Galen - The Untold Tales of Frelanna Forest

Chap 17: Iresthea and Cirion

***Galen’s POV***

Saeza entered the dining room. He was carrying a mountain of books and paper scrolls, they were put on the top of a weird looking magic device. I believed that it could be one of his newest inventions again.

That magic device looked so huge and heavy, so I panicked when seeing it almost drop on Saeza’s head. With the wooden knife in my hand, I cast “resurrection”. The vines grew from my knife, slipped on the floor, and held back the magic device up.

“Yare yare, nice reaction, Galen. I have this compliment for you.” Saeza told me while scratching his messy hair.

“You are welcome.” I help him transport the giant magic device in the room “But please, don’t be so careless like this, supposedly I have to call you great great great great grandpa now right?”

“You are underestimating my power, my boy?” Saeza gave me a chill to the spine when he threw me an angry glance “Remember, even if you are now stronger than before, but I can snap your a*s away from this island with just one single hit if you dare to tease me again. Understand?”

I nodded my head intensively, while cold sweat hiddenly rolled down at my back. What a grumpy old man… I meant old dragon he is, I thought. It was ok when he teased me, so why cannot I tease him back?

…

Phew, what heavy that magic device is, I gave a sigh and wiped the sweat on my forehead after finishing bringing the magic device to the center of the shelter. That magic device was created with solid metal covering outside. That device has the height reaching my waist, with the shape looking like a casual metal round table having gorgeous silver color. On top of the device – which is the table’s surface, there are so many magic patterns moving around, glowing a beautiful light of aurora’s color.

“Okay, now Liana, Galen, Frank, listen me well. This magic device that I just newly created is for searching Iresthea and Cirion so we save a lot of time searching where they are. I will name it THE AURA RADAR.”

Liana and I stared at him with a confused face.

“Old man, I have to admit: You are bad at naming.” I straight forward told him.

“Tsk… Yare yare, let it be, please. It seems the more you grow up, the more you are willing to die right?”

I tried to hold my giggle when seeing Saeza’s grumpy face staring at me, as if he would like to turn into a dragon and eat me alive. Of course, different than one year ago, I’m not a baby-crying kid anymore so I will keep teasing him like how he did to me back then.

And even if he seriously would be going to kill me. With my experience fighting with Liana, I would counter him immediately.

“Ok back to my main topic, kids. And watch it carefully.”

Saeza said, his hand gently touched on the magic device’s surface and activated it. At this moment, I was fascinated by the magic patterns that glowed up and floated on the table. Their cyan light color printed on my irises without blinking, since my mind was totally captured by its magnificence.

The atmosphere inside the shelter had become colder and colder, that my body began trembling while I just wore a thin shirt.

I was embarrassed when Liana noticed my current state. Under the table surface, her hand gently held mine, she was using her fire magic to warm me up.

“Aye hehe, you don’t have to hide me, Galen.”

I know! But you know Liana… HOW CAN I ASK YOU TO WARM ME UP WITHOUT LETTING YOU MISUNDERSTAND?!

My attention then rapidly changed to what was happening in front of my eyes. The map of the entire world appeared and surrounded us like a beautiful sphere made by ice. All of us were sitting at the middle of the sphere, so we could see the entire world in this such small shelter.

“Wow… this is amazing...” Frank and Liana sparkled their eyes and looked around.

“This is our entire world map. The area can be seen by our mortal eyes. I cannot design the invisible one yet since I don’t have enough aura energy to do that.” Saeza said “Ok, now I will raise the sensibility of this magic device.”

Saeza used both his hands, rotated the round magic patterns glowing on the table, by following the clockwise. The world around us slowly appeared the red dots gently flickering, located randomly on each of the lands being printed on the sphere’s surface.

“What are these red dots?” I asked Saeza.

“Those red dots symbolize the living having aura energy.” Seza answered “Now we are seeing Tier 2 Mode, means any living beings containing average-high tier of aura energy will be shown as those red dots, usually they are high mages being well educated.”

“Wow.”

“Now, let me change to Tier 5 Mode.”

It meant the amount of aura energy of a dragon or rare human who was gifted to become a mage since their birth. I could see most of the red dots disappeared, only a few stayed glowing on the map.

What even surprised me now. I could notice the red dots concentrating mostly at a land… looking like a crescent moon. It meant the dragons were gathered into that land?

“That land is Tenica Continent, is also the land where we are living now.”

“Ah I see!”

But why did the land on the other side of the world map had so few dragons or gifted mages?

“I don’t know. I haven’t ever had a chance to go there so I don’t know how that land looked like, I just know its name, which is Larub Continent. Maybe the reason is, the magical species like elves, dragons, half-beasts don’t exist at that continent like ours, so magic at there is lesser developed there.”

“A land without magic…?” Liana was like being hypnotized.

“Yare… we can say so.”

Saeza continued rotating the table. He had changed the filter of the world map to Tier 9 Mode…

All the dots had disappeared. And only showed a unique one…

…don’t tell me, they are…

“Yare yare exactly as you are thinking, my boy.” Saeza smiled with confidence “That dot is from Iresthea.”

“You are a genius, Saeza!” Frank sparkled his eyes with admiration.

“I don’t understand one thing.” Liana asked “Goddess Galadriel said that she couldn’t contact Iresthea and Cirion. Then how does she contact them usually if she doesn’t use aura?”

“Yare yare, we can only do it by asking Galadriel by ourselves. But it’s better if we should not know about her too much.”

“I understand…” Like Liana, I felt a little disappointed too.

Then, a question suddenly popped up in my mind: Since this map has detected for us Iresthea. How about Cirion? Why this map cannot find where he is?

“There are three theories.” Saeza was thinking then responded

First, the core of Cirion is currently weakened to the point that he cannot be found on the map anymore. In the worst case, his core can be dead as well.

Second, the aura energy of Cirion is in an abnormal form that beyond the knowledge of Saeza to design the magic device, so he cannot find where Cirion is.

Third, also the scariest one, his core has been stolen and brought to another world that mortal species like humans cannot reach to. In this case, there will never be any way to retrieve and resurrect him! And my mission would be failed from the start.

“Let’s hope that the third case won’t happen.” Saeza said “But now, let’s take care of what we can do. We have to get Iresthea’s Core and resurrect her.”

“We understand.”

*** Liana’s POV ***

We don’t have any time to waste anymore. So right after detecting where Iresthea is, Galen and I rushed ourselves to prepare the baggage and ready on our way to go to the destination.

However, before that, we also got the information from Saeza.

“I think our mission would be completed easily, kids. According to my world map, The Core of Iresthea is located at Mothien Kingdom at the south of Tenica Contient.”

Mothien Kingdom…

Mothien Kingdom…

Why do I feel this name is so familiar…?

Ah yes I remember! This kingdom has a unique territory! When I was still an adventurer wandering around the continent, Mothien Kingdom was the only territory I never got attacked by human even I flew through their capital area.

In the reverse, the reality is even crazier: The dragons there are found literally everywhere. And they are even living with the human inside that kingdom as well.

“Wait what did you say, Liana? Human and dragon live together at there?”

Galen looked at me with roundly opened eyes. Actually, it’s not surprising if he reacted like this. For a reason, even I was surprised as well at the first time flying to that kingdom. Supposedly, dragons and humans are enemies of each other. So hearing a kingdom where dragons and humans collaborate… sounded so suspicious yet unbelievable too.

That was the kingdom where I casually came most of the time in order to buy stuff from humans or listen to their information. I never thought… that country would be where our first life mission is located at.

It seemed an easy start for us then. Since I know very well Mothien Kingdom, we can invade to find Iresthea’s Core easier.

“But be careful, Liana, Galen.”

I looked at Saeza. Why do we have to be careful?

“Do not underestimate your job, kids.” Saeza lowered his tone “Look at the world map.”

We looked at the location of Mothien Kingdom on the giant ice sphere’s surface, distanced right in front of our eyes by less than half of meter. There was a red dot glowing there which symbolize the aura energy of Iresthea’s Core.

Seaze changed the settings of the world map, by lowering the tier until Tier 7 Mode.

And the fact that appeared on the world map had frozen Galen and my body.

Because we also saw a second red dot located right at Mothien Kingdom as well.

“As you can see, kids. I guess in that kingdom, there is someone who owns aura energy - Tier 7 Rank. It meant that person can instantly kill you two by just a snap.”

This is not good… My heart kept racing faster and faster as I can see the red dot of Tier 7 aura energy appearing near the signal of Iresthea’s Core. Without Saeza’s warning, I would believe it’s an easy mission that can be finished in less than a week.

I looked at Galen. Unlike me, he was standing, staring at Mothien Kingdom map with serious eyes while crossing his arms. This body language of his, I know it means that he is thinking about something.

“Saeza, I understand. Liana, Frank and I will be careful.”

Has Galen found a solution to how to do that?

“Still, I want to suggest you two my suggestion. It’s better if you two do that mission without being noticed by that person. Try to hide as carefully as possible. If your identity is revealed, you both will be doomed.”

Then, Saeza took from his bag something looking like a notebook and gave it to each of us. Obviously, it was a notebook having the size of my hand only. But its red-colored cover is made by animal skin, inlaid on it was the drawing made by gold, of the dragon spreading wings, hugged a building looking like a temple.

Galen and I tried to take a look inside. There is our profile picture with two identities: My name is Alice Valentine and Galen’s name is Gerald Barrister.

“Keep them carefully for me, please. What I just gave you is Mothien’s Pass to enter that kingdom.” Saeza said, while begin smoking “They will be your new name to do the first mission.”

“Thank you very much, Saeza!”

Saeza is really a genius that he literally can do anything! I believe!

…

Next morning, it was when we were ready to depart to Mothien Kingdom.

In front of Saeza’s shelter. I gently stepped barefoot to the empty ground. Looking at the familiar scenery that we were going to say goodbye to, I felt a little pain in my chest. For a reason, I used to see it as my house, living with uncle Saeza, with Galen. Despite it being just one year, but to me, it was too precious.

I closed my eyes, ready to transform myself into the dragon form. My body shined bright a ray of white light, grew bigger and bigger.

“Roar!!!” As I could feel my power had been back. I roared with satisfaction, the fire around my body was like supporting my overwhelming will. It burned my body, blew my body up like a living torch. As the fire stopped, my transformation had been completed, as the fire formed into the red hot scale to protect my body.

I lowered my body so Galen could equip me with the dragon riddle, designed by Saeza himself. With only two of our small bags for necessary personal stuff as our baggage, it was actually enough for us for the journey.

“Finally, we are going to get out of this island!”

“Yeah.”

After climbing on my back, Galen and I looked at the island for the last time.  

“Ready, kids?”

Saeza asked us from behind. In order to research and find where Cirion is, Saeza had decided to not follow us. He would stay on this island while we do our first mission.

“Yes!!” Both Galen and I responded.

“Very well, good luck to you two then, Alice, Gerald…

…BLIZZARD!!!”

I heard Saeza shouting his magic spell. A pillar of ice beam shot directly to the sky, pierced through the layer of ominous purple-colored cloud, and opened for us the escape way in the middle.

My dragon eyes got dazzled when looking up above. It was sunlight… so nostalgic! It had been a year we hadn’t seen it!

With a flap of wings, I dragged Galen and Frank up above, aimed right at the origin of the sunlight, and flew through the thick miasma cloud…

“Mothien Kingdom, here we come!!”