The Guiding Star
After hunting roughly twenty gnolls, the monster attacks finally ceased. Creatures with such keen noses had likely caught the reek of gnoll blood clinging to me and decided to keep their distance.
Relying on the faint glow of a tiny star, I raced through the darkness-shrouded forest with Nightmare. His long tail streamed behind him, casting a slender shadow across the starlight.
Having scavenged and eaten the gnoll meat, Nightmare brimmed with more vigor than before. He no longer bothered to dodge the smaller trees in his path—he simply barreled straight through them, shoving them aside with his body.
How long we ran like that, I could not say. The starlight that had been guiding us endlessly into the dark suddenly came to a halt.
The magic had not faded. We had simply reached our destination, and the guiding star’s duty was done.
I reined Nightmare in and brought us to a stop.
The guiding star glittered atop a sword thrust into the ground. The hilt, steeped in starlight, shone brilliantly—almost as if it were calling out to me.
I slid down from Nightmare’s back and approached the blade with deliberate steps.
How in the world did it end up flying all the way out here?
I gripped the embedded sword with one hand and pulled. It was only stuck in the dirt, so I expected it to come free at once.
But—
“Huh…?”
The sword would not budge. It felt as though something beneath the earth had seized the blade and refused to let go. Just in case, I wrapped both hands around the hilt and heaved.
The result was the same.
Even with every ounce of strength I possessed, the sword remained stubbornly in place.
Frowning, I began to draw up my mana. If my own power fell short, I would simply fill the gap with mana.
The Emblem of the Great Warrior flared to life across the back of my hand, and a thin veil of mana wrapped around my entire body.
“Hah!”
This time I would pull it free. I wrenched at the sword with everything I had. At last, something gave.
The blade, buried deep, began to rise, revealing itself inch by inch. Seeing that, I poured on even more strength.
“Hrrrngh!”
The more I hungered for power, the brighter the Emblem of the Great Warrior blazed. My vision narrowed; my heart hammered wildly. The blood racing through my veins grew hot, and veins stood out along my arms.
Thud-crack—!
With a sensation like something tearing free, the sword came loose. The gleaming blade revealed seven points of starlight in that very instant. Suddenly the entire forest shuddered, and a vast, eerie cry rolled out through the trees.
The deep, resonant cry conjured images of some unknown being, and that imagined presence swiftly twisted into pure dread.
I leveled the drawn sword toward the darkness blanketing the far side of the forest. The cry was unmistakable, yet pinpointing its source proved nearly impossible—it seemed to rise from every direction at once.
Nightmare, equally unsettled, swung his head this way and that, snorting heavily.
I stared into the quiet dark for a long while. When nothing further happened, I started to lower the blade—only for a massive quake to seize the ground.
Rumble-rumble—!
The earth beneath my feet shook violently, and the whole forest began to heave. Monsters large and small bolted in panic at the tremor, and from the black depths beyond, a chorus of their cries tangled together.
I seized Nightmare’s reins and pressed my back to his. I could not tell what manner of creature it was, but anything that could rock an entire forest was no ordinary foe.
It had to be larger than an ogre—far larger.
Thoom—! Thoom—!
As I tried to picture the unknown presence, something odd struck me. The forest was moving under the force of the quake, yet the motion itself felt wrong.
From above to below.
Thoom—!
The shift in center of gravity was simple. For an instant it felt as though gravity itself had intensified, crushing me down—then it vanished, leaving a faint sense of weightlessness.
Right after that, Thoom—!
This was no ordinary earthquake. It was as if the entire forest were moving… moving?
The moment I realized the forest itself was in motion, the cry came again.
Thoom—!
The cry arrived together with another colossal quake. I bit my lip, swung up onto Nightmare’s back, and yanked the reins.
Then I simply ran. The thought of the monster somewhere in this forest crossed my mind, yet I never slowed.
Thud-thud-thud—
Floundering through the deep dark, we pressed toward the forest’s edge. Nightmare’s breath came in ragged gasps, but he never stopped galloping.
With any sense of time long since blurred, I had no idea how far we had come. We simply ran without rest.
The monsters that had lived deeper in the woods were fleeing the quake as well, racing in the same direction as Nightmare.
The farther we ran, the brighter the surroundings grew. Darkness began to lift, as though announcing the forest’s end.
We were still tearing forward in a daze when the narrow, shadowed path vanished and my vision suddenly opened wide.
Breathing hard, I hauled desperately on the reins. The abrupt drop in speed threw my upper body forward, yet I still managed a clear look at the vista ahead.
The black sky, empty of moon or stars, remained the same—but the landscape around us was swaying. Or rather, it was more accurate to say that we ourselves were the ones in motion.
Thoom—!
With each heavy footfall the entire forest shuddered.
I swallowed dryly and looked down.
Tree roots jutted outward, clumped with frantic masses of soil. But when I followed my gaze farther beneath them, a far more shocking sight unfolded.
Thoom—!
An impossibly enormous leg was striding across the platinum desert, crushing the sand with every step.
At a glance it looked as though legs had sprouted from beneath the forest—but a closer look revealed the truth: the entire forest was being carried on the back of something vast.
In other words, the forest Nightmare and I had been racing through was nothing more than the back of a gigantic monster.
Thoom—!
Until now I had faced only two truly massive monsters: the Quicksand Whale that swam through the sands, and the enormous ogre. Even those two combined could not match the size of a single leg visible below.
The one small mercy was that this colossal creature paid little attention to the other monsters leaping from its back. Of course, the real problem was that precious few of them survived the dozens-of-meters drop.
Prrrrh—
Nightmare’s snort jolted me out of my deep thoughts.
“Haa…”
Even now the giant monster kept moving without pause, carrying Nightmare and me toward some unknown destination.
I flicked my fingers and summoned the guiding star once more. The tiny light, carrying my wish, circled me briefly before pointing the way—directly opposite the direction the monster was heading.
The path was set. Looking down, I called up the last of my mana and stirred the wind.
Shiiing—
A faint breeze coiled the surrounding air around itself, swelling larger and larger. The rising gale whipped my hair wildly about my face.
I raked the distracting strands back and pulled Nightmare’s reins.
My command to leap into empty air clearly startled him, yet after a rough snort he sprang skyward all the same.
I felt the wind spirit that had been hovering protectively around me thrash in alarm, but its meager strength could never bear both Nightmare’s weight and mine.
So I intended to make up the difference with wind of my own making.
Whoooosh—!
Not natural wind, but an artificial gale wrought by magic, formed a rough foothold in midair.
Nightmare tried to plant his hooves and steady himself, yet the moment his feet touched it the wind platform burst apart.
Paaah—!
Our falling speed lessened, but the foothold had failed in its purpose. Frowning, I summoned three more wind platforms beneath the flailing Nightmare.
Paaah—! Boom—!
Every prepared platform exploded in turn, sending fierce gusts billowing in all directions. Our descent had slowed enough, yet the shock of the wind left us hopelessly off-balance; we were going to slam into the ground no matter what.
Thoom—!
Nightmare and I tumbled and rolled across the platinum sand.
“Pteh… tch… tch…”
I scrambled upright and spat out the sand that had filled my mouth. Nightmare, who had rolled up beside me, was likewise hacking sand from his jaws.
Thoom—!
In that moment I finally took in the full form of the giant monster carrying the forest away.
“A turtle…?”
I murmured under my breath as I stared at the colossal creature.
What bore the forest upon its back was a monster shaped much like an enormous turtle.
It crawled on four legs, and the vast shell rising behind it filled my vision. What I had taken for a great forest was merely a portion of that shell.
Its overall size dwarfed anything I had imagined.
Thoom—!
With another massive tremor the turtle bearing the forest receded into the distance. I watched its retreating form for a long moment, then shook my head and rose. There was no time to linger. I had to escape this unknown place as quickly as possible.
I mounted Nightmare and began to run once more.
Following the tiny starlight we crossed desert, then swamp. After fording a river of bubbling crimson water we arrived at a snow-covered mountain range.
Beyond the murky snowstorm a colossal shadow took shape. The moment its hand, stretched toward the towering peaks, smashed a snow-laden mountain, I charged into the blizzard without a second’s hesitation.
In that world painted pure white, the only thing showing the way forward was the tiny starlight.
For a long while I followed the star through a snowstorm so thick I could not see an inch ahead.
Then, all at once, I realized the fierce blizzard had ceased.
I shook the snow from my hair and looked up. The pitch-black sky that had held neither moon nor stars had regained its blue, and a brilliantly shining sun greeted me.
At last I had returned—from within the mana storm.
I pulled Nightmare’s reins and raced toward the place the star indicated.
Beyond the glittering light, the pioneer corps’ outpost came into view.