Surviving as a Broken Hero

Chapter 21 – Fire and Flames (4)

It was more accurate to say that the pillar of light itself was the relic.

It reached up to the ceiling on the first floor, easily twice as tall as I was.

The relic cast faint golden rays of illumination around the room from a pillar of some sort of semi-translucent, crystal-like substance.

Rodrig motioned at the relic.

“Well… There it is. To be honest, there really isn’t much for me to do with it other than observe it. It’s remained constant for as long as I can remember…”

While I was observing the relic, a message popped up on a System menu before me.

{{Relic of the Gold

The relic was given to the villagers many years ago to protect them in their time of trouble. Though long-lasting, it was never meant to be a permanent solution.

Effects:

Holds the impending destruction at bay.

Channels the destruction into a protective shield in a certain radius around itself.

The power of the Gold can be harnessed for a variety of purposes, though care should be taken not to become consumed by the Gold.

Durability: 7/100}}

‘Hold the destruction at bay?’

I also wasn’t sure what, exactly, the so-called ‘power of the Gold’ could be used for. It seemed like a bad idea to try to haphazardly mess with something that was keeping the massive meteor that constantly hung overhead at bay and also protecting the village from monsters.

However, the low durability of the relic was also of great concern.

I had some role to play in all of it, of that much I was certain.

While we waited for the chief to catch up with us, Rodrig informed me some of what he knew as the Lorekeeper.

Rodrig himself wasn’t a mage in the sense that I knew from the System, but he did have some limited capacity to perform minor magics like ambiently enhancing plant growth, promoting healing, summoning light, and so on, all granted through texts in the Tome he carried around everywhere with him.

He had been born knowing that he would become a Lorekeeper, just as the girl I had seen before, Mia, knew that she was to one day become the chief.

It wasn’t long before the doors creaked open again and the chief entered, accompanied by Mia, who continued to watch me with a curious gaze.

* * *

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* * *

After regrouping, we moved up to the second floor of the relic building, where sparse rooms and a kitchen waited.

We gathered around a table just large enough for all of us and had a meal consisting primarily of the fruits that grew on the trees around the village before the chief showed me to one of the rooms, little more than a cubicle just large enough for a straw mattress, and we retired for the night while I went over the day’s events in my head.

I lay on the hard mattress, contemplating. While the outside wall of the building was stone, the room I was in was formed of wood that had been cut to connect and wedge firmly against the ceiling in pillars that were placed directly adjacent to each other to form the rooms, leaving a somewhat dry, wooden scent to the air.

The room was fairly warm, as was the temperature there in general. I couldn’t be sure if it was from the flaming meteor that constantly hung in the sky or if it was just a warm area or season where the village was located.

I could see by the light of a faint illumination stone attached to the end of a sturdy stick that was placed in a sconce just next to the flimsy wooden door. It was evident that, while the outsides of the relic building had been created to withstand assault, the insides were much less sturdy.

As I counted the cracks in the stone ceiling above me, tracing them with my eyes as my mind sorted all of the new information I had learned, a faint knock sounded at my door.

Tap, tap, tap.

It was a quiet, muffled knock, as if whoever was knocking was trying to be as silent as possible.

“Hello?”

I shifted into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, looking at the door.

‘Who could be knocking at this hour?’

It was already well into the night. I had simply had trouble sleeping in such a new environment.

The door cracked open a bit, absent of any sort of locking mechanism.

“Hi… It’s me… Mia.”

The girl only cracked the door just enough to speak to me in a hushed voice. Neither of us could see each other yet.

“Can I come in for a moment? I wanted to talk to you.”

I scratched at the back of my head. My interactions with her thus far had been either her talking about me in excitement or her being awkward and avoiding any eye contact or conversation. It had been clear that the chief had spoken to her about something after our initial meeting.

“Sure…”

It wouldn’t hurt to at least hear what the girl had to say.

The door creaked open the rest of the way. She was still dressed in her day clothes, twirling her finger through her raven black hair. She quickly stepped into the room and eased the door shut behind her, her other hand tightly shut, resting just in front of her thighs as she stood ramrod straight, awkwardly avoiding my gaze.

‘Oh no…’

I imagined a scenario where she would profess her love to me after idolizing me in her mind as a “hero” for her entire life. Would she suggest we run away? Would she shed tears? I had vague memories of such situations from the shows and books I had watched back on Earth.

“Sir Hero…”

I prepared myself to reject her. It would never work out—her feelings for me weren’t real, and I wouldn’t be able to take her with me when I left. Moreover, even if I could take her, she didn’t have a System to help her and would likely be a liability.

“What is it like where you come from?”

‘There it is…’

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think it would work out.”

“…”

We had spoken at almost the same time.

Luckily, my words had become mixed with hers, so she probably wouldn’t have understood what I said anyway.

Ahem.

I cleared my throat with a loud sound to interrupt the awkward silence.

“Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Where you come from… what is it like?”

She was still looking down at the ground, not making eye contact with me. It occurred to me then that she might have felt fear or awe rather than what I had initially thought.

“Well… It is kind of like your village, but without the storm to keep people contained. The land goes on as far as the eye can see, and many similar such villages and much larger cities are scattered about.”

A smile crept onto her face, tugging at the edges of her mouth.

“So… like the stories we had from before?”

I was guessing she was referring to the history that the Lorekeeper, Rodrig, had shown me. A world where people could freely shape the elements.

“Yes… Somewhat…”

“…”

She was still standing awkwardly in the doorway.

“You can sit down, you know…”

Slide.

The girl leaned against the door and slid down into a sitting position, knees in front of her face.

“…Can you show me?”

“Show you what?”

“Your powers… The book says one of the warriors blessed with Gold would return to us someday from a land far beyond.”

‘Does she mean my earth abilities?”

I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to show her. It wasn’t like my earth ability was limited by mana or would take much from me.

Skrrr.

I summoned the earth from my core, making the process as slow as I could so that she could see the stone growing over my skin as if it were flowing from my pores.

The tiny stones ground together and cracked against each other into a tight-fitting gauntlet around my hand. It was my first time noticing it, but I also realized that I was able to control the fit of the gauntlet to a much greater extent when I slowed the formation of the stone.

It was hard to explain, but I was able to condense the stones more tightly together, and the resulting gauntlet not only fit tighter around my hand as a result but also felt firmer, the resulting material much closer to stone than earth. The cracks between the conjoined stones were thin to the point that it almost looked like one surface.

“Does it hurt?”

She asked me, eyes wide as she leaned close to stare at the stone that had formed around my hand.

I shook my head at her question.

“Not at all… It actually feels pretty natural, almost like flexing a muscle.”

After that, she asked me more about how I had gained my power and about the world I had come from. We talked well into the night, until she left the room and I fell into a sound sleep.

***

“Wake up!”

THUD, THUD, THUD!

I awoke to a pounding at the door of my room.

The door flew open, and Rodrig stuck his head into the room.

“Sir Hero! The artifact!”

His voice was panicked and he gestured with his head, motioning for me to follow him.

I wasn’t sure how long I had slept, but the foggy haze over my mind told me that it wasn’t enough.

I stumbled out of the room, following him down into the artifact room where the chief and Mia were already waiting, anxiously looking at the artifact.

{{Relic of the Gold

The relic was given to the villagers many years ago to protect them in their time of trouble. Though long-lasting, it was never meant to be a permanent solution.

Effects:

Holds the impending destruction at bay.

Channels the destruction into a protective shield in a certain radius around itself.

The power of the Gold can be harnessed for a variety of purposes, though care should be taken not to become consumed by the Gold.

Durability: 6/100}}

The artifact’s durability had decreased overnight, meaning the village likely had less than a week left.

As if that wasn’t enough, there was more pounding at the doors of the artifact room from outside along with muffled voices.

“The village is under attack!”