Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) (66 page)

“Tiza doesn’t have a spider fang sword,” Eric said.

“She will; trust me. The way she obtained it will be a
story worthy of an epic ballad. I’d tell it to you, but time waits for no one,
especially me. So! Are you ready?”

“Yes, I am,” Eric said.

Wiol raised her right hand above her head. A funnel cloud
appeared around Eric and carried him high above the village and into the
clouds. There he could see the world at a glance.

Everything around the world was visible here. It was
similar to his experience with Eaol, but a different perspective. Instead of
earthy intimacy, this was far away and breezily impersonal. The landscape below
him may as well have been a tactical map. Before his eyes, it began to move;
move but not change. While the creatures lived their lives, the world itself
refused to change. It was a simple matter to recall what he learned in Eaol’s
trial and bring himself a closer view.

Then he was there, hovering above their heads and watching
them work. It was only now that he realized what he truly saw; he wasn’t
just
watching them work, but how they
would
work and
could
work. The
possibilities overlaid in his sight to see all at once. If a man flipped a
coin, he saw both outcomes every time. The mystery of Schrodinger’s Cat was not
a mystery to him.

I want to tighten my focus. Show me a future where
Nolien Heleti the fifth and Tiza Aranid the first do not marry.

The world around him whirled and then came to a stop. He
was in an alley in Roalt’s warrior district. Wretched sobs and heavy breathing
dominated the area. Nolien was halfway transformed, naked, and leaning over
someone else. It was Tiza, who was naked, injured, and sobbing.

Knights blocked off both sides of the street and more
overlooked it from the rooftops of homes and businesses. They were fully
armored and equipped with devastating weapons. One of them stepped forward and
declared, “Lord Nolien Heleti, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of
the Heleti family and household. You will be charged with sexual assault of the
first order as soon as I tell the Knight of Justice about what I see here.
Please come quietly.”

Nolien growled at him, eyes fully red.

“Lord Heleti, please don’t make me destroy you.”

Nolien charged his horn.

“So be it. FIRE!”

Archers and mages fired from every direction. The sheer
volume of projectiles overcame the monster’s defenses and stuck it full of both
cold iron and disabling spells. While weakened, it was still alive and
attacking. It fired randomly in the heavily populated area. The knights ran forward
and ran it through many times over. Even then, it healed. Its power amplified
by its magical horn made it elf-like in recovery ability. To overcome this, they
hacked off its horn and roasted it in a blazing fire for a solid minute and
then
ran it through many times more.

Once they were sure it was dead, the team’s medic examined
Tiza. She confirmed their suspicions and wrapped a blanket around her while the
knight squad escorted her to her parents’ home. On the way there, she tore a
ring off her ring finger and tossed it into the trash.

Eric was left standing in the alley; eyes wide, mouth
open, and mind reeling. Wiol appeared next to him and waited for him to speak.

 "That...that could really happen?"

"Yes, it could. Nolien is not like you. His mind is
split between his noble human personality and feral monster instincts. There is
conflict beneath the surface. Believe it or not, this isn’t the worst thing
that could happen.”

“I have to see the worst, don’t I?”

“Yes. To accept my power, you have to look unflinchingly
at the future. You’ve experienced the distant past and magnitude of the scale
of the present, but you still have to come to terms with the endless branches
of the future.”

“Alright. Let’s do it.”

One future after another scrolled through his mind. A hundred
years played out in ten thousand ways was just the beginning. Everything from
the heartrendingly tragic to the heartwarmingly triumphant to the hilariously
ironic, and the just plain weird. In the end, he fell to his knees and threw up
while his body and mind ached.

“We’re not done yet,” Wiol said. “Are you?”

Eric’s eyes slitted. His mind was clear and focused, and
somewhat empty. Nothing was missing, nothing was forgotten, but it became
comparatively empty in the endless chaos of a monster’s mind. He stood up and
tall without shaking or weakness.

“No.”

“Good! Then let’s play a visual novel.”

Wiol spread her arms out and the world reconfigured into a
setting with characters. For the final challenge, Eric was to enter this
setting and become one of these characters. His decisions would trigger events
that would lead to certain endings. Wiol informed him of the premise, which she
wrote, and told him the initial conflict. It was up to him to find the path to
the Golden Ending. If he could do that, then she would grant him her blessing.

It wasn’t easy. The first several tries were nothing but
him stumbling around trying to figure out what was going on and who was who and
how to influence the setting and the chain of events. Before he knew it, he was
at a bad end.

He tried again and reached a decent ending, but Wiol shook
her head, so he tried again. After trial and error, much pondering and
planning, and a few counter-intuitive decisions, he arrived at the solution.
This resolved the conflict in the best manner possible, but Wiol still said he
wasn’t done yet.

“
You
can restart here, but all who live in time only
have one chance. The likelihood of someone reaching this particular ending is
poor. If there was someone to guide them, or if there were fewer branches, the
chances would be higher.”

“True. That’s possible. I know a lot of people who would
like that kind of security.”

“Are you one of them?”

“No. I used to be and I can still understand why someone
would want that restriction; it’s guidance and peace of mind.”

“What changed?”

“I met a boy named ‘Aio’ who challenged me to find
something more than simple stability. Following a strategy guide makes a game
less fun. Also, I might find a good bad bug and do something the guide says is
impossible. Finally, I might disagree with the guide on which ending is the
Golden Ending.”

He clapped his hands together and withdrew his mage’s
spear. The
soiléir
gleamed with the light of his grey-black spirit light
and the three elemental ones that circled it.

“For instance, I could decide I don’t want to play your
game and jab you with this instead. I’ll steal your power and use it to create
my own future.”

Wiol clapped. “Congratulations!”

She touched the crystal and a sky blue light took its
place in orbit around the dark grey, opposite the brown and between the red and
sea blue. All five shone brilliantly and blinded Eric. Suddenly, he was back in
the Courtyard of Elemental Worship, and next to Wiol’s shrine. He ritualistically
thanked the goddess and held her gift above his head.

Kallen clapped. “Congratulations.”

Annala clapped. “Congratulations.”

Tiza clapped. “Congratulations.”

Nolien clapped. “Congratulations.”

Emily clapped. “Congratulations.”

Tasio clapped. “Congratulations.”

Eric collapsed the staff and said, “Thanks, everyone.
Tasio, what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to join the shout out to New Beginning Angel,
also known as something else that the author may or may not be allowed to name.”

“Do you say nonsense because you’re a trickster or just to
annoy me?”

Tasio smirked and disappeared.

“Anyway, how long was I gone?”

“Not long,” Annala said. “A couple hours.”

“Hours, huh?” Eric scratched the back of his neck. He
wasn’t sure how to approach this next topic. His human memories yielded nothing
and his monster instincts were baffled that the same person could be both
threat and family.

 “Say…Nolien, how are you feeling?”

“In good spirits, thank you. However, I’ve noticed some
minor side-effects.”

Threat...
Eric shook his head. “Such as?”

Nolien held up his left hand. “This hand wanders when I’m
not using it for something. Fortunately, it has an exclusive area of interest and
so it is simple to cope.”

He was standing on Tiza’s left. Eric dearly hoped coping
would be that simple. As one future among countless, it was easy to dismiss as
fringe or unlikely, but it was nonetheless possible. Once it came to pass, it
was fact; unchangeable history. He saw futures where he dabbled in time magic
to reverse a bad future and in most of those he either set up the bad future or
created a worse one. Forging a chosen future was tricky with or without time
travel, but the latter was the harder of the two. Even a friendly warning could
inadvertently cause the future he sought to prevent. In the end, he could only
watch as the budding couple went on a private stroll.

“So,” Kallen began, “how do we defeat Nulso?”

Eric grinned. “That’s what I like about you, Kallen. You
didn’t ask ‘if.’”

Kallen flipped her hair. “Of course I didn’t. Our victory
is assured; one of those guaranteed things that Wiol talked about. The only
uncertainties are the details.”

“Okay, I saw the many ways it could happen, but I can’t
tell you any of them.”

“What’s the point of seeing the future if you can’t act on
it?”

“Acting on knowledge of the future will change the future
because you have introduced a new variable. Also, if I told you then it would
cause a paradox because the knowledge I would impart to you came from myself in
the future, who only knew it because I learned from a vision of myself from the
future. Making it worse, in some of those futures, the future me only knew it
because the future you explained to him. Those paradoxes
never ended well, or rather, they won’t end well. We have to
do this the long way.”

“‘I really freakin’ hate time travel,’” Annala said. “That
was a quote from the
Book of Wort and Mort,
spoken by Arthur the
Squirrel. I’m siding with Eric on this one.”

He pecked her check in thanks. Then he turned his
attention back to Kallen.

“To get things rolling, I’m going to ask, ‘Can you teach
me how to use Chaotic Starlight’?”

Kallen shook her head. “I don’t know how to do it. I was
hoping you did, and I know that you do but aren’t telling me.”

Eric smirked. It was similar to the one Tasio gave to him
moments ago. Kallen noticed this and it pleased her. Annala was more
ambivalent.

 “Really? But you have that Chaotic-Zen-Trance thing.” He
waved his arms about in a deliberately hammy fashion. “How could you
not
know it?”

Kallen huffed. “
River of Chaos Enlightenment
involves bypassing the surface layers of reality to reach the inner chaos and
return things to the Sea of Chaos. I don’t know how to turn things
into
Chaos. Many elves consider it blasphemy and the rest consider it prohibitively dangerous
considering what happened to Dengel.”

At this, Eric’s face became more gleeful than ever. It became
expectant and giddy. “What happened to Dengel?”

Kallen groaned. “That can get annoying. What if
I
started feigning ignorance to important top...” She trailed off because Eric
was mouthing her. “Fine. I guess he didn’t tell you because it was the most
embarrassing moment of his life and likely the scariest.”

Annala smirked. “Big sister, I think we should show him.”

Kallen smirked. “Marvelous idea, little sister.”

“Then let’s go!” Eric said eagerly.

He was so excited it was hard not to run ahead of them.
After all, he wasn’t supposed to know what they were talking about. In the
original timeline, they led him to the place and it was a shock to him. Now it
wasn’t going to be a shock because it was already a shock for the him that
watched the vision just as it was for the him that was in the vision. In that
way, the emotional aspect of this part of the timeline had already come to
pass. However, they still needed to show him the way.

 So he followed the two girls towards a corner of the
village where a cluster of trees stood outside the border. Here, a secondary
ring protruded from the main line like a pimple. Unlike the main line, the
trees pointed their weapons
inwards
. Whatever was in their circle was
considered more dangerous than anything outside. Hordes of mortals, armies of
ordercrafters, even Order himself; it didn't matter because the true enemy was
inside their ring.

 Eric was both nervous and excited as he walked over their
giant roots and ducked under their giant branches. The way they linked up with
each other, they resembled prisons bars. In some of the futures he watched,
they attacked him. In some of
those
futures, he died here. Regardless of
the risk, it was worth it to see their prisoner.

It was a statue of Dengel.

In many ways, it resembled the one in the Dragon's Lair: a
stone figure of an adult elf carrying a staff in one hand and a bottle in the
other. It was so skillfully made Eric could see the individual strands of hair.
The difference was in the treatment. While the one at the Dragon’s Lair was
kept polished, this one had graffiti and poop smeared over it. There was also a
plaque at its feet. Eric approached with due reverence and spat on it.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time."

Kallen leaned against one of the guard trees, arms
crossed. "I thought you might. What you've been doing for months, elves
all over the world have been doing for
millennia
."

Yes, I recall being quite the villain in my pursuit of
knowledge,
Grey Dengel said.
I regret nothing, of course. It was due to
my actions that I reached the level of acclaim that I enjoy today. I acquired
the means to reach
the Third Level of Chaotic Enlightenment; the Chaotic
Starlight! My instruction manuals are read all over the world. No elf can
compare with me.