Chapter 39: Road to Pathfinder
The wyvern was enormous in the way that things were enormous when the scale of them kept arriving in stages.
Arthur had understood it was large when they boarded.
He had understood it more when he saw the wingspan.
He understood it completely now, leaning over the railing with the wind in his face, watching the ground move below them.
"Look at that," Arthur said, pointing at the mountain range ahead. "That one on the left. Doesn’t it look like a sleeping giant?"
Vedas looked. "No," he said.
"The head is right there."
"That is the mountain."
"The shoulder."
"Also the mountain."
"The arm going down—"
"Mountain."
Arthur turned to Mithra.
Mithra looked at the mountain range with genuine consideration.
"I see it," she said.
Vedas looked at her.
"The head especially," she said. "Very clear."
"It is a mountain," Vedas said.
"With a very convincing head," Mithra said.
Vedas looked out before then staring at Mithra and then at Arthur.
"That," he said slowly, "is where the mountain is the most mountain."
"Or," Arthur said, "it’s the jaw."
"The jaw," Mithra said. "Yes. Strong jaw."
"For a giant," Arthur said.
"A large one," Mithra agreed.
Vedas stared at them both.
Then he looked at Melo, who was
sitting on the railing nearby.
Melo looked at the mountain.
Then at Arthur.
Then at Mithra.
Then she looked at Vedas with the expression of a creature who had witnessed this exchange and had found it beneath comment.
"You see a mountain," Vedas said to Melo.
Melo looked at the mountain and then back at Vedas. Before looking away, Melo made Vedas gasp while Arthur and Mithra laughed.
"Instead of seeking help from Melo, how about that spot, Vedas?" Mithra pointed outside. "Do you see the chin?"
"Ohhh, I see it!"
"What chin?" Vedas said. "There is no chin. There is a mountain. The mountain does not have a chin. A mountain cannot have a chin because a mountain is a mountain."
"Very defensive chin," Mithra said.
"It’s a cliff face," Vedas said.
"Of the chin," Arthur said.
Vedas turned toward Melo. "You see a mountain."
Melo slowly looked away.
Vedas closed his eyes. "...Thank you."
Arthur grinned. "She’s just being polite."
Mithra nodded. "She sees the chin too."
Vedas sighed. "...I’m surrounded."
...
The transport moved forward through the clouds.
Around them, dozens of other wyvern carriages crossed the sky in loose formation, their passengers visible as small shapes against the railing. Students going to the same place for the same reason.
The convoy stretched in every direction, and looking at it from above the clouds made Arthur aware of something he hadn’t fully registered during the examination: how many people were starting this at the same time he was.
Mithra rested her arms on the railing and watched the world below go past. Forests. Rivers. Roads that wound through valleys that people lived and worked in without ever looking up.
Then she heard it.
Two students sitting on the far end of the platform, speaking with the careful volume of people who thought they were being quiet about interesting information.
"Did you hear about that guy from the entrance exam?"
Mithra’s attention found them immediately.
"Which one?" the second student said. "Leon?"
"No. The one with the Goblin."
Mithra straightened slightly.
"What about him?"
"I heard he evolved it."
The first student shrugged. "That’s not impressive."
"It evolved twice. On the same day he got it."
The first student went quiet for a moment. "That’s not possible."
"That’s what I heard."
A third student leaned over from the next row. "My cousin was there. She said it became a Goblin Commander."
Someone made a dismissive sound. "You’re inventing things."
"I’m not."
Mithra looked at the railing and became very interested in a passing cloud.
Arthur was still at the railing ten feet away, now explaining to Vedas that a different cloud formation bore a resemblance to a rabbit.
"It does," Arthur said.
"It is a cloud," Vedas said.
"The ears."
"Cloud."
"The tail."
"Also cloud."
Mithra turned back to the conversation, which had acquired two additional contributors.
"No, no," said a girl with short dark hair. "I heard the Goblin fought the Golden Dragon."
"By itself?" someone said.
"That’s what’s going around."
"Impossible."
"Apparently not, though."
A boy nearby adjusted his bag. "What I heard was that Arthur Cornwall punched the dragon until it lost."
The group stared at him.
"What?" said the first student.
"One punch and it went down," the boy said, with the confidence of someone delivering information from a reliable source.
"That is not what happened," said the girl.
"How would you know?"
"Because that doesn’t make sense."
"It’s Arthur Cornwall."
Mithra’s shoulders had begun moving as she nearly choked. She looked at Vedas, who glanced at her before looking back at Arthur.
Then he slowly looked at Arthur’s fist.
Then back at Arthur.
Then back at the fist.
Arthur noticed. "What?"
Vedas hesitated. "...Nothing."
"Well, I do have a question for you. Does that look like a person lying down to you?"
"It is a lake," Vedas said.
"A very large person."
"Arthur."
"Or a very small lake."
Vedas considered this briefly. "...it is a lake," he said.
The conversation behind Mithra had acquired momentum.
"I heard he fought an instructor to a standstill," said someone new. "Professor Hayes from Pathfinder, apparently."
"The Silver-rank one?"
"He retreated."
"That’s wrong!" A girl with pink hair said. "I heard he fought three! The other two couldn’t believe Hayes lost and felt it was a fluke."
"Wait... An instructor really lost!?"
"I heard Pathfinder apologized."
The group went quiet for a moment at the absurdity of the last words. But then they slowly nodded as the other rumors weren’t any less insane. And then more students chimed in.
"He retreated from a first-year student."
"That’s what people are saying."
"There must be more to it than that."
"Probably. But still."
Mithra focused on the horizon.
Another student joined. "I heard Arthur Cornwall actually comes from a hidden noble family."
"That doesn’t match what I heard. I heard he has an SSS-Rank Talent that was misclassified."
"Someone told me his Goblin evolved again into an Ancient Goblin King."
"I heard he never gets nervous."
"Really?"
"Apparently nothing scares him."
Mithra quietly looked toward Arthur. He was currently asking Vedas whether clouds migrated. "...Close enough," she muttered.
"I heard he defeated Leon and his golden dragon at the same time!"
"Nah, someone told me he defeated all of the people in the exam all at once."
"I heard Arthur Cornwall is actually a Gold Beast Master pretending to be eighteen."
"...Why would he do that?"
"I don’t know. Old masters do weird things."
This last one finally won.
A boy near the edge of the group frowned. His eyes drifted toward Arthur. Then back toward the conversation.
Then toward Arthur again.
He squinted. "...Wait."
The group looked at him. "What?"
The boy slowly pointed. "Isn’t that—"
Mithra followed his gaze. Arthur was currently explaining why a cloud resembled a turtle wearing a hat. Vedas was arguing that hats required evidence.
Mithra bit back a smile.
The boy frowned harder. "...No. It couldn’t be."
"What couldn’t be?"
Before he could answer, someone suddenly shouted:
"There!"
...
Every head turned toward the horizon. And then the conversations stopped one by one as people turned.
Arthur had imagined Pathfinder Academy his entire life. From his mother’s stories. From old books. From visitors who told stories of their time in the academy itself. Yet standing here now, he realized every version he had imagined had been too small.
Pathfinder Academy sat on an elevated plateau at the center of a city that had grown around it over centuries, surrounded by walls that were the walls of something that had thought seriously about defense.
Towers reached into the clouds.
Arenas large enough to hold several of Greenleaf’s central squares.
Training grounds spread between buildings in an arrangement that implied they had been designed rather than simply placed.
Flying beasts circled the upper towers in patterns that suggested they were stationed there. The city around the Academy glowed with magical lighting even in daylight. It looked less like a school. It looked like the kind of place where things that happened in the future were being prepared.
Arthur had gone completely quiet.
The transport moved forward, and the Academy grew from a distant shape into something specific.
He was still processing it when Vedas said, very quietly, "It’s real."
"Mom was right." Arthur smiled. "We made it."
Mithra smiled at both of them.
For one brief moment...
Everything felt exactly the way Arthur had imagined it would. The convoy drifted toward the plateau, and for a while nobody said anything at all.
Then a sharp cry echoed through the sky.
Students looked up to see that one of the wyverns had screamed.
Another cry followed.
Then another.
The atmosphere shifted immediately.
Arthur frowned as the massive beast pulling their transport was becoming restless. He saw its wings beat harder while its movements were less steady. Nearby handlers exchanged looks.
One frowned.
Another stood up.
A third began checking the harnesses.
Mithra noticed, and she slowly got up, Melo’s eyes narrowing. The excitement that had filled the transport moments earlier slowly faded.
Students began whispering.
"What happened?"
"I don’t know."
"Why are the wyverns acting like that?"
"They were fine before."
No answer came.
More cries echoed across the convoy before one transport suddenly drifted to the side. Its wyvern looked terrified. The handlers shouted commands, but the beast barely responded.
Vedas was watching the sky. His hand slowly gripped his spear while the other rested on his sword. Melo’s body began to glow light purple as she stared out at the sky.
Then a shadow moved above the clouds.
Everyone froze.
Something blocked the sunlight.
Just for a second.
Every shadow shifted.
Arthur looked up, but there was nothing there.
The wyverns exploded into panic.
Screeches filled the sky before several transports broke formation. Students grabbed railings and each other. Handlers shouted over the noise of the wyverns, and the wyverns did not particularly care what the handlers were shouting.
Handlers began shouting. "What was that?"
Nobody answered because nobody knew.
Arthur stepped toward the railing and his green eyes narrowed while his smile faded. Mithra also stepped closer, and she too felt it: something was there.
Then—
BOOOOOOOOM!
A deafening explosion erupted somewhere ahead.
The entire sky shook.
Students screamed. The wyverns shrieked in terror. Arthur spun toward the sound. Mithra’s eyes widened, and Vedas drew his spear.
And far ahead, beyond the clouds and just outside their sight—
Something moved.
And a distant wyvern suddenly vanished. Then the screaming started.
Comments