Chương 9: A Small Medium at Large

Vin stared at the glowing woman floating comfortably a few feet above the ground. Slowly getting to his feet, he brushed himself off and pursed his lips.

"Sorry… you want me to do what exactly?"

"Kill me," she said, matter of factly.

"You think I want to be stuck like this? A ghost trapped on this mortal plane, never able to rest in peace? I tried to borrow her friend and explain to stony over here," she thumbed over her shoulder toward Samtha.

"…but things get a little weird when I possess someone against their will."

"Are you able to understand the specter?" Samtha asked, seeming to get ahold of herself now that it was obvious the specter wasn't about to kill them both.

"Yeah yeah, one second," Vin told her, turning back toward the ghost.

"A little weird? You nearly killed two people!"

"Look, I can't control my possession very well when the person is fighting me the entire time," the ghost admitted, crossing her arms defensively.

"Just like everything else in my life... Or, past life I guess… the only thing I can do well is fight."

"No kidding," Vin said, glancing at the fallen form of Korey and the chunks of stone armor practically falling off Samtha.

"Samtha said that it felt like Roge was toying with her the entire fight."

"Well yeah, I didn't want to kill her," the ghost said, rolling her eyes.

"How could she help give me peace if she was dead?"

"What are you two saying?" Samtha asked, growing bolder by the second, her eyes flicking back and forth between Vin and the ghost.

"Somehow you're making those same eerie moaning sounds the specter is." Huh, I guess my language changes to match whoever I'm directly speaking to. Neat.

"The ghost is sorry about attacking you," Vin explained, earning himself a glare from the floating woman.

"She wanted your help putting her to rest, but wasn't able to communicate and kinda lost herself when she 'borrowed' your friend."

"The ghost has a name, fleshbag," she said.

"I'm Alka. First common born Slayer in history."

"Congratulations," Vin said, giving her a mocking clap.

"I have no idea what that is."

"What?" For the first time since she'd floated out of Roge's body, Alka looked completely stunned. Drifting closer to him, she gave him a confused look.

"How do you not know about the Slayers? Did you grow up within the seas of grass?"

"No, and neither did she," Vin said, gesturing to Samtha.

"We're from two of the adjacent fragments. She was part of a scouting party sent to explore, and their village elder asked me to follow after them when they didn't return home quick enough." Alka's expression only grew more confused as he spoke, and with a start, he realized what the problem must be. Looking at the poor ghost girl, he cleared his throat.

"Alka… Do you know where we are? About Edregon?"

"Of course I know where we are," she gave a forced, hearty laugh, spinning and gesturing all around them.

"The town of Harbe, within the Tige Kingdom. I've lived here my entire life!"

"Oh man," Vin muttered, scratching his head while trying to figure out how to explain to the floating girl that her kingdom, her world, was probably no more. He figured she must not have access to the System in her current state, and she somehow ended up hitching a ride when the System yanked this section of her world to safety. Trying to come up with a way to delay the conversation, he tried to change the topic, asking the first thing that came to mind.

"If you lived here your entire life… Do you know where everyone went? The town was completely deserted when I walked through it."

"Ah… yeah, I know where they went. Or at least where they were going before they up and vanished entirely," she said, drifting a bit further away, a slight frown creasing her face.

"Because of our intense training and innate willpower, it's not uncommon for Slayers to become ghosts after their deaths. Especially if they feel they have unfinished business in the mortal plane. Due to the frequency of this situation, there is a protocol put into place by the head of the Slayers himself."

"When I revealed myself to the town, the Mayor gathered every last townsfolk and marched them to our burial grounds to conduct a special ceremony over my remains, which should have put me to rest." Alka paused, glancing back at the empty town.

"... but that was a few months ago. The burial grounds are only a few miles from town, to prevent any sudden undead from harming anyone should they arise, but the ceremony should have only taken a single night."

"You didn't think to check on them?" Vin asked.

"Of course I tried that," she snapped.

"I seem to be bound to this town for some reason. I can't go more than a few hundred feet out of the town's border without feeling some sort of invisible chain yanking me back. I've spent the last few months alone, flying in and out of buildings trying to figure out the location of whatever it is keeping me bound here while waiting for my townsfolk to return." Slowly the puzzle pieces fell into place, and Vin gradually painted a picture of what had happened.

There were still a good number of pieces missing, but he thought he had a pretty solid interpretation of events leading up to now. God damn I am not qualified for something like this. I'm an Explorer, not a Therapist, for crying out loud. Taking a deep breath, Vin looked up at the ghost woman.

"I think I can explain what happened. But you might want to sit… or float down for this." Her frown deepening, Alka floated down to the ground, waiting for him to continue. Now that she was standing like a normal person, Vin was surprised to see she was actually about a head shorter than him. Dismissing the thought, he dove straight into the heart of the matter.

"Did your world have some sort of corruption spreading through it? Maybe an increase in monsters, or some other, super bad stuff happening?"

"Monster attacks had been growing significantly in number the past few years," she nodded slowly, never taking her glowing eyes off him.

"It's why they increased the number of allotted Slayers, and why a commoner like myself was allowed to become one in the first place." She paused, her eyes narrowing.

"What do you mean 'your world?'""Exactly that. You, me, and stone girl over here are all from separate worlds," Vin explained.

"I'm still putting it all together, but it sounds like some sort of horrific corruption was spreading throughout the universe. Multiverse? Whatever, things were getting bad, and fast. In an attempt to save at least some of the people out there, the System grabbed chunks of different worlds that hadn't been infected yet and tied them all together, like some sort of massive, magical quilt. If my theory is correct, your town ended up being one of these chunks. Except…

the people within your town just happened to be on their way to your burial grounds when it was grabbed. They weren't within the borders of this chunk that was pulled from your world, so instead of coming along for the ride, they remain trapped on your corrupt, dying world." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The longer he spoke, the more confident Vin felt in his personal theory of what happened.

He couldn't imagine any other explanation, besides some outrageously powerful monster appearing that had the ability to slaughter an entire town without a single member escaping. The only thing that confused him was why the System wouldn't have waited for the townsfolk to return home before grabbing this chunk of Alka's world.

It clearly seemed intelligent, if the note and subsequent death threat he was sent after first appearing on this world was any indication, and he'd thought the entire purpose behind this new world of Edregon was to act as a lifeboat for the dregs of humanity. It just seemed strange that the System would snatch their houses but leave a couple thousand people behind. To his surprise, after a few seconds of contemplation, Alka nodded, the worry leaving her face.

"Well, that all makes sense I suppose."

"Wait, seriously? You're just gonna take everything I say at face value? Just like that?"

"That chick is wearing armor made from rocks. Nobody would be stupid enough to do that on my world."

"Huh… fair enough."

"However…" Alka sighed, rubbing her temple. Vin wondered if ghosts were even capable of getting headaches, because she sure looked like she had one now.

"Assuming everything you said is true, and my gut tells me it is… that would mean my remains aren't even a part of this world any more. Why wasn't I put to rest when this piece of my world was stolen?"

"No clue," Vin added helpfully.

"It seems to me like this new world and System are a bit… unpolished," he said, thinking back to the weird issue that occurred when he first stepped foot on this world. He wanted to say more, but he also wanted to not die.

"Regardless, it looks like you're here now. Are we able to put you to rest if we can't access your remains?"

"It will certainly be a bit more tricky," Alka admitted.

"Though not impossible. If we can find someone with a divine class, they should be able to finish me off with a wave of their hand. The hard part will be finding one. If we were still in my world, we'd just have to find the closest Slayer. But seeing as this new world is some giant melting pot of different worlds…"

"There's no telling how long it will take," Vin finished for her.

"Hold on, let's check the obvious first." During Vin and Alka's entire ghostly conversation, Samtha had been waiting patiently. Not wanting to bother asking him to translate every single sentence, she'd instead chosen to check up on her squad members. Vin hadn't seen what she'd done, but Korey and Roge were once again conscious, their eyes wide as they watched the strange exchange before them. Though their faces paled when Vin and Alka turned their attention toward them.

"Hey Samtha. Any chance your village has anyone with a divine class in it?" Vin asked hopefully. This would be the world's shortest quest if so, but maybe he was entitled to be lucky at least once in a while. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be, as the warrior shook her head.

"Divine classes were rare on my world. Those that achieved them tended to live around the Great Stone. We certainly didn't have anyone with one within the village."

"Figures it couldn't be that easy," Vin sighed, glancing at the crestfallen ghost.

"Wait, how can you understand what they're saying? There's no way you guys have the same language."

"I don't know, maybe it's some weird ability undead have? I lost the ability to call on the System after I died, so I have no idea." Alka groaned, dismissing his question almost entirely.

"Who even cares. How am I supposed to find someone with a divine class like this? I can't go anywhere, and I can't even talk to anyone. I don't want to spend the rest of eternity floating around an abandoned town!"

"Don't worry, you won't have to." Making up his mind, Vin looked up at the floating ghost.

"I'm an Explorer. My entire thing is kinda running around looking for stuff. If you come with me, we can work on finding someone with a divine class together. Even if they're rare, surely someone with a divine class ended up getting dragged to this new world."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm kinda stuck here," Alka said, drifting back down until her feet rested on the ground.

"Unless you can figure out why that is, I'm not going anywhere."

"Aren't you the ghost expert or something?" Vin couldn't help but jab.

"You're the youngest Slayer in your kingdom or whatever, right? You tell me why you're stuck here." He'd hoped to light a fire under the depressed woman, and his words seemed to do the trick. Alka recoiled as if his words had been a hot iron, and she flew at him, nearly knocking him to the ground yet again as she floated above his head and glared down at him.

"Not 'youngest.' First common born Slayer," Alka corrected him, clearly proud of that accomplishment.

"And ghosts are ethereal beings bound to the mortal plane by something that they care deeply about," she spoke as though reciting from a textbook.

"This can be an object, a place, or even a person. While this acts as an anchor for them, destroying the anchor will not always allow the ghost to pass on. Doing so more often than not will instead enrage the ghost, forcing them to lose any sense of reason they may have and cause them to lash out at random."

"Okay, we just need to find your anchor then," Vin said, slowly stepping out from under Alka's floating form and grinning up at her.

"It's clearly not a person as the town is abandoned, and I'm willing to bet it's not the town either. At least, I'm not getting the vibe that you're all that patriotic about where you grew up."

"No, not at all," she agreed.

"I had made up my mind to leave town and wander the green sea for a few years after receiving my Slayer class in the hopes of helping with the increase in monsters. I was never really close to anyone in town. Hell, I wasn't even going to say goodbye before I left. My plan was to leave right after the party celebrating my accomplishment, before the townsfolk could wake from their drunken stupors. Right after getting my…" Alka paused, rubbing her temple again, frowning.

"I was enjoying the party… drinking with some of the big shots in town like the Mayor and the nobles and showing off… something … but I can't remember what I was so proud of, or what happened after the drinks. Next thing I can remember is floating around town as a ghost."

"You don't know how you died?" Vin asked, a sinking suspicion beginning to form in his gut.

"No… the Mayor was so proud to have a Slayer come from our own little town, and a common born one at that," she said, a small smile on her face.

"He was a good man. Despite it going against all protocol, he used me as an example for why the commoners and noble class weren't so different. He even threw one gigantic party to celebrate my accomplishment, inviting both the nobles and commoners alike from the surrounding area."

"The Mayor sounds like an upstanding guy," Vin admitted.

"But I'm assuming he wasn't the only big shot you drank with that night?"

"Oh no," she shook her head, eyes scrunching as she wracked her brain.

"There were definitely others… Mr. Faulk, the noble in charge of our town finances… Mrs. Glown, a noble from the next town over who handled Elder Wood distribution… gah!" She yelled, eliciting a few quiet squeaks from the watching warriors as she stomped her foot in midair, trying to tear her own ethereal hair out.

"My memories… it's like trying to grab a fistful of water!"

"You don't say…" Vin muttered, his mind whirling as he eyed up the empty sword sheath on the warrior's back and the last of the puzzle pieces snapped into place.

"You have a guess as to what might have happened?" Alka asked, looking at him with clear hope in her eyes.

"More than a guess," he said, nodding his head as he thought over his theory.

"If I'm right, we won't just uncover the source of your death. We'll find something much more interesting."