“You’re here,” Jon said without turning his head. He just looked at the verdant woods in the distance.
Hearing the similar words, Angor recalled what he said to his brother just a while ago and couldn’t hold back his mild smile.
“Yes, I’m here,” Angor replied while pointing at the medicinal salve on the desk, then gave the mute servant a questioning look, who in turn shook his hands back at Angor.
Angor sighed in distraught, took the salve and sat beside Jon.
“Teacher, you disregarded the doctor’s words again?” Angor screwed the glass bottle open and carefully applied the green colored salve upon the wilted limbs of his teacher.
“It does not matter anymore,” Jon showed a trace of yearning and sorrow in his eyes. “I’m near my end now. ‘It’ will not let me live.”
“What’s ‘it’?” Angor suddenly surveyed the surroundings in alert. “Your enemy?”
Jon stayed silent for a while, and shook his head. “There is no enemy here. My enemy… is in another space.”
Angor asked the mute servant to go away unconsciously when he realized his teacher was going to talk about this “other space”. The servant wouldn’t tell anyone about it, but Angor would do this every time, just in case.
Even now, Angor couldn’t even imagine where his teacher really came from.
Jon was from another world, or another planet. He came from his home to this unfamiliar land because of an accident.
After his “transmigration”, Jon was saved by Angor’s father, and thus the story afterward.
Originally, Angor did not believe this so-called “transmigration”. However, as Jon taught him more and more knowledge which shaped the concept of microcosm and macrocosm into his mind, Angor trusted it. The knowledge was all theoretical, but Angor already did his own calculation and realized how valuable the knowledge was. It was far more valuable than what the current education in Goldspink Empire could offer.
He still had some doubt deep inside his mind, true, but he was already beginning to believe it.
After making sure that the mute servant closed the door and walked downstairs, Angor asked in a whisper, “So… Who is this ‘it’ you mentioned?”
Jon stayed silent again, then gave Angor an irrelevant question instead.
“Do you believe that the world can have its own consciousness?”
Angor was surprised and left speechless by the sudden question. He considered for a while before carefully giving out his answer, “You mean… The Gaia’s Consciousness?”
Of course, this was a non-existent topic in Goldspink Empire, and there was no “Mother Earth Gaia” in this world. The concept was from Jon, and Angor initially considered it as another mythology tale of the other world. He didn’t expect it to be mentioned now.
“Close,” Jon nodded, albeit weakly. “I used to be a devoted believer of science. There were people talking about how the end of science is god, which I never trusted. However… Ever since I came here, I felt something was slowly changing, and this includes the ‘Gaia’s Consciousness’.”
Jon looked at the flourishing mountain far away. “My body began to fail without apparent reason after I came to this world. I asked my Parasitic Chip to do a thorough examination. There weren’t any pathological changes. In other words, I’m not ill.”
Angor knew what his teacher meant even though he was not sure what “Parasitic Chip” was.
“You’re not ill, then why…” Angor’s doubt deepened further while looking at his teacher who was abnormally skinny now. Jon just got past his 50s, but nobody would question it if anyone said that he was already beyond his 80s or 90s.
“How did I come to this?” Jon muttered to himself, and shook his head. “I couldn’t answer this question half a year ago. But… since I’m half inside my grave now, ‘it’ looks reassured, which allowed me to understand the source of my condition.”
“Source?” Angor looked at Jon, puzzled.
“Remember ‘Gaia’s Consciousness’ I mentioned? My guess is… This world has a giant, aggregated consciousness. It runs indifferently, with absolute fairness. It rejects all foreign souls, it is the consciousness of the world. As for my body… Maybe it did this to me,” Jon turned to look at Angor. “To put it simply, my body is unaccustomed to this land, because I don’t belong to this world.”
…
Inside the well decorated hall, under the crystal glazed chandelier, two figures sat on both sides of a long rectangular table. Both of them had several fully armored knights standing behind them.
On the left, was the next title successor of the Padt Manor, Leon Padt, wearing tightly-knitted eyebrows.
On the right sat a middle-aged man wearing silver armor, a big brown beard and obscured face, Eton Morn.
Count Eton Morn, a member from the Morn Family, the backbone of Goldspink Empire. A family that lived for centuries and famous for their bravery and combat skills.
Currently, a great number of elite members of the family were fighting against the Heylan Imperials on the front line. Nobody knew why count Eton suddenly decided to visit Grue Town.
There was only silence. Knights on both sides stood against the presence of the other family, which became more overwhelming by the second. Naturally, the fierce and powerful knights from the Morn Family quickly gained advantage over the ones from Padt Manor who never witnessed a fight. One of the Padt knights even lost grip of his sword because of the tension, which fell onto the floor with a loud CLANG. With this, Leon frowned again and could only speak first:
“My apologies. My knights don’t really know the conventions,” Leon waved a hand, his knights immediately saluted with a bend and took one step back. The simple gesture easily diffused the surging momentum of the Morns. “Is count Eton’s sudden visit about supplies for the front line?”
The Heylan Imperial was not big, but most of their land were islands, scattered between the Granblue Ocean and the Storm Sea. Goldspink Empire didn’t have much naval force so they could only set up passive defenses along the shorelines against the invasion of Heylan.
When the defense dragged too long, fueled by the lack of fresh water near the sea, the responsibility of supplying food and water fell upon several towns and cities nearby. Grue Town was one of them.
Here, the supply was taken care of by the Padt Manor alone, thus the townspeople usually did not know about this. As the owner of the Padt Manor though, Leon knew very well of his responsibility.
“Thanks to the Padt Manor, if not for you our vanguard camp would not make it through these months,” Count Eton showed his courtesy first, then abruptly changed the topic, “There is nothing wrong with food and water supply, I came today to inquire about something.”
“About?” Leon raised an eyebrow.
Eton chuckled, which wasn’t really clear behind the beard. However, Leon did not catch any hint of joy from Eton’s eyes.
“Viscount Padt, have you ever heard of the Morning Dew?”