15 'Change' Time

Rheves Verstone POV.

When I had arrived at the scene where the signal was indicating, I was greeted with a peculiar sight.

In the middle of what was said to be one of the largest and most dangerous 'Forbidden-Designated Areas' in all of the Oswil Continent, a young toddler was found standing within the sea of trees. Forgetting the fact about why would there be a toddler wandering in the Merez Forest, the boy's appearance was extremely unusual.

Rarely seen mid-back length, pure white hair, and with eyes that shined like bright rubies under a light.

However, what was most unusual about this situation was the existence of a black mist that surrounded the boy in a sphere-like fashion.

The black mist continuously moves under that sphere-like shape, like smoke trapped within a glass ball. The boy's white hair floats freely as the black mist continues to flow around him.

…there is no mistake. The black mist around the boy is Miasma. My AEON Device is reacting towards it.

Not only was the mist Miasma, but the Miasma also seems to be coming from the boy's body and not just covering it. Even as I speak, the concentration of Miasma in the area is growing steadily.

.....Hah!?

How careless of me, to freeze for even a second from shock. Unfortunately, it seems that I have no time to be shocked any longer.

The strange boy, having long since noticed me, had attacked without warning. The shape of the Miasma surrounding the boy took the shape of large sharp claws, like those of a monstrous beast.

I immediately dodged to the right. At the area where I was standing, three large crevices appeared seconds later.

If were to dodge any later, my end could be imagined.

The strange boy's attack did not end there.

With a beastly roar, the Miasma surrounding the boy continued to change in shape.

As the Miasma constantly transforms around him, the boy kept releasing a never-ending barrage of attacks without rest.

Impossible! To not only produce Miasma but to actually use Dark Majik as well! What is that boy's identity? To be found here of all places...is the boy related to Aileen?

As I continue to ponder about boy's mysteries, without letting my guard down, I continuously dodged the boy's attacks.

Luckily, the boy's attacks aren't much.

While his Dark Majik is powerful, his attacks are far too straight-forward and easy to predict.

Attacks at this level, I could dodge them all day if I had to.

Having realized this, I gradually returned to calm. Even a small smile appeared on my face.

This can be said to be 'good timing'. I always wanted a chance to test out 'this' for a while now.

Sorry about this, but you can become my first guinea pig!

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Ever since parting ways with Aileen and the other comrades after the war, Rheves had been, for the last 5 years, traveling all over the Oswil Continent, searching for and exploring the many ancient ruins scattered across the land.

During his various travels and explorations, Rheves had made many different discoveries. Along with those discoveries, Rheves also had to face many dangers that came with those discoveries. Tempered by his various experiences, dangers that barely pose as life or death situations are not worth his attention.

As a man who continues to explore ruin after ruin, filled with a plethora of unknown danger, it wouldn't be strange for Rheves to turn up dead once his luck runs out. However, beyond all expectations, Rheves's survivability actually increases after each adventure he goes through. The reason for this phenomenon all revolves around a certain object. In this case, several objects.

Ancient Artifacts.

The generalized term for items that use Aether as a power source that was produced during the Omnias Era. It was based on these Artifacts that modern Aether Tech was developed.

Ancient Artifacts that are excavated out of the ruins can hold amazing powers that sometimes even exceed the capabilities of current technology.

While the discovery of such usable Artifacts can be said as rare as trying to find the hair of a unicorn, Rheves had the luck to obtain many workable Artifacts that had saved his life many times.

The excavation of any Ancient Artifacts is actually a rare event. Ancient Artifacts can only be found within ruins created during the Omnias Era where their locations can be found all over the world. However, it wasn't until in more recent years that large excavations of Ancient Artifacts were possible.

Historically, the danger of the level these ruins are so high that the percentage of survivors of those that explored these ruins in the past numbered around 1% on average. The reason for such a low survivability rate was because the ruins themselves are actually a type of living Ancient Artifact. Built within areas of high Aether saturations, the ruins themselves are still active for hundreds of years, even after not being maintained for equally as long. Filled with many dangerous traps, any unprepared explorer would only meet with misfortune.

Through the advancement of Aether Technology, the survival rate of these ruin explorers has been on an upward trend in the past 50 years. The increased safety allowed the creation of a huge 'boom' of new ruin explorer applicants brave enough to do so. Those explorers who use the latest technology to search for Ancient Artifacts are called Artifact Hunters.

While not officially associating himself with the title of Artifact Hunter, Rheves could be considered amongst the highest rankings. As a collector of various Ancient Artifacts, it can be said Rheves's personal collection is #1 biggest in all of Oswil.

In one of his most recent explorations, Rheves had discovered a 'certain Ancient Artifact' which prompted him to visit Aileen who he hadn't met even once for five years.

While exploring a particular ruin, Rheves had stumbled upon a room filled with a number of different written records preserved with an unknown method. Such rooms are typical of many ruins made in the Omnias Era. Within those records, a certain Ancient Artifact that was enshrined within the ruins was discussed in detail.

That Ancient Artifact was said 'to quell the spread of Miasma and seal the powers of those who use it'.

The moment he read that, Rheves had thought this was what he had been looking for all this time.

The reason as to why he is ruin exploring in the first place had been for one reason only.

With this Artifact, if a Demon Lord were to be revived again, no longer would he or his comrades have any trouble. Using its power, fully sealing a Demon Lord will be possible, and it might even do something a little more….

After an extremely detailed search and many hardships, Rheves was able to finally locate and obtain the Ancient Artifact.

Once the Artifact was in his hands, Rheves immediately set off from the ruins.

His destination? Aileen.

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Rheves Verstone's POV

After easily dodging the rough attacks from the strange boy, I began to pull out the Artifact I had placed carefully in my rucksack.

The moment my hands were pulled out of the rucksack, the full appearance of the Ancient Artifact was revealed.

The Artifact's true form….is a set of dual daggers.

10 inches in length, each. A slightly curved spine with a single silver edge. A warped guard. On the pommels, each dagger has been embedded with two mysterious gemstones. The color of the gemstone differs between each blade, one sky blue, and the other dark purple.

Upon each dagger, two different ancient Omnias texts have been engraved directly along the side of their blades.

As an experienced explorer, I had long since acquired the skill to decipher ancient Omnias text.

The dagger with the sky blue gemstone: Embrace. The other with the dark purple gemstone: Sacrifice.

Together, the name given to them by the ancient Omnias people is the Dual Ritual Daggers: Spes Geminae.

With the Spes Geminae in my hands, I test out their feel within my grips.

"….hmmm? As expected….it really doesn't fit me. Besides, I'm not a dual dagger wielder anyway."

As I feel somewhat disappointed, it seems that the boy doesn't care for my feelings,

The Miasma around the boy changes shape once again. This time it changed into a shape of a large two-handed sword. With a loud roar, the boy charges straight towards me as he raised the Miasma blade above his head.

"Well, it seems that I have no time to complain anyways!"

In a split-second decision, I decided to take the strange boy's attack head-on.

With the two daggers, I placed them in a cross-shape guard in front of me.

With an immense might, the boy swung his Miasma blade as if to slice me into two pieces. In response, I raised my daggers.

"Hggghh!!" I grunted, while slightly wincing in pain.

As I braced myself from the impact, my feet dragged across the ground from the strength of the attack backward for 5 feet. However, I was able to plant myself into the ground and moved no further.

"Graaahhhh!!!"

For a few seconds, the boy and I were kept in an intense deadlock as we continued to challenge each other's power…..until a change appeared.

"….aahh?!?"

From my right hand which held Sacrifice, a mysterious powerful suction was activated….against me!

As Sacrifice continues to suck 'something' out of me, my body, which continues to push against the boy's attack, is slowly weakening.

'What's happening?! Isn't this an Ancient Weapon used against Demon Lords? If this continues….' I thought while fretting from the unexpected situation.

As I continue to worry about the situation, it seems that my worries are left unfounded.

After a while, the suctioning power from Sacrifice has stopped. It seems that it had its fill.

From the filled Sacrifice, it's purple gemstone glows ever so brilliantly. As if reacting to Sacrifice, her sister Embrace's blue gemstone also began to glow in resonance.

The change do not merely end there.

Similar to her sister before, Embrace began to exhibit a powerful suctioning action. This time, however, the target is not me.

Instead, the absorption power is directed towards the Miasma blade that had continued to make contact against my two daggers.

As if a monster of gluttony itself, Embrace continues to absorb, no 'devour', Miasma from the Miasma blade at a frightening rate.

The Miasma blade itself eventually could no longer keep its shape as the Miasma continues to disappear inside Embrace.

Obviously frightened, the boy quickly tried to back away from Embrace's power. Having escaped from Embrace's area of effect, the Miasma from the boy was no longer being absorbed. However, having already absorbed a great portion of Miasma, the boy shows a sign of exhaution.

'….it was as the ancient text said!'

These two daggers truly are capable of fighting against Miasma!

While the unexpected absorption felt dangerous, as long as I use the Spes Geminae I can….

'First things first, however. There is still that boy.'

Using the daggers, I'll first calm him down by absorbing all of his Miasma. Once that's done, I can take my time in figuring out what he is.

I once again turned to face the boy.

The boy had remained unmoving from his spot he had escaped to after dodging Embrace's power.

Is a side effect from having their Miasma absorbed or is it some kind of strategy? He hasn't moved from that spot for quite a while.

Even though I was puzzled by the boy's actions, I was preparing to charge at the boy when an unusual change occurred.

"…aaahhh…aaAAHHHHH!!!"

The boy began to writhe around while holding his head. The change was so sudden, I immediately froze in place. Unsure of the next plan of action, I decide to continue to observe the boy.

As the boy continues to writhe, he starts staggering around the forest floor as if drunk.

"…..s…s-sttttoop it! STOP IT!!"

All of sudden, the boy began to yell incoherent words. I continue to observe the boy, not wishing to miss any details. My grip that are holding the daggers, tighten.

"You should have disappeared! After finally being able to revive again…to be forced down by a halfling like you!!!"

The Miasma that continues to circle the boy begins to be reabsorbed into the boy's body.

The rate of reabsorption of the Miasma was irregular. It began slowly at first, then the rate sped up a few moments only to later to slow down.

The rate of absorption continues to switch between slow and fast. It was as if the boy was fighting something within himself.

Slowly, but surely, however, the Miasma surrounding the boy becomes ever so faint.

Once all the Miasma was reabsorbed into the body, the boy immediately froze still.

A silent pause.

Then without warning, the boy's body began to emit an intense blue light. Due to the extreme brightness, unable to close my eyes in time, I had been blinded.

This is bad!

My wariness had been raised to the max. With my eyes out of commission, I changed my focus on not missing any sounds as I wait for my eyes to recover.

Despite my worries, I was unable to hear any sign of movement from the boy,

My eyes, which had been victimized by the light, slowly began to regain focus.

I blinked my eyes slowly. After making sure my eyes are back to normal, I turned my attention towards the boy,

What I first saw once my eyes had recovered was…..black.

What was once long pure white hair had turned a complete short raven black hair.

The eyes that had been glowing a deep red until just a moment ago changed into a color of black obsidian.

My first thought was that the boys body must have changed due to all the Miasma he had absorbed into his body. Otherwise, why would his hair suddenly turn black like that?

However, my senses told me that this was not a change from Miasma.

As if proving my senses were right, my AEON device which had been making noise nonstop ever since meeting the boy is now completely silent.

As I continue to stare at the boy, even the impression the boy gives to me is different.

If the boy's original presence was like a rabid animal ready to attack all things that move, the current boy's presence was like a calm pond without ripples. The more I look at the boy, the more I seem to calm down and relax. It was both a frightening and fascinating feeling.

While struggling with my complicated new feelings, the boy began to move.

The boy, who turned even more mysterious, turns to look at me. His black obsidian eyes were like deep space, dragging me in. My lowered guard from who knows when was raised once again.

"…..I wish for your help, Rheves Verstone."

While preparing myself to retaliate at any time, what was directed at me first was a plea for help.