Chapter 538: Freezing the World

Waking up in his tent, Aether didn’t move; he just stared, not thinking. Last night he had gone to sleep quite late, something he wasn’t used to doing anymore, so this morning... let’s just say he was a bit tired.

Getting up, he stood still for a bit longer, just staring at nothing, his mind completely empty, before walking out of his tent, where many others were already talking and laughing. ’How much energy do these guys have?’ He frowned slightly, sighing, as he stretched his body from his feet to his head.

The sun shone over him, marking a new day, and a quite important one for him.

After all, this was the day of his departure.

Walking over to Keres’ tent, the Harbinger was sitting at a desk, tidying up his place before they left camp, towards the next spot. One he wasn’t going to be able to see for himself.

Seeing him, he smiled slightly. "I heard from Sofia you are leaving today; I didn’t expect it. Was this the reason you came? To tell me?"

Aether nodded as he walked closer to the Prince. "I mean, I mean, you deserve to be told, shouldn’t you? You did help me... quite a lot."

Finishing his work, Keres rested his hands on his desk. "I did, didn’t I? I’m so amazing, aren’t I?" Aether rolled his eyes at his comment, which only made the Harbinger laugh even more. But after a while, his smile faded slightly.

"Finally got over that curse of yours?"

Aether smiled. "You could say that. And even if I am, I don’t want to run away anymore."

Keres scoffed, flicking his forehead as he passed him. "Come on, let’s get you some supplies for your departure."

Aether tilted his head. "What?"

Keres stopped, turning around with an annoyed expression. "What, you expected me to just live without any food or anything like that? What kind of Leader do you think I am?"

Following Keres, they walked towards the tent filled with their resources. The Harbinger summoned a bag, filling it up with some meat, as well as other things he might need, before putting his hand over his, and transferring the relic to him.

"There, that should be enough, convenient, aren’t they? These bags, I got them made before coming to this expedition; they were quite cheap, so I don’t mind giving some away."

’Convenient is an understatement.’ They weren’t that big, but at the same time, not having to carry around a bag with him was amazing; with this, he could just leave it in his Core and summon it whenever he needed.

Walking out of the tent, Aether noticed Sofia. "There he is." The girl said, wrapping her arms around him.

"I’d better not hear that you’ve died again? Alright?" Aether giggled, hugging her back.

"That will be a pretty hard task, you know? I’ve died a lot of times." He was joking, of course; he had no plans to die... well, fully die, since he was also not lying; it was a joke, but not a lie.

....

"I will come back one day"

...

Letting him go, she and Keres guided him towards the exit of the camp, preparing to say goodbye, but before that, Keres had one more thing to do.

"Here are some maps of the Wonderland; they should help. I don’t need them anymore, since we’ve already discovered everything there was in those parts, and I can just get more if I want to; it’s not that hard. But you might need them, maybe for a town or whatever, if you even go in those parts of the Wonderland anymore."

Aether was surprised to see the Harbinger give him a goodbye gift... but he was also definitely not saying no. It was free stuff, and helpful stuff, since he was right; his supplies were going to run out, and they couldn’t have raided all the towns that were on this map, so he could go to them if he needed.

"Thanks." He said, putting them inside his mantle.

Then an awkward silence followed... he had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Was he supposed to just leave?

"Uh... bye?" He said, a bit hesitantly, before walking backwards. Waving to them, as he slowly disappeared into the distance.

...

...

...

He was alone, yet again... ironic, since he used to want to be alone before joining Keres and his exploration, but now, it felt a lot quieter. "Sucks... It really does... but I can’t go back now."

What was important now wasn’t that, but rather putting his plan into play, after all, he hadn’t just left without anything in his mind, if he did that, he would be even worse than Keres, just mindlessly wandering around, almost doing the same thing, just this time, to find a way to make a way out, instead of trying to find the way out.

And his theory... was, to a degree, proven.

He knew both Avrie and Elpis were inside the Wonderland, which meant that the past had gotten merged with the Wonderland; the World of Frozen Crown was inside the Wonderland, just scattered around.

The question was if the Queen had also gotten transported inside the Wonderland, and if she had her powers... since if she did, maybe he could find a way to make her... freeze time.

It was ironic how, before he killed the Queen to unfreeze time and let the Wonderland merge with the real world, here he was now, doing the opposite, helping Freeze the world to stop the merge.

Was it a good idea? He didn’t know... After all, everyone, anything that wasn’t awakened was going to freeze, but at the same time, was that not better than letting the Wonderland take over their world?

...

It was a big decision for him to make, and he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do... he was going to see what his decision was going to be when he needed to make the decision; he trusted that he was going to choose the right one.

Even more, he didn’t know if the queen existed, or if she had her powers... so it was better to not make plans now.

...

Since if she didn’t have her powers, the only one that could do her job...

Was him.