Rise of the Godking - Chapter 163

Chapter 163 - Return(1)

Burdened mentally rather than physically, Daneel started the slow, gruelling journey back to Graiton.

It had taken days to get from there to the beggar king's city, and to lead his pursuers away from the rest of his party, he had travelled in the other direction. That meant that he had a long way to go, and because he had to make sure that no one saw him on the way, the best estimate that the system gave him was that it would take 10 days, at least, to get back to his home island if he wanted to get there without letting anyone know who he was, or where he had gone.

It wasn't enough just to ensure that whatever island he was stepping on had no other travellers except himself. The system was able to check this quite easily using the spells that he had observed the elf use, which worked on the principle on sending out a stream of air that would be disturbed if there was anyone in a set area. No, there was a different scenario that Daneel and the others were also keeping in mind, and this had to do with the powerful family that could kill them easily if it ever found out who they were.

Although it wasn't public knowledge, Daneel had understood from everything that Alex had told him about the teleportation matrixes that there might be a way for the family to go into the past, and check the records of each and everyone who had gone through each and every crystal on all the islands if required. If they wanted to, the family might just be able to trace the route from Graiton straight to the beggar king's city, so since the beginning, it had been imperative that they go out of their way multiple times to prevent this from happening.

He didn't even have any food with him. The closest inn he could use was over ten islands away, so for two days, Daneel had to make do with the water he created for himself using the moisture in the air.

It was tasteless and sometimes even sour, but the latter he chalked up to his mood rather than any fallacy in the spell the system was using. His stomach had started to grumble days ago, since the fight where he had used up all the energy left in his body, and since then, he had had to suffice with brief gulps of energy from the vajrams that had already dwindled to half the reserve he had had before due to how much he had been forced to burn and going up against the mages.

That was the only way he could have moved fast enough, and the whole point with his style of fighting was to be such a blur that the opponent would only catch a glimpse of him before he was on the ground. He was confident that no one else on the islands, and perhaps even on the Mainland must be capable of such a feat at his level. Without the system's precise calculations that maintained the flow of the energy to keep it from burning his body, it would have been impossible to defeat the three of them so easily. In doing so, he had also strewn another false path that the investigators might go down on…so all in all, if not for the bundle of questions he had come out of the encounter with, it had turned out in the most perfect manner possible.

Two days after his departure from the island where he had left the naked Ushanbos, Daneel reached a traveler's inn much like the one in which he had first met Alex. This one was much more cheerful, owned by a female innkeep with a motherly smile and laugh lines around her eyes.

Taking it as a much better sign than the last inn which had been helmed by the oddity of an innkeeper who was thin, rather than round as one would expect, Daneel wolfed down three bowls of stew in which floated the meat of an animal he could not identify. It was spicy and filling, just the sort that someone wary from a journey would love to sit in front of after a long day.

The wine was even better, so strong that it warmed him from the very bottom of his belly. Each sip made him lean back and sigh contentedly with an empty mind, but all too soon, the questions returned along with the endless conspiracy theories about who the Ushanbos might really be.

He left after buying enough food for a week, using an entire vajram even though it pained him to do so. Traveler's inns were always more expensive than any others that one might find on the islands, because after all, they were built solely to take advantage of the those who traveled between islands for purposes they liked to keep secret more often than not. No questions were asked, no records were kept, and hence, it was perfect for Daneel's purpose.

He had used the elf's magic to conceal himself, and he was pretty confident that no one would be able to link the 7 foot tall, bald man with a limp with the middle-aged man's disguise that he had used when he had fought the Ushanbos. He had also obtained a couple of bottles of the strong drink that the innkeeper claimed was her specialty, so there on, the journey was quite a bit easier as he could just get drunk whenever he wanted to escape his thoughts, trusting the system to control his body and keep him going even if he wasn't able to.

Keeping his mind off of streams of thought that would lead nowhere, he often practised magic, knowing that he was alone. His understanding of the differences between the magic here and that in Angaria grew, and slowly, he knew that he was reaching a point where he might be able to use all his skill without abandon even in this part of the world.

On the ninth day of his journey, he was startled to find a familiar island. He remembered it clearly because it was linked to one of the most anguish-filled experience he had been through since coming to these islands: his journey through the land filled with people tied to stakes, howling for their death, or things unknown.

Their sacrifice was still fresh in his mind, the echoes of the shouts that had hounded him out of the island still audible in his ears, as if the spirits of all those who had died to ensure his safe exit still clung to the air around him.

Standing at the edge of the island that was just a single teleportation away from it, Daneel gazed at the blackened rock that signified the hellish landscape he had walked through and got out of alive due to what some might call a stroke of luck, but what others might insist was the power of prophecy.

Instantly, he was reminded of the words he had read on the back of that button on the robes of the Ushanbo. But because the conclusion that was staring at him straight in the face was one that was too dangerous to accept without more proof, he crushed these thoughts and instead asked the system for the data that the beggar king had collected about the island.

[Responding to host. Island's name is A-1. Owned by outcasts from the Mainland who insist that islands should not be given names, as they are only used to put animals to work. This family is heavily favoured by the Garbonors due to their extremely high efficiency. They have been given command of multiple islands over the six years that have passed since their exile from the Mainland. For extreme low cost upkeep of the islands, they have imported soulless automatons programmed specifically to push all slaves to the breaking point, and beyond.]

The existence of those winged beings on the island made sense, now, as they had seemed vaguely as if they had been designed by someone, instead of naturally being given birth by the world. As he thought back to everything that had happened during that encounter, Daneel found himself dwelling on his family whom he was basically ignoring, at the moment.

The moment this thought came in his mind, though, he imagined himself telling them that he had left these people to their plight to come to their rescue. He could bet on his life that the reaction he would get would not be a satisfactory one; in fact, they might even doubt whether he was who he really claimed to be.

They were his family for a reason. The one who would feel most strongly about the state of this world would be the Emperor, his teacher and confidant, who had climbed out of exactly such a life to build an Empire spanning all of Angaria. He had to take a leaf out of the man's book, now, and try to accomplish something similar.

As he turned to continue on his journey, a different memory also emerged to the surface of his mind, and it made him smile. It was that moment, back in Angaria, when he had decided that he would be the one to take charge and help those who couldn't help themselves, simply because he would never be able to forgive himself if someone else came along and tried, but fared worse.

These people had no one else, to his knowledge. So he would be the one to save them all.

Fixing this convinction in his mind once more, he embarked on the last day of the journey in a relatively peaceful mood. A burst of excitement appeared in his chest, though, the moment he reached the last crystal that would take him to Graiton.

With his spirits perking up and a smile stretching his lips, he stepped forth...

...but the moment he set foot on his home away from home, he knew that something was horribly, disastrously wrong.

The unmistakeable stench of death reached his nose before his vision even cleared, and at once, his heart thudded to a halt.