A Journey Unwanted

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Heart Kingdom]

[Outskirts]

"Ascending to the spiritual plane to escape, huh?"

Mikoto stared ahead at nothing but the immense destruction he had caused.

There was no immediate response to his own observation. He simply stood there, small against the scale of what surrounded him; his sabatons were still planted on the remaining patch of ground. His red eyes were fixed on the destruction, trying to determine exactly where the consequences of his actions had stopped.

The answer was not reassuring.

The wide, gaping hole stretched far and wide beneath him. Its edges had been torn apart rather than cleanly broken, the earth displaced and cracked in every direction. What remained of the surrounding forest had been flattened, burned, frozen, or simply erased. Chunks of stone lay scattered across the destroyed landscape, some half-buried, others resting at odd angles where the force of the attacks had thrown them.

The destruction extended considerably farther than the immediate crater.

Mikoto’s eyes moved slowly across it.

None of the spells responsible for this had taken any real effort.

He hadn’t strained himself to produce the devastation. His breathing had barely changed, and his mana reserves had hardly suffered. The attacks had been executed with the same effort he might have used for something considerably less consequential.

To someone else, that prospect might have been terrifying.

To Mikoto, it was mostly inconvenient.

("It seems excessive...") His eyes turned slightly upward. ("Not like I needed big-ass explosions to take care of that guy.")

The thought remained with him for a moment before his expression became more serious.

("With how destructive they are, it probably reached that estate.")

He knew the estate; more importantly, he knew the wards surrounding it.

They were powerful enough to withstand ordinary attacks, and ordinarily Mikoto would have considered that reassuring. Right now, however, it only made him more certain that the destruction had not stopped where he wanted it to.

His gaze shifted toward the distant direction of the estate; he couldn’t see it from here.

That didn’t make the possibility any less obvious.

("The wards were strong, but even they probably didn’t survive something like that.") His expression shifted. ("Which means this probably injured people there.") The thought lingered in his mind.

Vitalities were possible too.

The word carried more than he wanted it to.

He had never pretended to be a saint. He had killed, he had destroyed, and he had done things that most people would have considered monstrous without needing to think twice about it.

But there had always been a distinction in his mind. The people he fought were the people he had chosen to fight, and the people caught in the aftermath were different.

The nobles at that estate might have been slimy. Many of them probably deserved little sympathy from him. But none of them had been responsible for whatever had happened here.

Some had simply been there for the banquet, some had gone because they wanted an evening of food, conversation, and indulgence, and some might have been servants. Others were guards who had simply been doing their jobs, and most might have been people who had never even known what was happening outside those walls.

And now they might be injured because of him.

Mikoto’s gauntleted hand lifted.

"Damn it."

There was no real frustration behind the word; it came out quietly and flatly.

His thumb began tapping against his temple.

Once, twice, and then again.

He continued the repetitive motion as though he were trying to feel something beneath his own skin, waiting for some emotional response that should have been there.

Guilt, regret, concern, or something else.

Nothing came.

His thumb tapped his temple again.

Nothing again.

Mikoto stopped; he wasn’t surprised.

He had already suspected that the problem was getting worse.

("The phase really has me by the balls, huh?") His pretty features shifted into a small frown. ("Sure, I was no saint before, but I would’ve at least made sure there weren’t people nearby if I released attacks like that.")

His eyes lowered toward the ground; he remembered Selwyn. He remembered how much disgust he had felt toward that abomination. Even then, he had exercised some degree of caution. Certainly no compassion or kindness, merely awareness.

He had known that other people existed around him, and he had adjusted accordingly.

("Even when I faced that animal, I was somewhat careful despite how much I hated that thing.") Mikoto’s fingers slowly curled. ("But now...")

He paused internally.

There was no emotion where there should have been one.

("Now I can’t even find myself caring.") That realization irritated him more than the destruction.

It was not because he suddenly wanted to be virtuous; he didn’t.

But this wasn’t entirely him; Mikoto knew himself well enough to recognize that. He was still changing. And that had been changing for some time.

And it was becoming increasingly difficult to pretend otherwise.

("Suppose I should use Harbinger sooner or later to mend my personality.") His eyes narrowed. ("But I’m left vulnerable if I use too much mana fixing myself.")

The problem was painfully simple: Harbinger could always help. It could repair what was being damaged inside him, restore parts of his personality before they were overwritten too deeply, and give him some degree of control over the process.

But using it consumed too much mana, just manifesting it took roughly seventy percent of his reserves.

And consuming too much mana weakened him.

That wasn’t a trivial problem when he was surrounded by calamities, powerful opponents, and enemies whose capabilities he still didn’t fully understand.

("What a damn pain.")

His shoulders lowered slightly; things were getting more annoying as the days went by. There was no single catastrophe responsible for it, no single moment he could point to and say, "There."

That was when everything changed; it was gradual. A thought here, a reaction missing there, and an emotion that should have surfaced but didn’t. A response that would once have come naturally now requires conscious consideration.

Mikoto Yukio was ever so slowly being overwritten by the Angel.

He hated even thinking about it.

("But things will be fine eventually.") He looked toward the horizon. ("After I deal with these annoying calamities.")

The thought was simple, something he could hold onto.

("Eventually I’ll get home.") His expression softened by the smallest amount. ("Things will be fine then.")

A sigh escaped him; the sound was quiet enough to almost disappear into the open air.

("Still... it’s always the damn Angel I used to be.") His eyes lowered. ("I almost never get memories from the God of Navigation piece of my soul.")

A small irritation returned to his face.

("I could use the damn break.")

The thought passed idly through his mind, then something else caught his attention.

Mikoto’s expression changed as his eyes shifted.

"Tsk." He did not turn. "I hope you know your presence is obvious."

His voice carried across the destroyed landscape.

He didn’t have to wait long.

"I was merely taken aback by all the destruction," a familiar blank voice answered from behind him. "I forgot to reveal myself."

Mikoto’s eyes narrowed slightly as he turned ever so slightly.

Goiim stood there.

She looked almost as though she had been there since the beginning, but there was no visible damage to her. And she carried no expression of shock or obvious fear. There was barely any tension in her shoulders.

Her face remained blank, her pale eyes calmly taking in the destruction surrounding them.

Mikoto looked at her for a moment.

("Of course.")

Goiim walked forward with the same casual pace she might have used while strolling through an ordinary street.

The ground beneath her feet was feeble compared to the terrain that had once been there. Parts of it had been cracked apart, sections of the remaining earth unstable enough that another shift could send them collapsing into the enormous hole beneath them.

Goiim didn’t seem concerned; she simply walked.

Her attention remained on Mikoto and the destruction beyond him.

"You surprised me," she stated. "I did not think you would defeat a Royal Guard so easily, especially not with the kind of destructive magic you were throwing around. I expected resistance, at the very least, but you barely seemed inconvenienced by him."

She stopped beside him, her gaze moving over the vast destruction.

"For someone so small, you have a vicious way of fighting."

She looked down at him; she was taller.

Mikoto’s expression immediately soured; the fact annoyed him more than it reasonably should have.

"Want me to push you into this hole?"

Goiim raised both hands in mock surrender, though her expression did not change.

"Merely an observation on my part." She lowered her hands and folded her arms; her pale eyes returned to his face. "You don’t have to take it personally, I certainly wasn’t criticizing you. It’s merely something I find interesting. For one so pretty whose preferred solution to a problem seems to be reducing the surrounding landscape to rubble."

Her eyes stayed on his face for a little too long as the words passed her lips.

Her gaze wasn’t quite unnerving despite her blank, pale eyes; it was not probing either. She merely took note of something else.

"Hm, you seem sad."

"What?" Mikoto furrowed his brows; the observation had come so abruptly that for once his irritation was mixed with genuine confusion.

Goiim continued looking at him.

"It’s in the eyes," she said idly. "It’s small, but it’s there. You can hide it fairly well because you’re constantly irritated about something, and that annoyance of yours gives people something else to focus on. You make it very easy for everyone to assume that you’re simply angry when there’s something underneath it."

Mikoto’s expression hardened.

"Quit spouting nonsense." His eyes narrowed. "You’re here for the lance."

"Conversation would not hurt." Goiim’s tone remained as flat as ever. "You’re rather... rarely would I bother with too much talking, but I suppose I really am just curious."

Mikoto scoffed.

"Save your curiosity for someone who cares." He turned away from her. "We aren’t pals." His tone made the distinction very clear. "I’ll give you the lance back in the inn. Don’t take your time."

Goiim blinked and predictably, Mikoto was gone.

One moment he had been standing beside her, his petite armored frame as ever just delicate, and the next there was simply empty ground where he had been.

Goiim remained still; she looked at the space he had occupied, then she looked toward the horizon.

("We really should stop meeting and going like that.") A quiet hum escaped her; there was no annoyance in it.

If anything, there was amusement.

("Still, he’s certainly something.") Her eyes drifted across the destruction again; she had seen the power.

That much was impossible to miss; she had also seen the conflict.

That was considerably more interesting.

("All that power, yet he’s conflicted.") Her pale eyes narrowed slightly. ("That’s easy to see.") She paused for a moment.

Her expression remained blank, but the thought stayed with her.

("About what, I wonder.")

Intrigue was rare for her.

She did not usually feel compelled to understand people. Most individuals were predictable once enough information was gathered. Their desires, fears, loyalties, and weaknesses tended to reveal themselves eventually.

Mikoto was different.

It was not because he was powerful; power alone wasn’t particularly interesting.

But someone capable of creating this much destruction without effort, someone who could defeat a Royal Guard so casually, someone whose appearance was disarmingly pretty, yet whose mind was clearly struggling with something he could neither entirely control nor simply destroy.

Goiim looked once more toward the direction in which he had vanished.

Perhaps, she thought, she could indulge that curiosity.

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