needed something that would make his physical body stronger without forcing his soul to change alongside it. Something that would remain when the magic was gone rather than disappearing the moment the spell ended.

Mikoto watched the church doors as they opened.

His attention shifted immediately.

A familiar figure stepped outside.

"Mikoto?"

Paimon questioned as she stepped out of the church, the door closing quietly behind her.

The red-hooded girl paused when she saw him standing near the gate. Her expression softened almost immediately, and she gave him a gentle smile as she approached.

There was no alarm in her face, merely curiosity at finding him there.

Mikoto’s gaze settled on her as she came closer.

"Did you want to see how the church was doing?" the girl offered, her voice gentle. "You should come inside. I’m sure Nicholas and Catherine would be happy to see you."

The invitation was simple; Paimon clearly expected that there might be some reason for him to be standing there rather than simply passing through.

Mikoto, however, had not come for a visit.

He had stopped because he had been thinking about something else entirely.

"I’m just checking something," Mikoto merely said. "I’m not staying long."

The girl gave him a curious look, but she did not immediately answer.

Her eyes remained on him for a moment longer, as though trying to determine what exactly he meant.

"Well, then maybe we can talk?" She offered innocently.