Despite the very apparent injury, Yukiko continued to insist that she was fine, refusing immediate treatment and instead insisting it was of utmost importance to get going right this instant.

After further persistence on my part, I realized the reason she didn’t want to drink any potions was because there were none left. She had used them all on me after I had burnt my arm.

“Oh-”

“Yeahh…”

“Fine, but at least let me do this”

I held out my left palm towards her shoulder.

She had seen how I fought and recognized what the aura encircling my hand meant. This time, she accepted my proposition of aid, allowing my spirit aura to slightly close up the wound, yet given the depth of the wound, it wouldn’t be fully healed by my abilities alone. There would likely be some scarring by the time her body naturally took care of itself.

We returned to her wagon, which luckily was still left untouched and appeared devoid of unwelcome visitors. 

“You lay here and rest. I’ll go get the water”

She agreed without complaint, and soon enough after my brief trip back to the stream, we were able to begin cooking with some raw supplies she had stored away.

Pulling her knees close to her chest, she awkwardly prodded the fire with a stick, as if trying to pass the time. After some time, seemingly having found the words to say, she began speaking again.

“…It’s clear that both you and I have some questions for each other, so let’s just get that over with, ok?”

I hesitantly nodded. 

“I’ll let you go first”

I took a moment to go over the questions I had bouncing around in my head, causing some of the taunts from that man from before to resurface in my mind.

“That guy back there kept mentioning a ‘Princess’, and at the end referenced a ‘King’. What was that all about?”

I wasn’t accusing her of previously lying about her identity, yet that man’s tone when saying those words raised a slight sense of suspicion.

Yukiko sighed before giving her response.

“I was hoping to at least show you the state of Synoria beforehand… but if you’re inclined to know, then-”

She began a long-winded explanation of the Snow Guild’s governing system and beliefs. 

According to her, Synoria’s government, led by the Snow Guild, was somewhat a cross between olden monarchies and more modern republics. Of course, being founded from the guild system, leadership of the guild was strictly hereditary. Meanwhile, every other available position was available to the general public, so long as they were willing to put in the effort to rise through the guild’s ranks. Yukiko, specifically, was the daughter of the previous headmaster and acted as the vice-guildmaster, while her older brother, Setsuya, currently presided as the reigning guildmaster. Due to these hereditary positions, dissidents against the Snow Guild’s system, whether it be due to political beliefs or long lasting grudges, had mockingly nicknamed them ‘King’ and ‘Princess’.

“Well, that explains why I’ve always felt an air of officiality and importance from you-”

A smile crept onto her face before she let out a small chuckle. Although it was a brief display of emotion, it was nonetheless a relief to see her mental state growing more at ease. 

“Oh! The food’s ready!”

Breaking away from her previously dull state, she grabbed a pair of bowls and scooped up large helpings of stew for the both of us. Maybe her unenergetic state was simply because she was hungry then-?

Having not eaten for so long, I returned to the pot for a second, then third, then fourth, then fifth servings, only after which did I feel satiated. The recipe was foreign to my taste, yet still somehow evoked a sense of carefully prepared nostalgia. I could hear Yukiko laughing as I voraciously downed those bowls in what felt like mere seconds.

“If you’re done now, mind helping me pack everything up? I’d like to get to town before sunset”

Soon enough, we were back on the road, progressing at a steady pace towards our destination. 

“You still had more questions for me, right?”

“Oh, right” 

I recalled what else lingered on my mind that desperately needed answers.

“Who were those people from earlier, and what’s their motive for going after you?”

This time, she hesitated a bit before answering. In short, those people were the same dissidents she had already mentioned during her explanation of Synoria’s government. That insignia I had seen on their cloaks was the symbol of their collective organization, Nightfall. As implied by their name, they mainly operated in the shadows of society, maintaining such a level of secrecy to the point where even their own members didn’t know their cohort’s names. The ‘Assassin’ of Nightfall we had encountered was one of their higher ranked officers, yet seeing him in broad daylight was something that had never happened before. Supposedly, despite being strongly against the Snow Guild’s rule, Nightfall had never once taken direct action against anybody, and it was hard to exactly say what they had been doing in secrecy the whole time. As for their true motive following the aftermath of their chaotic actions, nobody could say for certain.

“What about that teleportation circle the Assassin made at the end? How close are they to the corruption?”

This was another unanswered question Yukiko and her brother faced. Recently, both corrupted and Nightfall activity had been on the rise, leading to the suspicion that the two were connected. However, we only now could obtain evidence of such suspicions. With the circle vanishing from the scene after their escape, I now fiddled with the dagger held in my hands. It was the only piece of concrete ‘evidence’ of Nightfall finally deciding to put some plan into motion. If Synorian mages could find traces of corruption on this dagger, the Snow Guild could take counteraction against Nightfall without too much backlash.

I was curious about why she had ventured out here on a mission alone if tensions were rising in and around Synoria, but I decided to refrain from asking. It was likely a considered decision by her and her brother anyways.

“Now it’s my turn, right? I’ve got just two questions. I’ll start with this: When we fought the titan at the very beginning, I could’ve sworn I saw you use some wind based ability. Shortly after, you then seemed to use some kind of combat enhancement ability. Still during the fight with the titan, you also somehow used the snow attribute, and specifically a technique only passed down in my family at that. Then we have the fight from earlier, in which your arm, which shouldn’t have been able to handle mana anymore, released that smokescreen-like blast. Not to mention that during and after the fight, your aura demonstrated healing capabilities”

Her long-winded exposition already told me her question before she even asked it.

In hindsight, my identity and abilities were extremely suspicious when considered in their entirety. I was a person who suddenly appeared from the woods, claiming to be from within the barrier, then proceeded to demonstrate an extremely wide range of abilities that could never fit under the umbrella of a single attribute no matter how you viewed them.

“So, I’m sure you guessed my question already, but what exactly is your mana attribute?”

There should’ve been no reason for this to be a difficult question. Just the same as being asked my name or age, right? Then, why did I feel a slight hesitation to divulge such basic, relatively inconsequential information? 

It’s just one simple answer, I reassured myself.

“It’s spirit. I use the spirit attribute”

“The what?”

“Well- It’s like-”

Now that I thought about it, how would one even go about explaining what my attribute was? ‘Spirit’ was a pretty vague term, and the actual abilities that accompanied my attribute didn’t seem all too related to the concept of ‘spirits’. How were the names for our auras even decided? I suddenly felt terribly puzzled. 

“If I had to try to describe it as best I could, then it’d be that my attribute can shift to mimic the attributes of people around me”

“So it’s kinda like the copy attribute then”

“The what?”

She turned around from her position at the front of the wagon and stared me dead in the eyes before her expression relaxed.

“Hah! I guess we’ll have to get that sorted out once we arrive in Synoria then. Come to think of it, how did your village even determine attributes without any magetech to test yourselves?”

“Oh, those came from the system-”

I gestured towards where the window would usually be in the air. Only, the familiar window was now gone.

“Ah! That was the other question I had- Just what exactly were those windows and messages? They appeared to me during our fight with the titan, but they haven’t shown up since. They kinda remind me of a magetech screen, but without the magetech bit-”

I had half tuned her out. Sorry, Yukiko- But this was a dire matter that had just been brought to my attention. It would’ve been expected for her to be unaware of how to recall the system, but for it to no longer respond to me was unprecedented. I tried calling out to it with my mental voice as I’d done before, yet there was still no response. 

I suddenly remembered the message I had received before the fight with the Assassin. One of my abilities was supposed to ‘level up’, yet I got no notification of such, meaning something had likely happened to the system during that fight. Was it the work of the Assassin’s techniques or weapons?

“Oh, nevermind all of that, we’re almost there! Just over this hill and you’ll be able to see Synoria Outlook!”

At this time, the sun was already beginning to set. With the rise in terrain ahead of us, we could only see the orange glow peeking over and around its crest.

Something wasn’t right.

“Wait, sunset? We’re traveling north, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, what about-”

Yukiko suddenly stopped talking as she tightly gripped the reins.

All the items in the back of the wagon, alongside myself, were aggressively jolted as the wagon abruptly accelerated to full speed.

As we neared the top of the hill, I poked my head out the front of the wagon from under the cover.

The sky above us was suddenly washed over by a translucent veil of blood red energy that tinted the scene.

[ The Manaflow System is currently unavailable ]

[ Returning user to the World Zero System… ]

[ Processing circumstances… ]

[ User has already progressed past the < Barrier Zone > stage ]

[ Advancing World Zero System to next stage ]

[ Combining data from nearby users… ]

[ A new directive has been created ]

[ Defend Synoria Outlook:

- A rogue entity has started a false Event targeting Synoria Outlook

- Waves of tainted corrupted beasts will strike in groups at random intervals throughout the following week

- Additional Potential Threats: Members of Nightfall, ??? ]

A similar window had appeared before Yukiko, the only difference being that her ‘additional potential threats’ section was completely filled out. I couldn’t quite make out what it said, but whatever it was had immediately turned her expression stone cold.

Our ride came to an abrupt stop at the very peak of the hill, and for the first time since I’d met her, her very presence was brimming with rage. Not even our encounter with Nightfall had evoked this much emotion from her.

Without speaking to me, she hopped off of the wagon and rushed downhill faster than I’d ever seen her move.

Off in the distance, another blaring foghorn echoed through the air as dozens of tainted corrupted beasts, deformed like the titan we had defeated, poured towards the town.

Scrambling out from the back of the wagon, I now understood just what had made Yukiko react in such a way. The warm glow from before naturally couldn’t have been the sunset if we were heading north, so what else could have created such a hue?

Memories of a ruined and desolate Hanakawa flashed through my mind as I clenched my fists.

The streets and buildings of Synoria Outlook were engulfed in a rising sea of raging flames.