It was as if he'd woken up from a long nap.
Nuriel darted his eyes around, breathing slowly. The atmosphere was grim, drained of color. Harsh fluorescent lights flickered overhead. The walls were stone, the kind you'd expect in some underground military complex.
'did i get teleported?' he thought. A cold sweat slid down his cheek.
No, this wasn't a new location. This had to be an illusion. If those glowing strings were truly minds, like the Scepter claimed, then he hadn't been sent somewhere, he'd entered someone's mind.
'there's no one... hmm?'
From the far end of the corridor, a figure emerged, casually walking past with a folder tucked under his arm. Nuriel didn't move, standing right in the center of the hallway. Yet the man didn't flinch or look at him.
He walked right past.
The figure wore a military uniform. It didn't look like anything from the Kingdom of Bose. There was a distinct sun emblem on the shoulder. More than anything, Nuriel noticed the pair of animal ears on the figure's head.
'...a beastman?'
bits of his body's general knowledge flowed into him.
The Empire of Solaris. It sat right below the Kingdom of Bose. In terms of land area it was around the same size, but most of its combined land size came from colonies or vassal states. Its population was majority beastmen, assuming if you only counted the people with citizenship.
Unlike Bose, Solaris was expansionist. It ruled the seas, controlled major trade routes, and siphoned resources from its subjugated states. Nuriel remembered a newspaper headline from a few days ago about shipwrights of the northern Bose harbor going on strike to prevent a battleship from being built.
Bose never held any control over foreign nations, that's why it was still a kingdom despite its massive size in the central continent. If they ever started producing warships that could threaten Solaris' power overseas, war would've been inevitable.
It was a ticking time bomb. Tensions were already dangerously high. Combining factors like race and religion, it was the perfect recipe for people to start throwing bombs at each other.
And now, here he was, standing in what looked like a Solaris military base.
Nuriel stood perfectly still, waiting for the person in front of him to pass by.
. . .
'As expected.'
The figure ignored his presence as if he didn't exist at all. The moment he passed by him, Nuriel followed closely behind.
Through long corridors, winding staircases, and steel doors, the number of people increased and none of them saw him.
Tired from the walk, he noticed something peculiar. He was actually tired, physically.
'How am I tired? This space is an illusion... wait a minute.'
He stopped, the brief pause made something click in his mind.
Why was he in a military base of an enemy nation? If the strings represented minds, then that would mean he just entered the mind of someone who also walked the very ground he stood on.
Considering the possibilities, he thought about what determined what strings appeared to him. Some were bright and close, and others were dim and far. There was no way the strings appeared at random conditions. It had to appear because of a reason.
Closeness to a Scepter? Most familiar people that Nuriel knew? Oldest to youngest? Proximity? Connection strength? Hundreds of questions poured inside his head.
If this was a mind, then what was it specifically? It could've been present thoughts, but who would think about such a detailed space before him? Nuriel thought about memories. If it was a special memory, then it would explain the level of detail he experienced.
The man he was following before turned a corner.
'I cant lose him!'
He sprinted at the figure who was about to enter a room. He managed to catch up thanks to his urgency of wanting to know more.
'This room is...'
The space was dark. Only a single light bulb was present in the wide open space, illuminating a set of training equipment.
In the center was a woman doing single-handed pull ups with her entire body weight along with 3 heavy metal plates being squeezed by her leg strength alone.
Nuriel stopped following to watch the scene, while the figure was making his way towards the woman.
She lifted her entire body in a smooth, slow motion. Then lowered herself, slow again. Her back muscles tensed under the stark overhead light. But what was most striking was the scars he could faintly see, but not scars in terms of injuries, rather surgical scars, as he could faintly see stitches around her body.
The man cleared his throat. "Here's the mission profile. Command wants to see you at fifteen hundred."
The woman stopped, slowly easing her legs and settling the heavy plate on the ground before silently dropping to the floor and turned around to meet the figure.
"!!!" His face raced.
'No way that's!'
Nuriel didn't doubt his eyes. Green eyes and dark hair. It was Vivienne, his new roommate. In haste, he quietly went into a more secluded spot in the room, the darkness masking his presence. He knew the people around him couldn't see him, but seeing Vivienne, someone he knew only an hour ago, made him worry.
This was Vivienne's mind and he was sure of it. If this space was the present thoughts of one's mind, then being seen would give his identity away. If it was a memory, then he had a safer chance of not being noticed.
His thoughts raised in anxiety. If Vivienne found out about this...
Nuriel remembered her crazy workout just now. 'She could literally crush me to death.'
"How's the new ears? are you alright" The man asked.
Vivienne wiped the sweat from her forehead before replying, "I didn't even hear you entering the room."
Before Nuriel could think about ways of dying from her, the space around him suddenly turned hazy. Before he knew it, his sight was blacked out, before waking up to a dark room.
It was a small room. Nuriel spawned in a dark corner, right behind Vivienne who was sitting in a chair in front of a table. Another chair was present that directly faced Vivienne.
Before long, a door opened. An old man appeared. His face seemed to be worn out from years of duty, his ears devoid of the fluffiness that he had in his youth.
"I'm sure you've already read the document that was already given to you, but let me reiterate." The man pressed forward, his elbow resting on the table.
"Your mission is to find anything about the Steel Witch's artifact located at Owhen University in the Bose Kingdom. Don't worry about your identity. We've already forged a history for you. All you have to do is to work as a librarian."
The man leaned back, catching his breath.
"You can take your time on this one... you'll also be working as an assassin, but you'll only be given the go ahead if a war breaks out."
Then the old man slumped forward, staring down Vivienne.
"Though, in my opinion... the emperor is really gonna go for it. I wouldn't be surprised if war came tomorrow. At least I'm too old to die in the frontlines, am I right? Haha... ha."
The man chuckled, though Vivienne remained expressionless. After her non-existent reaction, the man continued.
"You'll be breaking into Bose's border tomorrow. Be ready and good luck."
Vivienne shot straight from her chair and saluted, placing a closed fist on her chest. "Yes sir!"
Nuriel watched from the shadows, dumbfounded. 'I can't believe this person is my roommate... an assassin... my roommate's a killer assassin...'
If a fortune-telling crook told him he was cursed to be fated with bad luck, he would believe it no matter how ridiculous it sounds. He leaned back against the wall, struggling to not collapse his legs, though he tried to keep himself silent just in case.
Before he could be accustomed to the facts he was met with, his vision was blacked out once more, then waking up to a desolate cliff near a beach.
It was a foggy place. The skies were covered in a thick overcast, and a light shower covered the fields, making it muddy and depressing, but most important of all—
Whizz.
"!!!"
A distinct whizzing sound flew by his ears. A bullet had just passed his head, only inches away, making him stumble to the floor, the mud sticking to his clothes.
He didn't try to stand up. That sound felt so real. He even felt the air pressure in his face. Even if the people didn't notice his existence, there was a chance that he could actually feel things physically.
He turned his head. Near the edge of the cliff, he saw a flood of soldiers storming the land as they climbed the heights of the cliff, then charging as if they didn't know what fear was. He saw one of the soldiers holding up a flag of Solaris. Dark yellow background with a large sun in the middle, emitting eight waving rays of light.
He tried watching the scene a bit more before more bullets whizzed by above him.
'What kind of memory is this...'
A memory? Was it even a memory? The scene kept changing erratically without his knowledge. He had no control over what appeared next, just like the warzone he was placed in.
Keeping his head down, he tried to see the ocean on the horizon. Ships dotted the whole coastline, their starboards facing the beach... facing him!
'Surely this can't get any worse,' Nuriel thought. But a second later, he saw tiny flashes from some of the hundreds of ships.
Countless glowing dots went up to the sky before staying still for a moment, then growing in size. A howling screech covered his entire location.
Nuriel stared at the dots. "Will they hurt?" he muttered, finally standing up, not caring about the bullets flying by him.
The shells slammed far in front of him, the explosion getting closer and closer before he too was turned into human mist.
Nuriel took a deep breath as he lifted his head from his pillow, a stinging pain coursed throughout his body before disappearing.