Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)
Chapter 361: Beacons in the Darkness

The next day, our new teacher returned to the bakery. She was no longer flanked by two bodyguards - she looked just like any other middle-aged woman coming to our shop to buy a loaf of bread. Coincidentally, Anise and I were in the front of the store, so we saw her as she strolled in. She gave both of us a friendly smile.

“Hey girls, glad to see you again. How have you been?” she asked.

I frowned. Something about her tone felt different from yesterday, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what it was. Some of the hope in her eyes had dimmed. Because we, the heroes, weren’t strong enough to do what was needed and protect the city.

I felt a bit bad about that, but there was really nothing I could do.

“Could you get your mother and father for me? I want to start our first lesson, but I don’t think this is the right room for it. And your mother wants you two to stay in this building for your lessons, since you’re so young.”

“Got it!” Anise said, before she ran out of the room. The elderly woman took a seat, and since I wasn’t sure what to do, I took a seat next to her.

The two of us didn’t say anything as we sat there in silence for a few moments, before the old woman sighed.

“Miria… do you think there’s any chance that you’ll get a lot stronger in the future? Or that your unknown magic systems can do something truly amazing? I know that you might not have all of the information you need yet, but… just… as a general guess?”

I blinked.

“Well, I know for a fact that Anise and I will get some sort of boost when we turn fifty,” I said. “The hero staircase that was located in front of the tree is apparently supposed to give us some sort of power boost. But it said we weren’t old enough yet, and that we should come back when we turned fifty.”

Elder Veridian’s eyes brightened.

“So you will get stronger?”

“Yes. I don’t know how much of a boost it will give us, but I expect it will help, at least.”

The old woman’s eyes flicked towards the massive trunk of the tree, which was easily visible even over the other buildings in the city. She eyes glittered with hope for a moment, although it was far more muted than it had been during our last meeting.

“I suppose we’ll just have to see what happens,” she said.

A few moments later, Anise returned with our parents. Elder Veridian described the kind of room we needed, before my mother nodded.

“We have a room in the back where we usually store ingredients. It still has a few sacks of flour in it, but it’s mostly empty,” said my mother. “We’ll get something a bit more sturdy set up next time. I’m sorry, I didn’t think about the environment you needed for training.”

“It shouldn't be too big of a deal. We aren’t going to do anything too complicated for our first few lessons,” said Elder Veridian.

Our teacher led us towards the flour storage room, while my father flitted about the area. Within a minute, he had three reasonably comfortable chairs and a table set up, as well as a few loaves of bread for us to munch on if we got hungry. I smiled, and gave my father a big hug as he was making his way out of the room. His gaze softened as he hugged me back, before he left.

Our new teacher cleared her throat.

“All right, it’s time for our first lesson. Regardless of what you end up doing in the future, I want to start out by talking about the heroes of the past. As important as learning new spells and abilities are, the first thing you need to learn about is the responsibility of a hero. Heroes are important to us. In the days before we were exiled from the planet, heroes were responsible for keeping the world safe. I’m sure you already knew that… but the specifics are less commonly studied today. In short, this world is divided in two. There is the bright world, which contains the planet, the sanctuaries, and even the distant stars in the sky. Then, there is the Otherworld. It is a sort of… second layer of reality. There are dozens of portals to the otherworld scattered about the surface of the planet. In the old days, Heroes would delve into the Otherworld, harvest certain resources found there, and bring them back, before those resources were made into ‘beacons.’ These beacons drastically weakened any traces of the hive that were nearby, thus ensuring that the world always remained mostly safe. Of course, the great hive still sometimes launched invasions through the portals…” Lady Veridian shrugged. “But they were pretty manageable. After all, each hero would usually kill huge chunks of the hive every time they entered the otherworld.”

Anise and I nodded. I hadn’t been aware of any portals to the ‘otherworld’ until now. Perhaps the topic hadn’t been relevant for Anise and I? In any case, it was good to know how things had worked before the collapse.

“What changed?” asked Anise.

“Nobody is quite sure. One day, new heroes stopped being born. It took a long time for civilization to fall afterwards, because we held out for quite a while. But without new beacons, and with the hive growing constantly stronger, eventually an invasion punched through the defenses surrounding each portal. From there, our people were rapidly driven back, until less than a year later, we were reduced to groups of bedraggled refugees fleeing into the skies,” said Elder Veridian. “The old heroes tried to help, of course - not all of them had died of old age yet. But they just didn’t have the numbers to manage. Worse, some of the heroes… did not behave very well during our final days on the surface of the world. They did not act as heroes should have. Though I suppose it didn’t matter much, in the end.”

I winced. Most of the people who had reincarnated here had probably paid for the privilege of doing so. Once heroes stopped being born, at least some of them had probably guessed that something was wrong in the Market. Given that, I wasn’t surprised that some of them had freaked out and responded poorly, especially as danger erupted and their lifespan drew to  a close. I also wondered if some former members of the Market had ‘slipped through the cracks,’ so to speak. It looked like most members of the Market had died rapidly after an invasion or some sort of catastrophe struck. However, what happened to Market members who were still alive? Did they return and get wiped out, or did they return long enough after the invasion to dodge the catastrophe?

An interesting question, and one that I planned to discuss with the others later.

“Why didn’t non-heroes build beacons?” Anise asked. “Surely someone else wanted to fight? Or an army or something?”

Elder Veridian sighed.

“They tried. We have a record of several attempts to enter the Otherworld, grab the beacon materials, and retreat. However, most attempts failed. The environment of the otherworld is very difficult - it is, apparently, a type of fog that slips into the skin and devours the essence of anyone who comes into contact with it. If they don’t have essence, it instead devours their body, until they die. Then, the nearest portion of the great hive will take their corpse and…” Elder Veridian cleared her throat. “Well, you don’t need to know. The point is, the environment is very hostile. Several attempts were made to mitigate this problem, such as creating glass suits to fend off the effects of this hostile mist. Some even succeeded - at least temporarily. But it was almost as if the mist was sapient. Anytime a ‘countermeasure’ worked, the mist would find a way to break that countermeasure, unless that countermeasure was a stronger hero. Glass suits prevented the fog from devouring the military, but three months later, the fog started passing through glass as if it were thin air.” Elder Veridian shivered. “Several people suspect that the mist itself is somehow part of the great hive. While this theory has never been proven, it makes a great deal of sense.”

I narrowed my eyes, and glanced at Anise, who looked back at me with a widened, horrified expression.

 Both of us had a sneaking suspicion that this mist was not even remotely natural. The corporation that had set up this world wanted to give transmigrators a proper ‘hero’ experience, right? Well… in that case, it was obvious that setting up as many obstacles as possible for the natives was important. That way, the world was inherently reliant on heroes to keep surviving. A mist that somehow countered every attempt to deal with it, but left heroes largely unscathed… that sounded pretty suspicious to me.

“Wouldn’t the mist still weaken heroes?” I asked.

“Apparently, it did, but the mist had a hard time invading the essence of a hero. Nobody knows why,” said Elder Veridian.

“So what does that mean for us?” I asked. “I don’t think we can survive a journey to the surface to make a new beacon.”

Elder Veridian chuckled. “Nobody wants you to return to the surface, Miria. Well… almost nobody.” she cleared her throat. “The city had a few ideas about what we hope you can do. First, we were hoping that you could assist us in building another sanctuary. The more great trees there are, the more essence generation the population as a whole has. Even if each sanctuary has a different ruler, we all work together when we can.” Elder Veridian grimaced. “Although there is some bickering. Each great tree takes a great deal of essence to nurture and grow, and we’ve never managed to muster the required essence. Our spare essence reserves were simply never sufficient to succeed.” Then, the woman’s right eye twitched. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, though. Your essence generation is too low to make a meaningful impact on the growth needs of a great tree. It’s hopeless.”

I sighed in relief. When we had observed the meeting of the elders last time, they had said they wouldn’t send us on a hopeless mission to the surface, but it was good to have reassurance. I didn’t want to try the surface unless we had an actual chance of success.

Elder Veridian chuckled. “The point is, you and Anise are rather… unusual for heroes. You’ve said that you will grow much stronger when you turn fifty, but the other elders and I don’t think it’s a good idea to waste that much time. You two can’t fulfill the ‘proper’ duty of heroes, so I’m going to train you two in two different things. I’m going to teach you more ‘normal’ spellcasting from the city, in hopes that you two can find some way to piece together a better and more effective combat style. This is my own personal directive. I know that you two can only help with weaker raids right now, and that might not change… but I don’t want you to have no hope of growth. Even if it’s slim, I still have some hope that you might find a way to truly turn things around for the sanctuaries as a whole.

“Apart from that, I’m going to teach you two a few more ceremonial roles - such as parades, celebrations, and Miria’s healing. This is under the orders of the king. Heroes are still a symbol of hope for everyone. While Morale might not change the reality of our situation too much, it can still help.” Elder Veridian’s expression darkened, although it was subtle enough that I barely caught it. “I was hoping that founding another sanctuary would be possible… or that there might be another path to truly turn things around. But right now, it doesn’t look like that’s possible. But I still have hope”

I sighed, before I nodded. 

A moment later, Elder Veridian’s expression brightened again. “With that in mind, I have at least a basic understanding of all of the major spellcasting systems still used today. Would you two like to try learning some real magic?”

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