“Feil, are you sure you wouldn’t be better off giving up? That’s not going to get it to move.”
I heard Cyril rasping from somewhere far below.
I yelled back, half out of desperation, “The verses take up a whole ninety percent! It’s basically life-and-death!”
When I looked down at the bare bedrock below, I could see Cyril and Myfila, though from where I was standing, they looked like grains of rice.
This was what you’d call “towering heights.” I was pretty sure my current elevation was on par with Sedra Cathedral, which was the tallest building in town—a structure with breathtaking spires that towered over the region. If I fell from this height, I’d probably plummet for a good five seconds before becoming a pancake on the ground below.
A gust of wind from the wildlands whipped past me, billowing the hem of my robe.
“Ugh…”
I felt like I’d almost been whisked away along with the zephyr, which sent shivers down my spine. I’d buttoned my robe up, but there was a whole lotta fabric to catch in the wind. I started to really regret not dressing for the occasion before heading up.
“C’mon… Move, Pandora…”
I’d found purchase on a protrusion and used a strengthening spell to help with my grip.
“If you could just move…that’d be a miracle…”
I nimbly worked my way up, grabbing hold of the bluish-black wall before me.
But no matter how far I climbed, I still hadn’t caught sight of the peak. Even after strengthening myself three times over, scaling the wall was rapidly draining my stamina. I had no lifeline, and the sheer terror of the drop below was enough to make my heart plunge.
“Pandora, what’s your problem?! Seriously! I’m puttin’ my life on the line. Would it kill you to give me a sign of life or anything?!”
I huffed and puffed as I grumbled at the wall. I felt like I was dressing down a family member who had gotten out of control.
I suddenly stopped my ascent. “Pandora…,” I whined and set my forehead against the bluish-black surface. There was a strangeness to the texture. It was hard as steel yet felt weirdly moist. It was also smooth, kind of like skin.
“You’re so stubborn! You’re an even bigger problem child than I am!”
As I grumbled and turned up to the sky overhead, the afternoon light illuminated the gigantic form from behind.
It was like a steep cliff. Well, if the top of a cliff were rounded and looked a little like human shoulders.
“Sheesh…”
I tried to restart my climb and stuck my hand into the chalk bag on my belt to keep my hands from getting slippery.
Right at the perfect time, the strongest gust of all swept past me. I couldn’t hold on with just my right hand and watched as my fingertips were pried away from the part of the structure I was gripping. A moment later, I was blown high into the air.
Welp…I’m dead.
When I felt the chilly air on every inch of my body, I was convinced that this was the end for me. I reached toward the wall instinctively, but I was too far away no matter how I flailed my legs. I was consumed by fear. All the blood rushed to my head, and the back of my eye sockets throbbed.
I dropped from a dizzying height.
“Guh!”
…And suddenly, I felt my body hit something—the impact stole all the air from my lungs.
I coughed and looked down, realizing the scenery was traveling sideways instead of toward me. Everything around me seemed much darker, too.
I looked up to find the source of the shadow above me… My midriff was in the talons of a monstrous bird with what looked to be a wingspan of a whopping 10 mejals—1.7 mejals being the average height of a full-grown man.
The rainbow-winged bird had the gigantic face of a Steller’s sea eagle.
Black scales covered its claws, which were large enough to carry a calf, and continued all the way up to the bird’s torso, acting as fortification around the bird’s neck. It had the effect of making the bird look like it was wearing armor.
It wasn’t like I’d gotten lucky and a marvel of a monster bird happened to just pass by right when I needed one.
Obviously, this was one of Cyril’s summons.
As if to confirm my thought, I heard Cyril’s soothing voice come from the bird’s yellow beak.
“See? This is what happens when you’re reckless.”
Though the bird didn’t have human vocal cords, an ancient bird like this possessed enough magical ability to make such a feat seem trivial.
He must have summoned the bird to help as soon as he saw me lose my grip.
“Thanks, Cyril… You seriously saved my ass just now.”
“Don’t mention it. I understand why you’re so worked up. If Zylgar were in the same state, I probably would have tried everything I could, too.”
With a single flutter of its wings, the gigantic bird sailed along the air current. It was rising up in a large arc. Its rugged talons were giving me the creeps, but now that it was carrying me, I had a bird’s-eye view of the rocky terrain.
We were at the base of the barren Agona Mountain and right next to the sprawling desolate wildlands that stretched before it.
The land was to the south of the Academy, after crossing a mountain range. Some students would apparently use the area to test out spells that could result in wide-scale destruction, but it was generally free from prying eyes. Since the only way to get to it was with the aid of a winged summon, it was just the perfect place to handle a “big” secret on a day off like the weekend.
“Pandora looks as huge as ever…,” Cyril commented.
“Too huge, if you ask me. How the hell did I summon something like this…?”
Yes… This desolate area was the perfect stage to summon my Counterpart…
Cyril’s bird flew high into the air, easily achieving an altitude of over five hundred mejals.
At first glance, it seemed as though a bluish-black mountain had suddenly appeared to tower over the middle of the red bedrock. However, it was too smooth to be an actual mountain and too complex a shape to seem like a natural rock formation.
But who would have realized it was actually a gigantic humanoid life-form that had plopped itself down to sit in the middle of nowhere?
You couldn’t call this thing a mere giant, either. The creature’s entire body was covered by some exoskeleton composed of who-knows-what material.
It also wasn’t a god. With its head that looked something like a cross between an extravagant knight’s helmet and a dragon head; its torso, which perilously tapered in like some sort of upside-down triangle; and the forked tail that was too large and too long for its body, there was something sinister about every part of it.
It wasn’t a devil, either. I knew that because my Counterpart had ten misshapen wings that looked like gouts of black-and-blue flames along its back. Devils never had more than four wings.
“Well…it is Pandora, Legendary Beast of the Last Realm…,” Cyril came in again.
“I drew the short straw. I didn’t think somebody who’d pick a fight with the gods would answer my call… Honestly, I never even wanted this. There’s such a thing as too much, ya know. There’s only so much one person can take on.”
Standing up, Pandora could have been over three hundred mejals tall. Even sitting with his head drooping as it was now, he was still nearly a hundred and fifty. And just earlier, I’d been scaling the right arm of my Counterpart, the Legendary Beast of the Last Realm, Pandora.
I figured that if my life was in danger, he’d have to react… At least, that was the plan.
“He didn’t even flinch when you fell, Feil.”
“So I noticed…,” I said.
“Looks like another failed attempt.”
“I gathered that, too,” I said.
“I didn’t want to say this, but sometimes, you get to a point when you just have to cut your losses.”
“……I’ve realized that,” I said.
Cyril’s summon leisurely circled the top of Pandora’s head. When the head came into view, I almost averted my eyes. Pandora stayed seated, not moving an inch.
There hadn’t been any decisive battle with an all-powerful god and legendary beast here today. My Counterpart was in the same exact shape he’d been in since I summoned him in the morning…yet in spite of that, the left half of my summon’s head had been crushed to a pulp.
His thick exoskeleton had been crushed, too, and cracks spread far along his outer skin. It was almost as though someone had brought down a blunt weapon over his head. The deepest fissure in his exoskeleton armor reached all the way around to the back of his skull, exposing his brain matter for anyone to touch.
This had apparently happened a long, long time ago during some sort of conflict, when the elementals were still nobodies during the age of gods.
The legendary beast Pandora had challenged the gods above to a battle. After tearing several of them limb from limb, he’d finally succumbed to the Supreme God Zen’s thunderous hammer, which obliterated part of his head. After that, the surviving gods had entrusted all things in the world to the elementals, powerful beasts, and angels in order to spirit themselves away into retirement at the Garden of the Edge.
Every kid knew the famous legend, no matter what country they were raised in. Even I’d heard it time and again at the village temple. But still…
…I didn’t understand why my Counterpart was Pandora after he had been defeated by Zen.
Summoning was supposed to be a marvel that crossed time and space, so why was it that my partner had been summoned from that exact time?
This was a huge pain in the ass to deal with. In his current state, he was absolutely useless…but that wasn’t even the start of my actual problems.
“Come back, Feil.”
“You tried your best, Feil.”