Chương 538: Chapter 540: Hope

After about twenty minutes of fleeing, the water elemental finally sped back up. I could still faintly see it in the distance, and the moment it escaped the {Dream of Hunger} was obvious. <So the effects lasted half an hour on a creature above [Heroic] Grade, > said Felix. <Good to know. If whatever is defending the lives in the Market is also at or above [Heroic] grade, we now have a rough idea how this item might affect it. > <I hope whatever is guarding the lives in the Market isn't as tough as this thing.

I have no idea how we could even try to wrestle away some lives if we have to fight something like another water elemental there, > grumbled Sallia. I nodded. I agreed with my friends. If the lives in the Market were guarded by something as monstrous as this thing, we were done for.

"It's turning back towards the village," said Veritum. That immediately shook me out of my thoughts. I glanced at the water elemental again. Veritum's words were correct. The water elemental had lost interest in us, perhaps because we had moved too far away for it to notice us. Instead, it had turned right back towards the village. Was it tracking the village somehow? Perhaps there was some kind of mark left on us after we escaped from the universal tree for the first time?

Or perhaps the water elemental wasn't tracking us specifically. Perhaps it was just tracking large clusters of life force. I gritted my teeth. Either way, it meant that this wasn't a threat we could escape from. Even if we had enough boats for everyone, I now suspected that it would simply chase us unless we led it to another, larger cluster of life force. This monster might be the universal tree's attempt to weaken the defenses of this world before it invaded again.

Then, just like our old world, the universal tree might tear this dimension away from the dimensional cluster and turn it into fertilizer. Killing this monster might not even save the village. It might just be the first of many problems - but I didn't even know how to solve this initial problem.

"How long do we have until it hits the village?" asked Sallia.

"Based on how far we are from the village, and how fast the water monster is travelling… I'd say we have about a day before it hits the village?" said Felix.

"Maybe less, since it has demonstrated that it can move faster, it just chooses not to for some reason. That being said, I don't know how much that matters. If it just keeps chasing us, it'll catch up with us eventually."

"I don't think this is a problem our village can solve on its own," said Anise.

"We don't have the ability to stop this creature, evade it, or kill it. Our only chance for survival is to seek help." I thought about Anise's words, before I nodded. Her words weren't wrong. As much as hope could bend reality a little bit, and as much as we had access to spatial manipulation, teleporting an entire village to another plane or a subspace was a lot to ask for, especially now that the village population had dwindled so much.

The first time, I'd been able to rely on a huge amount of hope to help amplify my abilities - but we didn't have the population to pull that off a second time. Not to mention, several of the most powerful spatial mages in the village had died during the war with the fog banks, and more had died of old age over the past decade. The conditions for fleeing weren't right. We had to find help if we wanted to survive.

"If we only have a day, our options are limited. We can't ask for help from any of the nearby cities, because they're too far away. We have no idea whether they would agree, and even if they did, I don't think they could reach our island in time," I said. Veritum's eyes lit up.

"I see only one option. I know that you learned a lot from the fog pillar. Do you have any way to contact it?"

"I-" I was about to say that I had no way to contact the fog pillar, but before I did, I stopped. If I tried to use hope to manipulate our communication bracelets… maybe there was a chance? It was a bit of an absurd idea, but it was honestly the best path forward I could think of. The fog pillar had said it would roam the underground sea for several decades, so there was at least a chance it was close enough to help us. It was a long shot, but I couldn't think of a better way to survive. This was our last hope.

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"I have a way that might work," I said.

"It'll depend a little bit on the help of the other villagers, though. We'll need to set up a ritual, so that I can try to send a message to it."

"A ritual to contact the fog bank?" Veritum seemed skeptical. I didn't blame him. I'd never mentioned anything like this before. Naturally, that was because it didn't exist. I was crossing my fingers and hoping that my ability to manipulate hope would let me bridge the gap between reality and imagination. I hadn't set up any prep work for this. Still, I needed the villagers to hope for my success - and a ritual seemed like the best way to establish that.

If all the villagers were publically gathered in the center of the village and knew what I was trying to do, I would hopefully have enough hope to actually make the outcome I wanted turn into reality.

"Yes, a ritual. I'm going to need to 'borrow' some mana from others in order to make this work," I said.

"Very well. You've come through for this village twice. We'll put our trust in you one more time." I hoped that I didn't let Veritum's trust in me down.

"Let's head back to the village and hope this works," I said. The two boats turned towards the village, and began speeding along. We were travelling a bit faster than the water elemental, but with every passing minute, my mood grew darker. The water elemental was slow, but it was relentless. Every single second that passed felt like an eternity. We weren't moving fast enough - or at least, it didn't feel like we were. All too slowly, we sped through the water, until we reached the island.

We dashed towards the village.

"Have you considered what we could trade to the fog pillar in exchange for its help?" asked Veritum, as we ran through the trees. I nearly stumbled. I had not thought of that. I had thought of begging for help, but the fog pillar was almost pathologically attached to the idea of deals and fair exchanges. If we had nothing to trade to the fog pillar, I wasn't sure if it would help us.

"All material wealth in the village?" I said, hesitantly. Trading away everything that wasn't nailed down would ruin years of accumulation and hard work from our village - but we could rebuild if we were alive. On the other hand, if we all died, it wouldn't matter how wealthy we were. As long as we kept a few days of food and a single boat to trade with other villages, we could probably survive off of porcuspike meat for a bit. We could trade their hides to the nearest city for some more quick food.

Then, as long as we survived the next winter, we could get a new harvest of crops in spring. Times would be very hard, but as long as we all survived, I thought it was worth it. Of course, that was contingent upon my idea working, and contingent upon the fog pillar being willing to accept our offer. Neither of these things was definite. Still, it was our best option. Veritum sighed, but nodded.

"I agree. Very well. Let's do it." After we reached the village, we spread the news as fast as possible. The water elemental was impossible for us to fight. We needed to seek help. We were going to try to contact the fog pillar, and pray for our survival. Villagers poured out of their homes to gather in the central plaza, which we had originally created for meetings when the village needed to make decisions. I spent a few minutes preparing my 'ritual.'

I started out by drawing a large ritual circle in the village with mana-conducting paint - a curiosity we had traded for from one of the nearby villages, originally for use in crafting. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, I looked at the ritual circle from the conceptual side of reality, and added several things associated with the concept of communication. I first added in several letters that I had some villagers grab for me. Then, I added in an entire boat, since we used the boat to communicate with nearby cities.

Then, I also added in several pairs of boots, especially those used by people who moved around a lot. It wasn't quite the same thing as communication, but it was hopefully adjacent, at least. Finally, I placed my own communication bracelet in the center of the ritual circle, and hoped that I wasn't about to accidentally destroy it. Then, from the conceptual side of things, I took the concept of 'communication' present in all of these objects, and tried to infuse it into the ritual circle.

It was like trying to draw a square circle. Brute-forcing it just didn't work - I didn't understand the conceptual side of reality well enough to truly make this work the way I was hoping it would. Furthermore, I had very little attachment to the concept of 'communication.' I could sense that my eldritch half was seriously struggling to do what I wanted it to do - for the simple reason that my compatibility was weak. The other villagers started to feed the ritual circle mana of their own.

Even though their actions meant absolutely nothing, they provided me with something my eldritch half could latch on to. Hope. I tried to bridge the gap between my communication bracelet and the fog pillar. Using hope a a medium, I tried to transform the communication bracelet, to make it do something it had never been able to do. I felt like I was trying to reach through boundless emptiness and grasp something I could barely see in the distance.

For a brief moment, I felt like I had connected with something via my communication bracelet. But before I could grasp it, it slipped through my fingers like sand. A moment later, my essence bottomed out, and I lost the ability to connect with the 'hope' in the world around me. The population of the village wasn't high enough to provide me with a huge reserve of hope to work with. My essence pool was too small. Most of all, my connection to the concept of 'communication' was too weak.

My communication bracelet served as a somewhat clever workaround - but it was still like trying to use magic to make a cell phone turn into a messenger pigeon. It was possible, but not with my level of resources and mastery. I had failed. The water elemental was coming, and we were alone.