There may also be some inaccuracies, since English is not my native language.
Essentially, TBATE is first translated from English into my native language — and in that process, some details are already altered to make it more understandable for us. Now I'm taking that adapted (and somewhat distorted) version, revising it, rewriting it, and then translating it back into English.
I hope you'll point out any mistakes in the text that I might have missed.
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Taking turns with Arthur without interruption, we found what we were looking for in half an hour.
Behind me, Caera raised a light artifact, revealing a smooth, sparkling white wall. I ran my hand over the cold stone.
"I've never seen anything like it, like frost that turned to stone," said the ever-silent Arthur.
"Is he embarrassed by Caera's company or something? He was more open without her."
"... Although who am I kidding, he just trusted me because I knew the plot and a lot about his personal life in both worlds," I thought, brushing snow off the outer edges of the tunnel. My aether sphere didn't even scratch the surface. "Let's hope there's a door somewhere."
Using the aether cannon spell, Arthur and I began to clear the space around the outside of the white dome. Where the swirling purple energy touched the glowing stone, my power seemed to dissipate, rolling off the smooth surface like water off wax.
Then, with one last burst of aether, a golden-white light spilled from an arched doorway in the dome, illuminating our snow-covered tunnel so brightly that I had to shield my eyes.
Caera raised her hand, shielding herself from the bright light. "I hope this light comes from a good, warm fire."
Blinking the glare from my eyes, I moved toward the archway first, under Arthur's cautious gaze. Inside was exactly what I expected.
The dome was about twelve meters high and almost thirty meters wide. Flaming balls of light floated in the air like paper lanterns. In the center of the cave-like room stood a platform with a beautifully carved arch on it.
Or what was left of it.
Although the platform was six meters across and rose three meters above the floor, it still looked small and abandoned in the huge, empty space. Inside the dome, there was an atmosphere of abandonment and emptiness.
"It looks like... it's broken," said Caera, standing next to me.
I stepped into the dome, then slowly crossed the open space, heading for the stairs. At the foot of the stairs lay a pile of objects. Caera knelt down to examine them.
"It's mostly bones, but look at this." She picked up a snow-white arrowhead.
"It looks like it's made of the same material as the dome," I took the arrowhead from her hands and rubbed it between my fingers. It was cold to the touch and silky smooth. "And look at this."
A leather cord hung from her fingers, strung with large curved claws resembling those of a hawk or eagle, only larger. They were the claws of one of the clans of this zone.
"Probably made from something native to this zone," I said, pretending not to know whose claws they were. Pressing my finger on the tip of one of the claws, I watched as a drop of blood bloomed on my fingertip and immediately disappeared when the wound closed. "Damn sharp."
"I wonder what it's made of?" Caera asked, throwing the claw necklace back into the pile.
Stepping over the scattered items, I climbed the stairs, skipping two steps at a time until I reached the top of the platform.
The arch was three meters high and just as wide. I ran my fingers over the drawings, which were incredibly detailed, showing animals playing in gardens full of impressively carved plants and flowers.
But Caera was right. Several parts of the arch were missing, and although I knew that I could probably restore it with a higher-level rune than Arthur's, since I had a rune one rank higher, one that could resurrect the dead, so restoring the portal would be easier than easy, I didn't do it.
My fingers ran along the frame of the arch, tracing the uneven, broken edges where parts of this massive structure were missing. The zones were pages left behind by the djinn, and I wasn't going to rush through each zone at speed; each zone could teach me something.
I turned to Caera and, accordingly, to Arthur. "Do you see any fragments of the arch in this pile? Judging by the damage, at least four or five separate pieces have broken off."
Although I already knew the answer.
Caera quickly sorted through the contents of the large pile, then looked at me again and shook her head.
"There's a lot to sort through here, but I don't see anything that looks like the white stone this arch seems to be made of. Maybe here, under these bones..." She continued to rummage.
Regis leapt out of Arthur's side, landing on the platform and shaking himself like a dog, the purple flames of his mane flickering. Before speaking to Arthur and me, he looked up at the ancient structure towering above him. "Do you even need these fragments? Maybe your newfound power can just... fix it?"
"You can't just fix it..." The rest of the words stuck in Arthur's throat when he realized that his companion was right about something. Pressing his palm against the arch, he activated the newly acquired GodRune that slumbered within him.
Because of me, Arthur hadn't restored all the mirrors in the last zone, so he had little experience with this rune, and most likely, the sensation of using the GodRune was still rough and unfamiliar, almost alien.
The rune glowed with a golden light from under his clothes as the aether spread through it, and its purple particles began to swirl around his hand. Then they flew away from him and ran along the arch, focusing on the places where the broken edges stood out against the flawlessly smooth carving.
Apart from the disappearance of a few minor scuffs, nothing happened.
Arthur continued to concentrate, most likely remembering what he had done in the mirror zone, but nothing happened. Disappointed, he looked at me, and I held up two fingers and shook my head.
For him, I just got two god runes, one of which I could use on someone else, but I only got as much understanding as he did.
Arthur let out a heavy sigh.
"It's not working," Regis stated.
"I can see that," Arthur muttered, withdrawing the aether from his GodRune. The purple dust particles disappeared one by one as soon as the rune's glow faded. "Try looking in another part of the room for something similar to the fragments of the arch. If we find them, maybe I can fix the portal."
"Maybe? I mean, I'm as optimistic as the next guy, but 'maybe' sounds like..."
"Do we have another choice?" Arthur snapped, looking at the shadow wolf cub.
Regis's ears drooped. "It seems not."
I sighed, looking at their mess.
Arthur unconsciously expected the support he had received from Sylvie for almost 10 years; she gave him what he always needed. She gave him wisdom when he was foolish, restraint when he was reckless, and courage when he was afraid of Agrona or afraid for his family. She was the one who shared everything with him and strengthened his strengths while suppressing his weaknesses.
On the other hand, Regis was more like himself, reinforcing both Arthur's strengths and weaknesses.
Moving on to his memories, Arthur sat on the edge of the platform and took out the multicolored stone, where his daughter was still imprisoned.
"Another relic hidden from Vritra?" Caera asked, standing next to me and wrapping herself tightly in my sleeping bag. Her dark blue hair fell over her eyes as she leaned over to examine Sylvie's egg.
"Not exactly," Arthur said in a softer tone, his gaze returning to the iridescent egg.
"It's very beautiful," Caera said in a barely audible whisper.
"Thank you," Arthur said, hastily tucking the egg back into his extra-dimensional rune before Caera could examine it more closely.
The sound of small paws padding across the silky stone floor drew our attention to Regis.
I jumped down from the edge of the platform where Arthur was sitting, landing lightly from a height of three meters, and headed toward Regis. "Found anything?"
"Nothing at all," Regis muttered, shaking his head.
"Which probably means we'll have to risk going outside," Arthur added with a sigh.
I looked back at Caera and Arthur, who had also jumped off the edge of the platform, landing nimbly before joining us. Throwing her sleeping bag over her shoulder, Caera nodded. "Let's go, then."
I shook my head. "The blizzard is getting worse. I doubt you'll last long out there."
Caera frowned. "Although it would drain my mana reserves quite a bit, I could endure it if I covered myself with soul fire."
"That's not the only problem. Because of the storm, I can hardly see anything, even with my enhanced vision. We should set up camp here and rest a little while we still can," I replied, nodding to Arthur, who had been silent all this time, clearly lost in his memories again.
Caera nodded, wrapping herself more tightly in her thick sleeping bag. "That doesn't sound like a bad plan."
The conditions for camping were far from ideal. We weren't prepared for the cold weather, but at least the glowing balls floating under the dome gave off a little heat.
For some reason, Alaric had packed a surprising number of sleeping bags and blankets, but I couldn't find any matches to start a fire.
And using the pseudo-artifact of the bone wyvern was dangerous. Pseudo-artifacts were tuned for specific actions, so if I poured aether into the pseudo-artifact that set me on fire, instead of a small flame, I would get a thirty-meter fire avalanche that would burn us rather than light our wood. And even if I greatly reduced the effect, it would still be a five-meter flame.
"What about your soul fire?" Arthur asked as the three of us sat down on a thick pile of sleeping bags laid out along the edge of the platform near the stairs. In the previous zone, after several battles, Caera was very tired, so after talking for a while and eating a hearty meal, she simply fell asleep, but her sleep lasted barely an hour because I restored the tracking relic and then vomited blood all over the room.
"It doesn't produce heat like a normal flame," she said, lighting a black fire on the tip of her finger.
The three of us mindlessly watched the dark flame as Caera enlarged it. Her gaze followed the tip of the flame, and suddenly her eyes widened. Extinguishing the flame, she pointed upward at the balls of light floating high above us. "We can use them!"
"That's unlikely," I replied immediately, wishing she wouldn't repeat the original, but Caera had already jumped onto the pedestal and started climbing the arch. Climbing to the top, she found herself almost level with the floating balls.
Helpless and curious, I waited for the scene where she would crash down. Caera crouched at the top of the white arch, tucked her legs under her, and waited. After a few minutes, one of the lights floated close enough. Without taking her scarlet eyes off the target, she jumped from the top of the arch, rose into the air, and landed right on it...
Or, she was supposed to land on it from above.
Instead, she passed right through it.
Caera let out a quiet squeal as she dangled in the air, then crashed gracefully to the ground from a height of six meters. The Alacryan aristocrat jumped to her feet as if nothing had happened. However, her hair was a mess, and her clothes and parts of her face were covered in dust.
I stifled a laugh as she turned away.
"Are you okay?" I asked, watching her brush the dust off her clothes.
"I would be grateful... if you both forgot what just happened," she said, still looking away.
"You were waving your arms so much that for a second I thought you were really going to fly away," I replied with a weak smile. "That image is pretty hard to forget."
That scene will definitely stick in my mind for a long time. Being around a depressed Arthur didn't do my own depression any good; I became more radical, wary, and cold than I originally wanted to be. This fall allowed me to calmly exhale the fatigue that had built up.
Caera turned around sharply, her cheeks reddened, and her eyes flashed angrily. "Y-you..."
I couldn't help but laugh, even when Caera snatched the sleeping bag from under me and, turning quickly, went to the other end of the room, where she wrapped herself in a blanket with her head.
Rolling my eyes, I walked over to the sleeping bags, which we had stacked on top of each other to make an improvised bed.
"Grey or Regis, can you keep watch for a bit? I want to rest a little after the fiery kiss of the bone wyvern," I asked, choosing a large sleeping bag.
A few seconds later, Regis slipped out of Arthur's hand, landing on all four short legs.
"You should try to get some sleep," I said, handing Caera a few more blankets.
"The strength of the blizzard seems to be changing, so ideally this storm will die down soon. If not, we'll still have to set off as soon as Regis regains his strength," Arthur said, lying down three meters away from me.
Caera nodded, accepting the sleeping bags and curling up in the corner, wrapped tightly in the cloth blankets.
I lay under a huge two-and-a-half-meter sleeping bag specially made for me, upgraded to rank 4, a meter away from her, leaning against the smooth wall of the platform. Since my asura body was constantly supplied with an abundant amount of surrounding aether in this zone, the turquoise fur-lined cloak was enough to protect me from most of the cold.
Sleep eluded me, and when I closed my eyes, unwanted memories surfaced, so I let my gaze wander over the large marble dome until it stopped on Caera lying on the floor, still shivering in her sleeping bag.
It was time to cheer everyone up a little. Arthur was unlikely to repeat that phrase, so I would do it. Who else but me?
"Perhaps it would be wiser if we shared my sleeping bag," I said quietly.
Caera stopped trembling as her whole body seemed to tense up under the blanket. Regis, lying next to her, raised his head, his eyes wide, while Arthur's reaction was the slowest.
Caera slowly turned to me, her eyes wide open and her face flushing amusingly to the base of her curved horns.
I raised my hand in front of me in a defensive manner. "Wait, I didn't mean..."
"Lucius," Caera said hoarsely, her cheeks burning like the sun, "even though I admit you're quite handsome, don't think it'll be so easy to drag me into your sleeping bag."
"Oh la la," Regis whistled.
Their reaction was quite amusing, but aside from getting warmth from Caera's body, I suggested it because Arthur would hardly have suggested it himself. Maybe if it had been just the two of them, he would have, but with the three of us...
"Forget what I said," I muttered, turning my back on them.
"Sorry, I was just surprised by your bluntness," Caera's voice still had a hint of laughter as she approached me with soft steps.
I felt half of my sleeping bag lift as she climbed under the thick blanket behind me. "Thank you, Lucius."
I didn't respond as her body moved closer to me and her constant trembling gradually subsided. We lay back to back, and I tried not to think about it, listening to her steady breathing, but her occasional shuffling made it obvious that she was still awake.
Despite all my bravado, I realized I was embarrassed when her body pressed against mine. For sixteen years, only the wind and water had touched me, so when the horned beauty lay in my sleeping bag, I realized that my heart was beating faster than it should. But as always, after a couple of breaths, I forced myself to calm down, and my rapidly beating heart settled into a steady rhythm.
Everything was pretty calm for a couple of minutes while I was lost in my thoughts and looking at the GodRunes in my soul.
"By the way, Grey..." I turned around and realized that while I was lost in my thoughts, Caera had quietly turned over so that only a couple of centimeters separated us, and now she was looking at me.
Her scarlet eyes widened in surprise when we came face to face.
"My back was taking all the heat," she explained quickly, excitedly.
"No, it's okay," I said, shifting my gaze from her charming face and bright red eyes to Arthur. My heart already calming down a little, and although it was a pleasant sight, I decided to ignore it as much as possible.
"Here," I said, tossing him the pseudo-artifacts I had stolen from the bone wyvern along with its aether. "Play with them if you have free time."
It's strange, but the bone wyvern only had four pseudo-artifacts. The first allowed it to fly, then a fire pseudo-artifact, then a healing pseudo-artifact, as it looked similar to the one the monkey had, only stronger, it was rank 6 instead of rank 5.
The last was a pseudo-artifact I couldn't decipher, but I instinctively knew it was a one-time use, and if absorbed, it would greatly strengthen every bone in its body.
I only gave Arthur the healing and fire pseudo-artifacts. I wasn't planning on giving him the flight pseudo-artifact now, for obvious reasons. As for the one-time use pseudo-artifact that would greatly strengthen his body, I was planning to give it to him in Shadow Claw Village.
Unbeknownst to Caera, Arthur first transferred each pseudo-artifact to Regis and only then absorbed them into his aether core.
"And you..." My gaze shifted to Caera, who froze like a deer in the headlights when my multicolored cat eyes met her ruby ones.
"Let's get some sleep," I said, turning my back to her and lying on my side under the blanket. My words seemed to have an effect, as she quietly crawled away from me and fell silent.
Opening the system, I sank into thought, looking at everything I now had, from resources to GodRunes and hundreds of aether points and physique points that had been put aside for now.
There were also notifications about the pseudo-artifacts I just gave to Arthur and, accordingly, Regis. It's good that they're so understanding.
A couple of minutes later, the sound of soft, even breathing behind me pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked back and saw that Caera had already fallen asleep.
For the second time, she fell asleep next to me in a matter of seconds.
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Part of the next chapter was written after reading several r18 fanfics, so don't expect anything super logical; it was written by my harmonies, which I succumbed to in the moment.
Essentially, I used part of the next chapter to practice writing from Caera's perspective, and at the same time, it's a very small draft for possible r18 writing in the future.