Abyssal Awakening

Finding Torgeir in the main carriage, Alice could see him surrounded by reports and mails sent from the capital.

Raising her eyebrows, she couldn't help but wonder if he was getting overworked considering his sunken eyes and deep bags.

"You've recovered, congratulations." Torgeir forced a smile as he was still covered with bandages. Unlike Alice, they couldn't abuse the properties of Healing Vials without caring about the side effects. Thus, he drank a vial that sped up his natural healing and let his body do the rest of the work.

"Thank you~ Though it seems like your state is far worse than before. You still want to lead the expedition to the frontlines like this?" Alice asked curiously as she sat down and crossed her legs.

"My brothers and sisters in arms are still stuck on the frontlines. I can't stop now. If I do, who will pave a path back?" Torgeir shook his head with a sigh.

"But aren't there other commanders? I'm sure they can lead the charge no?"

"They're responsible for their own section. Since a retreat has been called, everyone will be busy. The queen has already sent down the order so we must obey." He explained while reading through some new letters.

Folding her arms, Alice thought about it for a moment before opening her mouth.

"You still need my help right? I'm pretty confident I can help since my body's recovered more than expected. Aside from that, has the request been approved by the capital or has it been ignored for now?" Alice asked.

Previously, she was promised assistance for her fifth Sigil, a catalogue, and a letter for him to send.

Since she no longer needed help with the fifth Sigil, she wanted to get some information on her meeting with the Lord of the Forge.

"How do I put it… It's up for debate right now. They have a favourable impression of you considering the stats that you showed last time. However, this is still a meeting with a Lord so it's also up to the Lord if he wants to accept." Torgeir admitted truthfully.

With the authority behind Abyss Lords, it was hard to have any nation force them to do what they wanted. After all, they have the option to just switch sides.

Thus, any request involved with a Lord is also heavily dependent on their mood.

"Well that's fine. If you can arrange a meeting I can convince him myself. Though if we're to do that, how about having my friend tag along? On the off chance that I convince the Lord, it wouldn't be bad to have Selen's equipment upgraded too." Alice grinned.

Hearing this, Torgeir's smile twitched. It was already one thing to have a Lord meet a person of unknown origin but now she also wants her friend of unknown origin to tag along?

If it wasn't for the fact that she had an absurdly high spirituality stat, this kind of request would've been rejected in a heartbeat.

He was sure that once Alice reached the capital, the elders would probably want to foster her into a Lord of Verona but knowing how Alice is, Torgeir doubted that was going to succeed. If anything, he wondered if Alice was going to cause a mess.

Just thinking of it gave him a headache.

"I'll pass on your request but no promises. As for the bestiary, it's still being made as we speak." Torgeir sighed.

"Fufu~ thank you~" Alice grinned, pulling out a fruit to eat while sitting in the carriage.

"So how long are we staying in Esna?"

"Few hours then we'll be moving in a small but powerful group. We don't need that much manpower since we're paving a path." Torgeir shook his head.

Speed was key to helping those on the frontline. They needed a small group that could travel fast enough while being powerful enough to wipe out any beasts that might get in their way.

"Any candidates in mind aside from myself?" Alice asked, taking another bite of the fruit.

"Please swallow properly before you speak. But yes, the group will consist of Me, you, Bo, Selen, Egil and Alfva who's the best healer we have right now. It's the best group I can think of without making it too big."

Hearing these names, Alice pieced together the formation in her mind. She recalled bits of Torgeir's fighting before she took down the fissure so it wasn't hard to imagine that he'd be on the frontlines behind Egil.

Egil will be taking the vanguard spot while Selen will be supporting with her time slows if things get out of hand. Out of all of them, Selen and the healer probably have the weakest offensive power.

Though… Considering the fact that it doesn't seem like Torgeir thinks the attack on the fissure was her doing, she's probably taking the role of support instead.

"Am I supporting from the back or acting as an attacker?" Alice asked as Torgeir contemplated for a moment.

"Where do you want to go?"

Alice was the one who knew her own strengths the best. Therefore, it was best to ask her since he never saw her fight.

"Give me the frontline position then. I'll help you pave the way." Alice grinned, finishing her fruit.

"And you said that speed was key, right?"

Tilting his head in confusion, Torgeir nodded his head.

"Alright, I'll go test out of a few things while we wait then. See you soon." Alice chuckled as Torgeir felt a chill down his spine but he didn't know why.

###

Licking her fingers, Alice created a small hollow orb above her hand and snapped her finger. A tether appeared in front of it as the orb was flung into the Void thanks to her fourth Sigil.

An opening appeared a little further out as the orb was spat out far faster than it entered. But she wasn't done.

Creating another anchor and having the tether link to it, the orb was spun around before being thrown into the Void once more.

Recalling her experience from escaping the Inverted World, Alice had wanted to make some adjustments to her… Transport system.

With her understanding of the Void improving a little thanks to her uses of the Artifact, she understood a new concept that she'd like to call warp nodes.

Compared to reality, the Void was far more confusing as two points might not necessarily be next to one another. One step might take you countless miles while sometimes travelling miles may only result in half a step.

For others, it was hard to properly pinpoint where the Void may take you. Which is why Alice had an idea. To send out pulses of energy to these nodes and send them out to reality. While this is happening, she'll anchor a node where they entered thus she could judge how far they travelled and in what direction.

With this system of constantly referencing where they entered and where they exited, she'll be able to fling them across the land in record breaking speeds.

Of course, since this was still a prototype, there's no telling what could happen. There wasn't any safety put in place either so passengers will feel the full effects of being flung around reality and the Void.

But if she could handle it, she's sure the others can as well.

Just thinking of it reignited the sadistic fire within her as Alice giggled to herself.

"That's not f*cking ominous at all." Selen's smile twitched seeing Alice making her way back while giggling to herself.

"Ah ahem~ Nothing~" Alice waved it off.

"Bullsh*t." But Selen wasn't buying it at all.

"You'll find out later ahah. But Torgeir mentioned that it's up to the Lord of the Forge if I can bring you along or not. So we'll just have to do our jobs and see how it goes." Alice changed the subject.

Selen was still a little suspicious but it didn't seem like Alice was going to reveal what she's been planning so Selen didn't say anything.

After a short break, the caravan resumed their journey towards Esna as no beasts ambushed the them at all since this was a protected route.

It's been regularly maintained and beasts have learned to avoid this place.

###

Upon arriving at Esna, Alice could see that it was similar to Kvia with a river next to the outpost. However, compared to Kvia, it was far larger with more routes branching out to more parts of the frontline.

Alice noticed that many of them were rather injured as well and came to the conclusion that Kvia wasn't unique in the case of the ambush.

Though unlike Kvia, the other locations didn't have someone nuking the fissure.

As they pulled into the outpost, Torgeir immediately got to work procuring supplies for their rescue mission while Alice gathered some information about what had happened in the other outposts.

Just by eavesdropping, Alice already understood that most of the outposts were attacked. Though their fissures were temporary since they were able to stop it rather quickly.

Kvia had it the worse since not only did it lead to Terminus, they had also lost a lot of their men due to the attack on the port stronghold.

Had it not been for that, they might've had an easier time.

[Ah…] Cayla suddenly spoke up as Alice glanced over.

'What's up?'

[I just realised something… Perhaps the Abyss Break led to Terminus because you were there…]

Hearing this, Alice paused.

'What do you mean?'

[Well… You do have the Heart, the Crown and the Eye of the Abyss all in one body. While I might be sealed, the others are not.] Cayla coughed.

If it wasn't for Alice's presence, the Abyss Break would've just picked a random layer instead of the deepest prison.

'You've got to be kidding me…' Alice's smile twitched.

If this was true, it meant that it was probably going to be impossible to avoid abnormal situations.

At this point, all Alice wanted now was just a normal adventure with nothing abnormal for a holiday but it seemed hopeless.

Abnormality was in her veins after all.