Chapter 21: Dead End
Armored Dragon Calendar Year 417 – Rudeus, Age 10 – Demon Continent
[Rudeus POV]
Red sky.
That was the first thing I noticed when I opened my eyes. Not the familiar blue of Fittoa.
Not the soft clouds that drifted over Roa's skyline. This sky was the color of dried blood, stretching from horizon to horizon like a wound across the heavens.
I was lying on cracked earth, the ground beneath me hard and hot despite the dim light.
My body ached in ways I couldn't identify, not injuries exactly, but a deep wrongness that suggested something fundamental had been disrupted.
The teleportation. The light.
Eris screaming my name as reality tore itself apart.
I sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. The world spun, my vision blurring at the edges, and I had to press my hands against the ground to keep from falling over.
"Eris?"
My voice came out as a croak, dry and unfamiliar. I cleared my throat and tried again.
"Eris!"
Nothing. Just the whisper of wind across the barren landscape, carrying dust and the faint smell of sulphur.
I forced myself to my feet, swaying slightly as my balance adjusted. The terrain around me was desolate, cracked earth stretching in every direction, punctuated by jagged rock formations that jutted from the ground like broken teeth.
No trees. No water.
No signs of civilization.
No signs of life at all.
Except,
There. Maybe thirty meters away.
A splash of red against the brown earth, bright and unmistakable.
Eris's hair.
I ran.
She was unconscious, on her side, sword clutched in one hand. Her breathing was steady, her pulse strong when I checked it, but she didn't respond when I called her name.
Whatever the teleportation had done to me, it had hit her harder.
"Come on," I muttered, pulling her into a sitting position. "Wake up, this is not the time for sleeping."
Her eyelids fluttered. Then opened.
For a moment, she just stared at me, her expression blank with confusion. Then recognition flooded her features.
Followed immediately by the characteristic Eris response to any situation she didn't understand.
She punched me in the face. Smack.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"Where are we?!" She scrambled to her feet, sword raised, spinning in a circle as she searched for threats.
"What happened?! Where's Ghislaine?!"
"I don't know." I rubbed my jaw, already feeling the bruise forming.
"There was that light... the orb in the sky. Something happened."
"Ghislaine was right there. She was—" Eris's voice cracked.
"Where is she?"
I didn't have an answer.
We walked for hours.
The landscape didn't change. Cracked earth, jagged rocks, red sky.
No water, no food, no shelter. The temperature fluctuated wildly, burning hot one moment, freezing cold the next, and the wind carried dust that got into everything.
Eris complained constantly for the first hour. Then she went quiet, which was somehow worse.
"We need to find water," I said, more to break the silence than because I had any useful suggestions. "And shelter, and figure out where we are."
"How?"
"I... don't know."
My knowledge from my previous life was failing me. I had read fantasy novels, played games set in apocalyptic wastelands, but none of that had prepared me for the reality of being stranded in an alien landscape with no supplies and no idea which direction to go.
Claude would have known what to do. He always seemed to have a plan.
Always seemed to be three steps ahead of everyone else.
If he had been here...
But he wasn't here. Nobody was here except us.
Night fell without warning.
One moment the red sky was dim but visible. The next, darkness crashed down like a physical weight, leaving us blind and vulnerable in terrain we didn't understand.
"We need to stop," I said. "We can't walk in this."
"I can see fine." Eris's voice came from my left, confident despite everything.
"Beast-folk training. Ghislaine taught me to use all my senses."
"Well, I can't see anything. And if I fall off a cliff, you'll have to carry me the rest of the way."
She made a disgusted sound but stopped walking. We found a depression in the rock offering some protection from the wind, neither of us willing to admit how scared we were.
Sleep came eventually, despite the fear. Exhaustion won over terror.
And in my dreams, I met a god.
The space was white. Not the white of snow or paper, but something more fundamental.
The white of nothing, of absence, of a void that had never contained anything at all.
I stood in the center of it, alone, except for a flickering figure at the edge of my perception.
"Well, well." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, amused and ancient and utterly inhuman.
"Another interesting one."
I turned, trying to find the speaker, but the figure moved with my gaze, always just out of direct sight.
"Who are you?" My voice echoed strangely in the empty space.
"Where is this?"
"Questions, questions. Always questions with you humans."
The figure resolved slightly, enough that I could make out a vague humanoid shape, but no features. No face.
Just the impression of something watching me with vast, patient attention.
"You may call me... hmm, what name would suit? The Human God, perhaps, or simply the Man-God."
Man-God. Hitogami.
Something about the name felt significant, though I couldn't say why. A warning from some deep instinct.
Or maybe it was just caution.
"You're dreaming," the Man-God continued. "In case that wasn't obvious."
"Your body is still out there, in that miserable wasteland, slowly dying of exposure. I thought I'd offer some advice before that happens."
"Advice?"
"You're on the Demon Continent, northern territories near the Great Forest."
"Not a pleasant place for humans, especially children." The figure seemed to shrug, a ripple in the white void. "Most people who get teleported here die within days. Monsters, exposure, starvation, the usual."
My stomach dropped. The Demon Continent.
The most dangerous landmass in the world, populated by races and creatures that had little love for humanity.
"How do I get home?"
"Ah, now that's the question, isn't it?" The Man-God's voice carried something that might have been approval.
"The port town of Wind Port lies to the north. From there, ships sail to the Milis Continent."
"It's a long journey, months at minimum, but it's possible. If you survive."
"And how do I survive?"
"Head north. Find the road."
"And when you encounter a Superd warrior..." The figure paused, the white void flickering. "Trust him. He's not what the legends say."
"A Superd?" I knew that name. Everyone knew that name.
The Superd were monsters, demon killers who had slaughtered their way across the world. Parents used them to frighten children into obedience.
"You want me to trust a Superd?"
"I want you to survive. The Superd will help you do that."
The Man-God's voice grew distant, fading. "Remember, head north, find the road, and trust the warrior with green hair."
"Wait—"
But the white void was dissolving. Reality rushing back in like water filling a void.
The red sky greeted me again, dim light filtering through the eternal haze.
Eris was already awake, her sword drawn, watching something in the distance with predatory focus.
"Rudeus." Her voice was tight.
"We have company."
I followed her gaze and felt my blood run cold.
Creatures. Four of them, maybe five, moving across the barren landscape in our direction.
They were wrong in ways I couldn't articulate, limbs too long, movements too fast, bodies that didn't quite fit together the way natural creatures should.
Monsters. The Demon Continent's native wildlife.
And they had seen us.
"Can you fight?" I asked, already gathering mana.
"Can you?"
Fair point. My sword skills were mediocre at best.
The training with Paul and Ghislaine had been more about building fitness than actual combat. But I had magic.
Saint-level magic, if I pushed myself.
The first creature lunged.
Eris met it with steel. Her blade carving a bloody arc that sent the thing tumbling away.
She was fast, faster than I had expected, but there were too many of them. More were emerging from the rocks.
I cast without thinking. Fire shaped into a ball, launched at the nearest group.
The explosion scattered them, buying us seconds.
"Run!" I grabbed Eris's arm, pulling her toward a gap in the rock formations.
"There are too many!"
"I don't run!"
"Then we die here!" Another spell, this one ice, buying us another moment.
"Move!"
She moved.
We ran through the wasteland, the creatures pursuing, gaining ground with every stride. My mana reserves were dropping, Eris was tiring, and the gap was closing.
And then, ahead of us, something stepped out of the shadows.
He moved like nothing I had ever seen.
The creatures, the monsters that had been moments from killing us, died in the span of heartbeats. A spear that seemed to blur through the air, striking with precision that bordered on impossible.
One creature fell. Then another. Then the rest, their bodies collapsing before they could even register the threat.
In less than ten seconds, the monsters were dead, and we were standing in a graveyard of our own making.
The figure turned to face us.
Green hair. Sharp features.
A red gem embedded in his forehead that seemed to glow with inner light. Eyes that held something ancient and weary and utterly inhuman.
A Superd.
Eris raised her sword, her stance shifting into something Ghislaine had taught her. Combat ready, kill or be killed.
"Wait," I said, putting my hand on her arm. "Wait."
The Man-God's words echoed in my mind. Trust the warrior with green hair.
Trust the Superd.
Every instinct I had screamed against it. Every story I had heard, every legend, every whispered warning.
The Superd were monsters, killers, demons who had slaughtered their way across the world. But I was going to die out here without help. We both were.
"Thank you," I said, lowering my hands to show I meant no harm. "For saving us."
The Superd studied me with those ancient eyes. His spear was still in his hand, still wet with monster blood.
"Children," he said finally. "Human children, on the Demon Continent."
It wasn't a question. But I answered anyway.
"We were teleported here. Some kind of disaster. We're trying to get home."
A long silence. Eris's sword didn't waver.
Then the Superd nodded, something shifting in his expression.
"I am Ruijerd Superdia," he said.
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