‘Kill me.’
‘….It hurts. Help me.’
‘It came from the sky. All of me hurts.’
The voices made their way into my mind like quiet whispers, their sound reminiscent of the hiss of a snake.
There was more than one, and they talked over each other.
‘It… burns.’
I felt my skin crawl at the sound.
Thankfully, it didn’t affect me all too much.
After a few seconds, I was able to drown out the voices in my head.
I looked up.
The air and ground were dry, while above, a gray sky loomed, punctuated by a distant glowing white orb.
We stood near a wide rocky path, encircled by numerous guards. In the distance, the silhouette of a fortress emerged faintly into view.
It was probably the supply station.
‘It’s been a while since I’ve been here.’
The Mirror Dimension.
“My head…!”
What snapped me out of my thoughts was the sudden shout that came from behind me.
When I turned around, I was stunned by what I was seeing.
“Akh!”
“Ugh! W-what’s going on?!”
“….It hurts!”
Holding onto their heads, some of the cadets knelt on the ground while others directly stumbled forward. When I looked, I could see that even Leon, Kiera, Aoife, Evelyn, and all the top-ranking cadets were facing similar issues.
‘What’s going on exactly…?’
I was somewhat confused.
While the voices were indeed annoying, that was all there was to it.
I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed the voices to enter my mind once more.
‘Save me…!’
‘It hurts. I’m burning.’
The moment I let my guard down, the voices crawled into my mind like the gentle whispers of a snap, ringing loudly within my mind. I tried to focus on what the voices were saying, but I wasn’t able to make much of it.
‘It looks like they’re in pain…?’
My brows creased, and just faintly, I felt a slight sense of discomfort.
But that was all.
The discomfort was just that.
A discomfort.
It wasn’t like with the other cadets who all appeared to be in deep pain.
“Welcome to the Mirror Dimension.”
A rough voice suddenly echoed. I pivoted to find a burly man, sporting a mustache and black hair, stationed just a few meters ahead. Clad in lightweight armor, his furrowed brows and intense brown gaze fixed squarely upon us.
“This right here is nothing like the area that you’ve encountered. We’re now in the deeper parts of the Mirror Dimension. The Yellow Region.”
He paused to let his words in.
The cadets were still struggling, so many were struggling to understand him.
But I understood his words.
‘The Yellow Region, huh?’
The zones within the Mirror Dimension ranged from black, yellow, orange, and red with red being the most dangerous area.
The Yellow Zone was the second easiest zone.
Looking around, there was not much of a difference compared to the Black zone besides the voices.
Would things be even more different in the higher zones?
“The voices you hear in your head. We call them Mirror Tones. In certain areas, they become louder and more prevalent. They don’t harm you physically, but…”
The burly looked around before pointing his finger to his temple.
“They can fuck with your mind.”
His lips pulled into a smirk before he started to laugh.
“There are two ways to mitigate the voices. One, you get used to them. Two…”
Rummaging through his pocket, he pulled out a small necklace.
“…..You wear this.”
Dangling it before him, his gaze swept around before finally focusing on me. His expression changed slightly.
“Hm? You seem to be doing fine.”
“…It’s a little annoying, but yes.”
“Huh…”
Nodding slightly, his eyes narrowed.
“If you can resist this much, then you must have strong mental resilience.”
He looked and sounded impressed.
“…..Wait, now that I’m taking a closer look, you do look familiar.”
Inching closer, he pinched his chin before his eyes widened in realization.
“Ah, I know who you are.”
A smirk gradually pulled on his face.
He then proceeded to toss me the necklace.
“You might find this interesting, Black Star.”
I grabbed the necklace and took a look at it.
What was this guy on about?
Looking down, the necklace didn’t look like anything special. Made out of metal, it had a simple black gem in the middle with bland borders. That was all.
No fancy carvings or any of that sort of stuff.
There was nothing impressive about this.
It also didn’t weigh much. It felt rather light in my hand.
“This is…?”
“A relic that we use to deal with the voices.”
The man replied as he gently touched his mustache.
“Oh.”
Looking at the expression he was making, I could guess that there was more to it.
“…..It’s also the best counter for—”
“Emotive Mages.”
I finished the sentence for him.
His face immediately twitched as I did so. He looked constipated. He probably expected me to act all surprised and stuff.
It wasn’t so much that his expression gave it away, but it was more like it was easy to figure out.
“Since you previously said it deals with the voices, which are correlated to mental stability, it’s safe to assume that it works to counter Emotive Magic, right?”
It really did look like he was constipated now.
“…..”
Ignoring him, I put on the necklace and the moment I did, I felt a wave of relief wash over my body.
The voices that were lingering at the back of my mind vanished just like that.
‘Not bad.’
…..But also not good.
In a way, the necklace suggested that there were devices that could be used to counter Emotive Magic. I needed to be careful of those.
‘I wonder how effective they are.’
They were probably effective to some extent.
However, considering how people still feared Emotive Mages, it could be said that they couldn’t stop their emotions from being influenced fully.
“Tsk.”
The man clicked his tongue before moving back.
He seemed to have lost all interest in me. He then looked around before he started to help the other cadets by handing them the necklace.
“Wear this. If you wear this, you’ll be able to stop the voices.”
Some of the stronger cadets were able to walk up to him to receive the necklace while others struggled to do so.
In the end, it took over ten minutes to get everyone to wear the necklaces.
By the time it was all said and done, we were lined up before the man.
“Good, it looks like everyone is okay.”
Massaging his hands, his gaze fell on us.
“Let me introduce myself. I’m Micheal Morland. Supply-Station A876’s Overseer. I’m here to give you a brief rundown of the situation before sending you off toward the supply station where you’ll find the clans in charge of taking care of you>”
He went on to ramble for the next hour or so.
…He was talking so much that halfway through his speech I had started to get bored.
In general, his words could be summarized as;
“Don’t venture outside of the supply station. Terror-ranked monsters run rampant outside of the station walls.”
That seemed obvious.
“The necklaces have to be swapped every day.”
Interesting.
So there were drawbacks.
“There are shops within the supply station. When there’s time, we can check them out. And that’s if we have permission from the Guilds we are in.”
Fuck that, I’m poor.
“The rescue mission will start in two days.”
That was all, I think.
There was a little more but it wasn’t anything important. Something about the bathrooms, and so on.
“That’s enough from me, then.”
Micheal nodded his head in satisfaction. Then, taking one last look at us, he turned his body and led us into the supply station.
“Follow me.”
I was just about to follow when someone tugged at my clothes.
Turning around, two ruby-red eyes appeared a few inches away from my face. Behind her were a few figures I recognized. Namely, Josephine, Luxon, and Anders.
My previous group.
I glanced at them for a moment before turning my attention back to Kiera who called for me.
“Oy, you.”
“…..I have a name.”
“I know.”
“…..”
“What? Why do you look so pissy about it? Uh, no, never mind. That’s how you usually look.”
“Uh? What are you talking about?”
Josephine interrupted all of a sudden.
All eyes fell on her.
“This bitch, what are you talking about?”
Blinking her eyes, Josephine looked around.
“…..What do you mean what am I talking about? What are you talking about?”
“Uh? Make sense for once.”
“Ah…?”
Josephine turned to look at Anders and Luxon before pointing at my face.
“You two, tell me something. Does this face look like that of someone who is pissed?”
“No.”
“…..No.”
The two shook their head in confusion.
At that, Josephine turned to face Kiera.
“See?”
“…..See what?”
Kiera frowned.
Then, turning to face me, she cocked her head.
“It’s obvious he’s pissy about it. Whenever he’s pissed his left brow twitched, and his nose wrinkles. It’s fucking obvious.”
“Eh?”
“…..What? You guys didn’t notice?”
“No, why wou—”
“Whenever he’s happy, it’s also obvious. First, he isn’t as blunt as he usually is. Secondly, his brows are usually raised a little higher than normal.”
“What…?”
“You seriously didn’t notice that?”
Kiera asked, looking at the others as though they were stupid.
The only problem was,
‘I do that…?’
Even I didn’t know.
‘….And here I thought I was doing a good job at keeping myself from showing any expressions.’
Clearly, I wasn’t doing as good of a job as I thought I was doing.
“Anyways.”
Kiera focused her attention back on me.
“Did you not hear the guy?”
I snapped out of it.
“….About?”
“After we’re done with the briefing from our Guilds, he said that if we want to travel the supply station we need to do so in groups of at least four. Since I don’t…”
Kiera’s lip twitched. She looked to be struggling to finish her own sentence.
“So, like… Heeh.”
I could more or less guess what she was trying to say.
“I don’t… Um, I don—”
“Have any friends?”
“Uhk!”
Kiera’s expression crumbled.
“I think we’ve already en—”
“Fine.”
I cut her off before she could go on a rant.
Perhaps taken aback by my agreement, Kiera didn’t know how to react. I looked at the others before feeling the ends of my lips curl.
“I don’t mind spending some time with my sidekicks.”
“….”
“….”
The expressions of everyone present changed.
“H-ho.”
Especially Kiera who took a deep breath and smiled at me.
It was a sweet smile.
“….You’re funny.”
So she said.
But for some reason, her eyes seemed fixed on my neck.
I unconsciously brought my hand up to massage it.
Her gaze…
It felt uncomfortable.
I nodded before turning away.
“Thank you.”
For some reason, I didn’t feel safe.