"AHHHHHHHHH!"
There was a scream in the distance, high pitched and filled with terror like an overflowing cup.
Zöe felt his brows twitch.
It seemed like… he wasn't alone. He wasn't sure if this was good or bad.
So, as per that one merchant he possessed, he began to weigh the pros and cons. Was it more beneficial… to respond to that scream?
However, before he could progress further in his thoughts, another voice yelled out from another area. It was the voice of a young man with the capacity to help.
"Here! To me!"
Zöe looked over and saw that the voice originated from what seemed to be an empty, oversized pillar. The young man was a small dot contrasted against the sheer white expanse of the polished marble pillar.
"…"
Zöe was stunned silent.
No stairs existed on that pillar. How exactly was the first voice—presumably a lady—going to get up there?
"Unless she could fly…" Zöe muttered.
It was then!
A small white figure suddenly rose into the air, gracefully taking to the skies. It was the figure of a young woman, tall and slender in her form, a perfect compliment to the white wings on her back.
"…Well,"
It seemed like someone was indeed capable of flight.
And now, Zöe watched as the winged figure landed upon the marble pillar. Their figures had become nothing but dots.
Yet their voices echoed all the way to where he stood.
The silence of this realm was indeed eerie beyond measure, allowing their murmurs to caress his ears. He could vaguely identify the topic of their chat.
"Y-you… Are you some kind of metal human?"
"…What's with that hostile reaction? Aren't you some winged subspecies too?"
Hearing their words, Zöe's brow twitched again, exasperated. Racial prejudice at this hour? Surrounded by oceans and mountains of bones?
Suddenly, cooperating with the two no longer seemed like a good idea. Zöe decided to head in the opposite direction.
Either way, he wasn't capable of climbing the marble pillar to meet them.
A part of his mind also thought that the metal man could not be carried by the lightweight winged woman.
In a way, if the two agreed to cooperate, they would have to waste time figuring out how to get the metal man down. Zöe could instead use this time to somehow complete the mission.
"Even in this world full of death, there must still be a place where life can thrive…" muttered Zöe as he trudged up a hill of bones.
It was like the wasteland in his home world, desolate… yet still bearing patches of surviving life. This world surely had its own.
So he walked away from the marble pillar one step at a time, holding the sapling close and protecting it from the elements as much as his human host body was capable of.
Soon, he noticed something odd beneath his feet.
"…Ugh,"
Somehow, after descending the hill of bones, the ground which crunched under his feet became bouncy. They were like elastic sponges, absorbing his weight through deformation before returning to their previous shape when he left.
It was like walking in a bounce house, but all of the bones here were massive, bigger than he was, and bore a disgusting squelch with each step.
'Are these even actual bones?'
Thankfully, he was not walking barefooted. He would not know what to do with himself it he was.
It was then.
Walking together, trudging along the same bone as he was, were two humanoid individuals. One man, one woman.
The man's skin shone a metallic sheen in the dull lighting of this ocean of bones. The woman, on the other hand, had wings on her back.
For a moment, Zöe thought he had somehow encountered those two from the marble pillar. However, upon a closer look, these two had a deeper aura to them.
The man's metallic sheen bore a faint trace of silver, shining brighter than the iron-like glow of the one earlier. The woman's wings were similar.
Instead of pure white, it had taken on a silver tone.
For a moment, Zöe was stunned.
The two humanoid figures had breathtaking appearances. One looked as if his face was chiselled by the finest of sculptors, angular and sharp. The other's face was that of the holiest of the holy—she looked like what angels were supposed to be.
Soon, these two came to a stop in front of Zöe, whose demeanor clearly indicated wariness.
"Hello, may I help you?" spoke Zöe.
The man and woman glanced at each other before speaking.
"Human child. Hello." The woman greeted, "Have you perchance encountered a pair who look just like us?"
Zöe raised a brow.
"Yes, why?"
"They're our children. We are hoping to find them and bring them back to the oasis so that they may grow their trees."
Zöe raised a brow.
"Your children… The two of you are married?"
"Mhm—" The woman nodded.
But the man suddenly interjected, a bit of impatience in his tone.
"Let's focus on where our children are, please. If you lead the way, you can come with us to the oasis afterwards."
The man pointed at the plant.
"There isn't anywhere else in this world where a sapling like that can survive."
Zöe's brows furrowed in thought as he deduced a few things from the words of the married couple.
"Well, they weren't too far from here… And are you sure they're siblings? They didn't seem to know each other when I saw them."
The woman pursed her lips and let out a small sigh, "That's just their humor. Please don't think about it too much. I still don't know why they like to joke about things like that."
"Ah," Zöe nodded, having shelved that piece of information in an instant. "Then I'll show you to them."
Thus, Zöe led the couple to their children, retracing his steps over the bounce-house-like bones and over the crunchy ones as well. Eventually, he caught sight of the pillar and made a gesture.
"It seems like they're still there."
Seeing his children and hearing Zöe's words, the man's tense expression loosened. The worry in his gaze vanished.
"Dear, would it be alright if you carried Varak down? It seems like they were placed exactly where we were placed during our First Trial."
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