3 First Thread of Understanding

"Where the hell is the road?!" Kyung-Ju yelled out loud, before snapping his mouth shut. That was too loud for his own comfort.

But it was true. He hadn't seen any road leading out of the village; it was as if this village was isolated from any other sort of civilization.

It was stupid of him to be so frustrated over the littlest things, but he was hungry, he was thirsty, and he was tired. Just a few hours--or maybe a day--ago, he was just a graduated highschool student, trying to enjoy his summer vacation, but he just had to ruin the entire trip by falling on some piece of rock.

*My family must be worried,* Kyung-Ju thought, thinking about his bright, younger sister and his single father. *But I can't go back to that rune circle thing--there's no way I can get past that monster right now.* He took a swing of his water bottle, putting it back.

There was something about that monster that didn't feel right, like something eerie and dangerous sliding underneath his skin. He shivered unconsciously, as if he could still feel its presence nearby.

He went towards the direction of the forest that seemed undisturbed by the fire and headed towards it, writing X's on the trees along the way instead of dropping stones. There didn't seem to be any more monsters along the way, and he didn't have to exert a ton of effort to move branches as the trees were more spread apart than a thick jungle's.

As he was walking, he took out the translucent stone with green light he had found inside the reptilian creature's guts and examined it. He wiped away a bit of the blood on the stone, and felt a bit of a pull on the stone, as if it was calling out to him. He stopped walking suddenly, looking at the stone strangely as he pulled upon that thread of connection.

The green light in the stone began squirming around, before heading to the direction where his hand was placed. Gradually, the light was sucked into his body from his hand and the once bright stone began to dim down and become just a translucent crystal. Kyung-Ju's hand felt painfully hot, before that heat spread throughout his arm and then up to his forehead, where it burned intensely for just a moment.

*What happened?* Kyung-Ju thought, face scrunched up from the pain before his body relaxed again, feeling as if he was reborn in that moment. Before, there was a strange feeling on his skin from feeling the air around him, but now he felt as if he belonged a bit more to this strange world.

*What should I do now?* He thought, walking again. Suddenly, the undergrowth around him began to thin until he found himself at the edge of an immense plateau.

It was surreal, seeing such a huge expanse of coarse ground and hot, whistling wind when all he'd grown up with were blocky buildings and honking cars. Various rocks dotted the ashy-grey landscape, sharp and jagged against the lilac sky, while two moons were in the middle of the sky, bright and imposing.

Kyung-Ju gripped his dagger, before squinting suddenly at a faded figure in the distance.

"Civilization!" He gasped out, eyes widening. It was indeed far away, but he was certain that he could get there within a day.

*We don't have to check it out today, there's no need to be hasty,* Kyung-Ju reminded himself, feeling sleepy and tired. He decided to go to the edge of the forest, find a thick blue bush to hide himself in, and closed his eyes.

————

When he woke up, the two moons in the sky had turned into one bright circle with a blue outline on it--presumably, the sun. Kyung-Ju ate an energy bar, along with some more water, before heading to the presumed civilization.

In the first few hours, he was fine--he'd looked over at the jagged rocks every once in a while, curious about what they did, but nothing ever happened when he would touch them. What was he expecting, some magic to suddenly pop up in this barren desert?

"I wonder how everyone is doing right now," Kyung-Ju rambled to himself, getting tired of the endless expanse of desert. Although he was getting slightly hungry by now, he noticed that he could now skip breakfast without feeling hungry, so he reasoned it was because he was getting used to it.

"I wish that city would come closer," he said to himself yet again. The city was getting closer, but only just. Kyung-Ju saw something scuttle for a moment, and looked to the side of him. A tiny crab-looking creature peeked out from the bottom of one of the jagged rocks with purple engravings on it.

"Hello," he called out to it, but it'd looked up in alarm before grabbing the large rock and running away.

"How the hell was it able to lift that up?!" Kyung-Ju exclaimed in surprise. The crab creature came back with another crab creature, both looking curiously at him.

"Aww, who are you guys?" Kyung-Ju asked as he leaned down and reached out to pet the head of one of the big-eyed crab creatures.

He peeked inside the shell of the crab, eyes widening when he realized that he could see the surroundings from inside. Then, gaping, he looked back at the outer film of the shell.

The crabs made a few movements to him, as if to talk to him, but since he couldn't understand he just made a few hand movements back. A few minutes later, unfortunately, he had to continue on, and when he looked back, all he saw was a few jagged rocks.

Perhaps about three kilometres away from the city gates, behind a large group of jagged rocks, he saw a group of black spirit beings with white hoods in what seemed like a caravan of sorts--except what would've been wagons were replaced with floating tri-horned beasts pulling hovering giant, intricate blocks with what seemed like gold runes inscribed upon it.

They seemed to be attacking another caravan group, with smaller spirit balls pulling a carriage covered in a gold film. The one-eyed orange creatures were screeching in the foreign language as they defended themselves with small blaster-looking guns.

The black beings wielded swords, yet they seemed to cut through every glowing blast the guns threw out, and one by one, the orange creatures started falling in a splash of blue blood and gore.

Kyung-Ju froze, hiding behind a jagged rock as he watched the carnage. The black beings were breaking the golden film covering the wagons, although there seemed to be a few of the orange creatures left alive.

He looked to the side, contemplating if he should help— the last time he'd tried to help a stranger, they stabbed him in the side. He looked to the side of him, shivering at the thought if he had to go against the black spirits—maybe he shouldn't.

But he truly had a bleeding heart.

A small creature peeked out its jagged rock shell near him suddenly. Kyung-Ju's eyes suddenly went wide as he thought of something.

"Hey bastards! Get a load of this!" Kyung-Ju yelled as he lobbed a rock from the ground at the black spirits; the dagger he got from the forest creature on the other hand. He felt as if his aim and strength had gotten a lot better, as it hit one of the horned beasts and made a mark on its leathery skin.

The black spirits all looked at him, before about half of them decided to swarm towards him. The adrenaline ran through his veins as he bolted towards the large pile of jagged rocks, his body sprinting faster than it'd ever sprinted before—and that was saying much, seeing as he used to be on his highschool's track team.

He flipped off the black spirits from behind him, before running around the pile and ducking into one of the crab creature's shells. The shell inside worked like a one way mirror; outside creatures could not see in, but inside creatures could see out.

Kyung-Ju bowed to the crab creature in apology, although it just stared at him in confusion. He saw the black spirits run around the place, looking for him, before Kyung-Ju ran out of the shell on the other side so that he would aim for the group of caravans, his heart sinking at the amount of black spirits still left behind— though they were distracted trying to break the golden runes.

One of the orange creatures' corpses towards the outskirts of the caravan suddenly opened its one eye. Its eyes had a look of desperation and panic within them, as it croaked out "j̱̀e̱̺̾m̝ͮ̒y̼ͬ̚l̄̍s͂" weakly.

Kyung-Ju didn't know what it meant, but he grabbed the detached hand of the orange creature, dragging it along with him. He couldn't be bothered to think about why the creature's hand was detached but still had the characteristics of being attached, but he knew he couldn't save any more other than this one creature.

The black spirits noticed him suddenly, and they screeched out something indiscernible.

*Oh shit,* Kyung-Ju thought as he ran towards the jagged rocks. Just a little bit closer… One of the black spirits grabbed a gun suddenly from a corpse, and shot it towards Kyung-Ju, however, he moved his dagger in front of the blast and watched in amazement as it sliced the mana in half, causing twin explosions to the side of him but not on him.

He ran into the small crevice between rocks, before rolling underneath the jagged rocks. When the crab noticed the orange creature, it started screeching in surprise and what seemed like dislike, but Kyung-Ju waved in a pleading motion, saying "wait wait please let us stay for a few moments more! Please Mr. Crab! I'm so sorry!"

The crab looked skeptically at Kyung-Ju, but blinked in acknowledgement. It seemed to dislike the orange creature, for some reason, but not him. Kyung-Ju decided to put the crab on his lap, since it was so cute.

"s̓͒y͖ͦ͊ͫn̗̻̩̂̒s̫͈͋ͮ͂̌ ̳͔͈̣͌ͣͪf͙̼̦̹̱̝̊ͨl̲̣̺ͦͮ̃̀͛̑ṛ̬̺͍͂ͬ͛͗ͬ ̘̻̮̮̲̝̝͂̓i̦̜̼̜͑̄̐̿͗c̙͙͓͈̞ͫͣ̃̚g͕̬͚̞̐̓ͦ̓h̬͉̩͙ͪ̏͊̇s̫ͫ͛̾̚̚a͓͍̔̂͊ń̩̑̾c͚̓e͒," the orange creature said to Kyung-Ju, slumping in exhaustion against him. Kyung-Ju awkwardly put an arm around the orange creature, reassuring him--even though it wouldn't understand his language--that it was going to get out of this situation alive.

From inside the shell, Kyung-Ju could see the black spirits roaming around still, looking in the crevices in the rocks and on top of the rocks--but never inside. They probably didn't even know these crabs existed.

"ẃ̙t̼ͪ̀q͓̹ͯ͐ͅ ̦̫ͥ̌ͬ͋y̳̳̪̋ͮͩe̮̳̣ͧͪͨf̩̬͛̂̾ͬ ̼̼̹̼ͩͮm̝̈́ͬ͌ͅa̪̎̄ͫh̝̩j̍," the orange creature tried asking once more, but Kyung-Ju pointed to his mouth, shook his head, and raised his two hands in a confused motion. Realization flitted across the orange creature's eyes, and it nodded.

It pointed to itself, repeating the words "Ṕ̗o͉͊k͙."

"Ṕ̗o͉͊k͙?" Kyung-Ju repeated, pointing at him, Pok—from what he heard--smiled slightly and nodded in response.

"Pok, Pok, Pok," Kyung-Ju repeated to himself, trying to remember that name. He wasn't very good with names, and will often forget people's names whom he doesn't often see. It's made many people disappointed that way.

"Nice to meet you!" Kyung-Ju said, putting out his hand. Pok looked confused, moving his head to the side. Kyung-Ju demonstrated what to do with his other hand, before putting his hand out again; this time, Pok took it.