Versatile: Alternate World



Fully equipped and ready to return, I peeked into the next room. The voices of the girls are coming from there so there's no way that they have returned to the mansion and left me here. There, I saw that everyone was discussing something while someone was on the bed. I couldn't properly see who were the ones sitting and currently lying down due to the door not properly turning ajar for me to peek.

Because of this, I gave up peeking and decided to go inside the room. I am quite sure it's the girls and they aren't changing clothes for me to be embarrassed to open it up.

CREAK...

The door slowly opened and everyone inside turned around to look at me.

"Manato! You are awake!" Riko stood up and rushed towards my location. "Are you hurt? Is anywhere fine for you? I think you need more rest to recover a bit more..."

"I am fine, Riko. By the way, how are you all, and how long was I passed out?"

"Only a few hours passed by after your collapse after we returned from the battle. It should be late afternoon now outside. We are fine, somewhat. Though we felt the pain from the battle. I can still feel the sting from the bite that I suffered before as well and I don't think it will disappear soon."

I looked at everyone and they are currently patched up after that battle. However, my surprise came to Lucia who is currently sleeping in bed, covered in a blanket. I know Lucia lost an arm but did she suffer so much damage after the battle? Perhaps, but since I also collapsed after the battle, I don't have any idea what occurred and why Lucia is full of injuries.

"Is Lucia fine?"

Rika who was currently sitting beside her bed scratched her head and looked at me again. "Manato, I don't know what to say. Perhaps you can take a look at Lucia and maybe you can understand something about what was currently happening on her?"

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"Take a look at this," Rika then proceeded to remove the blanket covering Lucia and revealed that her body was fine. There is nothing wrong with her right now...except there is one thing changed and I immediately noticed it.

"A prosthetic arm?" I frowned and examined the new black metallic arm of Lucia.

"I don't think we can call it a prosthetic arm if it was made from a monster," Zena who was quiet since the time I entered said.

"What do you mean?"

"That arm is not made of metal. That was a remnant from a monster that you defeated and attached to Lucia at the last minute before our departure which resulted in her having that new arm now. Lucia has yet to wake up after the attachment of the new arm to her."

I turned to look at the others and they both nodded.

"That thing was from the remnant of the boss we fought and it was one of its remnants after you let your weapon devour the main body. It might have escaped your sight since you collapsed after the battle so when the weapon has devoured the boss, it split something out to escape, allowing it to evacuate and use the severed arm of Lucia as a temporary place to attach in."

"I see, so it's like a parasite. Can we remove this?" I asked and tried to pull it off, but it was not easy.

"Nope. We tried a handful of tricks to no avail. When someone who has a bit of knowledge in mystics examined it, they said that it best to leave it alone for now and let the one who got it attached decide whether it would be removed or not since the only way to remove it is by cutting it off like how you did to her previous arm."

"Cutting it off..." I immediately remembered when I had to cut off the arm of Lucia as a way to save her from the burn that was trying to destroy her. It's brutal but it's the only way and now, if we want to remove it, we will have to cut it off again. Even I don't think that is the best solution to this one. I don't want Lucia to suffer another pain once more.

"I think I agree with the one who said those. She will have to decide whether to remove it or not. It's not something I will have to choose as I have been the one to cut her previous arm before. Now, I don't want to do that kind of thing again."

"Pretty understandable. Even we gave up on doing that as well since Lucia already lost one arm, we couldn't afford for her to experience that pain again of her own volition," Riko sighed.

"But while we are at it, does this thing harm Lucia in any way?" I asked. I have to ensure that Lucia's life is not in danger of leaving the remnant of the Black Calamity on Lucia's body.

"So far, we don't see any signs but we have to be always careful. I am not familiar with this thing and I don't want to be the one too late for the situation that we found out too late. We have to further examine this thing once she wakes up," Rika can only speculate after the assessment of the guy and relayed it to me. I can only nod since even they have no idea. Looks like we will be doing the waiting game for a bit.

I left the girls there and let them rest. After all, the battle from the Black Dog Barghest is something that we needed the deserved rest for. That thing would have killed us if I hadn't used up all of my trump cards. It only strengthened the fact that we are still pitifully weak.

I went out of the Ragga's house and saw the Desert wolves resting outside. The kids are currently playing with some of them while the other desert wolves just watch over them as they remain there guarding the premises. It seems the battle was over and there's no need to guard the demons. I also think Ragga has already finished the job that we were supposed to carry out before the attack.

I didn't want to disturb their rest so I returned inside and sat down on one of the chairs made of wood with intricate carving carefully crafted to make a good seat like this. I didn't fully examine the place back when I used the shikigami to scout this place but seeing this place up close is pretty different. You can feel it was like some kind of hunter cabin found somewhere around the woods.

Despite being native, there are some books here and there on some shelves but most of the stuff here is made from the bones, pelts, and some monster parts that are obviously hunted by Ragga. It's a typical, cozy house you want to rest in the middle of nowhere, enjoying your time with nature.

Now that I have time to relax, I recalled every single info I learned about the Goddess of Death and also the Goddess of Life. Unlike what the books have stated it started due to the argument between the followers of both the Goddess of Death and Goddess of Life, the real truth was actually the Goddess of Life trying to find a way to kill the Goddess of Death and take her authority for her to be capable of dictating the people all over.

Since the Goddess of Life couldn't grant those who needed punishment or someone she wanted to die their deaths due to her being the being who breathed life into the land, she thought that if she had the authority over the dead that was controlled by the Goddess of Death as her power, she can then do what she was supposed to do.

It's kind of scary knowing that the Goddess of Life is someone who is totally fine at handling death despite the Goddess of Death wasn't technically happy with that idea of hers. After all, the Goddess of Death only wanted to use her power to those who had already died or those who wanted to go to their final resting place.

As a result of the disagreement between the two, the Goddess of Life decided to use her own followers to order and destroy the followers of the Goddess of Death after she declared war and wounded the Goddess of Death by using someone to attack her as she couldn't physically do it. She cannot kill someone who holds the authority of life so a follower will do just fine.

But the plan failed and the  Goddess of Death managed to escape and retreated somewhere she couldn't be accessed into which was where I was visiting whenever I dreamed. As for the Goddess of Life, due to her hunt for her sister, the Primordial war begun, thrusting the world into chaos as a result.

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