In the end, Quies chose to go left.
He did so, despite knowing—and visually seeing—that the path was of greater difficulty than the other. If he turned to the right, the path would have faded into soft grass hills, slowly ascending upwards as it clung to the side of the cliff. In the distance, a ruined structure similar to the one back in the Isle of Vigils was veiled by the mountain fog.
To the left was a series of raised stone platforms, ish—too tall for him to climb like stairs, but not impossible to climb. The ascent was indented into the monotonous cliff face to his right. The path, if it could even be called that, resembled a quarry whose walls collapsed—the fragmented stones forming a rising pile to the top.Fortunately, the rocks here were rough, similar to the ledge in the cave, so his hands were able to grip their surface well.
It was also a place which Quies was familiar with. In fact, it was the farthest he dared to explore on this drifting island.
'It was a chore for me to hoist myself up those rocks last time…'
He remembered. It was a brisk, early summer—late morning. He had just eaten his fill from a fish he caught a few days back, a troublesome endeavor since its meat would be going bad soon. What he needed was salt; he could cure and save the fish for much longer if he got his hands on a batch.
He tried searching in the lower levels of the island—the places he was familiar with—but found nothing. The shores had nothing, and so did the forests, obviously. He thought of heating a portion of water over his fire, but he couldn't make a container which was large enough to produce the amount of salt he needed. All of his current stores of water were made out of wood, and held freshwater for him to drink.
Perhaps he was delusional, but he decided to go look for a salt reserve in this area of the island. Who knows? Maybe there was another cave which was, for some reason, rich in salt.
In the end, he did find a cave. If he remembered correctly, it was just straight ahead.
'I haven't gotten the chance to explore too deep inside just yet, though.'
He hadn't gone into the cave for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it seemed to be a breeding ground for megalodaunts. He found that out when one time—out of curiosity—he took a few steps deeper into the cave. The cave wasn't a straight line like the mudskipper cave, but rather, a winding one. That meant that he could only see so far without having to explore further himself.
That time, he was brave enough to get close to the first bend of the tunnel. A weird crunching and slushing sound echoed from just around the corner, so he was cautious. He didn't want to expose himself to whatever could be hiding over there, so he used the side of the cave as cover.
When he peeked his head from the side of the naturally formed wall, a terrible sight beheld him.
Red, crimson blood was splattered across the floor. Small and large bones were scattered throughout like pin bones picked from a fish. Far away from him—on the far end after the bend—a megalodaunt was feasting on the body of a dead explorer.
'To think that now, I'd probably be the one to kill and eat that creature.'
Quies grabbed on the edge of one of the rocks and hoisted himself up again. He would have to do this a few more times before he was able to get to the top. If he could somehow learn that leaping technique that Valerie had, he would've already been at the top a few minutes ago…
That reminded him about what Valerie had told him about the song. There were six aspects, but he didn't feel any noticeable difference in any of them despite his training. Most of the improvements he was able to see was from the use of blood enhancement.
'Maybe I misinterpreted her…'
Oh, well. Valerie was a hard person to understand any-
"Ow, what the depths man?!"
Quies flinched at the sudden yelling.
"I told you to watch your fingers when we lifted this dam-"
He heard bickering in the distance. Two voices argued—one of them seemingly having hurt their fingers. They seemed to be carrying something huge.
Quies cautiously stood on one of the rocks, halfway up the pile of fallen stones. His right hand moved out of his pocket and towards his mouth—his thumb rested on his lip. He really—really— didn't want to use his mantra.
The voices of the same timbre spoke again. One had a sharper quality to it, while the other was a warm, rounder sound.
"Okay, okay, put it down now… wai-wait-wait! Watch your foot!"
"Shit!"
The sound of a metallic thud dampened by layers of grass softly resounded across the top of the stone ascension. The leaves of the trees above seemed to shake at the impact, or perhaps it was just the wind.
His thumb moved to touch the sharp end of one of his teeth. In Erisia, people usually brought trouble. He'd learned this early on.
"Roll it up here. I… don't know how we're gonna get this down. Elis, do you have any ideas?"
Quies' eyes widened, the pressure on his thumb easing for a moment.
"I- don't know… Don't you think it'd be able to survive the fall? It's made of dark metal, after all."
"Yeah, but I'd wanna be able to get this appraised for as much as possible. Fragments of the forge are hard to come by, sure, but a perfect one like this is just too valuable to scuff up."
Quies' arms tensed as his blood began to course vigorously through his veins. He felt his mind move quick—thoughts appearing, disappearing, and building simultaneously.
Soon enough, the voices revealed themselves.