noveldrama
Chapter 82 Hope
Chapter 82 Hope
Rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration, Veer muttered, "This damned mist!"
It brainwashed him whenever he let his guard down, and even if he was careful, it subtly influenced his mind. It was just a small thing to not realise the oddity, yet it had almost cost him his precious life.
"No! Now is not the time to think about this," Veer cleared his head and held his breath, trying to have as much clarity as possible so he wouldn't forget anything on his part.
As he went through everything again, he tried to find anything strange with the things he experienced. Maybe there was something connecting the Dark Slates with the time loop.
'The wheat is deadly... it cannot burn and it so restores in every loop. But that's to be expected, even the Scarecrows lose their mark I put on them,' Veer looked around him, at the farm field which had haunted him for the last three months.
Wheat and Scarecrows. There was nothing else. There had to be something with it.
'Wait! System, why didn't I notice it?' he suddenly thought of how the system was supposed to evolve in a week's time. And it had been three months.
"So the system is working according to normal time, which should be paused or something?" Veer muttered, as he stood up.
He spared a moment to praise the creator of this place. It wasn't dangerous directly since there weren't powerful magic creatures. But it was much more than that.
Then, he was once again back at analysing his surroundings. He narrowed his eyes at the Scarecrows, "The pattern... is it because of Rune Formation?"
It was possible. The Dark Slates would be the core of it, keeping the formation alive. And since he took it, they stopped working.
After some thoughts, Veer stepped forward and went close to one of the Scarecrows. His breathing still stopped, as he didn't want any hindrance.
Arriving near one of the wooden dolls, he looked at it with curiosity. Those sinister eyes were gone, replaced by darkness. How did they attack?
Veer wondered and looked around it, touching it to see if there was any hidden mechanism.
"Oh! What is this?" Veer raised an eyebrow, as he took off the back piece of the Scarecrow. There was a small rectangular gap there, matching very eerily with the Dark Slates.
After a momentary relief, he thought, 'Are we supposed to put them here? Isn't it just stupid?'
However, he noticed a problem. As he raised his head, he counted all the Scarecrows in the field farm. One, two... ten... fifty.
A total of fifty Scarecrows stood in the farm field. And he only had twenty of those.
"Questions, indeed, and just more questions," Veer shook his head and went back to the blind spot of the farm. There, he sat down and took out a notebook and a pen.
He didn't start immediately, as he closed his eyes and threw away every wisp of mist outside of his body. Only then, he began inscribing on the paper.
The mist had already affected him twice and he wasn't going to take any more risky chances. First, he wrote everything he had observed till now, then he began writing about the patterns of every farm he could remember.
It took some time, but he was able to get everything right. He thanked his great memory and smiled, "Now, time to conquer this time loop."
After packing everything, Veer was once again ready to go on an adventure.
But, he had a lead now.
A grin formed on his face, as a maddening glint passed through his eyes, "Heh, do you truly think you can trap me here. Good! Very good!"
With that, he clenched his metal sword's hilt tightly and took off. He was going for a hunt, in which he wouldn't stop until he found a solution to this problem. Stay connected via empire
As he had the help from his notebook, it didn't take long for him to cover the farms. But it did exhaust him greatly since he didn't rest in any of the farms.
Constant attacks, constant dodging, it was getting instinctive now. But it still put a toll on his body.
At the end of the day, or at least what he considered to be the day, he finally covered the rest of thirty farms and collected their Dark Slates.
Once again, he was laying in the yellow farm field, looking at the twin moons as if they were smashing into each other.
"Maybe it is not three months..." Veer sighed, as he figured out something. "Maybe the mist was messing with my sense of time too."
But it also posed a lot of questions. Why were his food reserves getting exhausted if it was a time loop? It didn't make sense.
"How much food did I bring again?" Veer thought of all the ridiculous things to keep his mind sane. "Ah! Maybe it was just three months... or maybe a year... I did keep a lot of it."
He kept muttering to himself, trying his best to fight against the mental fatigue and pressure. It was hard, forcing him to wonder if he would be sane by the time he got out.
Finally, when his rest was over, he had his last meal. As he ate the last Synth Soup, he thought, 'What a strange place. I am eating this without throwing up.'
After finishing his meal, he stood up with eyes burning in resolve and determination, with a flicker of something else too. He had made a promise with his wives, and he needed to get out of this hell to fulfill it.
And he would do it.
Then, Veer made some space, cutting the wheat plants away and placed the fifty Dark Slates on the ground. Every single one of them held a different pair of Runes. And he recognised just one of them.
The direction Rune.
"Now, how should I place them into these fearsome wooden monsters?"
He tried to think of some pattern in this, unfortunately he found nothing. Only if he understood these Runes, it would have been much better.
In the end, he just put them randomly. And he regretted his decision almost instantly. The eyes of these Scarecrows lit up with the same but much more intense sinister glow.
"I'll truly be damned!"