"Who?"
The man asked half-heartedly, tilting his head to the side while yawning ever so slightly.
Eleanor stared at him blankly for a beat, then shook her head, realizing her mistake immediately.
While his appearance resembled the boy she had accompanied for several weeks on his Ghostship, this man was far older and different in all ways except hair and eye color.
How idiotic of me…
She watched as the man cracked his neck, then straightened his posture, allowing him to show off his enormous height.
"Hmm… You look familiar…"
The large man thought for a moment before shrugging his shouldersa nd speaking again.
"You're from Waves, right? My Nordic should be fine, though I haven't spoken with any of those fools in decades…"
Gazing far off into the distance with a nostalgic look on his face, a frown began to form along his lips, buried beneath his beard.
"So, how'd you end up here?"
The question startled the blonde-haired girl, who had been caught off guard by the man's strange behaviour, his carefree nature something she hadn't expected of a dead soul.
She was hesitant to answer, unsure what to think of a random man approaching her in the farlands, and saving her from walking towards the castle because of some mysterious attraction.
What are his motives? What does he want with me?
Throughout her life, Eleanor had learned that there was no such thing as a free lunch when it came to favors—anything and everything cost something.
"Eh? You deaf or something?"
He waved his hand in front of her face, causing her to instinctively jump backwards, her hands trying to cast a protective barrier around her.
I-It's not working?
Not even a tingling sensation could be felt from within her mana core; the unnatural stillness came as complete surprise to her.
"A mage, huh? I've only met one good mage before, and he's long since entered that city, though, as a guest, of course."
He chuckled, waiting for the girl to echo any type of sentiment.
"W-who are you?"
Her voice was quiet, nothing but a murmur, yet the man caught it quickly, his eyes lighting up as he beamed with pride.
"I don't know!"
Eleanor blinked, then blinked again, not sure if she had heard the man right.
"What?"
There was a pause as the man beamed at her even more, an unconcerned smile coming across his tight lips.
"I have no memory of my name or my life!"
Silence emerged between the two before a sigh could be heard from the girl, her hand coming around to rub the bridge of her nose.
This man really is like Aaron…
Shaking her head in resignation, she spoke up once more.
"Then what do people down here call you? Surely there must be some name or title they address you by?"
The man's brow raised as he pondered her query for a moment, his enthusiastic expression falling into a solemn one.
"They call me the Wanderer. Most of them anyway… The others in the city look at me with fear, eyes of scorn, and worry. I don't know what they think, perhaps they knew of me in the last life, and I had wronged them…"
He paused, noticing the girl giving him an odd glare.
Hastily adding a second portion to not make himself sound pathetic, he allowed his lips to curl up into a weak smile.
"Doesn't phase me though! Not like I'm one of those city urchins who were too weak to withstand the presence of him."
Eleanor frowned, releasing some of the tension that had been building in her chest.
Slowly, she pursed her lips and spoke up, disregarding the man's jubilant expression.
"Him?"
The man recoiled in surprise before trying to cover his mouth with his hand—an action that was poorly performed, causing him to whack himself.
"Gah… You must be a new arrival, right? Eh, I thought you were just some lunatic who fell into that crater and finally got out after maybe a thousand years or so! So, what's your name, kid?"
Completely disregarding her question as if it were too stupid to reply to, he posed a query of his own.
The blonde girl paused for a moment, deciding internally whether to trust this man with her personal information.
Well… I'm already dead, so how much worse could it be?
"My name is Eleanor Lynn."
He nodded at the words, his bearded maw set tightly in a clear look of jealousy.
"Lynn, eh? Haven't met one of them before, so you ain't no powerhouse. Let's see… If I were to guess from what you tried to cast earlier… A clergy member?"
Eleanor gave him a surprised look, internally reevaluating the man, whose guess was somehow perfect even with the little information he was given.
"Yes… I was a priestess for the Church of Depths in Sea Fallen."
The man instantly paled, his eyes turning away from the girl and off towards the bounding fields in the distance.
She caught his suspicious reaction as well, following his gaze to where a large droplet had begun to form on the root of a particularly big tree.
"Mr. Wanderer, what are those things?"
His attention was locked onto the large body of liquid as it drew close to falling, its translucent sheen illusory from such a far distance.
Without moving his gaze away, he responded in a murmur.
"You should remember that you came here in one."
Eleanor tilted her head, not understanding what he meant.
"What do you—"
She was cut off by his follow-up.
"You'll see them plenty down here. Most people refer to them as Soul Spores due to the qualities they bring with them. You see right there?"
He pointed up at a smaller one almost directly above their heads, its watery tail about to break off from a tiny root.
Pop!
It burst, plummeting down towards the ground at an increasingly dangerous speed.
The liquid sphere hit the ground near them with a loud thud, yet the man stood steady as he watched the girl walk a few steps towards the spot where it had fallen, squinting her eyes to examine it, her expression gradually changing.
In the place of impact, a person struggled to stand up, horns jutting from their head, and their skin covered in grotesque scales and warts.
As they gazed around in a daze, Eleanor nearly jumped back in shock, noticing that the creature had not just one face, but rather three.
"W-what is that thing?"
Panicked and afraid, she snapped her head back to the man who simply chuckled at her.
"It's the same as you. A lost soul that'll soon find its way towards the Kingdom at the End. Though that one appears to be native to the Dimension of Poisons…"
Right on cue, the monster's eyes locked on the mighty castle in the distance, its slimy tentacle-like legs allowing it to glide along the grassy land.
"A-are there more things like that around here?"
Her voice was shaky as she followed the creature's slithering movements until it vanished down past a hill.
The Wanderer simply nodded, not elaborating further on the existence of the otherworldly terrors that filtered into this world.
"Race matters not in this place. After all, only the truly strong can injure one another, and even if we die, we'll just fall back from the Spores."
Slowly, Eleanor began to understand this strange reality that she was now a part of; however, what she had seen before running into the man had not yet been explained.
"If that droplet was for one soul, then what could that one possibly be?"
Referring to the massive sphere of water that the man had pointed out earlier, she heard a deep sigh escape his lips.
"You mentioned Sea Fallen earlier, did you not?"
The girl furrowed her brow, unsure as to why he was bringing that up now.
Noticing her confusion, he groaned, realizing that this would not be as simple as he had hoped.
"Usually, the Soul Spores clump you together based on the means of death. If ten people died in an earthquake, then it would be the size of a boat. Say, a thousand died in a fire, they would form a Spore about the size of a mansion. However, if an infection were to spread throughout an entire city…"
Eleanor froze, a creeping feeling running down her spine.
H-he doesn't mean…
Only a moment after the thought ran through her head, the Wanderer continued.
"I inquired about the oddly plump Spore with one of my associates earlier. Apparently, he had been told by a stray soul that a disaster had occurred. A sea wall, some newer structure that I can't remember, collapsed, burying thousands under the rubble. Not only that, but shortly after those crushed by the stone dropped, a new Spore began to form."
He sat down on the ground, noticing that the growth of the Spore began to slow, and the root was trying to let it go under the heavy weight.
"Only once before have I seen a Spore that large, and that would be for a plague that decimated the Dimension of Waves decades ago. When it inevitably falls, I'm certain we will learn about a fate more vile than anything I could imagine. And, in that stride, there is almost no doubt in my mind that more and more of those will begin to appear throughout the coming years."
Relaxing onto the grass, he stared up into the heavens above, the glowing roots of the World Tree pulsating with life and death intertwined.
The gray-eyed girl could hardly move, her eyes glued to the Spore that did not dare let go of its mother root.
"All those people…"
She collapsed to her knees, the shock of what she had started to realize overcoming her in an instant.
"Weak in the legs, eh? Not uncommon…"
Chuckling under his breath, the man who resembled Aaron Grimstall watched as the girl stared blankly at the grass beneath her.
Her mind was bathed in memories of her life, the impact of what had happened the day prior only now fully catching up to her.
Sea Fallen, the place where she was born and raised, had been destroyed, and the Great Sea Wall had been broken down.
Thousands, if not tens of thousands, now waited to enter the Great Beyond, their lives in the upper world put out like a candle smothered in a wave.
She, having met an end far different from the rest, had been dropped sooner, now alone to watch as they entered the world of rest.
As a priestess of the Church of Depths, caring for the weak and poor, she had witnessed death dozens of times before, yet the numbness she had attained in life faded away as she truly contemplated mortality.
I-Is there no god to protect them in the world above? Has our lord truly forsaken us for the seas of old, as some of the myths say?
Still watching in silence, the Wanderer could only purse his lips and close his eyes for a moment.
Like all others who entered the Great Beyond unexpectedly, he knew that her feelings would soon pass, and she would inevitably wish to forget it all, venturing into the city to never return.
Truly a sad soul… Perhaps she will opt for reincarnation or, as a clergyman, attempt to attain angelhood…
He shook his head, staring off into the vast Beyond that stretched out for infinity.
This was a world free of mortal constraints; however, it was governed by principles of its own, and within its confines, only one thing was certain.
Death.