Zectas Volume IV: The Salubrious City of Centzo (47 page)

As the corpse of the Iguarat King faded into Mictlan, it left behind one item. An extremely large book with ancient leather cover.
 

After Smoke gathered the book, he was about to face the remaining Iguarats blocked by Igniz and his metallic golems. He wanted to make sure that the reunited father and daughter could escape unscathed.
Then, a fortuitous chain reaction occurred. The smaller Iguarats began to explode on their own. Sounds of detonations echoed throughout the entire Iguarat Castle.
After the explosions ended, Smoke checked the castle for remaining enemies. Thankfully, his Cunning of the Dire Fox did not sense any left.
"Dada, what happened?" Verloren asked as she looked around the strange Iguarat Castle.
"I don't know. All I know is that you're here with me now," replied Blöd.
While Blöd Mensch took care of her daughter, removing the uncomfortable Iguarat clothes, Smoke was busy searching through the rest of Iguarat Castle.
He also began acquiring the knowledge of the book he received from Übel. He was surprised to see that the progress bar indicated thirty-minutes for him to complete it.
Smoke searched through the rooms, and found them considerably clean, as clean as you would expect from an Iguarat.
The rooms only had beds made out of leaves scattered on the floor. He tried touching them, and was amazed to feel how soft the leaves were.
Continuing his search in the Iguarat Castle, he stumbled upon the kitchen. It had several fruits, the ones he surmised were from Schmucklos Village.
Then, in one of the largest rooms in the castle, he saw a large casting circle. There were no other materials or writings to describe what it was. So, Smoke left it alone and continued on his search.
However, he was caught off guard as a notification window popped up. The book's progress bar he was holding had already completed.
 

'This Magnat sounds like quite a character,' thought Smoke to himself, amused after reading the memoir. 'Too bad Übel was not able to comply with his master's final order.'
Smoke finally finished searching the entire castle, and found nothing else of interest. He went back to Blöd and Verloren, and explained to them the situation.
"So, the Iguarats were nothing but some pets that were carelessly left by their owner?" asked a surprised Blöd.
Smoke helplessly shrugged. "Something like that."
"But those monsters ravaged our village for years," added Blöd. "Well, at least I have my daughter back with me."
"Yeah, about that, I think that the Iguarat King just wanted to kidnap girls as substitute to his master," said Smoke, as he shared his theory.
"You mean the owner was a girl?" asked an astonished Blöd. "The one who made all of this was a woman?"
"I'm not completely sure. It's just my own theory," explained Smoke.
"Anyway, let's just get back to the village. I'd like to tell everyone that all of the Iguarats are dead," stated Blöd.
Smoke, Blöd and his daughter, Verloren, all headed back to the village of Schmucklos.
 

* * * * * * 

It had been three days since Smoke has been shipwrecked on the island. He decided to stay near the shore, in hope of finding another ship.
Blöd asked Smoke what he wanted as a reward for slaying the Iguarats. Smoke simply said that he wanted a bag of the shiny rocks, the ones from Mount Luzid.
The villagers of Schmucklos were puzzled at his fascination with the useless rocks. Yet, they indulged him and gave him two bags worth of it.
He conveniently placed them inside his inventory window, where he stowed them for safety.
Knowing that spotting a ship was next to impossible, he began to build a ship of his own. With Igniz's help, he was able to burn down trees for his raw materials.
Yet, without any ship-building abilities, Smoke's poor attempt of a raft was sure to be swallowed up by the waves of the deep sea.
He decided to practice on his Manatl, while waiting for the sun to go down. He felt angry at Malheur for leaving him behind, but it was not eating him up as much as before. He felt he had grown, somehow.
'Worst case scenario, I could die at sea and respawn back at Havre Village,' thought Smoke to himself as he still could not decide whether to use his poorly crafted raft.
Then, after an hour of Manatl training, a ship came into view. It was another junk ship, much like the one he was thrown off from.
Using his Telefax Vision, he spotted Captain Rongeur Malodorante at the helm of the junk ship.
"It's really them. They came back for us, Igniz," said Smoke to his symbiote. He quickly signaled his dark ember sprite to hide inside his metallic chamber, and equipped his earth mask.
As the Naufrage got closer, Smoke spotted two familiar fins. Next, he noticed that the junk ship was actually being pulled by large tentacles.
Suddenly, Calamar's head popped out the water, revealing its large eyes.
The twin bull sharks swam near the shore. Smoke happily swam to meet them. Cornu and Requin carried him back to the ship.
A rope-ladder was thrown on the side of the Naufrage. Smoke scrambled his way up the ladder and got on board the junk ship once more.
He warily searched for Malheur, but saw no signs of the Sonstwelter who threw him overboard.
"Where is he?" Smoke asked Rongeur.
"Faux, you are really friends with these monsters?" asked an astonished Rongeur.
"Yeah, and they'll kill you all if you don't show me where Malheur is," threatened Smoke.
"Oh, the big guy there already took care of him," answered Mouette, the HighElf, pointing to Calamar. "He was pulled off the deck with one of its large tentacles and was dragged into the sea. That was the last we saw of him."
"Listen, Faux, we never meant to leave you behind," quickly explained Rongeur. "That was all Malheur's idea. None of us knew about it."
"I know," said Smoke. "I believe you. It was kind of my fault too. I was the one who told him that we needed a distraction."
Smoke looked at the Naufrage's crew and knew they were sincere with their words.
"At least Malheur did one thing right," said Smoke. "It was good of him to throw me than any of you guys."
"But how exactly did an Earth Elementalist such as yourself find this island? And how are you friends with that colossal squid?" asked Oursin, the OrkElf.
"That's a long story, but I think I can tell you about it on our way to Sawtorn," answered Smoke with a mischievous smile.
The disguised Smoke then turned to face Calamar and he gave it a grateful salute. The colossal squid's gigantic eyes only gave him a knowing wink.