Online In Another World

The source of the awful smell that inhabited the swamps could be seen all around as he peered out of the carriage; bloated corpses floated in the shallow waters, along with discarded skeletons of fallen adventurers. It wasn’t just adventurers, either. There were desecrated merchant wagons, sunken into the ground with the very merchants being caught in the deathly grip of the valley.

What is this place?…I knew it was bad, but this is something else entirely, Emilio thought.

Giant frogs, larger than fully grown men, sat in the reeking waters, possessing bubbly, purple-and-black, mucus-moist skin as their vocal sacs expanded before using their tongues to clean up the bodies littering the swamp.

Just covering his nose wasn’t enough as the smell was overpowering, bolstered by the abhorrent stench he–

“Bleeegh!”

Leaning over the back of the carriage, he spewed the bile from his stomach.

“Just make sure to point that outside, please, this is a rental,” Roan called out from upfront.

This was the stark difference in experience between himself and a veteran adventurer like Roan, which Emilio realized; despite what he’d witnessed, death and shocking sights like this stirred him up, throwing him off. However, on the other end, Roan didn’t bat an eye–his heart was stone to such realities.

“…A place like this is just…” Emilio groaned.

It wasn’t a pleasant ride in the slightest, though he kept it on his mind that this was the last bridge between himself and the Guild Foundation.

An hour into the abrasive, foggy morning of the deathly swamp secluded between the ominous mountaintops, Melisande finally woke up. The bright, beginner mage yawned, stretching her arms up before freezing.

Melisande quickly covered her mouth and nose at the awful stench, looking around with tears in her eyes.

“…One, two, three, and–” Emilio counted, watching her.

On the dot, the silver-haired girl leaned over the back of the coach, spewing out her own disgust in liquid form.

“What the heck is this?!” Melisande asked.

Aiding the girl by holding her hair behind her shoulders, he gave her comforting pats on the back as she threw up over the back of the carriage.

“The ‘Styx High Swamps’–courtesy of our driver,” Emilio sarcastically said, not pleased either.

“It smells like spoiled meat…” Melisande groaned, wiping her mouth.

There was no desire to eat breakfast for either of them, with their appetites completely annihilated by the natural ‘reek’ that swirled in the isolated swamp. Meanwhile, Roan casually munched on a piece of bread while guiding the horses.

While he sat there, doing his best to try to read with teary eyes and his nose covered by the collar of his shirt, with Melisande fiddling with wind magic, suddenly–the air went quiet.

Rather than total silence occurring, the wind pressure had changed so suddenly that Emilio found his ears popping, causing him to look up just as–

ZAP.

Before he could react, a streak of crimson lightning ran across his vision, tugging him and tossing him out of the carriage. It wasn’t just him, Melisande was also suddenly thrown out of the back of the carriage as the bolt of lightning revealed itself to be the river.

“Wha–?!” Melisande let out.

Catching himself before a harsh landing, he used a burst of wind to regain his momentum, sliding on his boots across the moist mud.

“Melisande!” Emilio called out, racing over.

Grabbing onto her outstretched hand, he managed to grab her before she could plummet into the dark swamps.

As Roan landed between them, looking forward, they found themselves completely perplexed as to what happened.

“Why did you–”

There was no chance for him to pose the question as an unseen force drilled through the carriage and the horses towing it, leaving not a shred of flesh as a red vapor was left hanging in the air.

“…What? What did that? What’s going on?” Melisande asked in shock.

Roan had a dead-serious expression as crimson lightning coiled his fingertips, making sure to stand in front of the two youths, “We’ve got bottom-of-the-barrel luck, that’s what happened. Stand back. I don’t care what you think, don’t try and back me up. This is out of your league–both of you.”

There was still the question of what malignant force obliterated the carriage and steed, but that answer revealed itself in the form of a mass of bones, coalescing as skeletons and corpses clad in rotten flash mended together through a supernatural force.

“What is that?…” Emilio asked, drawing his staff and sword both.

“A lich,” Roan answered.

The harrowing figure was massive; a giant formation of death in the shape of a skeleton, clad in the corpses of fallen adventurers with a cloak formed of their stitched-together outfits. As it formed completely, a force emitted from its position that wilted the deathly trees, decaying them as the soil it stood on turned gray like stone.

“Lich?…I’ve heard of those in bedtime stories, but…they’re real?” Melisande replied.

“Unfortunately so,” Roan responded, stepping forward as the lightning emanating from him electrically charged the nearby swamp water, “…A lich will rise where abundant death occurs. We just so happen to be standing in quite the graveyard. Usually they send somebody specifically out to deal with this when it happens, but it seems–”

Before the man could finish, he suddenly stopped speaking. Droplets of rain began plummeting to the ground.

“Roan?” Emilio called the man’s name worriedly.

For some inexplicable reason, amidst the dreadful situation that rivaled the animosity spewed from the Unending Nightmare itself, there was a half-cocked smile worn on Roan’s face as the rainfall dampened his red tufts.

“Did he lose it? What is there to be smiling about?!” Melisande questioned, growing anxious as the lich slowly approached.

There was nowhere to run; only a narrow trail of mud existed between the depths of the deathly swamps, filled with diseases and man-eating creatures alike.

Roan looked up, “–As if this day couldn’t get any more damn annoying, he chooses to show up.”

“‘He’? Who’re you talking about…?” Emilio asked.

Turning his gaze upward as well, the young mage found himself staring at a formation of storming clouds that weren’t there before, closing in on the valley with flashes of sapphire thunder isolated within the rainclouds.

As the ominous lich approached, turning the life nearest to it to death as the giant frogs dropped dead along with the grotesque fish occupying the swamp, everything went silent for a split-second–

Shooting down from the heavens, a bolt of cerulean cut through the valley, curving down from the storming clouds and into the accursed swamps. It didn’t just raze the diseased waters, but parted the land, bisecting it with a colossal strand of lightning that cut through the area like a blade.

As the lightning sliced through the lich, curving through its entire body in a sublime smiting, the bolt crashed against the ground with a blinding flash, revealing a figure born from the fulmination before–

CRACK.

A thunderclap rang through the ears of the aspiring adventurers, causing Melisande to cover her ears, wincing as Emilio stood there in disbelief at the feat of power only comparable to divinity.

Standing there with a blade that looked to be eastern made with its steel clad in cerulean lightning, a man dressed in all-black tucked his white-handled blade back into its sheath, guiding it in with his pitch-black glove.

In contrast to his dark attire, the figure responsible for the valley-rending lightning had silver hair that stood up as if gelled, sparked by the lightning he controlled.

“–Looks like I got here just in time,” the man said.

Just as he sheathed his blade, another thunderclap emitted; the statuesque lich was destroyed in absolution as the cut that had been etched through its physical form and soul alike, returned it to dust.

Who the hell is this guy?! Emilio thought.

As if reading his mind, Roan spoke, “That there is a royal pain in my ass: Faust Omnisul.”

That last name stuck into his mind as his brain went into overload, putting it together within a moment past the shock he was experiencing.

“Omnisul?…” Emilio slowly repeated, “…My family?”

Approaching them after the bombastic showing of power, the mysterious figure bearing the surname in relation to Emilio, recognized Roan.

“Ah, Red Hair, so you were here? Perhaps I didn’t need to worry,” Faust said, “Though missions like these do motivate me.”

“Leave it to the Nihilum Core,” Roan replied, “Always diligently working to protect the Guild Foundation.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to provoke me, Red Hair,” Faust said, “You had your chance to join the Nihilum Core–you could’ve made a real difference. Still, you choose to laze your way around to success.”

“Can’t say it hasn’t failed me,” Roan lackadaisical responded.

It almost seemed like fate that the two grown men, who seemed to both be veteran adventurers, though Emilio didn’t know what the ‘Nihilum Core’ referred to, were rivals; it was red lightning versus blue thunder.

“That was amazing…seriously,” Melisande told the man.

Faust smirked, “Worry not, young maiden, the Nihilum Core will always be there in times of great peril. That is our motivation.”

This guy is related to me?…He seems kind of…immature? Actually…that makes even more sense, Emilio thought.

Though he wanted to ask him directly, Emilio didn’t know exactly how to bring up the topic of familial ties, especially with a man he’d never seen before the prior minute, and unknowing if the Omnisuls and Dragonhearts were on ‘good standing’.

Before he could ask, Roan seemed to handle it for him, “Oh, hey, Faust, this is your nephew. Faust Omnisul, meet Emilio Dragonheart.”