Chapter 10: Chapter 9- Kararagi Unveiled
"You sure you want me to just wait out here?"
Tresses of short grass were hastily pulverized, their grisly demise brought about by the sudden landing of feet. More met the sole end of shabby sport shoes, being scrunched about with little consideration as a pair of legs continues it march forward towards a dilapidated house.
"I'm sure, Kris. Just wait out there, don't move an inch, and I'll be back out in a jiffy." said Subaru, waving the back of his hand assuredly towards a carriage of little elegance, appearance-wise, standing idly by on a path paved with dirt.
Kris stood beside the carriage, eyeing the decrepit house with much intimidated uncertainty, his hands firmly clasping the reins of a tamed ground dragon, dragging its scaly leg across the ground with restless anticipation, scattering clouds of dust as a result of its channeling of restraint energy.
Meanwhile, the field of expansive green land remained barren of travelers and merchants, not strangely unusual, but still midly unsettling. The sun, now welcomed by the day, shone with little relent, consuming everything with its scorching rays of light. This, along with the desolation of human life, created an ambiance that Kris felt would be much better suited in an isolated cemetery.
"Don't take too long, then... it's hot out here." Kris called out after him.
Hours spent trudging down the same familiar path of dirt, entailed Subaru of even worse temperatures to come. The perspiration trickling down his brow, evoked his mind of thoughtless wonders, particularly regarding of the searing hot climate of Kararagi as it is, if it always had been this similar to the Sahara back on Earth.
Could fry an egg on the back of the cart, seriously...
Subaru stared with chiseled focus, scouring the land for more recent happenings since his departure of much befuddlement from the vicinity, but found absolutely none, excluding the drier and hotter air. His sight taken up mostly by the ruins that was once possibly a home.
The tiles on the roof, discolored into a shade of unsightly black, some missing in place, others resting in permanent residence on the ground, scattered among the tall grass that told a tale of long abandonment. A frameless window placed beside a door that stood slightly ajar, just as he had left it the day before, inviting in a shard of sunlight to plaster its light on the decaying floorboards deeper inside. A foreboding welcome back to an abode he never wanted to step back into ever again.
His feet halted their strut, inches away from the doorway that separated the soil from wood.
Time to solve this Sherlock Holmes mystery of a lifetime.
With a resolve both firm and reignited, he pushed the door wider inwards and began his thorough search through its empty walls.
Cobweb and dust were widespread in his search, only seeming to be what this decrepit building had to offer to him. The only piece of furniture being, as he turned towards it, the flimsy single bed placed off to the side of the room.
It was a strange thing to behold. This moth-eaten mattress, with its rusty metal grilles barely supporting its own weight. It was difficult to comprehend how such a feeble little object had evolved into being the current checkpoint from a death that was also just as ambiguous. For him, they were left as mysteries, ones without a trace nor clue, ones that he hoped would soon have some light shed onto it, no matter the unlikelihood of the chances.
Yet the reason why he returned here, was for a mystery that was far more simpler and within his capabilities to unmask. The sack that presumably contained the five metia he had supposedly gathered a week before.
"It's only logical it'd be in here, right?" He spoke his thoughts out loud, questing aimlessly once more in a lap around its deserted length.
Twice, then thrice, he rounded the house, envisioning a tattered old brown bag, lying drably at a corner he might have overlooked, despite having already cleanse through any possible hiding spots, including the musty darkness that was the bed's bottom.
He stood disgruntled in the middle of the room, head spinning to and fro in one last vain attempt to find a breadcrumb of a trail of the sack's location. It was soon later that Subaru was forced to arrive to the undesirable conclusion, that the only thing that resided at that moment in the barren home, was solely himself.
He sighed, reaching yet the end of another fruitless endeavor... as he always have.
"Don't mean to rush, but it's getting hotter out here! Did you find anything?!"
Kris' voice pierced through the silent melancholy that was slowly seeping within him, in time for him to narrowly slip through its clutches. There was no point sinking in despair again, especially over a lead that wasn't even a certainty to be followed, even if its the only one he had.
"Nope... nothing at all. Just a waste of time." Subaru replied loudly, slightly disheartened.
"Right. If that's all you wanted to come out here for, let's head to town. Skipping out on breakfast wasn't as painless as I thought it'd be." Kris said.
He moved again, his steps dejectedly leading him to the almost blinding light outside, creaking the floorboards in his pace. Once passed the doorway, he turned again, a last momentary glance through its crumbling, forsaken interior.
"Kron's acting restless now - suggest we get a move on if we don't want to be trampled under its legs." urged Kris, appeasing the grouchy ground dragon with light pats to its forehead.
A loud, deep grumble expelled out the dragon's snout, signalling the end of the Subaru's short return. He turned his gaze back to the carriage, and walked towards it. After a signalling nod to Kris, they began their journey back to Kararagi.
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The dragon was slowed to a mere snail's pace, trudging along behind the lines of carriages that filled the bustle on the streets. It was a slow, mundane process that continued pass Kararagi's gateway and beyond.
It left Subaru, in life-threatening boredom to gaze around the giant city, watching citizens walk across the sidewalks, the air brimming with chatter and barter alike, mixing in with the shouts of drivers on the road, irritable of the jam, occasionally muffled by the many howls of complaint from ground dragons, burning in the intense heat.
A noisy ambiance, not unlike one you'd find in Tokyo today.
He smiled at the thought of this, even in a fantasy world, the daily going-ons of a lively city always remained the same. The dragon's howls, being the horns of a car. The shouting invitation of merchants, could be advertisements atop giant screens. The similarities was quite a sight to witness.
But his expression was quickly overturned, replaced instantly by bemusement, upon investigating the cause for the sudden halt their carriage took, as he fronted the road again.
A faint glimmer of red, barely visible from afar by the light of day, met his strained gaze.
"Is that... a red light?"
He kept his eyes focused, unblinking, disregarding the stinging it brought about doing so. In a flash, as if on a timer, the color of dark scarlet turned a shade of bright emerald. Subaru blinked, his mouth hanging slightly agape, and shook slightly as the carriage rumbled back to life.
"Something the matter?" asked Kris, noticing Subaru's thunderstruck expression.
The carriage's gradually pace brought them beside the colored anomaly, the blazing green burning Subaru's pupils, forcing water in his eyes. After a quick rub, he squinted and stared in struck silence at the light.
Flames of green fire, blazing with fury encased in a small transparent glass sphere, supported by a pole of quarts sticking out the sidewalk, aesthetic inscriptions running across its length. The glossy orb resting on its curvaceous top, shaped similarly to a goblet, high enough to meet his awestruck eyes.
"Kris... is that - what is that?" He asked almost breathlessly, pointing as they inch past it.
Kris' eyes briskly flicked to the ball of fire, now aflame with an intense yellow, then back to the same glow of scarlet. He faced Subaru, and blew a snort of amusement.
"Ummm... a stoplight. What else could it be?"
A silence brimful of the same puzzled awe was Subaru's initial reaction.
"What's a stoplight doing here?" He asked again, overcoming his momentary shock. Suddenly the town seem to lack the certain otherworldly mundaneness he has familiarized himself with.
"Well, the purpose of a stoplight is to bring order onto the roads. To let people cross the street, drive across intersections-"
"I know what a stoplight does." interrupted Subaru. "I want to know what the heck is it doing here."
The carriage trod on, Kris silently pondering his strange inquiry with furrowed brows. A moment soon after, he answered slowly.
"That's been there since a few months back... newly built. I don't know what you're asking actually... can you say it in another way?"
Again, Subaru wobbled in his sit as the carriage came to another standstill, facing an intersection, and right in front of them was another short pillar of the same material as the other, protruding out a sidewalk a few feet away, its orb glowing an intense fiery red. Subaru ogled it with much bafflement.
"Why - How come Lugunica doesn't have any stoplights like these in the capital?"
"Of course it doesn't. Kararagi's the only country that has these things. Most advanced in the world remember? You can thank old man Maka for that. Anyway, what's with you? You weren't this shock at all when you saw them when we first got here. You weren't even fazed."
"But I didn't even see any of these things when we left today!" exclaimed Subaru.
"That's because you were sleeping at the back, remember? Stephanie did say you hadn't slept a wink last night, its no wonder you dozed off."
The fire flickered to a dark green, hovering and swaying violently, like a bundle of leaves in a windy free fall. He quivered in place again, hearing the slight taps of Kron's hooves stomping rhythmically against the hard cobble road.
"You've seriously been rather off since I found you yesterday... You even forgot that the bathroom door sticks. How many times has it been? Thought you'd remember it by now, considering... it's a pain to keep getting the crowbar, you know."
Subaru feigned a small chuckle at the remark, but stopped short, now hushed, choosing to instead ponder this once known revelation.
Fantasy-style stoplights. Were they also based off metia from my world?
A feeling of strange unsettlement overcame him, his eyes continuing to take in the uncharted streets and structures that lead to Kris' unknown destination. Keeping a watchful eye of other unworldly devices that may be scattered about, concealed among the setting of fantasy. All the while, the clock tower, standing tall, soaring high from afar, always within sight. In time to witness a full rotation of its hands, and seconds later, hearken the tolling of a bell hidden within its walls, producing an ominous clanging noise that persisted for a full minute.
"The twelve o'clock bell huh? Guess its lunch instead of breakfast now." muttered Kris, nonchalantly swiping a fleeting gaze at the time before turning back to the road. "I'm feeling for some sushi right now, actually. How 'bout it Subaru, sushi?"
"Huh? Uhh, sure yeah, let's get some sus - SUSHI?!"
Sidewalk walkers in the vicinity turn their disrupted attention to Subaru, gazing at him with agitated eccentricity as they slowly walk by. But Subaru cared little for their unspoken judgments, disbelief once again the sole expression on his face.
"Yes Subaru, sushi... want some?" asked Kris, with slow wariness to his tone, taken aback with Subaru's reaction.
He hadn't bothered to question it, almost at once, he nodded his head, perhaps rather excessively, still half incredulous, and the other half unknown of what to feel.
"Right, to the west district it is then." said Kris, coursing the carriage to a right at an intersection, an eye observing Subaru, whom seem to be too thunderstruck to utter a word.
The route they navigated across yielded discoveries in the dozens to the point that it pained his neck to continue craning it all around. Kararagi itself, as they continue trekking in its walls, gradually lost the impression it had on Subaru, which was a giant medieval metropolis. It dressed itself to be more of a fantasized rendition of a city in the modern world. There were billboards, displaying adverts for potions and items alike, street wardens keeping guard of roads that suffered a lack of stoplights which too continued to make an appearance in almost frequent intervals.
This was without even mentioning a gargantuan building, with a length that stretched pass a block, they passed by. Subaru strongly suspected that even a shopping mall had somehow found its way to this bizarre fusion of fantasy and reality.
Unable to satiate his burning curiosity any longer, Subaru had managed to extract bits and pieces of information from Kris regarding Kararagi under the pretense of forgotten trivial knowledge.
It soon came to light that Kararagi itself, was divided into three districts. The West, North and East.
"We came from South. That's basically the capital, further down the middle is the castle. You know who lives in castles, right? Anyway, the west, where we're headed, known for its delicacies, seafood and such. No other place can replicate, only place to get sushi basically. Damn expensive, but worth it."
"Then the east? What's there?" asked Subaru, ears perk in attention.
"Where we bury the dead, religious place. Got its fair share of homes, yes, but its mainly churches dedicated to old man Maka, supposedly where he's buried as well. Folks over there would kill you if you were to even slightly joke about him. Best be careful over there."
"North?"
"Eh, place you go when you're rich. Expensive homes, expensive pubs, food - high class stuff. That's where the clock tower stands as well. Don't ask how long it took to built it that high, cause frankly, I have no idea."
Even as Subaru paid close heed to Kris' words, the clock tower lingered in his vision, protruding out the corner of his eye, as if a reminder of a world he once belonged.
-------
Subaru plopped his feet to the ground, disembarking from the carriage and having reached their location, took a second to establish the scene that contained another piece, another semblance of the modern world.
A grand courtyard of buildings, varying in sizes, surrounded and encased the area, the ground paved with cobble, smooth stones ever so partially jutting out in place, he noted, having nearly tripped over one in a moment of unconscious strolling.
In the middle of it all, a fountain sat in place, perhaps the most noticeable structure among all others in vicinity, with having statues of splendid looking dragons, with blood-red gemstones as substitute for eyes, spewing a waterfall of water down into the expansive circular space. Around it's length, were stone benches, some already in use with its occupants, if he wasn't mistaken, leisurely reading newspapers.
"Either I'm going mad, or this world is doing its best to replicate mine... the attempt isn't cute either way, it's disturbing as hell..."
"Said something?" Kris appeared beside him, clutching a bagful of what Subaru presume to be coins.
"No, nothing, just... taking in the sights, very nostalgic sights at that."
"Nostalgic? We've been here three times before." said Kris, wearing a puzzled look.
Subaru immediately began to regret his poor choice of wording.
"Ummm yeah, uh, that makes it even more nostalgic, the food's so good here, that I yearn for it everyday, all the time really..."
Unable to stop himself, his on-the-spot explanation continued on with a sentence that he too would immediately come to rue.
"The food is good, right?"
Their eyes met in a moment of, to Subaru, uneasy, unresponsive silence. Fearing his spoken blunder might lead to more questions in abundance, particularly more to his behavior as of late.
Yet he needn't have worry, for seconds later, Kris gave a smile that expressed his wholehearted agreement.
"Yep, food is good here alright, very good. Steph, as you know, disagrees, but who cares of what she thinks? This is men food right? Sushi... delicious."
Nods were given, Subaru thanking his lucky stars that his question was perceived to be rhetoric and not genuine.
"Anyway, take a sit on one of the benches, I won't be gone too long, we came before three so the restaurant won't be that busy." said Kris, jerking his head towards a building on the left with clear glass windows that displayed seated customers along with a chef at works with a knife.
Again Subaru nodded, and walked off towards the nearest bench, repeating to himself in rapid succession: Go with the flow, you've seen bad amnesia-spy movies before, go with the flow, you know how it goes...
He found a place beside a man with a hairline in the process of receding, eyes ever so attentive on the newspaper in his hands, with an expression of complete and utter disapproval. As Subaru sat there in silence, the only sounds being the gushing of water behind him and the continuous snorts of disdain from the man, naturally his interest was piqued.
Twice, he attempted a fleeting glance, quick ones that skimmed through words dozens at a times, and somehow in that stream of words, caught one that made to stoke the flames of his curiosity even more.
"Candidate"
Possibly another election was taking place, somewhere in this vast, convoluted region of the continent, but that thought was soon stumped, when he again managed to spy a word in another quicken peek.
"Crusch"
A crushing weight was suddenly placed in his chest, his thirst to risk a fourth peek depriving him of his restraint as thoughts of snatching the paper from the man's hands began to leak into his mind.
With a rough shake of the head, he snapped himself back to common sense and breathed deeply.
Just ask him politely for the paper for a quick read, don't be a bully now Subaru. Your parents never raised you that way!
He turned his head, his mouth opening, mind fumbling for a polite greeting.
"Umm, good after-"
"Guess we can't have it all. This world's going to the dogs, seriously."
The man stood up, a loud dismal sigh made clear of his discontent, folding the paper in his hands and slinging it back onto the bench with a soft flapping of pages, and walked away, his head shaking in obvious disappointment.
Subaru watched him disappear into the crowd, unbelieving of his luck, before allowing himself to turn back toward the slightly crumpled, folded paper lying by his side. He took it with a swipe of a hand and unfolded it, hastening a read.
There were no pictures, only words, some left undecipherable, a fault of his for being too lax with his studies in the mansion, but understood the context nonetheless, and what was relayed to him, sent his blood to an uncontrolled boil. It finally clicked for him, the reason for the man's foul mood.
<<HALF-ELF CONTINUES CANDIDACY FOR THE THRONE, EXPULSION REQUEST DROPPED>>
<<In a shocking twist of events, the Sage Council of Lugunica arrived at an unexpected conclusion to, with their consent, have the half-elf candidate, Emilia continue her role as a candidate of the Royal Throne, much to the dismay of the many citizens of the land.
Many are aware, and wary of her questionable motives and reasons of wanting to ascend to the Throne. Yet with her relation to the Jealous Witch, many would wish she be gone for good.
As a result of this event, the general public responded with a huge outcry, expressing their outrage and disapproval of the Council's decision. A source reported a small riot taking place in the Kingdom's capital. Though no casualties were reported, injuries were widespread and soon healers would flood the streets of the capital.
"The happenings of another country should not be of concern to you." as said by fellow candidate, Crusch Karsten, whom refused to comment on the matter when asked by reporter, Andre Malis.
Crowd favorite, Anastasia Hoshin of Kararagi's very own Hoshin Trading Company meanwhile, found the scene to be an amusing sight to behold...>>
<<For details of suspected foul play by the half-elf, turn to page 12>>
The injustice, the unfairness, the prejudice against her. It was all coming back to him. For a moment, it felt as if he had gone back, back to the throne room of the capital, forced to bear witness, the belligerent whispers and mutters of everyone who had no idea.
No idea of her kindness, a clue of her generosity, an idea of her gentleness, nor even aware of how she too, despised the resemblance she has.
Anger was storming, flooding his veins in hot seething anger, the paper in his hands were shaking in repressed rage... but no longer. A monster had awoken in him, crying out the villainy they had painted her image in, they were desecrating it.
"What the hell did she ever do to you?!" He hissed through gritted teeth.
Still fuming, still at rage at the discrimination of it all, he flipped through a few more pages. He scanned through them. Adverts and job offers filled the majority, news regarding a masquerade ball at the kingdom, while another page held trade propositions, and dragons for sale.
He turned to another, and instantly the boiling hot anger in his veins froze.
He thought at first, it was a picture, but as he stared transfixed, his blood running icy cold, it turned to be nothing more than a mere illustration of it, of her.
"How?" He heard himself say.
Memories of times unforgotten, became relevant again, in this afternoon of forgotten revelations, but this one was an exception, he knew this one quite well. Her last words to him, seem to have a ring of truth in it, after all this time...
"Soon enough I'll disembowel everyone here"
Her hair, a waterfall of dark abyss that flow ever so gracefully downwards. A face of deadly, lustful beauty he would never soon forget, her eyes that droop, feigning an aura of gentleness, a deadly tool used to lower a prey's guard before striking, to be the last thing they'll see before the slow, painful embrace of death. Something he knew all to well...
"Till then, take good care of your bowels"
For staring ever so calmly, ever so mischievously, wearing the same haunting smile, was Elsa Granhiert.
And under the drawing of such detailed realism, in bold black captions was...
<<The Bowel Hunter>>
<<STILL AT LARGE>>
<<ARMED AND DANGEROUS. LAST SIGHTED IN THE EAST PREFECTURE OF KARARAGI. IF FOUND, REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO GUARDS POSTED IN YOUR AREA.>>
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone