51 Oblige

"This whole world preys on division and hate, Angravada."

"Ah."

Angravada slowly opened her eyes as she found herself on an open meadow with bright scenery and pure blue sky.

She was in a dream. The familiar, and the most haunting yet serene dream of her life.

The voice of what she known as her mother echoed throughout the dream realm.

"Always be faster when you're in a game of musical chairs, Angravada."

"I know."

"All lives are not equal, some are born worthy, some are born for the sake of making others worthy."

"I know."

"The scapegoat is always bred for haute couture of hate, Angravada."

"That, I don't understand."

It was always the same routine.

The voice always reminded Angravada of the things that she already learned in her life, and sometimes uttered something that was not yet to be experienced by Angravada.

It was a weird, surreal, yet typical act of an event that happened a lot in Angravada's life. Sometimes, she was on the verge of being broken and the voice in this dream land reminded her to always close the door before sleeping. Sometimes though, she tells Angravada to steal other people's belongings.

Sometimes it was repeated to the point that it became a pattern, only to be broken on the next dream when the voice spouted random nonsense out of nowhere.

Sometimes, it wasn't nonsense at all. Angravada herself refused to believe it but some of the sentences told by the voice of the sky were actually helpful, with some of them could be comprehended as prophetic.

"Society will deem you as a joke if you're not a part of others' pain, Angravada."

"I guess it's true to some extent."

"Other than oneself, others are nothing but a thing to blame." As Angravada went silent, the voice of the sky continued. "They will tell you that you're better dead if you want to live, yet if you choose to die, they will whisper in tears that you should live instead."

"Then, is it a sin if I'm entitled to my joy or pain?"

"It's not."

"Then why are you saying this, mother…" Angravada closed her eyes, only the vivid soothing wind of the meadow could be felt inside the darkness of her dream world.

Just as Angravada perceived her dream world once again, a humanoid shadow taller than her appeared wearing a dark cloak. A set of surreal white eyes that could only be comprehended as animated crayon scribbles was glaring back.

The voice of the sky could be heard coming from the cloaked entity.

"Whether it was a sin to feel joy or pain, nobody has the right to choose the truth for others."

Another entity of the same appearance appeared in an eerie snape beside the first one. The next voice was that of a man that Angravada couldn't recognize.

"No, you must keep quiet, don't say a single word."

And the next one appeared.

"Don't fight it, better take the shame."

Then another.

It was the voice of a young girl.

"Please, receive all of our hate…"

Before Angravada knew it, the world turned pitch black, only leaving the cloaked figures to be vividly visible without a single source of light inside that world. At the same time, the number of cloaked figures multiplied to around a hundred, and could be seen at every angle from where Angravada stood.

"Cest natch vortum," preached the first entity while holding both hands to the air as if it was praying.

A second later, every cloaked figure did the same, and all of them simultaneously preached a harmonic choir on the top of their lungs.

""We are the lives suffocated by the hatefulness and lies made to be pointed by the knife~!""

"Cest natch vortum."

""We are the lives suffocated by the hatefulness and lies made to be pointed by the knife~!""

As the words rang in Angravada's head like a stubborn maggot, she beheld herself standing in front of her amongst all the crowd.

There, Angravada stood with spiraling ram horns instead of rodent ears, signifying the place of a sacrificial martyr for the scheme of greater good. Her expression was that of a bittersweet allegiance conveyed through a weary smile.

"It doesn't matter what you choose," said the martyr. "You're the one who loses. Everything is gave and take, love or hate. Neither one is safe." She then raised a clenched fist with blood from the gap of her fingers. "Stop here, or else the voice won't stop.

"I only want the best for both of us."

"And I want to live."

"To walk towards the definite future?"

"As long as nobody shares the pain."

"The 'Untethered One' might be no more, but there are more devotees who want you back…"

"That world doesn't need me."

"You abandoned them without asking about their pain."

"They never ask about my pain."

"That's why I'm scared."

"Why are you the one who is scared?"

"You have 8 months."

"Heh, what a pushover."

As Angravada fell to an utter darkness, her expressionless face gazed back at the abyss on the sky of her future.

"It's your fault that mama and daddy died."

Suffocating, Angravada embraced the void.

And just as she was awakened from her dream, she went on like nothing happened.

"Haah, I kinda miss the one about watering the flower."

She prepared herself inside her tent, before opening the curtain and sticking out her head to see what was happening on the outside.

There, she could see Ippon balancing himself on top of Kivas' back while Kivas was standing on one leg, all while having his tail vertically raised.

"Wha-"

The strong ray of shine from the sky couldn't even make this situation more digestible for her.

She then approached them.

"What the hell are you doing…"

"Ever heard the phrase 'One umbrella is enough to shelter four people in the rain'?" Kivas answered in serious tone.

"No…"

"I actually made that up," said Kivas, still in a serious tone. "But have you ever wondered if that's truly the case?"

"Huh."

Thanks to the power of curiosity, in the end, Angravada joined in on whatever they were currently doing.

Turns out, with enough acrobatic power, four or three people could get the shade of one umbrella.

Although, it was obvious that Semper made this easier.

After the weird shenanigans, they had another meal by hunting one of the Bongus who wandered off too far from the center area of the coniferous forest territory. They were actually pretty lucky this time, as one of the mushrooms that grew on the hunted Bongus' back was one of the delicacies back in Angravada's hometown due to its surreal property and taste of a cheese.

"This tastes like mozzarella!" Kivas screamed as he pulled the stretching cheese on top of the Bongus Meat Steak.

"Mosgaella?" said Angravada.

"One of the types of cheese in my former world." Kivas put down his cheesy steak. If he had any eyes, he would be on the verge of crying at this moment. "It's been a while since I tasted anything that made me recall how good the food in my world is instead of absorbing bland water."

"I don't know what to comment, gyoro."

"Me neither…"

"Haah, I wish I could eat at the same table as all of you," said Semper.

"You can put a portal on the back of your mouth that connects to your main body, you know?" said Kivas while happily munching on the steak.

"Why brother, that's a good idea!"

The party got one more mouth to feed since then.

After the breakfast, the four of them were prepared to continue their journey to the east once again.

"So all we need is to get to that super tall mountain, gyoro?" said Ippon as he gazed into the tall mountainous domain right in front of the mountain's feet.

"It might look tall but it won't actually take a day for us to reach there." Angravada put on a smug grin. "Cause I know a shortcut! All we need is to go a little bit to the southeast, right below the foot of Vella Mountain, the closest sibling mountain to Vaal'kuth, and we will get there in no time."

"Huh, so there's no need to climb." Kivas was excited to know what resided on the foot of Vella Mountain. "I have many hypotheses on what we will encounter there but I'll keep them all to myself to raise my level of enthusiasm."

Instead of climbing the mountain road, they went through nature at the bottom of a tall ravine between cliffs.

"Angravaaadaaaaa! Prepare the observatory diary!" Kivas with his pointy front limb and Ippon with his tongue pointed at an unknown giant rock turtle within the 12 meters perception range of the torch. "There is a giant rock turtle that may or may not be named yet!"

"They are called Don'tulga…"

Kivas didn't have any moment of being a Wildlife Biologist this time around, but he managed to hang out near an ancient chill turtle. If there were a camera in this world, Kivas would have taken a lot of pictures posing near the dangerous beak of the old and wise turtle.

He didn't get to name it, but he got a purple rock because of this encounter.

However, his next mountainous encounter seemed to be less peaceful than this one.

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