The Beginning After The End (New Heights Book 2) (16 page)

“I turned 11 a couple of months ago.”

“No way!
 
I’ll be 12 in a couple of months!
 
I don’t know my exact birthdate but the Elder just made my birthday into
the day he found me, January 10th.
 
You know my name is Elijah, but I don’t know yours.
 
What’s your name?”
 
He sticks out his hand as a sign of
friendship.

Grasping his hand with my own shaking hand, I
respond with a smile. “Arthur.
 
Arthur Leywin, but just call me Art.”

For the next several hours, we exchanged
stories.
 
Elijah’s childhood wasn’t
that eventful before his awakening.
 
He stayed with the elder since the dwarf children didn’t seem too fond
of mingling with humans.
 
Because of
that, Elijah just spent most of his time reading various books.
 
Listening to him talk and just hearing
about his life, I could understand why he was a lot more mature for someone his
age.
 
He only talked with adults,
mostly the elder that took care of him, and just living in a society where
almost everyone would rather not have anything to do with you made him grow up
a lot faster than he should have.

I broke the last gem of the glove to relieve
the pain again when Jasmine woke up.
 
As soon as her eyes open and she saw I was awake, she shot up and gave
me a long hug.
 
I could feel her
tears as they fell on me.
 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you…” was all she
could manage to say while she was holding back her sobs.

“It’s okay Jasmine.
 
I was the one being stubborn.
 
I’m sorry I dragged you into this mess
with me.”
 
I pat her back.
 
Was she always this small?

This body was now a bit past 11 but I was
considered tall for my age. I’m about the same height as the petite Jasmine,
which I never noticed until now.
 
Growing up with her made me think that she’d always be bigger than me.

“Let’s go home guys.”
 
I announce as both Jasmine and Elijah
support me from both sides.

With both Jasmine and Elijah supporting my
powerless body, we managed to make our way back to the surface of the dungeon,
where we fought the Elderwood Guardian.
 
The once serene field of grass was in chaos as the floor had fissures
and the trees were sunken.
 

“Let’s look for anyone who might’ve made it
out.
 
If not, at least a body to
bury for their family.”
 
I state,
looking around at the mess around us.

Elijah shakes his head at this though.
 
“Reginald and Brald were both frozen
together with the mana beast from the last attack you used.
 
I wasn’t close enough to save Samantha
either, after she got knocked off of you and landed near the Elderwood
Guardian.
 
I conjured a metal
shelter to keep her safe from the debris but I’m not sure if she made it.”

Amongst the pain of the recoil from using the
second phase and worrying about Jasmine, I’m a bit ashamed to say that I didn’t
really think about the rest of the party.
 
I guess when I didn’t see anyone else in the shelter with us; I
automatically assumed they didn’t make it.

“Earth’s Pulse.
 
Scan!”
 
Elijah kneels down and places both hands
on the ground.
 
After initiating the
spell, a pulse ran throughout the whole cave and from Elijah’s facial
expression, I knew he found something.

“Samantha is still alive!”
 
Elijah muttered a spell and rectified
Samantha, who was buried inside the metal shelter he set up to protect her from
the debris.
 

A sleek metallic tent rose from the ground and
opened up in front of us to reveal the sorry state that Samantha was in.

Both her legs were broken in multiple places
from where the Elderwood’s tendrils grabbed her and the rest of her body was
cut up and bruised.
 
Her legs had
bones sticking out and from the color the wounds were turning, it was no doubt
infected.

Jasmine rushes towards her and kneels
down.
 
“Samantha, can you hear
me?
 
Everything is over.
 
We’ll get you home.
 
Hold on.”
 

Throughout the dungeon journey, Samantha, being
the only other girl besides Jasmine, made numerous attempts to hold
conversations with her.
 
Her peppy
personality was the exact opposite of Jasmine, but Jasmine eventually started
talking to her more, even smiling at times.
 

Samantha’s face was pale and she was sweating
profusely.
 
I was going through my
head how everyone was going to get home.
 
Both Samantha and I were a liability that would slow down everyone.
 

Just as I was about to suggest that Elijah and
Jasmine go back up first with Samantha, a noise makes me jump.

“ROOAAAAARR!”

“What’s going on now?”
 
Elijah jumps too and he’s aiming his
wand at wherever the noise was coming from.

‘
Papa!
 
I’m here!’

“Wait! Hold on Elijah, it’s okay!”
 
I calm down Elijah before he can shoot
off his spells.

I know that I said it’s okay, but when Sylvie
lands in front of us, I have a hard time keeping calm myself.
 

“S-Sylv…you sure grew…a lot.”
 
I manage to stammer out.

Sylvie, the small cat-like dragon that always
sat on top of my head was now almost the spitting image of the dragon I named
her after.

Her body wasn’t as big as Sylvia’s, but it was
still around 8 meters long.
 
I could
now say with full confidence that Sylvie was indeed a dragon.
 
Her scales were obsidian black,
reflecting the light from the dungeon in an almost divine way.
 
The two horns that she has are sharper
and even more menacing than the titan’s horns I saw years ago.
 
She had wings very similar to Sylvia’s,
with pitch-black bladed feathers.
 
The red spikes that she had on her back and tail weren’t there for some
reason, but the scales along the ridges of her spine protruded making her
appear even fiercer.
 
Sylvie’s limbs
were strong, armored with spikes at the elbow and knees and with sharp claws
jutting out of her paws.
 
Sylvie’s
once adorable face was now filled with elegance and poise, from her black
sclera and yellow irises; her eyes remind me of yellow jewels amidst the night
sky.
 
She lands in front of us and
she brings her snout close to my face.

*Lick*

The power of her tongue licking up my face
lifts me from the ground and leaves me wet with her saliva.

“OW! Sylvie careful… I’m hurt!”
 
I weakly say on the ground.

‘
Hehe
sorry Papa.’
 
“GROOOAAAAWR”

“D-d-d-dragon…
It
’s a
dragon!” Elijah’s in a daze now and keeps rubbing his eyes to see if he’s
hallucinating, while even Jasmine, who knew that Sylv was a dragon, was
slack-jawed.
 

“Elijah, this is my bond, Sylvie.”
 
I reach my hand out to rub my dragon’s
snout when her hind leg starts thumping the ground she coos in pleasure.
 

Pfft… she’s still the same Sylvie.

I face him now, putting on a serious face.
 
“Jasmine already knows about this, but I
want you to promise me to keep this a secret.
 
The fact that you know Sylvie is a
dragon means you know yourself how rare she is and what it would mean if her
existence came into light.”

Elijah just nods frantically, his glasses
crooked and hanging loose on his nose.
 

“We need to hurry though.
 
It worked out well that Sylvie came when
she did.
 
Let’s move Samantha on
Sylvie’s back.”
 
I can now barely
stand up on my own now, but walking more than a few steps was out of the
question.
 

I watched as Elijah and Jasmine carefully
loaded the still unconscious Samantha onto Sylv’s back before they helped me do
the same.

It was decided that only Samantha and I would
ride Sylv to the beginning cave of the dungeon while Jasmine would carry Elijah
and follow close behind.

The journey back up only took a couple of hours
compared to the full day we needed when we travelled down.
 

‘Sylv… can you still transform?’
 
I couldn’t help but ask on the way back
up.
 
It would be a lot harder to
have her be with me if she could only stay in this form.
 
Thankfully, it seemed that she still had
the ability to change into her miniature shape.

‘What did you do during this time anyway?
 
How did you grow up so quickly?’
 
I sent Sylv while lying down against her
long neck.

‘I hunted a lot of monsters and ate their mana
cores!
 
I missed you a lot Papa but
I felt like I had to do this when we got here.’
 
Her wings created another gust of wind
when she flapped down, speeding up towards our destination.

It seemed like her body wasn’t able to grow
without the help of consuming mana cores, which reminded me of the mana core
the Elderwood Guardian dropped.

I cursed at myself.
 
Even if I didn’t use it for myself, that
would’ve been an invaluable asset to hold onto just in case.

When we arrived to the cave where the
batrunners were, I was preparing myself to fight a couple of them in this
crippled state, but to my surprise, when the batrunners saw Sylvie, they were
so scared, they just buried their heads in the ground off in the opposite
corner of the cave.

When Jasmine arrived an hour later, Sylvie’s
body glowed and she shrank into the size of a kitten.
 
Her appearance changed from before; her
red spikes were gone and she was pitch black aside from the yellow slits of her
irises.
 
Her wings weren’t visible
in this form and after her transformation was over, she just reminded me of a
demonic black kitten.

“Cough!”
 
Samantha stirred awake as she winced from the pain her legs gave her.

“Y-you guys all made it.”
 
She gave us a weak smile, her lips
cracking in the process.
 

“Stop talking, you need to save your
energy.
 
We’ll get you to a hospital
soon.”

“L-look what I found~” Ignoring my nagging, she
slowly reaches inside her robe and pulls out my mask and a dull green
stone.
 

“The beast core!”
 
Elijah looks excitedly at the item that
would be worth fortunes as Samantha drops the items in my hands.

“Thank you.”
 
I give her a smile and Samantha sinks
back into sleep.

Putting on the mask, I turn to my
guardian.
 
“Jasmine, I want you and
Elijah to go first to Guild Hall and get help back down here.
 
I’ll stay here with Samantha.”

The both of them nod and head out.
 
It’ll take them a couple more hours for
them to go back there and come back.
 
During this time, I’ll absorb the Elderwood’s beast core.
 
With that, and the fact that I
assimilated my body with Sylvia’s Will, I should be able to make more than a
full recovery.

Before I start meditating, I take out the
parchment I got from the Twin Horns and record a message, telling my parents
that I was fine and that I’ll be coming home soon.

I sat cross-legged and took a deep breath
before absorbing the mana from the Elderwood’s beast core, all the while
thinking of what I should do with Lucas.
 

I didn’t want to just settle for petty
revenge.
 
I wanted to do something
more.
 
He was from a very powerful
family of notorious mages and his blood made him have a certain amount of
protection from the elves.
 
Of
course with my connections with the royal family, I don’t think it would matter
much but the Wykes family that he was a part of could make things
complicated.
 

They arrived sooner than I anticipated because
after only a couple of hours of meditation, I hear the footsteps of people
coming this way.
 

By the uniforms the people that came in were
wearing, I could tell that they were the medics Jasmine and Elijah were able to
bring.
 
Among the group of medics
was Kaspian, who was sending out orders to medics and a couple Guild workers.

Hiding the mana core I didn’t finish absorbing,
I watched as the medics worked on Samantha.
 
They used a mixture of herbs to
anesthetize her and were pushing back the bones into the right place.
 
The field of medicine wasn’t that
advanced in this world so I wasn’t sure that they would be able to fully heal
Samantha’s legs, but I was relieved when I saw an Emitter amongst them.

Kaspian walked towards me and I stood up.
 
“Good Evening Mr. Note.
 
I didn’t expect for us to be meeting
like this.
 
Ms. Flamesworth has told
me the situation and I know how you must feel.”