Chapter 289: 65. Not Yet the Time
The wind in the Northern Region suddenly became noisy. At that moment, Ilos’s words awakened Fisher’s memories from half a year ago. In Feilon City on the Southern Continent, when he defeated Feilon, he had seen a huge eye, which had apparently been watching him all along, never leaving his side!
Fisher’s magical circuits instantly lit up. The chilling sensation spreading from his back made him want to know what that entity had been following him for all this time.
“Fisher! That Moon Rabbit is going to fall!”
But now was not the time to ponder the details. After hearing Emhart’s voice, Fisher snapped out of his thoughts and focused on Ilos, who was about to fall from the edge of the bell tower.
She was falling towards the coast, and if she dropped down, she would fall into the sea.
Ilos lost control, her small face turned pale. The chaotic night wind frightened her, causing her to close her eyes tightly and cling to herself.
But in the next moment, she suddenly felt a gust of wind rushing towards her. It was Fisher, urging his still-injured body to run towards Ilos, wanting to catch her before she fell.
Fisher reached the edge in an instant, but despite his efforts, he was a moment too late. Her body had already fallen halfway, and she had now shut her eyes as if waiting for death, making it impossible for her to react and reach out to him. Fisher could only focus on her pair of long ears atop her head.
Unable to reach her hands, he sought a way to grip her. Without hesitation, Fisher grabbed her soft ears with one hand, then braced her small belly with his right hand, using his left hand to push as he swung her in a half-circle back into the bell tower’s interior.
The moment he touched those long ears, Fisher felt the soft and dense fur, followed by the warmth hidden beneath it. It was definitely a rare sensation, and Fisher was momentarily stunned.
He seemed to suddenly understand why the contributors to the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans classified the Moon Rabbit Tribe under “Cotton Candy.” Just from touching their soft fur, Fisher felt his heart melt like cotton candy.
“Ugh~”
“Ilos, are you okay?”
“Eh? I… I… that…”
At that moment, Ilos’s brain felt like it had crashed. The shock of falling, the horror of seeing the monster behind Mr. Fisher, and the embarrassment and sensitivity from being touched on the ears bombarded her consciousness one after another. When Fisher asked her, she was still dizzy and couldn’t make sense of what happened.
What happened just now? It seemed my ears were… eh eh eh?!
Ilos’s face instantly turned red. Her heart raced. She wanted to open her eyes to look at Fisher, but what greeted her was not just his handsome face; behind him, an enormous, semi-phantasmal eyeball was also looking at her.
It was an odd existence resembling both a mouth and an eye, a massive door standing ominously in mid-air, blurring the line between illusion and reality. In that black hole-like pupil appeared to fall the stars and souls of the entire universe. Seeing such a being up close made Ilos’s fear and sense of insignificance peak, almost breaking her mind.
“Uwaaaah! A ghost!!”
Ilos, in Fisher’s arms, suddenly rolled her eyes back and fainted in fright, leaving only the bright moonlight and the bewildered Fisher and Emhart.
“Emhart, you mentioned before that Moon Rabbits can see hidden things, right? So, what she saw is real?”
“Ah, if the records are accurate, that should be the case. Who knows what she saw on you? Did she see my greatness? Was she frightened by my eye?”
“…”
In the church on the first floor, Fisher started a fire at the door of her resting room. The church was a bit chilly at night, and the flames would help him sleep better. After doing this, he turned his gaze to Ilos, who was resting inside. She had just received a scare and would probably take a while to wake up.
But now, as things quieted down, he began to think about the eye that Ilos had seen behind him.
Although he could not be sure of its intent in watching him, Fisher could roughly confirm that it meant him no harm. Most likely, its continued watch was related to items like the Supplement Handbook.
When he killed Feilon, that huge eye appeared before him and informed him in Nali language that it owed him a debt. This suggested that killing Feilon was the outcome it hoped to see. Its actions against Feilon might have been detrimental to it, or perhaps all owners of the Supplement Handbook posed a threat to it.
Simultaneously, its existence reminded Fisher of something else: the Supplement Handbook was not completely invisible; it could be perceived.
He remembered that when Eil first encountered him, she sensed a strange smell on him. This meant that though she couldn’t see the Handbook directly, she could feel its presence.
In other words, beings below the mythical rank could not see or sense the Handbook, while those at the mythical rank could vaguely sense it but not see it directly.
Could this giant eye behind him see the Handbook? If it could… no, it should be He. It was definitely a being of a higher level than the mythical rank—a true “God.”
Fisher fell silent for a second. Then, he took a piece of paper from the nearby table and roughly sketched the appearance of that huge eye from memory. He then placed it in front of Emhart and asked him, “Emhart, do you recognize this?”
Emhart squinted at the object Fisher drew, then smacked his lips and said, somewhat distracted, “I think I’ve seen something like this in the Southern Continent, but not in the demon’s abyss, rather in some human village on the surface, though I can’t be certain it’s Him.”
“You’ve seen this pattern?”
Upon hearing the keyword “Southern Continent,” Fisher looked at Emhart in astonishment, prompting him to show a disdainful expression.
“Pfft, who do you think I am? You, this human kid, have seen too few things. You seem ignorant. I saw this in a human tribe before; they worshipped this symbol as a totem. You know, many things in the Southern Continent have continuity and can be traced back to the Dragon Court period. This god is no exception.”
“The humans there called this esteemed deity ‘Dalasgon.’ Though to them it’s just a code name, based on my rough understanding of ancient human language, this word meant ‘door’ in ancient times.”
Fisher raised an eyebrow, digesting this simple word’s meaning.
“Door?”
Emhart nodded and explained, “Correct, but no one knows where Dalasgon’s door leads. I suspect He has something to do with the Spirit Realm because the locals believe that worshipping Him grants the peace of the soul and immortality.”
At this point, Emhart’s tone became a bit serious. He floated closer, saying to Fisher, “Fisher, since you can draw His appearance, it indicates you have seen Him before. Thus, what that silly rabbit saw behind you was real. Dalasgon has been watching you. Although I don’t know the specific reason, I must warn you that a deity’s gaze is for a special purpose.”
“From the first time I encountered you, I noticed the weapon you used was the Fluid Sword from Ramastia, which can only be obtained by outsiders with Ramastia’s attention. To be watched by two deities—no one, not even Baemon, can boast of that luck. But I can’t tell if it’s good or bad. You’d best figure out their intentions quickly.”
Fisher pondered for a second, nodded, and took back the paper in his hand. He picked up a pen and wrote a line of Nali characters on it. Then he raised it, pointing it behind him.
Emhart floated up, looking at what Fisher had written, “What are you doing? Fisher, are you an idiot? You’re directly asking Dalasgon what He wants?! Not even a pig would act that way! You know He’s been following you, yet you’re so bold as to risk provoking Him?”
Fisher was unfazed. Since He was watching him and posed no malice, it was certain He needed his help. Wouldn’t it be better if He clarified the purpose?
“What’s wrong with that? If He’s been watching me all along, shouldn’t I directly ask Him what He wants? I don’t have the time to search the world for clues to guess His intentions.”
“So you just directly wrote it on paper and asked Him?!”
“Uh-huh.”
Emhart was utterly speechless, his mouth opening as he momentarily couldn’t rebut Fisher’s words.
But after holding up the paper for a while, there was no response on it at all. Besides the sounds of the flames crackling, the surroundings fell silent, as if Dalasgon didn’t exist.
“Ha, I told you it wouldn’t work.”
So, playing dead and ignoring me? A riddle-maker, huh?
Fisher, feeling exasperated, lowered the paper in his hand and added another line of characters underneath the earlier writing, saying, “When are you going to repay the debt you owe me?”
After killing Feilon, Dalasgon had taken away the souls of him and Nana. He had thus promised a favor. If Fisher hadn’t misunderstood the meaning of “owes once,” this should apply.
But when he was on the verge of being killed by Erwind in Saint Nali, He never showed up. Was it that if he didn’t ask, He wouldn’t fulfill his promise? Or did He know Eil would come to the rescue?
So, what exactly was the favor He intended to repay?
Was it a bodyguard service? Had He been following him just to intervene at critical moments when he was about to be beaten to death, save him, and then nonchalantly declare they were even before leaving?
It sounded too shoddy. Not to mention Fisher didn’t dare to wager his life on this vaguely defined existence. Based solely on His divine status, Fisher didn’t believe His intentions could be so simplistic.
If it were for some other reasons, why was Ramastia concerned about him? Was it because of his relationship with Jasmine?
Forget it. If that were the case, He should have just killed him instead.
“What? What nonsense are you writing? Dalasgon owes you a favor? Do you think you…”
Floating in the air, Emhart glanced at the characters written on Fisher’s paper, full of suspicion toward the calm Fisher. Before he could finish his complete complaint, the atmosphere suddenly changed.
Fisher’s magical circuits brightened instantly. The fire he had just lit extinguished immediately, plunging the church in the Northern Region into darkness, yet he dared not move, for at that moment he suddenly felt an incredibly terrifying presence behind him.
Emhart, floating in mid-air, instantly shrank into an innocuous book and fell to the ground, the book cover hitting the floor with a crisp “thud,” momentarily relieving some of the pressure on Fisher’s stiff body.
At that moment, he suddenly felt something touching the paper he was holding. He didn’t turn around, but saw the surrounding darkness gradually fill with vivid stars, as if a bit of content had accidentally leaked out from some huge doorway.
The paper Fisher was holding trembled slightly, and several seconds later, that oppressive feeling vanished without a trace. The fire in the room suddenly reignited, as if it had never gone out, with only the physiological cold sweat trickling from Fisher’s back reminding him that Dalasgon’s presence had descended behind him.
His body warmed bit by bit, yet his expression remained calm. Fisher could sense that the deity behind him had no extra emotions; He simply appeared to give a slight response.
Slowly, Fisher retrieved the paper he had been holding up, reading the contents on it.
He saw that the text he had just written was entirely gone, but the ink had been twisted by some force into a short, crooked message in Nali, which read:
“Not yet the time.”
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(End of Chapter)
