After the earthquake had subsided, the crew decided to check whether their assumption was correct or not. When the dragon caught Ae-rin walking away from it, it tried to follow them.
"You should stay here. We'll be back in no time." It growled lowly again but sounded so sad. "I-I am not going away. I am just going to check around this place."
It was still reluctant to leave her side. It lowered itself again, and Ae-rin looked back at everyone else. The group understood the situation and hopped onto its back. They looked around Fountain Falls, got done with their inspection and came back to the same spot.
But when everyone tried to get down from the dragon, they were stopped by it spreading its wings higher and letting out a high growl as if saying 'No!'
"You won't let us get down?"
It shook its head.
"Why?"
It tapped the front of its face into the water.
Ae-rin almost could speak to the dragon. Ok scratch that. She could… fluently.
"The place back there? We need to go back there?"
'How does she understand what they are saying?'
"What do you mean, Ae-rin? Where?" Yoon-Hwan asked.
"The place we mentioned before."
"But why, though?"
Ae-rin looked back at the guardian. It, without warning, jumped into the water. Though Hyunwoo, Yoon-Hwan, and Seung-tae almost suffocated to death, when they couldn't hold their breath anymore, they figured they could breathe underneath the water.
Well, great! What a relief, right?
-------------------------------------
When they finally got there, the other three people had the same expression as Ae-rin and Jihoon had. Understandable!
Just like before, Ae-rin again put her ears against the glowing tree. This time, however, the whole ground turned into a magic circle, and a book appeared from it.
Ae-rin stood there, and the book kept flipping through. Golden hued words illuminated and lit her face up.
It stayed like that for a good 10 minutes. After that, the book closed itself and went back into the magic circle. The circle broke and vanished into the thin air. Everything went back to normal…
Ae-rin didn't look alright, as if she was in a trance, so everyone else decided to go back to their campsite.
The guardian growled lowly, making Ae-rin smile.
"I'm alright…Tae-ya." Everyone else stopped and looked at Ae-rin. "Tae-ya?" Seung-tae asked. "Yes, his name."
Tae-ya growled happily this time.
"What did you even see in that book, Ae-rin?" Hyunwoo said.
"Ya, the writing looked like gibberish to me." Jihoon mentioned.
It did look like gibberish, but Ae-rin somehow knew what was written on it.
"Tae-ya, So-mang couldn't learn all four divine cosmic sorceries?"
It swung its head, confirming.
The conversation felt too out of touch, too out of everyone else's knowledge.
"Who's that now?"
Ae-rin looked straight at the boys.
"The Prestress you told me about."
The boys looked dumbfounded…
The title was all they ever knew 'Her' by. But why did no one know her real name? And even she couldn't learn all 4 Divine magics? How can that be?
All of a sudden, Ae-rin stood up.
"We should go back home first."
"But- *Sighs* Alright. We should leave for Maru, at least."
"But what happens to the guardian?" Jihoon inquired… For UNKNOWN REASONS. His words, not the author's.
"He has to come with us. He is one of the divine guardians, right? He's also one of the four divine spirits of this universe. You said it before, right? The four divine spirits are the ones closest to the Primordial."
"Ah… Wait, wait, hold on. You are going way too fast to process. Ae-rin, do you have a lot to talk about?" Yoon-Hwan asked.
"Ya. My head is a bit fuzzy too." Ae-rin replied.
"Then we better go back. But how are we supposed to bring him with us? I mean, th- he is way too big."
"Oh! That's no problem. Tae-ya, shrink."
Ae-rin motioned for him to shrink too, and with a loud growl, his form got smaller and smaller until like the size of a bird.
"Ok, I can't take surprises anymore for today."
"Ya." "Right." "Yeah, I agree."
Ae-rin just chuckled at that.
Just imagine being in her shoes…. Oh, never mind.
Tae-ya climbed right into Ae-rin's arms comfortably.
'Adorable!' She thought, cuddling the little Tae-ya.
However, Ae-rin didn't know the boys were thinking the same thing looking at her face.
'ADORABLE~~!!!'
----------------------------
Everyone in Maru thanked them. And when they asked about Tae-ya and learned that he was the 'Guardian' they looked up to all these years…literally. Again, no pun intended.
They all, at once, got on their knees and bowed before Ae-rin, shocking her. Mentally blanked…
After all those shenanigans, the village chief stepped up and led the crew back to their residence.
It had already been night by then. Everyone decided to stay the night and leave the first thing in the morning.
Ae-rin freshened up first, and Tae-ya happily cozed into her lap while she read a book she borrowed from Beomseok.
"They look really cosy in your lap." Beomseok said, standing at the door.
Tae-ya answered with a soft growl, and both Ae-rin and Beomseok smiled.
"I heard what happened up there from Hyunwoo. Thank you for everything."
"There is no need. That's what we all came here for in the first place, no?"
"No, not just that, if it weren't for you, we could've never met the guardian we always heard of."
"It just happened. I didn't do anything intentionally."
"Humble, are we? But we wouldn't have ever found them, considering all the people who have gone and come back with nothing. It's sad knowing that they won't be with us anymore."
Tae-ya growled lowly and deeply this time.
"I know, right? He understands how you feel, but I don't think I would be able to do anything without him. There was so much in that grimoire. It overwhelmed me. There is definitely a whole lot to do for me until things get settled for good."
Both of them stayed silent for a bit.
"Then it's going to be a long journey, I guess."
"Ya."
"But if it ever gets tiring, come back here and take some rest. You are always welcome here."
"I surely will."
True friendship is a beautiful thing; all yearn for it but rarely encounter it.
---------------------------------
In the morning, the group stood in front of the entrance of Maru village. "I thought it would take more time compared to this. But it's a good thing that the problem's resolved; otherwise, we might have faced a water crisis around the nation." Yoon-Hwan said to no one in particular, looking up at the Fountain Falls.
"Ya, it was way faster than our usual big missions," Seung-tae informed Ae-rin. But she just nodded, didn't reply.
"Everyone is ready, it seems. We should head back then."
Everyone knew that Ae-rin wasn't going to say anything about the 'book' until they got back to the headquarters.
The whole village came out so early in the morning, just to say goodbye to them.
"We thank you again for your help here. We are grateful for everything." The village chief said one last time.
"Come around for a small vacation or something, Ae-rin, ok?"
"Sure thing!"
With that, Beomseok opened another portal back to the headquarters. The group waved goodbye to everyone and went through the portal.
------------------------
Back at HQ, Do-hoon and Daeshim had already informed everyone else that the group was coming back from the mission. So, everyone was waiting for them to be back home.
"Angel-chan!!! You're back!!!" No need to tell who that was.
Hyunwoo pulled Ae-rin out of the way and Yeong *crash-landed* on Yoon-Hwan. Poor dude… leaving Ae-rin with the 'Huh?' part and question marks.
"Welcome back, Ae-rin!" "Welcome back." Il-seong and Yu-jun greeted Ae-rin. "We're back, everyone!"
"Who's that? You got yourself a pet?" Il-seong asked enthusiastically.
"Oh! Him! Meet Tae-ya!"
"He's the divine guardian living in the Fountain Falls, one of the four divine spirits." Everyone else stopped. "What?" Dude, nobody caught how proud Jihoon looked.
"WHAT!!!"
Tae-ya must have felt alerted. He growled just as loudly as everyone else.
"It's ok, Tae-ya. They're friends." He immediately stopped.
----------------------------
After everyone calmed down and Seo-young and Sun-hee prepared tea for all members, they sat around Ae-rin. She definitely had a lot to explain, so that much Yoon-Hwan and the team knew; they went ahead and explained it.
All the details were too much for everyone else too. Especially Il-seong, Yu-jun, Yeong and Kwang looked as though they had their brain defused. Sadge…
"Hahahaha!" Daeshim laughed out loud. "You said this to the old man, right?"
"Ya, I did to both Ha-jun-ssi and Beomseok." Hyunwoo's sweat dropped.
Now, that's a proud-parent look on Daeshim and Do-hoon's faces.
"And that's not all?" Jae-geum perplexed.
"No, Ae-rin said she had too much to say yesterday. We couldn't understand a single thing written in the grimoire."
"Ae-rin did the right thing. You guys have been through a lot yesterday." Do-hoon said.
"It sure was a lot for one day." Yoon-Hwan's sweat dropped.
"Will you talk about it now, Ae-rin?"
Ae-rin nodded.
"I…I am not the reincarnation of So-mang; I mean the priestess you told me about in the legend."
"Huh?"
"So-mang was very powerful as far as the term 'magic' goes. She had understood the creation of life and your kind, but apparently, she couldn't understand the power of the other realms."
"What does that mean?"
"I- have my own interpretation of that, but I wouldn't like to jump the gun on it. The 4 divine cosmic sorceries are called Cosmic Creation, Void Destruction, the two that So-mang learned. But the other two, the heavenly body magic and Hell's conqueror magic, she couldn't manifest the spirits of those magics in this plane."
"She couldn't?"
"But she was the most powerful sorcerer ever to exist in this world..."
Ae-rin stayed quiet.
"So, you are to find a way to learn all four of them, two of them in which you have to manifest the magic itself into reality. Right?" Ae-rin nodded to confirm Jihoon's words.
"Was there any indication of how to do that?"
Ae-rin had thought about it much the night before and…
"What I understood I need to meet and get all the lords' blessings."
"That's gonna be a problem!" "Ya, a big one…"
"Well, I also need to look for the other divine guardian too. According to what was written in the book, every nation should be able to teach me something… no, every nation has things to teach, but I need to be able to see it as a 'lesson', as the grimoire states."
"Ok, we knew if the day ever comes that the 'Divine Prestress' happened to come into this world, things gonna be complicated with the prophecy and all that, but it's turning out to be a bigger deal."
"The book also said that the nation of rebirth would be the place to reawaken the power of the Divine."
"And where is that?"
At that moment, Ae-rin understood something. The book's whole interpretation was for a person from her world to understand because the way of looking at things was different in that world.
'Who even wrote the book, then?'
"Ae-rin, do you happen to know where that nation is?"
"Hey Ae-rin, you there?"
Ae-rin came out of her trance.
"It's Goguryeo-sun..."
"Huh?!"
"How many 'huh's left for today?" Eunwoo deadpanned.
"In our world, Ravens symbolise rebirth and transformation. There were…"
It's as though everything linked up in her head.
"There were more of these foretold in there. A lot more. But…"
"But what Ae-rin?"
Ae-rin stopped her babbling.
"No, it's nothing."
'I am not taking these things too lightly, am I? I don't want things to get worse than it already is.'
"Ae-rin." Do-hoon started. "Our relations with most of the nations are pretty good or at least neutral. I'm sure if our opposing nation hears about the situation, they too would like to lend a hand… hopefully."
'Ok… that wasn't so confident…'
"Well, we'll see about that. The problem is that nations have felt their lord's power flowing through them but never met them for centuries now, even though we tried everything so far."
"No, we haven't…"
Il-seong barged into the conversation.
"What do you mean by that, Il-seong?"
"I mean, the Trials of Imperial!"
"Are you serious?! You're that dumb, eh? Nobody has ever come back from those trials! You're going to throw our kind's only hope in there, ha!?" Yu-jun was triggered out of his mind.
"But, that's the only way we don't know the outcome of!!"
Everyone quieted down… He was right, and so was Yu-jun…
'Wait, the duality…"
"But it's too risky, Il-seong."
"Ya, we can't be too flimsy about it."
"Everyone, let's take a break for now. We'll gather here in an hour. Ok?"
"Yes, sir!"
-----------------------