CHAPTER 71: CHAPTER 71 - THE FRONTIER

As we leave the Barren Wilds, the land quickly goes through a dramatic change. The semi-arid landscape gives way to fertile grasslands in an unnatural change of biomes.

There’s no gradual blending between the two environments. Instead, it’s a clear cut. You are standing in a dry, arid land, and the next step, you’re in a green pasture.

Not even videogames make biome transitions like this. I mean, the good RPG ones.

Noting my bewilderment, Lillian chuckles.

"It’s the effect of the goddess’ magic."

"Yeah. It wasn’t always like this. In my memories, it was a normal, gradual transition from grasslands to jungle..."

Lovelace joined, also looking intrigued at the division line.

So, I’ve heard that the Barrens were an artificial creation, but this really rubs it in your face.

I close my eyes and extend my magical senses. Pouring my mana into a point between my eyes, I create a wide sphere within which I’m able to feel every flow of magical energy.

The energy in the grassland flows as expected of natural mana, in gentle whirlpools and breezes.

The energy in the Barrens is chaotic and broken in comparison.

I had never experienced the mana flow outside the Wilds before, as even the city of Amapytu is located inside the Barren zone.

So I just thought that that was the way mana was supposed to be.

But now I see... its flow is broken, sharp, and abrupt. The whirlpools are menacing vortexes, and the breezes are sharp knives.

I keep expanding my field of perception. I’ve never done it before, to expand my perception so far away.

One of the nice things about magic perception is that it doesn’t get stopped by visual blockings, like walls or hills. Which doesn’t give you that much of an advantage here.

The wasteland has no walls, and the hills are few and low, after all. Normally, vision is enough for most dangers.

But now I’m looking for something that can’t be seen.

The chaotic motions and sharp turns and angles of the mana have an underlying pattern. It’s fractal in nature, so it’s recognizable for someone who loved to program those patterns before.

It’s like a shifting kaleidoscope, with a certain squareness... No, that’s not right. It’s more of an octagon than a square.

In any case, it isn’t a natural shape for flowing energy of any kind. It’s imposed. Forced by something else.

Now that I know what the natural flow should look like, I’m able to see the hellish forces that are warping it.

It comes from a point right above the center of the wasteland.

I keep expanding my perception. There’s something there. I can almost see it. Almost touch it. But it’s still beyond my reach.

Just a bit more...

:::

"Aurea? Aurea???"

Huh? What happened? Where...

"Oh, bless the gods, you’re awake."

"What happened, Mom?"

"You closed your eyes and went silent for some time. We knew that you were doing something, so we let you. But then you suddenly screamed in agony and fainted."

I... did?

What was I doing before...? Oh, yes, the mana in the Barrens... And...

Oh.

That thing.

Lovelace hands me a canteen full of water.

"Drink. It will help with the unease."

I become suddenly aware of my thirst, then drink it all in a few gulps.

"Did you know about that thing, Lovelace?"

"Yes..."

"Since when?"

"The very first day, when I noticed the weird way the mana flows there."

"What are you two talking about?"

"There’s something terrible over the Barren Wilds, Mother."

I have no words to describe it. I mean, if I said ’a Lovecraftian horror’ back on Earth, most people would know what I’m talking about.

But how could I simply describe something like that to a person of this world?

"It’s horrible... like a blob of dark goo full of tentacles, mouths, and eyes in all the wrong places. And it’s... alive."

"That’s a way to describe it, but I would add that the ’dark goo’ is, in fact, pure Dark elemental energy. And it’s feeding on the land."

Lovelace complements my description with some technical information I didn’t manage to grasp by myself.

"So, he’s the reason the land is how it is... and this frontier between biomes is just the result of it being the limit of that thing’s influence?"

"You’re right. That thing is probably there as the result of the goddess’ magic."

Mother is looking at both of us with a gaping mouth.

"I feel... ashamed. I’ve lived in this land for so many years, and not once have I even thought of trying to understand the reason the mana was like that."

"It’s the normal thing to do, I think. I guess most people of this world wouldn’t think about it as well. They would just accept it as a fact of reality."

Lillian pets my head, messing with my hair.

"Thank you... You truly are a little genius, aren’t you? I don’t think that I would have managed to reach the center of the Wilds from here, or from the city, in any case."

Heheheh... Of course I am!

"Hehehehe... It was nothing... Oh, and I have never thought about it before as well."

We stay like that for some moments. It’s so good to be with my mother and to receive motherly affection.

In the other life I was raised by a single father. And in this one, by a mother, though she isn’t single. That makes me have one mother and one father between the two lives.

I wonder if they would get along if they ever met. But, knowing my father, possibly not. He was a bit too set on his own worldview. He would never deal well with royalty.

Though, I guess Levinna is also my mother, now that I think about it? If she is Mom’s wife, then I have two mothers here.

Would she accept me as a daughter, though?

Will she come to live with us in the Capital?

Urgh...

"What can we do about that... thing?"

Mother came in to break me out of the train of thought.

"Right now, nothing. Not even I can do anything, even though I have a lot of Dark elemental affinity myself."

"It’s another thing for us to search info about in the library. So we can do something about it in the future."

"Yeah... But I doubt we’ll find anything. The very existence of the Dark element is taboo information, from what your mother told me."

"We can only try..."