Chapter 56: Rast: Now That’s a Professional Match
After the first page of entries, there was only a long stretch of emptiness, marked only by dates.
Even when characters did appear, they were nothing but ssy scribbles.
It resembled the random doodles Rast used to fabricate when his elentary school teacher made the class submit daily diaries.
Shiltina flipped through the pages, one by one.
Until—those perfunctory notes abruptly ca to a halt on one particular page.
【Calamity Calendar Year 94, June 11】
【The heavy fog in Frozenwater Town has lasted for two months now. Though fog is not rare by the seaside, I’ve never seen one this dense and persistent.】
【Under such thick fog, visibility is at most a hundred ters… The lighthouse has beco entirely useless. I only need to blow the foghorn occasionally, so I've had more free ti.】
【Anyway, the supply convoy is due in four days, and I’m rotating off duty. Let the next guy worry about things after that.】
...
【Calamity Calendar Year 94, June 19】
【The fog is still here. The scheduled resupply date passed four days ago. Did sothing happen to the convoy on the way?】
【Fortunately, I have enough food and water stored for almost another month. It should last until the new supply team arrives.】
...
【Calamity Calendar Year 94, July 15】
【Damn it, it’s been a whole month since the supply date! Even if they had to restart the mission three tis, they should’ve arrived by now!】
【Given the Shattered Coast’s importance to civil mariti routes, as long as the "Shoreguards" still exist, they would never abandon the coastal lighthouses.】
【Could sothing have happened at HQ too? No—our leader has already reached the unprecedented sixth tier. Even the Iron Cross King, or those cultists blessed by their evil gods, would find it hard to rival him. If not for that, the Shattered Coast couldn’t have resisted their corruption this long. I’m probably just being paranoid.】
...
【Calamity Calendar Year 94, July 21】
【My food and fresh water are exhausted. The fog still hasn’t lifted.】
【It’s not just the outside connection that’s been cut off during this ti—there haven’t even been foghorns from ships at sea. The lighthouse is eerily silent.】
【I activated my ability, "Origami Magic", and used scrap tal parts from the lighthouse to assemble two chanical ssengers, shaped like carrier pigeons. I sent them flying in different directions through the fog, hoping to scout the situation beyond.】
【This kind of use takes a massive toll on my ntal strength, but I can’t afford to worry about that now.】
...
At this point, Rast couldn’t help but lift his head and glance at Shiltina beside him.
"Ability?"
At Starfall University, information on the Sixth Era was already scarce.
His access level at the Arcane Tower wasn’t high enough to check intelligence on that era.
He had to rely on the fair white thighs of the lady next to him.
"Mhm."
Shiltina gently nodded, seeming unsurprised at the appearance of the word "ability" in the diary.
"Since every era features gods, dragons, elves, and the like…"
"Then naturally, in those lost histories, there were also extraordinary powers that humans could grasp… These powers ca in many forms—so mystical, and even so technological."
"For example, I once participated in a raid on a Disaster Remnant located in an abandoned alchemical-chanical research facility."
"Our target back then was a massive slaughter-machine alchemical robot, over ten ters tall. It had been created as a weapon of war but lost control for so unknown reason. We paid a heavy price to complete that raid."
"As for the Sixth Era…"
Shiltina’s gaze paused lightly on the diary.
"Perhaps because the Sixth Era is chronologically closest to our ti, its extraordinary system is very similar to our present world."
"Since the outbreak of the Iron Cross Plague and the collapse of the old order, and after the start of the Calamity Calendar… maybe the laws of the world loosened. The Sixth Era also saw the mass ergence of a sequence system similar to ours. From the tiline, perhaps they were the true pioneers."
"But compared to our current age of fast-growing civilization and stable knowledge inheritance, you already know the situation of the Sixth Era’s later stages. No order, and extraordinary developnt was entirely in a stage of struggle and exploration."
"Even so, to have birthed a sixth-tier powerhouse… this secretive group called the Shoreguards is no simple thing. Perhaps they had inherited extraordinary knowledge long before the Calamity Calendar began."
Shiltina explained,
"As for the so-called ‘abilities’ of the Sixth Era, they are essentially our ‘Nightblades’."
"Though Travelers receive their Nightblades as gifts from the Nightworld… they are in fact manifestations of our inner selves, the power of our hearts. What the Nightworld does is rely activate them fully, helping us grasp them quickly."
"And since the Sixth Era lacked a Nightworld, triggering that inner power was undoubtedly far more difficult. These extraordinary individuals with abilities were all born through rare opportunities—one in ten thousand exceptions."
As she spoke, she turned to the next page of the diary.
【Calamity Calendar Year 94, July 22】
【Fog, fog, nothing but fog!】
【The chanical ssengers I made with my ability flew in different directions for an entire day and night. Until my ntal strength was completely drained and the machines crashed to the ground—everything they saw was still endless fog!】
【I vaguely rember that the nearest town is only a few dozen li from Frozenwater Town. The ssengers should’ve easily reached it after flying for a whole day and night. They’re machines—they don’t get disoriented like living creatures.】
【There’s sothing wrong with this fog! Once you enter it, you’ll be lost forever.】
【Staying in the lighthouse any longer is aningless. I must take action.】
【I’ll rest today to recover my mind, then head into Frozenwater Town tomorrow to check the situation—and hopefully get so food and fresh water.】
...
【No Date Noted】
【Madness! I don’t know whether I’ve gone insane—or everyone in Frozenwater Town has!】
【When I followed the path just a few li to the town, everything seed normal. The townspeople were self-sufficient, and the fog outside didn’t appear to affect their lives at all.】
【But when I asked the mayor, the townsfolk, the old farr, the butcher, the tailor… why the fog had lasted so long,】
【They all showed looks of confusion, saying the fog had only lasted two days.】
【And when I asked them the date, every one of them gave the exact sa answer—】
【May 11】
【That was two months ago!】
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