NOVEL NEXT Vol.11, Ch.360 – We Look Up Towards the Stars
A wasteland of white buildings jutted among the white sand. This place had been abandoned for so long, enough to span thousands of lifetimes. But the faint traces of architecture from olden days pricked at my memory.
Or rather, the memories of a certain someone that came before me.
Time had sucked away all life from the vicinity. It was at this very spot where it all began – the great shift that sparked the slow beginning of the end for this planet.
My steps crinkled against the sandy ground. As I passed by one building still standing, I reached out with my hand to touch the wall. Instantly, it crumbled from the weight of my hand, falling to the ground like a sand castle that had completely dried out.
Eventually, everything would become like this, devoid of any mana to hold it together. Buildings were waiting to tumble from the slightest breeze, but there was no energy for even the wind. No life existed upon these lands, not a single speck of green nor the cry of a creature.
Even my presence here was only due to the Origin Goddess’s blessing, preventing my existence from being sucked right out of me.
There was a single thing left out here, frozen in time. And without it, we wouldn’t be able to stop Leguardia from its decent to doom.
I raced through the streets, using those memories to guide my way. Fortunately, some landmarks had survived all this time, but as the rumble of my steps traveled past, their shapes slid slowly out of recognition.
Finding my destination, I tapped the button on my communicator and spoke into it.
“Claude here. I’ve reached the target. Aim a portal at my coordinates, and I’ll catch it.”
“Affirmative.”
Moments later, a portal appeared high in the sky. An object was seen free-falling from it. Quickly figuring out where it would land, I dashed right under it before leaping up to catch it.
“Object retrieved. Go ahead and turn it on.”
Soon after, a bright glow unleashed from the object, a rejuvenation device powered by a Resonance Stone. All of a sudden, the ground around me felt just a bit firmer, the effect of mana being sucked into the ground like a sponge.
With this rejuvenation device, I walked into a large building that was primarily an atrium. Slowly as to not cause the whole place to crumble down, I let the device expel mana all around. The walls and floor greedily sucked all the energy up, restoring some integrity to the structures. It wouldn’t do for it to collapse on us during the ritual.
After waiting awhile, I contacted Katalina again and told her to go ahead with the next one. Within moments, a large portal opened before me, before a much larger device held up by a levi-board was pushed through to where I stood.
This device clicked on as well, sending a burst of energy through the surroundings. The glow was too bright for me to keep my eyes open, but when I could, the atrium that I stood within looked to be mostly restored.
“Just like touching up the colors of a faded painting, I suppose….”
The deathly white surfaces had regained some color, and it didn’t feel like I would immediately die if not for my blessing. Katalina poked her body out of the portal, some analysis device in her hands. She was doing a sweep of the area to check if a normal person would be fine.
“Ground readings are hospitable. The rejuvenation device is working as intended. The excess mana output from the Macali Isles can support this location temporarily,” she said, stepping out of the portal to look all around her.
“Risking yourself so readily when you don’t have to. I guess your curiosity outweighs all else.”
“Keep in mind that I’m not fully in approval of such a plan. You are all planning to fight a god, one that slayed us last time. I can’t stress how important it is that we don’t make hasty decisions.”
I scratched my head, realizing that I still did that whenever I felt like making some kind of excuse. Immediately, I stopped.
“Yeah, it’s dangerous, but everything that has happened has led up to this. Eryn gave up her life for us to have a second chance. We could try to be happy with what we have and let the world turn to dust in the future, but we would regret it. I know I would.”
“I don’t fault you for it. You have always been a man that liked to stir things up, no matter how unwilling you seemed to be.”
I reached out and hugged Katalina. She wrapped her arms around me. For a moment, we stood there, simply enjoying that feeling.
“I guess I’ve always had it in me to succeed, any way I could. But society does a lot to beat you up and tear you down, so much that you begin to question if any of it matters in the first place. But I can clearly see now. Everything matters. In every life, a role was played. And no matter how insignificant it may have seemed at the time, we are here now because of it.”
Katalina snaked her hands up to my face, clutching it between her palms as she reached up for a kiss. It had been so long since I last received one. But it made me love her all over again. She pulled back after a while with a smile.
“I, for one, am thankful that you are here. Out of all the fabricated worlds that the sites could create, you helped us break free, so that we could live true to ourselves. I would rather be here than any other place in existence.”
“Well, I guess we have to do our parts to protect it then, don’t we?”
I brushed my hand through her blue hair, turning my gaze to look at the ground around us. The area had recovered enough to show distinct markings on the ground, the signs of a magic formula. I briefly recalled it from the Architect’s memories, the fact that this was the summoning circle that started it all.
And now, it was going to be our ticket to chase after him.
More portals opened up. The other Electi stepped out of them in battle outfits, adapted from weapons and armor that was the best that could be found. We had Koujiro’s collection to thank for that. As well as Lamps, who used his knowledge to amplify the equipment with the magic of science.
The man himself was sporting an AI-supplemented power suit, making him the billionaire narcissist of our team.
Ludmila wore a gothic magical girl outfit once again; it seemed like she had grown quite attached to it. Saki had chosen an outfit similar to her virtual avatar. She said that it gave her courage.
Cornelius looked like something out of a Victorian fashion catalogue for butlers, saying that she wanted to be ‘one hell of a magician.’ Lau had kept his fashion sense of an old-time detective.
As always, the Sun twins looked like war generals from the three kingdoms. Perhaps, that was their kind of thing. A teenage Chrysanthemum looked chic in a half-priestess, half gunslinger outfit; I could tell where her inspirations drew from.
And as for me… I stuck with my chef uniform, the very thing that defined me in this world. It was funny how all of our clothing of choice could be enhanced to the greatest protection despite how unfit for combat they looked.
Regardless, this was who we were.
All the powers of the Electi had been revived through our connection with the Origin Goddess, and now, we gathered together for one last fight. I said a prayer to Eryn, whose power was within me, before looking up at the sky.
Katalina worked with Cornelius to activate the runes on the ground, forming a magic telescope above. Soon, the cosmos was in view, and after a while, it stopped on a planet. It was not blue like how I remembered it, but pale like the lands that infected most of Leguardia.
Except, there was a single dot of green and blue that looked much like an eye. It was obvious that the Architect had set down roots there. The power of a god still took a very long time when it came to transforming an entire planet back to life. We had time, but that didn’t mean we could put it off.
One look at the desolate area around us gave us the resolve to fight back. To champion the place we called home.
We were ready to go, to face off against the Architect that called himself a god.
Volume 11 End