The tournament was progressing smoothly.
Out of the ten fights that I had gotten, I had won all of them.
Most of those hadn’t been as easy as against Xander since they were getting more and more powerful as I moved up in their ranking. However, I still managed to win most of the time, and I had no doubt that I would continue to win.
I was actually extremely surprised by my strength. My actual output of power was much less than before. However, because I was able to use aether I was able to move and dodge attacks from my opponent before they were even launched. It was a big advantage especially for fighters such as myself and the tribe members.
Nevertheless, I wanted things to go faster. I thought that things were going too slowly. After all, I had received some intel from Lurok about this place. However, I did not know if Zero had a base here or anything of that type.
I knew that it would take me a month or two just to find him in the Snowy Mountains because of how vast this place was. After all, Zero could literally be hiding anywhere in it, and more importantly, he was in a subspace, which would make things even more complicated.
As I watched two of the tribesmen fighting, I released a sigh. It wasn’t that the fight was boring since they were extremely powerful. But I was just tired of being here, hidden from the rest of the world.
I knew that this training was needed, but I still found it a bother.
“Can I sit next to you?” Zale asked as I looked surprised.
“Sure. Sit if you want.”
He smiled as he slowly sat down, making sure not to hurt his body.
“What do you think about all this?”
I smirked. “Why are you even asking me something like this when you already know?”
Zale shook his head. “You don’t understand the extent of my powers. I can’t read your thoughts, only your memories. It’s different. Anyway, I can see that you are frustrated for some reason. Tell me what it is, and I will help you.”
“I just want to leave this place already. It’s been almost two months since we entered this place, hidden from the rest of the world, and I can’t even begin to imagine what happened to the outside world.
I still have no news from the Emperor, even after I threatened Alexandra. Did they announce something? Is there a war somewhere? Did the demons do new victims? I have dozens of questions on my mind without answers. It’s just hard to stay here and accept being ignorant of the rest of the world.”
Zale didn’t say anything right away, so he took a few moments to think carefully about his answer. After all, I’m sure that what I had just said was something that he had gone through many times in his life. Actually, I was absolutely sure of it.
Who wouldn’t feel despair from being isolated from the rest of the world?
His situation was also much worse than mine. He couldn’t even leave this place if he wanted to. It was cruel; their God, who they still worshiped to this day, didn’t even care about them, and they still loved him for some reason.
Hell, he had forgotten about their existence. I simply couldn’t understand why they still believed in such an asshole.
“Mhm. I can understand where you are coming from. You are tired to be here.” A stifled laugh came out of his mouth. “If you must know, I’m also quite tired from being here. That’s why we are so desperately trying to help you become stronger. You are the only one who can break our shackles, young one.”
Again.
He was talking once again about that damn curse.
I just didn’t understand how that was even related to me, and no matter how much I asked, he would never tell me.
“Zale. I don’t even know how to break a normal curse. In what kind of way do you even think that I will be able to break the curse placed on your village?”
He just smiled. “Time will tell. Only time will tell, young one.”
Always goes on and on about those mysteries and what he sees.
It was just making me frustrated more than anything else.
I clicked my tongue. “Tsk, just how do you do it? I don’t get it. This life is meaningless. Why are you even hanging onto it?”
This time, there was no hesitation in his voice.
“Because of people like you.” He smiled faintly as he looked up toward the sky. “People like you can see us and interact with us. It happened only once in the past. However, it had given everyone hope that maybe…just maybe, one day, we would be able to get out of this place.”
“You had a visitor before me?” I asked with a slight frown. “What was his name? How long ago was it?”
“It’s actually weird. But it wasn’t that long ago. Maybe around 50 years ago.”
‘Not too long ago, 50 years…just how long has it been since you have been stuck inside this place?’
“I see. Who was that person?”
“That man was quite different from you, actually. Maybe the complete opposite. He was impatient, training was deemed useless in his eyes, and, more importantly, he had never tasted defeat in his entire life. The first time that he did was in this very village, and once he left this place, he was a much better person than before.
That is our goal for everyone who enters this place. For them to leave as a better version of themselves.”
“What about me? Did you manage to do that?”
“You were already on a good path, so your case was much harder, and I do not believe that we managed to erase the anger and hatred you have inside your heart. The hatred you have for your past is quite impressive, even worse than the one you have for demons. I guess that is why you erased all traces about it.”
In the following chapters, the main focus will be the Caedrel’s past in the war. There might be flashbacks and I will warn you when that is the case either by leaving a note or using italics.
Anyway, I hope you like this “break” from action as we get to learn more about this mysterious main character of ours.
