Shadow Slave: Diaries of a Stranger in even Stranger Lands

Effie's POV:

Effie took in a deep breath as she observed the monster before her. She held a ram-faced metallic shield on her left arm while her right hand gripped an azure-colored spear.

Click! Clack! Clack! Click!

The Carapace Scavenger in front of her clicked its menacing pincers while its maddened eyes glared at her like she was nothing but meat for slaughter.

If she were the same girl from two weeks ago, she would've been stuck frozen under the malicious glare of the Awakened Beast. However, Effie had changed much from the weak, malnourished girl who entered the Dream Realm for the first time.

She was no longer merely skin and bones; instead, now there was a healthy amount of muscle on her bones. Moreover, her height has increased significantly as if the growth spurt she never had was coming back with a vengeance.

This was in part due to the amount of food she was eating now, which was ten times more than the average Sleeper. It wasn't that way at first, since her companion was the one who provided the food they ate, and the amount he prepared would've been enough if she were a normal Sleeper.

However, her Flaw enhanced all her physical needs - most prominently, her need to eat. Which caused her to be unsatisfied with the admittedly generous amount of food she was being given. Hell, he was even nice enough to give some of his portion to her at times.

Yet, even then, her body demanded more; at times it was so much that it would cause her physical pain, which she tried to hide as best as she could.

However, it was almost impossible to do so during the intensive training sessions given by Mal.

Then, out of the blue, the amount of food being cooked increased by several folds. When she questioned why so much food was being cooked, he simply said that he mistakenly hunted more than they needed.

Yet, she couldn't shake off the weird feeling that he already knew about her Flaw without her talking about it - or at least had an inkling. Well... it was not like it was the most subtle of Flaws, so it was not like she could blame him.

Regardless, with enough food ingested to satiate her hunger, her growth began in earnest.

In addition, the last two weeks were nothing but continuous, intense training during which the basics of spearmanship and combat were drilled into her brain mercilessly.

She knew better than anyone how hopeless she was since, due to her body's condition in the real world, she couldn't exactly learn how to fight like most other children her age.

Yet, he managed to teach her so well during those two weeks that she felt slightly more confident in facing a non-delimbed scavenger.

Admittedly, she only learned the basics, but considering her background, these basics were more than she ever hoped to ever learn.

Spell, considering her physical condition upon entering the Dream Realm and her annoying Flaw, neither she nor anyone else expected her to survive more than a few days at most.

Yet, here she was, facing an Awakened Beast while decked out in memories courtesy of her new companion.

Her new companion...

Effie looked sideways for less than a millisecond and caught his imposing figure standing a bit of a distance away from where she was confronting the scavenger, his cerulean eyes observing her intently through the eye slits of his black helmet.

Surrounding him were the corpses of more than a dozen Carapace Scavengers and even a few Awakened Monsters called Carapace Centurions.

She remembered the shivers that ran down her spine when she saw one of the centurions lay waste to several scavengers to steal their kill. She had genuinely thought that they were done for at that moment.

That fear turned to awe as she saw how Mal dealt with it as if it was just another beast. The mystery of who he really was only continued to grow the more she traveled with him. Not to mention how curt and flat he always sounded, which kind of miffed her a bit at the beginning. However, it was all counterbalanced by his cooking skills.

She licked her lips as she remembered just how good the Awakened Monster meat tasted, which caused her eyes to land on the nightmare creature before her with a predatory glint.

The Awakened Beast she was facing was spared the fate of its kin to serve as live practice for her.

"I am confident that you are ready for some live practice."

His words from the night before resounded in her mind. "I will not interfere unless I am completely certain that you would be mortally injured. Remember your training, and you'll do just fine."

Taking in a deep breath, she raised her shield before her and took the first step forward, her leg muscles coiling up like a tense spring.

'Let's do this.'

With a burst of speed, Effie charged forward at the crab-like nightmare creature.

Unbothered, the Scavenger brought down its tyrannical pincer to squash her.

Despite her improved physique, Effie knew that she wasn't at the level where she could go toe to toe against an Awakened nightmare creature for strength, particularly one known for its strength and toughness.

Thus, utilizing the footwork she painstakingly learned and taking advantage of the scavenger's height, she ducked underneath the attack and stabbed at the unprotected joint connecting the pincer to the torso with her spear.

Black blood flowed, and a pained screech echoed, indicating that her strike did some significant damage.

Emboldened by the first blood she drew, the spear wielder got too greedy for her own good and wanted to land another strike. Unfortunately, the scavenger retaliated against her surprisingly fast.

She barely had enough time to raise her shield to protect herself before it came into contact with the incoming crab pincer.

Diiiiinnnnggggg!

The metallic shield vibrated as the sheer strength of the attack caused her to skid back a few meters as it took all of her strength to keep her posture steady.

The arm that bore the shield felt numb, and her heart was threatening to jump out of her chest. The fact that if she were a second too late to raise her shield, then she would've had most of her bones turned to mush was a sobering realization.

Her cheeks burned red with embarrassment and shame at her mistake. Her eyes quickly flickered towards where Mal was standing.

He stood there, not having moved a step, his cold eyes observing her with silent judgment.

She remembered one of the first training sessions she had with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Never lose awareness of your surroundings in a fight," he said, his cold eyes gazing down at her lying form.

"The spear provides you with reach and control over the battlefield. Don't be rash and wait until your opponent provides an opening for you to attack. Even then, never over-commit and be ready to respond to any retaliation coming your way."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shaking off the memory, she looked at her opponent, who had just tried turning her into a flesh bag of bone dust.

A trail of black blood was trickling down the carapace of the Scavenger as it glared at her with single-minded fury.

Skriiiiiiiillllllll!

The nightmare creature let out a battle cry and clacked its pincers together.

She noticed that the pincer connected to the wounded joint was moving slower than the other.

The beast lunged at her, its segmented legs skittering with surprising dexterity through the muddy ground.

The teenager sidestepped, using her smaller figure to weave under the scavenger's telegraphed attack.

Her grip over her spear tightened as she used the small window of opportunity she made to plunge her spear into one of its leg joints.

Blood spurted from the wound, and the creature let out a pained cry.

Effie's eyes widened as she saw a pincer coming right towards her - the same one whose joint she had previously injured. Yet, this time she was ready. The muscles of her shield-bearing arm tensed as it came in contact with the offending limb.

Bang!

With a surge of strength, she managed to deflect the pincer, causing the scavenger to stumble back as its posture faltered due to its wounded leg.

A surge of adrenaline helped her ignore the tingling she was feeling from her shield arm. Effie changed her posture and held her weapon in a throwing stance.

Then, using whatever strength she had left in her body, she threw the spear.

Click! Spurt!

The spear's tip found its target and lodged itself into the nightmare creature's unprotected face.

The Carapace Scavenger twitched once... twice... thrice before it stopped moving.

A wave of relief washed over her as the spell whispered in her ear.

[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]

Suddenly she felt as if something shot by the side of her head, followed by the dying screech of some sort of insect.

Looking in that direction, she saw a black spear pinning the body of some sort of giant red centipede onto the wall of red coral that had been behind her moments ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mal's POV:

'What am I to do now?'

That was the question that had been haunting his mind for the last two weeks. He had achieved his goal of escaping from the dark bowels of Leonia and returning to the Forgotten Shore.

The only caveat was that he had somehow come back three years before the events of canon started.

A time period he had little to no knowledge about since Guilty Three never went into too much detail about the years preceding Sunny and Co.'s arrival.

With him existing in this period, any action he does, no matter how minor, would possibly have a catastrophic butterfly effect on future events if he isn't careful.

Having met with Effie and training her was already pushing things.

He could just deliver her safely to the Dark City and then vanish for the next three years - allowing fate to take its course.

Yet, was this how he wanted to live his life? Following a script written by the author for his protagonist to reach his ending? Was he to be only a side character in another's story? Even when he got this inexplicable second chance at life?

In the midst of these questions, a specific memory surged back to his mind...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He stood there silently while observing a man rabidly trying to claw his way out of the thick chains that bound him to a sturdy metallic chair.

The metal groaned under the adrenaline-infused strength of the man whose bloodshot eyes hyper-focused onto a crimson-stained swaddle cloth sticking out of the edge of a hydraulic press. Ruby-red droplets dripped down the edge of the cloth onto the dirty factory floor where the piercing cries of its owner still echoed throughout its walls.

Bloody tears ran down the crazed man's eyes as his focus shifted towards his direction. Yet, he was not looking at him but at the one next to him.

"I'LL KILL YOU! I WILL TAKE OUT YOUR BLACK HEART AND FEED IT TO THE PIGS, YOU SON OF A BITCH! I'LL RIP OUT YOUR-"

Then, it was silent. No, the madman was still moving his mouth, but it looked like he was muted somehow.

"Now that there is no noise left," the man next to him said in a chillingly calm voice as if the scene before him was just another Tuesday.

He didn't turn his head to look in the speaker's direction as his eyes were glued to the macabre scene before him. A deluge of emotions mixed in his heart the more he looked.

The man didn't stop, unbothered by his lack of attention. "I hope that you can see that I have resolved our regrets. Every line that should never be crossed, I stepped over it."

He looked down at his hands, unconsciously trying to rub something off of them.

"My hands are stained with the blood of more individuals than you could ever meet in a lifetime."

A moment of silence stretched into eternity only to be broken by a heavy sigh filled with deep emotions. Then, he felt a hand ruffle his hair.

"It was all for this moment. You have nothing holding you back to your previous world now. Carve out a life for yourself in this new broken world of yours and live your life to the fullest. Do it not for yourself but for me too, you selfish prick - that's the least I deserve for cleaning up your mess."

The next part came out so soft that he wouldn't have caught it if not for the sheer silence around them.

"Live a life that would make mother proud. That's what she would've wanted."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Diiiiinnnnggg!

The ringing sound of metal brought Mal out of his thoughts. He observed how Athena got thrown back by the Carapace Scavenger's attack.

'Hm? What happened?'

He was about to move to help when he saw her glance in his direction.

'No, she's got this.'

He remained in his place, still as a statue, as the confrontation between the Dormant human and the nightmare creature continued.

He admired how quick the brunette had adapted to the fighting style of the Leonian Infantry. Her aspect was helping her, sure, but he liked to think that he had enough martial knowledge to glean whether someone was talented for martial arts or not.

Athena? That girl had talent when it came to combat. Maybe it was not as cheat-like as someone like Nephis, but it was definitely in the prodigy territory if not genius.

'Well... that much is needed to be part of the main cast, I guess.'

His lips curved upwards ever so slightly as he remembered how the girl tried to mask the pain that she was having due to her Flaw.

Honestly, he wasn't that affected by her plight.

'If she wanted more food, she just needed to ask for more,' he thought at the time.

Which would've still held true if some of his EQ didn't start returning slowly as a result of his daily interactions with her.

As a result, he felt a pang of guilt whenever he saw her scrunch her face in agony while holding her stomach in her sleep.

It felt uncomfortable to him, having to feel such things after such a long time of having the emotional range of a brick. Thus, he started cooking more food just so that the feeling would go away.

To say that he was surprised by how quickly her body grew as soon as it got enough sustenance was an understatement.

She went from a gaunt, sickly girl to a casual bodybuilder in just two weeks! That was some unnatural growth right there.

However, Mal knew that it was not yet her final form since the Athena from canon had a body that would've put Greek gods to shame. It was still faint, but he could see how her body would develop in the future.

Her muscles didn't grow haphazardly. Rather, there was a certain order to which they developed that made her both stronger and not aesthetically look like a woman abusing TRT.

He furrowed his brows at his line of thought. He didn't want to imagine what such a thing would look like.

His cerulean eyes observed how Athena did a picture-perfect replica of his spear-throwing posture before hurtling her spear towards the scavenger's face.

The creature twitched once... twice... thrice... before stopping its movement in its entirety.

His [Soul Sight] allowed him to see the corrupted soul of the Carapace Scavenger leave its body momentarily before being immediately pulled towards the red coral and getting absorbed.

It was then that he saw movement coming from the coral situated behind Athena. A familiar-looking insect-type nightmare creature was crawling down the red coral, black acid dripping down its mandibles.

'Striking when the prey is defenseless, eh? Not on my watch.'

Mal entered into a spear-throwing stance just as Frostmourne materialized in his hands in its [Black Spear]. Then with a flex of his muscles, a black blur flashed through the air before striking the hidden nightmare creature with enough force to effectively cause the insect's body to rupture like an overfilled balloon.

[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Creeping Hundrepede.] (D100 = 69)

[Your soul grows stronger.]

Unlike with the soul of the Carapace Scavenger, Frostmourne immediately swallowed the soul of the slain Awakened Monster before it got absorbed by the coral.

Having eaten its meal, the cursed weapon dislodged itself from the monster's corpse and promptly returned to its master's expectant hand.

He walked towards his companion with unhurried, measured steps. Her hazel eyes looked equally surprised and frightened as they alternated between the Creeping Hundrepede corpse and him.

The black-armored youth stood before Athena. Just two weeks ago, her height could barely reach his waist; now, her height reached up to his chest.

With a flick of his hand, the flat end of the spear gently bonked the top of the brunette's head before she could dodge.

"Oww..." she said in exaggeration, rubbing the place where she got hit.

"I thought I told you to be more aware of your surroundings," he said, his voice tinged with an imperceptible hint of admonishment.

"How was I supposed to know a nightmare creature was waiting to ambush me?"

"You don't," he shook his head at her complaint, "that's why you need to hone your instincts further. Also, next time, don't throw your weapon if you don't have another in reserve. How would you have defended yourself with no weapon?"

Athena grumbled something unintelligible under her breath but raised her head when she felt a heavy hand patting her head.

"Still," he said, his tone less critical than before, "that was an impressive attempt for your first solo fight against a nightmare creature."

Athena's eyes widened; in the two weeks that they had been traveling together, this was the first genuine praise she got from her enigmatic companion. A big grin grew on her face at his acknowledgment before remembering that he had just given her a headpat - like a child.

Before she could argue, his hand had already retracted, leaving the top of her head with a strange cold feeling before turning and moving towards the recently killed scavenger's corpse.

Standing in front of it, he plucked out the azure spear sticking out of its face and tossed it backwards towards Athena, who stumbled to catch her weapon memory before giving the armored male a glare.

Then, he placed his hand on the nightmare creature's corpse, and his essence moved towards the black heart situated in his left chest. His eyes opened, no longer supporting their usual bright cerulean color; instead, two dark violet pools replaced them.

His eyes moved and focused onto the Carapace Scavenger's corpse, or more accurately, focused into the dead body, where minuscule inky black tendrils were withering away at an alarming rate. These were the remnant of the corruption that had made this nightmare creature what it was.

It had been a week after he had returned to the Forgotten Shore that his second heart had suddenly begun consuming his essence at an alarming rate after he had killed a Carapace Centurion. Suddenly, darkness took over his vision, and he could see things that were unnoticeable to him before.

Particularly, inky black tendrils that seemed to universally exist inside all nightmare creatures. From his observations, these tendrils seemed to feed off the nightmare creature's soul, which acted like a nexus from which they originated. As a result, when a nightmare creature was killed and its soul evacuated the body, these tendrils would lose their source of nutrition and would wither away at a rapid pace.

It was then that he came up with the hypothesis of them being remnants of the corruption that tainted the abomination.

Mal shook off those thoughts and concentrated on the dark tendrils inside the nightmare creature corpse. Almost a quarter of them had already disintegrated.

'If I waste any more time, none will be left,' he thought as he sent out a silent command to his shadow - no, rather, to the mass of darkness that masqueraded as his shadow. A small tendril rose from the tenebrous mass and stealthily infiltrated the nightmare creature's corpse while he, himself, opened up the nightmare creature corpse to look for the soul shard inside.

Once inside, it immediately moved, dextrous as a viper, towards the remaining remnants, and upon contact began absorbing them into itself.

The whole process didn't take more than a few seconds. Once done, the tendril of darkness returned back to its origin, and Mal felt a minuscule swelling in his soul cores. They had grown imperceptibly larger in size. At the same time, he instinctively felt his black heart grow stronger, and with it, the True Darkness beneath him grew ever so imperceptibly.

Over the last week he had managed to increase the size of both his soul cores and darkness by about 0.5%. He was not taking numbers out of his ass either; it was akin to how he vaguely knew the limit of dormant ability: the information was simply entered into his brain when he thought of it. Probably an elusive function of the Nightmare Spell to help its hosts.

It wasn't much admittedly, but there was only so much corruption remaining inside of a corpse after its source leaves. Not to mention that he had been only taking the corruption from Awakened nightmare creatures. Stronger abominations may provide more tangible results.

Honestly, he could see its usefulness in the long term.

If it had been the him of before, he would've been hesitant about using corruption to strengthen himself. However, the strange thing was that there was practically no change in his soul sea, mind, or body from doing so. He even checked by using the corruption-warding artifact he found beneath the War God's church in Leonia. There was not a hint of corruption in him.

He had a few hypotheses regarding this development. One of the most prominent ones was that since he had the trait [Abyssal Scion], he had somehow developed a resistance, if not an outright immunity, to corruption since the Abyss was the origin of it - if the books he read in Leonia were to be believed. After all, a fish couldn't drown in the sea now, could it?

He had little to no evidence to support this hypothesis other than the fact that he was still not affected by the corruption remnants he was devouring like pistachios.

However, if even a part of it was true, then it would prove to be a very useful boon for him in the future. Particularly when his dormant ability consumed his essence to resurrect his undead minions.

Speaking of undead minions...

He had been using the same tactic he used when he was traveling with Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie. He had already showed his ability to create ice to Effie before, so using another ability will put into question his current status as a normal awakened. Thus, he had secretly amassed a new undead legion.

Not saying that it was all sunshine and rainbows since he had almost fucked up royally when his essence pool nearly dried up suddenly when his legion apparently stepped into where they shouldn't and were attacked by something leagues above them in strength.

Thankfully, he was able to sever the connection he had with them before they caused him to enter into essence exhaustion. It was not like he was lacking in the department of eager recruits to add to his legion after all.

Thanks to becoming a devil, he now could control up to 40 undead minions. His current legion included twenty-eight Corpse Scavengers (i.e., undead Carapace Scavengers - Awakened Beasts) and twelve Corpse Centurions (i.e., undead Carapace Centurions - Awakened Monsters).

They had been working faithfully to increase his soul fragment count and memory arsenal.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(478 Awakened Beasts slain by the Undead Legion: x18 Weapon Memory, x25 Armor Memory, x19 Tool Memory, x26 Garment Memory, x21 Charm Memory, x4 Echoes.)

(118 Awakened Monsters Slain by Undead Legion: x13 Weapon Memories, x2 Armor Memories, x3 Tool Memories, x4 Garment Memories, x10 Charm Memories, x3 Echoes.)

(97 Personally Slain Awakened Beasts: x8 Weapon Memories, x2 Armor Memories, x4 Tool Memories, x2 Garment Memories, x4 Charm Memories.)

(35 Personally Slain Awakened Monsters: x1 Weapon Memory, x2 Armor Memories, x2 Tool Memories, x1 Garment Memory, x2 Charm Memories, x1 Echo)

(Total Soul Fragments gained: 2,643 Soul Fragments)

(Total Souls (i.e., Cores) eaten by Frostmourne: 167

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If he were being honest, his soul arsenal was getting really bloated with all those memories. He was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he needed to find a way to use them somehow.

On the other hand, he was already about three-fourths of the way to becoming a Tyrant. Something he was excited for since it meant that he was going to get stronger, which meant that there was less chance of him dying and losing whatever was left of his personal memories.

Also, Frostmourne was on the brink of unlocking its third rune, a fact that the mourneblade made incessantly clear by urging him to feed it more. Honestly, he didn't know who was more gluttonous between his weapon and his companion. He could swear that the thing had become more emotive since unlocking its second rune... must be his imagination.

With those thoughts in mind, he retrieved the awakened soul shard from inside the Carapace Scavenger and stored the corpse inside his spatial ring memory.

When he turned around, he saw Athena looking in the direction where the nightmare creature corpse once was. She didn't seem to notice his previous covert actions.

"Man, you really do have some convenient memories," she said, giving him her best puppy eyes she could muster. "Is there a chance we can get one for me too?"

"I'm afraid the abomination I got this from is one of its kind," the youth shook his head, causing the teenager to click her tongue.

Heading towards the rest of the nightmare creature corpses, he only managed to store six Carapace Centurion corpses before nothing could be stored anymore - the storage space was full.

"Well... looks like the storage is full," he said while observing the hand that wore the [Pale Ring].

"But there is so much foo- I mean, nightmare creatures left," complained the gluttonous brunette.

The edges of his lips curled upwards slightly from behind his helmet, "We still have enough to feed you. There are enough Carapace Scavengers and Carapace Centurions inside the ring that you won't be starving anytime soon."

"..."

"..."

"...Fine. What do we do now?" 

Mal simply stared at the skies for a few seconds, where the Forgotten Shore's sun could be seen a bit beyond its zenith.

"We still have a few hours before the sun sets," he said, looking down at her, "let's try covering more distance."

The two continued on their merry way. The youth in black armor walked in the front, using [Soul Sight] to scout out their immediate vicinity while his brunette companion was busy snacking on some extra thick meat jerky while humming happily.

"You know," she started, chewing on her carnivorous snack, "we've been traveling like, what... two weeks now? It is weird that we haven't met any other person yet."

She gulped down the food in her mouth.

"I mean, you said that groups of people would usually arrive here, didn't you?"

That had been a question that had been gnawing at the back of the youth's head too. They had crossed a considerable distance over the last fourteen days, yet they hadn't met much of any human life.

Based on what he remembered from the novel, Athena was supposed to be joining up with a cohort of sorts before reaching the Dark City. However, they had seen no hair or hide of any other human being in this wasteland.

Sure enough, he had his suspicions on why that was the case. One, Athena may just have dropped somewhere farther away from the others. Two, the amount of nightmare creatures he had been killing may have inadvertently made the experience of the other humans who got dropped much easier thanks to fewer nightmare creatures to hunt them down and thus allowed them to travel a lot faster than them. Or three, and the one he was uncertain of the most, maybe his presence itself in this period of time may have led to a shift in the order of events that were supposed to happen.

This... this wasn't good. Shifts in events brought uncertainty; uncertainty brought danger; danger brought the possibility of dying, and dying was the last thing he needed at the moment.

Pushing off these thoughts to the back of his mind.

"It depends," he shrugged. "Sometimes some outliers are dropped farther away from the others for no reason."

"..."

"..."

"I guess it was fortunate that you found me when you did then," Athena said, her voice tinged with an emotion that he couldn't put his finger on for the life of him.

"I guess it was," Mal said what he felt was right to say at that moment.

Silence ensued again, only to be periodically broken by the sound of Athena chewing on meat jerky.

After another few hours of traveling through the coral labyrinth, the sun was only an hour or so from setting and thus allowing the Black Sea to surge out from its hiding place. On one hand, the two had paradoxically not come into contact with any other nightmare creatures despite Mal's best efforts in hunting them - as if the abominations were avoiding them or something.

On the other hand, the two had come to reach their first landmark, one which the cerulean-eyed youth recognized immediately: the headless statue of a knight. They had reached the location where Sunny had started his journey throughout the Forgotten Shore.

With practiced ease, the two Dormant humans scaled up the length of the statue and set up camp for the night. Firstly, in an impressive feat of control and finesse, Mal used whatever darkness he had at his disposal and formed a dome of about 50 meters in diameter around them as a protective cover. After all, very few creatures could pierce through a veil of True Darkness with their sight.

When asked by Athena, he managed to explain the dark dome as the effect of one of the enchantments of his armor. As far as he could tell, she bought the lie. 

Then, he silently cast [Sound Barrier] to prevent whatever sounds they made from escaping out.

These measures were needed henceforth after an incident with a particularly nasty deep-sea monstrosity. Thankfully, the soul-rending property of his cursed weapon demonstrated to the creature that its dinner had fangs and claws as sharp as it, if not sharper.

Athena couldn't sleep peacefully for a night since then, so he came up with the idea of the ice globe to alleviate her worries a bit. Surprisingly, maintaining the Dome of Darkness, as he so poetically named it, didn't take as much essence as he initially thought, especially considering he had four cores brimming with the stuff.

Plus, it provided a good method to train his control and essence expenditure, if anything. Unlike his ice manipulation, which he had the opportunity to master while fighting for his life in that cursed kingdom, his new True Darkness affinity was still new to him and required time and practice to master.

His time fighting tooth and nail in there taught him to use whatever he had at his disposal to solve his problems - no matter the source, power was power, and he would be a fool not to use it to its fullest.

Next, an unconscionably large bonfire was made, and enough meat to feed thirty people was being roasted around it along with pots filled with ice that would soon turn into their water supply for the next few days. All in all, it was a modest and homely setting in the unforgiving Dream Realm.

Soon enough, the food was ready and was promptly eaten with not even scraps remaining, thanks to the resident glutton, who coincidentally was rubbing her flat, toned abdomen with a satisfied grin on her face. As if she hadn't just eaten enough meat for twenty-nine people.

"With this done," said Mal, about to rise up to his feet, "how about some sparing to-'

"No!"

He turned towards Athena. He raised a brow within the confines of his helmet. "No? What for?"

His tone was neutral and distant with no sign of annoyance at being so rudely interrupted.

"I just...," having realized that she did something that she shouldn't have but wasn't being chewed out for it yet, the spear wielder was trying to come up with a response, "look, can I just get one day off from training? Pretty please? At least to celebrate my first kill?"

Athena used the most powerful weapon available in a woman's arsenal that was not classified as a WMD: the ever-feared puppy dog eyes.

Which proved to be surprisingly effective.

A sigh came out from the inside of his metallic helmet, "Fine, but I am increasing the sparring intensity tomorrow."

Deciding to ignore the second part of what her companion/mentor said, Athena raised her hand in the air like a child on Christmas, "Hell yeah!"

Leaving his student of sorts to her jubilation, the white-haired young man stared at the bonfire burning with voracious intensity, ready to burn away everything if given the opportunity.

For the longest time of his life, Mal felt great... no, fear was not the right word; rather, dislike would be a more apt term to describe how he felt towards a burning flame. Yet, since coming out of Leonia, this sense of dislike had somehow decreased considerably. It was weird. He knew that he should dislike flames - no, hate fire - yet, for the life of him, he couldn't find out why.

Thus, the sense of hate turned to dislike before slowly turning into cold indifference.

Regardless, his mind now churned as he thought back to the question he had earlier.

What am I to do now?

From what he surmised in his mind, he had one of two options with their own pros and cons: One, he could just drop Athena at the Dark City and hope that whatever changes happened to the plot will fix themselves naturally.

The pros of this choice were that it was the safest one in regards to plot integrity; it allowed him to remain unknown by the powers that be in the future, especially considering that Seishan, who would become a Daughter of Ki Song in the future, was in Bright Castle.

Meanwhile, the cons were that it left a bad taste in his mouth to have such little agency in a world that he was supposed to start living in, and based on what he knew, many people would end up losing their lives under the tyrannical rule of the Lord of Bright Castle before Nephis comes, and even more die in the upcoming civil war.

Honestly, the amount of awakened that returned to the real world by the end of the Forgotten Shore arc was only a fraction of their original number, yet they allowed Nephis to garner so much influence. He could imagine the look on the sovereigns' faces when thousands of highly trained veteran Awakened returned from the Dream Realm all at once.

Which led him to his second option: He could simply walk up to the front door of Bright Castle and usurp its acting lord. He knew that he was more than strong enough to do so. Then, he could start using his undead minions with the help of the awakened to clean up the area surrounding Bright Castle and fix up the ancient fortress into a proper bastion in this dead realm. Then he could organize cohorts to scout the Forgotten Shore and bring back any new Dreamer that fell into the damned place.

The pros were that he would get to save a lot of lives that would otherwise just waste away without reason, which he thought that his mother might appreciate.

Moreover, he would also gain influence and possibly his own legion of Awakened when they inevitably conquered the Crimson Tower and used the gateway to get back to the Waking World.

Also, it would be a great use for all of the knowledge he gained from books about ruling, politics, and tactics that he read when he was bored waiting for the Artifact to erase the corruption in him every time he ventured out of the War God's church.

Then, there were the cons. The most glaring one being that he would be effectively ripping off the rails of the story and chucking the metaphorical plot train into the ocean of uncertainty.

"Mal..."

In addition, he would be painting a giant target on his back by going all gung-ho and showing off his abilities.

"Mal.."

This would prove disastrous if he managed to attract the attention of the Sovereigns when they returned to the Waking World.

"Mal."

However, if he played his cards right, then he could-

"Mal!"

Suddenly having his (new) name being shouted in his ear brought the youth out of the mire of his mind. He turned towards the source and saw a very concerned-looking woman gazing down at him, the glow of the fire casting illusive shadows over her attractive features.

"What is it, Athena?" he simply said, his voice even.

"Are you okay?" she said with concern evident in her tone. "I've been calling you for a while now, yet you continued to stare at the fire."

She looked at the fire suspiciously for a moment before her attention returned back to the armored youth. "Also, I told you a million times to call me Effie."

"But your name is Athena. Why would I call you by anything other than your name?" he asked, genuinely confused. His EQ not having recovered enough to understand why she was so adamant about this topic.

"I just don't like how cheesy my name is, alright?"

"But I think Athena is a beautiful name," he said matter-of-factly.

This caused the girl to sputter, her hazel eyes shaking as a faint red dusting appeared on her cheeks, "A-Anyways, I still want you to call me Effie."

Mal looked at her for a few long moments before sighing.

"Fine, if it is that important to you. Now, this matter of names aside, what did you need for you to call me?"

"Ah right," she said, slapping her forehead for some reason, "I nearly forgot what I wanted. Can you use that memory of yours to clean up the grime and dirt on me? I really don't like to sleep in a coat of filth."

Throughout the two weeks they had been traveling, he had made prolific use of his [Prestidigitation] spell to clean himself and Athena - no, Effie - after a long day's hunt and had masked it as a function of a random memory in his possession.

Nodding his head, a cloud of spinning stars coalesced in Mal's hand into an unassuming-looking wooden stick that was one of the junk memories given by the Nightmare Spell to troll its hosts.

However, this junk memory finally seemed to serve a function in the white-haired male's hand.

He tapped the end of the stick against his companion's body with one hand while the other was secretly glowing in arcane light behind his back as he cast the spell on her.

An unseen force pulled every particle of dirt and grime off the young lady's body and deposited them next to her in a tidy pile.

Feeling herself clean again, the female Dreamer let out a content sigh, "Now, that's better."

Then, she plopped down next to the cerulean-eyed youth.

"Is there anything else you wanted?" he said, dismissing the mundane stick into a cloud of spinning stars.

"Hmm," the athletic brunette hummed with her index finger on her chin, "you know, I just remembered that we traveled for so long without knowing much about each other."

"That...," Mal wanted to retort but was left short for words, "...you may have a point there."

"See," she said excitedly, "I knew you'd agree. That's why I suggest we ask each other one question each alternately. The other has to answer honestly."

The girl looked pretty happy with her suggestion before her eyes widened and she added in a hurry, "Questions about Flaws are banned, just so you know."

Mal nodded slowly. It was not like he didn't already know about her Flaw. Regardless, he didn't think that it was such a bad idea considering he was curious about facets of Athe- Effie's life that didn't get mentioned in the novel.

"Sounds harmless enough."

"Great!" she cheered. "I'll be going first. Ladies first and everything."

After saying that, she took in a deep breath.

"Are you always this flat and emotionless with everyone, or am I a special case?"

From the shoddily hidden tense look on her face, he could guess how much the way he acted and spoke with her must have weighed on her mind.

Mal took a few minutes to think about an answer before he spoke.

"No, I was not always like... this," he said, the last part coming out with a minuscule amount of venom, "I got careless and got attacked by a nightmare creature that somehow muted my emotions. It happened not long before I met you. I've been getting them back slowly but it will take abit more time before I return to how I originally was."

What he just said wasn't exactly the truth, but he was not necessarily lying either. It was true that it was due to his continuous hunting of nightmare creatures that he slowly became more callous and logical as his emotions proved to be something a weapon didn't need to kill.

Effie listened to him with her eyes wide and her mouth wide open. "Crazy, I never imagined there to be a nightmare creature that could do that. I hope you get back your emotions soon because it is honestly a bit hard to talk to you when you are like... this - no offense."

"Noted and none taken," he said, his tone not deviating from its usual neutral axis despite the jab aimed at him. "I believe that it is my turn now, isn't it?"

"I guess," she chuckled. Effie shot him a daring look. "So what is it going to be big guy? FYI, I'm not telling you my three sizes 'cuz even I don't know what they are now."

"What was your life like before becoming infected with the nightmare spell?"

Effie's expression froze for a few moments as if someone had pressed on the pause button on a video. Then, she shook her head as a sad smile appeared on her face.

"You really know how to hit where it hurts the most, don't you, teach," she said, calling him by the nickname she used for him whenever he taught her, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering it's you we're talking about."

She stayed silent for a few minutes as her eyes stared at the surface of the statue like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"I-" she began, not lifting her face, her voice strained with unknown emotions, "I was born sick. Very, very sick. So sick that I couldn't get out of my bed. By the Spell, I couldn't even eat anything without someone to feed me. My parents... well, my parents did their best to support me, but well..."

She looked up to look at the fire, her eyes looking at something beyond the flame. "Life is hard enough in the City as is without being forced to care for a sickly child."

She became silent for a few moments before shaking her head and returning back to her previous excited state. "It was about six or seven months ago that I got infected and entered my first nightmare and well, you can guess the rest."

"You've worked hard," was all that he said, which took the hazel-eyed girl by surprise before she let out a huff.

"Damn right, I did, and I am not planning to kick the bucket anytime soon," she said with a grin. "With that out of the way, it is my turn again."

Mal nodded for her to continue. This time it took her less time to ask her question.

"Why the helmet?"

"What?"

"I mean, why do you always wear the helmet? I never even saw a hint of your face other than your mouth," she explained after a beat.

'This is a good question,' he thought. Why was he still wearing a helmet despite already leaving Leonia? Admittedly, he wore it at first as a defense against the alien-looking monstrosity that had cost him his arm in the slums. Then, he simply continuously wore it thereafter, and it saved him from several near-death situations, of which he went and later died regardless.

"Hey, Dream Realm to Mal," Effie snapped her fingers in front of his helmet. "Can you hear me?"

"What?"

"You were out of it again," she explained, then looked at him with concern etched on her face, "You really need to stop doing that. You know, if you can't answer the question, it's oka-"

"No, it's just..." he thought of how to bring his thoughts into words, "it's just that I initially wore it for defensive purposes against a nightmare creature that stalked me for a while. It could shoot projectiles that could break a boulder into smithereens."

He heard an audible gulp from next to him.

"I killed it eventually down the line, but I guess you could say that I got a bit paranoid about another one of those nightmare creatures gunning for me."

"Well... that's... not what I expected," she rubbed the back of her head. "You didn't have it easy, huh?" 

A hint of worry infiltrated her voice.

"You think I should start wearing a helmet too?"

Mal looked at her for a few seconds before shaking his head.

"No, I think your thick skull can withstand a shot or two."

"Hey!" she got offended for a second. "What's that supposed to-"

"It's a joke," he interrupted her.

"What?" Effie looked at him incredulously before a ear-to-ear grin appeared on her face. "You tried to make a joke? You? Pfft!"

Her laughter continued for a few minutes before she stopped and wiped a tear from her eye. "Man, that's rich. I really can't wait till you get back those emotions of yours."

"If you are done," Mal said, his voice not betraying any sort of emotion, "I believe that it is my turn."

"Wait! Wait!" she interjected hurriedly. "Can you let me see your face?"

"Why?"

"Come on! You already said that you killed that nightmare creature, so there is no harm in removing the helmet for a few seconds. Pretty please? As a favor for me?"

The youth internally debated whether to show his face to the brunette or not before coming to the conclusion that it would cause no harm to simply show his face.

With a short nod, the helmet of his [Dark Knight Plate Armor] disintegrated into a shower of spinning stars, and for the first time since he returned to the Forgotten Shore, Mal's face was fully exposed to the air of the Dream Realm.

His shoulder-length, wild, white hair fell down behind him while his bright cerulean eyes took in the reaction of the girl gawking at him.

"Wow, you look younger than I thought you would be," she said after a while, looking at his face from different angles. "Damn," she chuckled, "I thought that I looked pale when I was sick."

As soon as a few seconds passed, the black helmet rematerialized around his head. "I hope this satisfied your curiosity."

Effie only hummed in acknowledgment, looking as if lost in thought.

He had to fake a cough or two to get her attention for his question.

"What was your first nightmare like?"

"Oh! Would you look at the time!" she suddenly said, pointing towards some sort of imaginary watch on her wrist. "I better get to sleep if I am to wake up early tomorrow. Good night!"

With that, Effie, quick as lightning, fell onto her back and immediately fell asleep.

"..."

"Zzzzzz..."

"..."

"Zzzzzz..."

"But... my question..."

The youth's soft complaint went unanswered. He stared at the sleeping girl for a moment before turning his attention back to the fire before him.

'She probably isn't comfortable speaking about her first nightmare,' he surmised internally, 'better let sleeping dogs lie as the saying goes. She will tell me if she wants to. If not, well... nothing would be lost.'

His mind then went back again to the conundrum he was thinking of before Athe- Effie interrupted him.

After a considerable amount of back and forth, he concluded that he would decide on his future path when they reached the Dark City; it shouldn't be much further now that they were on a somewhat familiar path.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A.N: Hello everyone! John here. Look, I know that I am not the most consistent author, and I personally hate it when the stories I like don't get their updates, so I made a promise to myself on the new year that I would start writing 1000 words a day for 2025.

If there are any events that prevent me from writing (i.e., finals, personal emergencies, etc.), I will inform you beforehand.

Also, I wish all of you a happy 2025. Let's hope that it is better than 2024.

Stay in good physical and mental health, folks.

Sincerely,

John_Doe_777