The stench of stale beer, unwashed bodies, and desperation – ah, the quintessential aroma of a backwater Adventurer's Guild hall. It was almost quaint, in a tragically limited sort of way. I, who had breathed the nebulae of nascent galaxies and dined on concepts yet unformed, was currently leaning against a splintered wooden pillar, trying to look inconspicuous. My current vessel – 'Rael', a name I'd plucked from the fleeting thought of a dreaming child galaxies away – was that of a young man, perhaps seventeen or eighteen cycles in this planet's reckoning. Dark, unruly hair that perpetually fell into equally dark eyes, currently narrowed in feigned boredom. The cheap, patched leather armor felt like wearing sandpaper.
"Next! E-Ranker Rael! Goblin subjugation quest in the Whisperwind Woods. Standard pay, plus a bonus if you clear the nest before nightfall. Don't get eaten." The guildmaster, a burly man whose face looked like a poorly-kneaded loaf of bread, didn't even glance up from his ledger.
Goblins. How… pedestrian. In the grand tapestry of existence, goblins were less than a stray thread, barely a blip in the cosmic static. Still, one had to maintain appearances. I'd chosen this world, this particular era of burgeoning mana and fledgling civilizations, for a reason. A… vacation, of sorts. A break from the ceaseless hum of creation and the occasional existential crisis that came with being, well, me.
"Understood," I said, my voice carefully modulated to sound like any other hopeful, slightly nervous rookie. I took the flimsy parchment.
A sigh, almost inaudible even to my enhanced senses, came from my left. "Seriously, Garon? You're sending an E-Ranker alone into Whisperwind? The reports mentioned unusual activity."
I turned. Ah, the welcoming committee. Or rather, the party I was apparently being foisted upon.
The speaker was a girl with hair the color of spun moonlight, cut short and framing a face that was all sharp angles and determined silver eyes. She wore practical, dark-blue reinforced leather, a slender, crimson-bladed rapier at her hip. Her aura was crisp, like a winter morning – disciplined, focused. A nascent talent, certainly. 'Seraphina,' or 'Seris' as she preferred, if the murmurs I'd bothered to tune into were accurate. A prodigy of the sword.
Beside her, practically vibrating with an energy that contrasted sharply with Seris's composure, was a girl with vibrant pink hair tied into twin-tails that bounced with every minute movement. Her eyes were wide, expressive pools of amethyst, and she clutched a polished wooden staff topped with a faintly glowing crystal. Her mana signature was… chaotic, but undeniably potent. Untamed potential. 'Elara,' the local magical sparkplug.
"Orders from higher up, Seris," Garon grunted, finally looking up, his gaze lingering on the girls. "They want new blood tested. And you two are the only B-Rank party available for a quick escort. Consider it… community service. Keep the kid alive, show him the ropes."
Seris's eyebrow twitched. "We're not babysitters, Garon. We have our own objectives."
Elara, however, beamed. "Oh, come on, Seris! It'll be fun! Like mentoring! Hi! I'm Elara, and this grumpy snowflake is Seris! What's your specialty, Rael? Swords? Magic? Secret forbidden art of cheese-making?"
I offered a mild smile. "A bit of this, a bit of that. Mostly, I try not to get in the way."
Seris scoffed. "See? He's already planning on being dead weight."
My smile didn't waver. Oh, if only she knew the 'weight' I truly carried. The weight of universes, the burden of infinite possibility. Dead weight? Amusing.
"Let's just get this over with," Seris muttered, turning on her heel and striding out. Elara gave me an apologetic shrug and then skipped after her. I followed, the faint, almost imperceptible thrum of cosmic energy beneath my skin a familiar comfort.
The Whisperwind Woods lived up to their name. A constant, sighing breeze rustled the canopy, dappling the forest floor with shifting patterns of light and shadow. It would have been peaceful, if not for the underlying tension that prickled at my senses – a faint dissonance in the local reality, like a string on a celestial harp plucked slightly out of tune.
"So, Rael," Elara began, skipping backwards to face me, her staff tapping a cheerful rhythm on the path. "First real quest? Excited? Nervous? Feeling the primal urge to punch a goblin in its stupid green face?"
"Something like that," I replied, my gaze sweeping the treeline. The 'unusual activity' Garon mentioned was more than just a few extra goblins. There was a faint trace of… Void. Not the pure, creative Void from which I sculpted realities, but its corrupted, gnawing echo. Interesting. And annoying.
Seris, ever vigilant, held up a hand. "Quiet. Tracks. Big ones. Too big for goblins."
She knelt, examining a series of deep, clawed prints pressed into the soft earth. "Definitely not goblins. More like… Shadow Hounds. But what are they doing this close to the village?"
Elara's bubbly demeanor faltered slightly. "Shadow Hounds? But they're usually C-Rank threats, minimum! And they hunt in packs!"
"Which is why sending an E-Ranker alone was idiotic," Seris stated flatly, her silver eyes flicking to me with renewed disapproval. "Stay behind us, Rael. Don't try to be a hero."
I merely nodded. A hero? I wasn't a hero. I wasn't a villain. I simply was.
The forest grew darker, the whispers of the wind taking on a more ominous tone. The air grew heavy, charged with an unseen pressure. Then, they came.
Not two or three, but a dozen sleek, black forms erupting from the undergrowth, eyes glowing with malevolent red light. Their bodies seemed to absorb the ambient light, their claws longer and sharper than any natural predator's. Shadow Hounds, yes, but… enhanced. Tainted.
"Formation!" Seris barked, her rapier flashing free, its crimson blade a stark contrast to the gloom. Elara planted her staff, a barrier of shimmering blue light flaring to life around them.
"Arcane Bolt! Triple Shot!" Elara chanted, and three spears of condensed mana lanced out, striking one of the hounds. It yelped, stumbling, but the bolts seemed to do less damage than expected, a dark energy visibly knitting its minor wounds shut.
"They're resistant!" Elara cried, her voice tight with alarm.
Seris was a whirlwind of motion, her rapier a silver blur. She danced between two hounds, her blade leaving shallow, smoking gashes. She was skilled, her movements precise and economical, but the sheer number and unnatural resilience of the beasts were telling.
I watched, an impassive observer. This was a good test of their capabilities. They were strong, for mortals. Courageous. But they were fighting gnats that had been given scorpion stingers.
One hound, larger than the rest, with eyes that burned with a chilling intelligence, broke from the pack and lunged, not at the embattled girls, but straight at me. A feint, perhaps, or it sensed… something.
"Rael, look out!" Elara shrieked, trying to pivot her aim.
Seris cursed, disengaging from her targets to intercept. "Damn it, kid!"
The hound was fast. Its jaws, filled with needle-like teeth dripping with shadowy saliva, snapped shut inches from my face.
I sighed. This was becoming tiresome.
My hand, seemingly moving at a casual pace, lifted. A finger, extended.
Time, for me, was a plaything. I could stretch it, compress it, fold it. To the girls, it would appear as if I hadn't moved at all. To the hound, its lunge would seem to last an eternity, its momentum carrying it forward into an unyielding, yet infinitely gentle, force.
My fingertip connected with the hound's snout.
There was no sound. No explosion. No grand display of magical pyrotechnics.
Just… cessation.
The hound, in mid-lunge, its snarl frozen on its face, simply… unraveled. Not violently. It was more like its constituent particles, its very essence, decided they'd had enough of being a Shadow Hound and chose to be something else. Dust, perhaps. Or maybe just a faint, lingering scent of ozone and forgotten stars.
It happened in less than a blink.
The other hounds, sensing the abrupt and utter annihilation of their alpha, froze. Their red eyes, moments before filled with predatory glee, now reflected a primal, instinctual terror.
Seris, who had been lunging to protect me, stumbled to a halt, her rapier halfway through its arc. Her silver eyes were wide, her jaw slack. Elara's barrier flickered and died, her mouth forming a perfect 'O'.
The silence that descended was heavier than any sound. Broken only by the rustling leaves, now sounding like hushed, terrified whispers.
"Well," I said, dusting off my fingertip as if I'd brushed away a speck of lint. "That one was particularly rude."
Elara was the first to find her voice, a shaky, high-pitched squeak. "Wha… Wha-what… How…?"
Seris stared at the spot where the alpha hound had been, then at me, then back again. Her usual icy composure was shattered, replaced by a profound, unsettling disbelief. "You… did you… what was that?"
I offered them my most benign, commoner-like smile. "Pest control. They were tracking mud on the nice forest floor."
The remaining eleven Shadow Hounds, as if cued by an unseen signal, turned tail and fled, their howls of terror echoing through the woods. They didn't just run; they disintegrated as they ran, their forms flickering and vanishing as if the forest itself was rejecting their tainted presence, or perhaps, as if my earlier, silent 'suggestion' to the alpha was now rippling outwards.
Elara sank to her knees, her staff clattering beside her. "I… I think I need to sit down."
Seris, however, slowly, deliberately, sheathed her rapier. Her silver eyes, now narrowed with an intensity that bordered on fear and an almost terrifying curiosity, locked onto mine. "That… was not E-Rank. That wasn't even S-Rank. That wasn't… anything I've ever seen or heard of."
"I'm full of surprises," I said lightly, kicking at a loose pebble. Internally, I was slightly amused. My control was still impeccable. A mere whisper of my will, a nudge to the fabric of localized reality. Enough to deal with the annoyance, not enough to unravel the planet. Yet.
"Surprises?" Seris's voice was low, dangerous. "You vaporized a Void-tainted Alpha Shadow Hound. With. A. Finger. Without a chant, without an aura, without anything! Who. Are. You?"
I considered my answer. The truth? "I am the stillness in the heart of a supernova, the thought that predates light, the architect of the grand design." Probably a bit much for a Tuesday afternoon in Whisperwind Woods.
So, I opted for a classic. "Just a traveler. Passing through."
Elara finally looked up, her amethyst eyes huge. "A traveler… who can do that?" She pointed a trembling finger at the empty space. "Goblins! We were supposed to fight goblins! What even were those things properly?"
"Corrupted echoes," I said, a touch of my true nature bleeding into my tone, a hint of cosmic weariness. "Aberrations. Gnats, really, just slightly more venomous than usual."
Seris took a step closer, her hand resting on the hilt of her rapier again, though not in a threatening way. More like a nervous habit. "You're not from around here, are you? 'Around here' as in… this kingdom? This continent? This… world?"
Her intuition was sharper than I'd given her credit for.
I met her gaze, letting a fraction, an infinitesimal spark of the ancient power that resided within me, bleed into my eyes. Just for a moment. Not enough to break her mind, just enough to give her a glimpse of the abyss, of the endless, swirling galaxies that were my playground.
Seris gasped, stumbling back a step, her face paling. Elara, who caught the peripheral edge of that momentary unveiling, whimpered and covered her eyes.
"The universe is a vast place, Seraphina," I said, my voice a soft rumble that seemed to echo with the birth of stars. "And I have walked many of its paths."
I let the 'commoner' mask settle back fully, the cosmic pressure receding. "Now, about those goblins? I believe the nest was supposed to be cleared before nightfall. It'd be a shame to miss out on that bonus."
Seris stared at me, her chest heaving. The fear was still there, but now it was mingled with something else: awe. Awe, and a burning, desperate need for answers. Elara, peeking through her fingers, looked like she'd just seen God and was trying to decide whether to pray or run screaming.
"G-goblins?" Elara stammered. "You… you still want to fight… goblins? After… that?"
I shrugged. "A job's a job. Besides," I added, a genuine, if slightly unnerving, smile touching my lips, "I'm rather looking forward to seeing what other… unusual activity… this quaint little world has to offer."
Seris finally found her footing, her expression a complex mixture of suspicion and reluctant fascination. "I… I have a feeling our definition of 'unusual' might be vastly different from yours, Rael."
"Oh, I sincerely hope so," I replied, my eyes twinkling with ancient amusement. "It's been eons since I was last truly surprised."
The quest wasn't over. Far from it. The real adventure, it seemed, was just beginning. And these two fledgling sparks of mortal potential? They were now irrevocably tied to it. And to me. This 'vacation' was already proving to be far more entertaining than I'd anticipated. The whispers of the Void were a discordant note in this world's symphony, a note I might just have to personally retune. But first, goblins. One must maintain priorities, after all. Even a Creator.