“While they look vastly different, from the last picture alone I would agree with you.”

  I haven’t mentioned but in the last picture the dog has gained a few blue shades to its dark fur and while it does not have three heads, the shadow the “sun” is creating of him, it has… Damn, I wasn’t expecting this at all. But, does this mean that this small Bubble Universe once belonged to this story? If that is the case, what happened to it? Did this area get somehow separated from it and ended up here? Argh, the more I think about it the more questions I end up having and right now, we are running low on time as Miss Pink Orb is getting tired.

  “At the end of the day Cerberus was a Shadow, whatever tragic background he had, it does not matter.”

  “Yeah…”

  It sounds extremely cold but that’s the cruel reality of this world. Shadows are beings born to destroy and those who become one end up quickly gaining the thirst for destruction although maybe hunger for “food” should be more accurate as they do seem to always be hungry for something as otherwise, why would they consume magic energy? They could simply destroy this world but no, they have to make sure they consume every single bit of magic out there. Let’s move one, she does sound a little down but that shows just how kind she is as she can feel empathy even to those that are deemed as enemies to the world by both humankind and my goddess. I’m not so sure about the other gods but mine, oh boy does she hates Shadows and whoever created them. But, that’s for another time for now, I grab the magic stone before leaving and as anyone can guess, the walk towards the exit was uneventful though while doing so I was able to confirm something that was worrying me beyond reason, to the point that I was holding back when fighting Cerberus. What I mean is that, I was this close to destroying this entire place and my course of actions were the best. The library before was in ruins but now? Thanks to those early “earthquakes” this place is in even in a worse state than before, complete and utterly chaos, every single bookshelf has fallen to the ground, some were destroyed in the process while others they simply “fell in place” as their structure couldn’t withstand the shaking, the books that were on them are now spread throughout the floor. In fact, even part of the second floor collapsed. A little more and I actually think these two floors would’ve collapsed on top of us, being that the second floor would be the first one, forcefully taking the first floor with him as he does seem to be that type of person. I mean, if I fall down then I will bring someone with me. That type of person.

  Why am I so random sometimes?

  “Here we are. Just like before, the moment that I open the door we will get teleported. Get ready.”

  Magic noises!

  It went just like before, I surround her with a simple but effective barrier before opening the door, once that I was done I slowly and carefully open the door and while I’m doing so a rather bright light eats away my vision but with it, we get teleported, moving between Bubble Universes and going back to the previous one. The moment I open my blue eyes, relief fills my heart as everything is exactly the same way as it was before. The grass is still vibrant green, well taken care of. The path is still well laid out with rather shiny tiles. The fountain in the middle is still magnificent and so on. How long were we inside of the library? And now that I’m thinking about it, this place is nowhere an accurate representation of what the library looks like in reality, in fact, quite the opposite. Seriously, from the outside you would easily expect it to be grand, elegant, noble like and that type of jazz… But nope, we got that instead.

  “Huff... Huff...”

  And enough of my internal monotone! We are running out of time for crying out loud!

  Ahem! Moving on then, before Miss Pink Orb collapses or something like that. We walk up to the device (she floats though, duh!) and once we got there, I felt the magic stone getting rather bright as we got close to the device, even though I had it on my pocket it somehow was able to shine through it indicating to us that, we have brought it home and it’s currently begging at us to put it where it belongs. Well, I’m not a barbarian or something like that, if this thing is asking me to bring it home then as a well-mannered Hero, that’s exactly what I will do.

  Device noises!

  The moment I insert the stone in the slot that has exactly the same size and shape of stone, another part of the device is lit up, lightening up a line on the ground at the same time though the door seems to be untouched or more so still locked. Although, it was as expected as we still are missing another magic stone but now a question pops up, where the hell are we going to find it? With both Magic Sense and Magical Eyes, I’m unable to find or sense anything of that sort, at least in this area. Maybe I need to find it in another Bubble Universe similar to the library one? Hmm, something tells me that it's going to be a pain on my Heroic and beautiful rear end however, it seems fate has something else waiting for us. Or maybe it was more so that the goddess of luck answered my early prayers?

  “!!!”

  Magic noises!

  It was sudden and out of nowhere but right behind us I felt a rather large quantity of magic energy being used quickly. As quickly as my instincts allowed my body to move as I acted upon such, I turned around to see what just happened, fully ready to engage whatever might be there. It seems that I was far too quick compared to Miss Pink Orb as it took her close to a whole second to turn around, no, seriously, for some reason she actually turned the orb around as I could physically see the orb turning around. Huh, I thought she had a 360-degree view or at least close to it but oh well, it’s not like she needs it. Let me explain what is right in front of us, it’s nothing out of this world but it does worry me quite a bit as I had no way to know it was happening nor prevent it from occurring as it happened in a blink of an eye.

  “A portal?”

  And she just destroyed my monotone with the cutest confused tone of voice a woman can have…

  “It seems so and I don’t know if you can feel it but, I can sense a rather strong magic signature coming from it.”

  While I say strong, I don’t mean threatening in fact, it’s far weaker than Cerberus but that still does not make it overall strong. Now this makes me wonder, looking at the portal, one that seems to just be a crack or a fissure on “reality” itself, I can actually see what’s behind it and with a quick inspection I see that it's nothing breathtaking or anything like that really. Just an extension of this area, a rather empty one but one nonetheless. I cannot see said magic signature so once we enter it, we will have to be ready as we might be ambushed in that very moment. However, I doubt that she will be able to go any further as her magic energy is that low. She’s breathing heavily and quite profoundly at that; unfortunate it seems this is for her current journey. I’m really grateful for what she did but there is no point in putting her in danger, we can always keep going the next day or so.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “It seems we have to part ways for now.”

  “Eh?”

  Well, that was the first time she spoke somewhat loudly. Shame it was thanks to the shock forcing her to do so rather than her doing because she wanted to.

  “Your magic energy is getting rather low, extremely so at that. I would hate to see you collapse or worse.”

  “Huff- Yo-You can notice it? Oh, you already said that you could…”

  Her voice is for the weak side, maybe it’s thanks to the fatigue but something is telling me that it’s disappointment rather than her being tired. I can actually understand why she’s doing this, why she is pushing herself beyond what her body allows and it’s capable of, all because she wants to save that person, all of this because of Kiana. I have no clue what relationship they have as I’ve said before however, seeing this pink orb willing to go beyond what her body physically allows her does bring a smile to my face and warms my heart at the same time. I just can’t resist doing it, for some reason I’m so happy to know that Kiana has someone that cares about her this much but at the same time, maybe it’s because she somewhat resembles someone that I knew, but I just can’t not feel a warm feeling deep down in my heart as the vivid memories of said person appear on my mind.

  Pat!

  And again, I’ve moved without thinking about it, carefully putting my hand on the orb.

  “Indeed, I can, just who do you think I am? At the same time, do you think I would allow you to put yourself in such danger?”

  “I know that but! I-I just can’t stop now… It was so-”

  “It was hard to get here, right? You’ve gone so far that stopping now is not even an option. Well, it’s one but one that you simply do not want to acknowledge because it feels like you will throw all of your hard work down the drain if you stop moving forward.”

  I’ve hit the head of the nail dead on with such precision that I could probably win a trophy. I’ve never stopped to think about it but I can only imagine what she had to go through to reach here, to get in contact with me and ask for help, to be by my side throughout those sets of events, even if it was for a short journey.

  ……..

  ……

  …

  She has gone completely silent but I can easily guess and understand the sea of emotions that she’s feeling inside of her heart. The words that want to get out of her mouth but her own lips are sealed tight, stopping them from leaving, causing even more distress in the meantime. How her mind is shouting at her to keep going forward but her body is begging for the complete opposite but, her aching and desperate heart forces her mind to ignore such limitations of her own body. But more importantly…

  How her heart weeps immensely from being forced to back down.

  “Hey, this is not the end of the road, you are just taking a break. You’re going to rest so that you can keep on walking towards your goal, towards Kiana.”

  “Is it really ok for me to rest? Am I allowed for such? She has gone through immense pain, suffered deeply but I was far too weak to be by her side, to help her out. After failing her several times, is someone as ugly as I am allowed to rest while she keeps on suffering?”

  Her voice is wavering, trembling as she does her utmost best to keep her composure. While I cannot see her, I know tears fill her eyes, her voice is telling me so but so is the meaning to what she’s saying, asking me is what it seems like but in reality, she’s asking herself those questions. Sigh, there always is more to the story than meets the eye however, now it’s not the time to get the answers for it as she’s nowhere near in a good headspace to do so not only that, there’s no way that I will take advantage of her in her weakness, going well beyond her boundaries while I pry on her story that she has with Kiana. No, as the Hero of this world, it’s correct to say that I’m also her Hero and as such, it’s my job to reassure her that everything is fine and that it’s indeed ok to rest even if she believes she’s not allowed such privilege. Even if she believes that she has to suffer for eternity for what she might have done to Kiana, I will not allow for someone as kind as her to think in such a way, let alone to actually suffer for said eternity. Life is far too unpredictable, far too cruel to some while extremely lenient to others and this is exactly why I will believe until proven otherwise that they were simply hit by the cruelty of fate, allowing for a horrible set of events to happen one after another.

  You’re here by my side trying to save her, shouldn’t that be enough to tell me who you are? There’s no way that I will believe that you are such an “ugly” person as you make yourself to be.

  “Let me ask you this then, if you collapse here thanks to the severe lack of magic on your body, for how long do you think you will be forced to rest? In the meantime, what do you think can happen?”

  “Ah…”

  That’s correct, from a couple hours of rest it quickly transforms to a few days, maybe even a whole week depending on how severe her state was. That’s a long time and in that time spam, a lot can happen, trust me, this is going to be an extreme example but, you can die in that time spam. The realisation of this forces her to express herself in that way, she quickly understood the logic behind what I said and when logic is involved in an argument, not much you can do to refute it. As I said before, there is more to this story and me telling her that she’s right or wrong from feeling the way she does is something that I have no authority to say, let alone to force it onto her. I cannot voice my opinion, my “philosophy” unto her without getting to know her first, without understanding why she feels like this, comprehend what led her to reach this conclusion and what makes her go through this thorny path. I simply can’t however, that does not mean I will allow her to throw herself into the pit of hell just because she feels like she deserves no, just like I did, I need to find a way to make her see what she’s doing is wrong by using the consequences of it in such a way that forces her see to that she’s not the only one that will suffer. After all, if she throws herself into the pit of hell because she did something to Kiana that she shouldn’t then, how will Kiana be saved? Whatever she did, she needed to directly face Kiana and even though I just said that I wouldn’t force my “philosophy” into her, it seems I already did and I was yapping nonsense…

  It really is hard to be a neutral party when the ones involved you care about.

  “Keep the stone with you, once you have recovered, we can continue however, I will be entering the portal as something tells me that I will be fighting once again. Once done I will send you a message of what happened. Then the moment you are rested we can keep going just like we were doing a few moments ago. I do think we make a good team.”

  “I-I will do what you say…”

  Pat!

  This is the last time I will do this but somehow, it’s also the first time that I actually did it voluntarily rather than letting my body act on its own. I do so with a gentle look on my blue eyes and with a soft and kind smile on my face however at the end of the sentence you could already see said look on my face. I was genuine with what I said and I hope she believes in it just the same way as I do.

  “Thank you…”

  Puff!

  I think she said something before leaving but it was so quiet that I was not able to fully hear it, let alone understand it. Anyway, once I’ve fully confirmed that she has indeed left, I switch my gaze and attention towards the open fissure, ready myself at the same time. As I said before, I can sense a magic signature inside of the portal, one that matches the A rank in terms of strength. Far and I mean far weaker compared to the S rank Cerberus was but unlike him, this one it’s not a Shadow, no, it’s actually from a Crystal Monster. At least that’s what I think as the magic I’m sensing seems to be very familiar to the Crystal Monsters, while their strength might vary, the properties of their magic is close to being equal. Though this has made me wonder, will I have to fight and defeat a Crystal Monster to progress further, not a Shadow as I’m supposed to? If that is the case then, I will have to fight everyone and anything that comes across my path in the future… Or at least have that possibility in the back of my mind. Sigh, let’s move on. I will deal with that when the time comes, no need to overthink it for now. And so, with the future looking a little gloomy and depressing as there is a good chance that I will have to fight both the Shadows and the Crystal Monsters, I get my Heroic rear end moving towards the portal, carefully entering it once I was close enough.

  ……..

  ……

  …