Pop!
Crackle!
Crackle!
Three bruised figures sat around a small campfire deep within a cave, the trio were tired, hungry and covered in dried blood and dirt.
No one seemed particularly in the mood to interact.
They only stared.
Grumble ~
Nathaniel finally had enough, he broke the silence.
"H-How… just how is this possible, which idiot thought it'd be a good idea to pack a day's worth of food for a darn journey like this! I'm starving here… oh gods oh gods, help me"
Elias scratched his head nervously.
"Well we actually had a few days worth of supplies, but that last battle against those goblins cost us our supplies, I was only able to secure this much." He replied.
Elias had a somber look on his face, after all it was his fault the rations had been lost.
Crunch!
The sudden sound caused the cave to go silent.
Slowly their gazes turned towards Azazel who was munching on a cookie with a carefree expression on his face.
Noticing their gazes, he stopped chewing then asked.
"What?"
Nathaniel stared at him with disbelief while Elias asked.
"You've had them the whole time?"
Azazel merely spared them a glance, he shrugged then continued chewing.
"Well yeah, you didn't actually think I'd entrust my dinner to you incompetent duo did you? Not a darn chance."
Azazel focused his attention on the biscuits he'd saved within his robes' spatial space.
He clearly didn't trust them enough to think they wouldn't lose the supplies so he snuck a small portion of it for himself and it paid off.
What he failed to realise was that Nathaniel was staring at Azazel's snack far longer than he should have, with drool on his face.
By the time he did, it was already late.
The red haired gremlin moved and the next second the cookie within Azazel's hand disappeared.
Nathaniel threw the entire thing into his mouth, not sparing Elias a glance.
The prince on the other hand could only gulp, expecting Azazel to lash out but to his surprise the redhead noble did nothing of that sort, instead he reached for the subspace of his garment then tossed out four pieces of biscuits towards Elias and Nathaniel.
They blinked, brows knitting together like tangled threads.
Elias shifted backwards, his movement was stiff, too stiff; his eyes narrowed in suspicion while Nathaniel grabbed his spear.
"Who are you!" The redhead asked with a wary tone.
The corner of Azazel's mouth twitched into a humorless laugh.
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he stood up then walked towards the entrance of the cave.
"I'll keep watch for tonight, eat and recover your strength, you'll need it tomorrow."
Nathaniel was dumbfounded.
He stared at the cookie, then towards Azazel then back at the cookie.
His brows raised, hands twitching in hesitation.
'It's not poison, right?' He thought.
The fool had forgotten that he'd taken a huge bite out of Azazel's snack.
But let's not dwell on that, unlike the short mercenary, Elias didn't have the strength to linger.
He dug in.
As a Prince even though he was an outcast, he'd never been subjected to this kind of hunger, it also didn't help matters that they'd been traveling for nine hours straight.
And that was considering the very fact that within those nine hours, they'd been fighting non-stop in-between.
He was tired and hungry and not in the right state of mind.
Seeing Elias eating like a starved tiger, Nathaniel followed suit.
****
At the entrance of the cave, Azazel noticed the faint glow of orange dim out.
He knew that both of them had fallen asleep, no surprise there.
After the tiring journey from earlier, even he was feeling a little bit tired, but he couldn't afford to fall asleep, not when an enemy might be lurking behind.
He brought out a map which he'd instructed Lily to buy before his departure.
His eyes scanned through the paper, every landmark he'd labelled, the coordinates and even cities they had passed through.
Thankfully the journey had already been cut short by half, since Elias had brought a lot of money, they were able to use teleportation portals at different intervals.
What was supposed to be a four day journey only took them half a day.
In fact if the trio weren't so tired, then they would have continued their journey, they really had no time to spare.
Azazel stared up at the sky, his usual cocky expression was replaced by something softer.
He thought back to his time since he came to this world, less than two weeks perhaps but definitely memorable.
Back in his original world he never had this much freedom, not after what Javier had done.
The strange thing was he remembered everything, every sensation, every moment.
But he couldn't recall his face, he couldn't remember his name, and worst of all he couldn't help but feel disdain towards his current self.
He'd let himself go, he was never the type to be so lax, never the type to just brush thoughts aside, yet he'd been doing just that since the moment he got to this world.
He didn't have the answers to the question his mind had been circling at for a while now.
There was the princess, who somehow knew of his transmigration or rather somehow knew that someone had taken over the body, the way she sounded made it feel like it wasn't the first time it had happened.
But then if he wasn't the first time, why did the soul mirror acknowledge the fusion of souls, whose soul did he actually fuse with? And why?
Sure the trickster god had said it as him offering a second chance but he couldn't help but feel that something was wrong.
The inconsistencies weren't random, rather they felt deliberate.
To be sent to the world of a game full of bad endings, it didn't seem sensible for someone who was offered a second chance to live.
It felt more like being tossed into a broken story to fix it.
Although he'd often heard that the gods were an eccentric bunch and mortals couldn't possibly hope to understand their line of reasoning, the trickster god he'd encountered didn't seem like the type to do things without thinking it through.
That was just his gut feeling though, he still didn't understand the motive behind his transmigration yet he couldn't help but feel like the answer lay in the locked pieces of the original Azazel's memories.
That just meant he had to push the story narrative onto the right track at least, one that would guarantee a reasonable ending, one that didn't require the world to end.
There was also his sister, Leona.
He still didn't know what Azazel had done to her to garner such hate but he could tell it wasn't natural, something didn't feel right about the entire thing but for now he'd just have to observe.
He didn't have Azazel's memories and for some reason he couldn't help but think that something or someone was purposely concealing it from him, something had interfered with his soul mirror on the day he synchronized with the real Azazel.
The most disturbing issue was the connection between the game and his own world. How was he just another version of Azazel from another world when FALLEN PARAGONS was just a game? It didn't make any sense.
He'd thought about it a lot more than he actually cared to admit and not once did he ever arrive at an answer.
He'd tried recalling things from the game, anything that could give him a clue but it was always the same result, he'd end up with nothing.
Shaking his head slightly, his hands reached his sides for the carefully wrapped herbs he'd gotten for Leona.
These harmless, rare plants had almost cost him his life.
He had Nathaniel to thank for keeping the monsters at bay while he scaled the cliffs just to get it.
The herbs he'd gotten were a mix of rare plants used to cure sleep paralysis by soothing the nerves while the only flower amongst them as well as the most valuable one—the dream orchid—were known to cure any mind related illness, curse and persisting nightmares.
Azazel didn't know what was actually happening to his sister but he suspected that it wasn't natural and it most definitely had something to do with the previous Azazel.
A weary sigh escaped his lips as he tossed the herbs into the spatial space within his garment.
His eyes traced the stars, watching the bright light twinkle within the night sky.
"What am I actually supposed to do, can I really change the ending?" He asked aloud to no one in particular but to his surprise, a voice answered.
"I never thought a day would come where I'd hear a spawn of Loki ask such a question, not when your kind were known to defy the rules of reality time and time again, you're a peculiar one, young lad."
The voice was deep, it didn't sound like anything that could come out of a human but there was no malice or threat behind its words.
Azazel's head snapped to the side, searching for the source of the sound.
When he didn't find anything he closed his eyes, feeling the mana of all life forms within his proximity.
A strange glow from the side of a small tree growing on top of the cave caught his attention, it was different from anything he'd seen, no doubt the sound of whatever had spoken to him.
When he opened his eyes, two huge golden ones were staring back at him.