"Hmm..." Sarah ran her hands along the strangely organic black wall.

  "Any ideas on what it is? All I know is that it's creepy as hell."

  "Well, um, it's full of blood, so it's definitely alive."

  "Wait, blood?" Yuji walked over to the wall and focused his senses on the inside of it. "Ah, you're right... But I don't think I would have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out."

  Sarah smiled at him, "It's not your fault. The blood is packed with so much mana that it's kind of masking itself. I don't know if that's being done on purpose, but it probably isn't."

  She walked over to the door and let it scan her, but after it was finished, the blackened blood in the shape of a door remained sealed shut. Seeing that, she spun around and laughed, "Alright, now I'm mostly certain that this isn't your Soul Realm. I was already thinking it since it'd be impossible without a powerful Eldritch, Demon, Old God, etc. supporting you, but now I know for sure that this is someone else's Soul Realm."

  "But why do I have access to it then? And the room next to this one is clearly my sister's. It's full of her drawings, and both of our rooms have our names written on them to further prove they belong to us."

  Sarah strode over to the bed and sat down. "Yuji, do you really have no memory of reading any of those Grimoires?"

  "That's the last thing I expected you to bring up... According to you, your first time even hearing that word was five minutes ago."

  "Well, everything you said about Grimoires and Awakening has had one little part of it that ties to something I do understand. And that's what happens when you pledge yourself to specific Gods."

  Grimoires, Awakening, Gods, Soul Realm...

  Putting everything she was saying together, he could only reach one conclusion.

  "You're thinking I did pledge myself to a God, and in doing so, I have access to their Soul Realm?"

  "Bingo~!"

  "But when the hell... Wait, you're forgetting something." Yuji walked over to the door and let it scan him. It opened up soon after, and he immediately led Sarah over to his sister's room.

  He stepped into the center of the room and spread his arms out in both directions. "Are you saying my sister pledged herself to the same God?"

  Sarah looked through the artwork on the wall and ground, studying each one of the childish drawings before silently returning to the main area. Yuji followed behind her as she approached the display cabinets.

  After a long silence, she opened up the cabinet and ran her finger over the painting with a half-naked Kitsune woman on it, "You know... Yuji is a Kitsune name."

  "I know. I've heard that many times over the years. Which is why I also know that Kitsune name their children before they are born, so when they are having sex with other races, no matter what race out of them, they still use the name they came up with beforehand." He looked between the blue Kitsune woman and the 'Benji Khazan' Human man seen in all of the trophy images, "... You think these are my parents? That feels like a stretch, and I never told you that Lisa and I don't know who our parents are."

  "You're right, you didn't, but that doesn't matter. All I know is that you have no memory of pledging yourself to whoever owns this Soul Realm, and inside of it is an area that looks like it was designated for a specific family to live in." She continued, "Do you know what a Soul Realm is?"

  "Um, I'm only guessing here, but I assume it's a Realm created by a soul that you can project your conscious into?"

  "Hmm, close, but not quite there~." She walked over to the beanbag chair and sat down, "This is as comfortable and uncomfortable as I thought it would be!"

  Yuji picked one of the chairs up and set it down in front of her before sitting on it, "Well? Where did I get it wrong?"

  "It's an area your soul designates as your area. It's a real place that exists, and for some people, when there are no outside 'Observers', time barely moves inside their Soul Realm. So, if nobody can see us inside of here, and this happens to be one of those realms, then an hour in here would probably only be a few seconds outside."

  "That sounds like one hell of a cheat. I need to test that sometime to see if this one is like that... But, that aside, is there any way to figure out where we are if this place actually exists?"

  Sarah shrugged, "Depends on what is inside of here. You say that you don't have access to any other areas, and that display cabinet over there only tells us that your maybe Father loves physical activities, and that his wife is a babe that has perfectly shaped breasts. But as great as all of that all is, it doesn't tell us a whole lot about where we are, does it?"

  "So we'd need access to other parts of the Soul Realm, and since I can't get the doors open, I clearly was not given the right to explore any further... I guess that's it then?"

  "Yep!" She simply replied before jumping out of the beanbag and planting a second chair next to Yuji, "Now show me this mission thing of yours. I hope I'm able to see it." A few seconds later the mission screen popped up in front of Yuji and Sarah's eyes went wide, "Whoa, it really does give you a template with missions on it?! Honestly, that part sounded so stupid I thought you imagined it..."

  He slowly scrolled through the trial mission, the bonus, and his possible classes. Showing her everything he could, and at the end of it all he could feel her tapping his arm awkwardly.

  "... I, I'm actually remembering something that I hadn't thought of a single time since it happened, but around four hundred or more years ago, I ran into these two guys who bragged about all the rewards they got from their God for fulfilling its requests."

  "Isn't that pretty basic? It doesn't sound like what is happening here with the Awakening template."

  "Yeah, but um, they showed us the papers they had on them that told them what to do, much like what I'm seeing here. We all made fun of them with the way it listed possible rewards at the bottom, because some of them were changes to their abilities, which sounded ridiculous at the time. And I swear they had class names too..."

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  She continued, "My point is! The papers they showed us look really similar to what I'm seeing here. I swear the formatting looks almost one-to-one, but it was a long time ago so I could just be remembering it wrong. And a lot of the domain crystals use that format now for people, so maybe their God was just ahead of the times... By like three hundred years??"

  "What's a domain crystal?"

  Sarah whipped her head in Yuji's direction, "Are you being serious right now? I know you were just a regular nobody until a few days ago, but it shouldn't be possible to not know what a domain crystal is. Especially since you said you worked at a Crystal Factory!"

  "Even if you say that, I've never heard of a domain crystal before. Maybe it just has a different name where you're from---" Yuji suddenly remembered something she had said back at the warehouse, something that he didn't think much of at the time, but now that he had the time to calmly consider it, it seemed impossible.

  "... Sarah, you said you entered a portal and then got ambushed by the Protectorate, right?"

  "Yeah? What of it? It's not a rare tactic, but it should've been impossible to use against my friend and me. We're far from average when it comes to our strength, so for them to have diverted the portal to another location without me realizing it beforehand is impressive."

  "All of that aside, something is clearly wrong there. You don't just use a portal. You need permission from the high command in the Protectorate beforehand. Portals are for their use only, unless you have a very good reason, like a family emergency."

  "You're forgetting something, silly boy. I'm not from here. I've never even heard of the Protectorate before now."

  And just like that, Yuji finally realized why everything felt so very wrong while talking to her. All of the talks about 'Earth' were one thing, and something he really wanted to ask her more about later, but everything else was strange as well.

  "'Here'? Here where?"

  She tilted her head at Yuji. The question itself made no sense to her, but as she thought about it, she could only think of a single reason why he'd be asking that.

  "Yuji. Where are we right now? What is this Realm called?"

  "Eryndral. And where did you come from? The Xerathian Realm? The Demon's Realm?"

  "... Neither, and I feel like you don't understand how strange it is that you assumed it was from those two nightmarish Realms instead of any other nearby Realm. So, just to confirm, but can you name at least one nearby Realm? Only one is needed."

  "............."

  After a brief wait with no reply from Yuji, Sarah leaned back into her chair and sighed, "Holy crap, so that's why you don't know what a domain crystal is. This must be one of those locked worlds I've only heard about in passing."

  Yuji's throat was feeling dry to the point that he had trouble gulping. "C-Can you go more into detail, please? Like what a domain crystal is?"

  "Of course. It's basically a giant translucent Tetra crystal that you'll find randomly all over every Realm. They have many different functions, with one of them being that the populace can connect to them and look at a template that tells them everything about their soul. What abilities they have, what Gods they're pledged to, and so on." She pointed at the mission template, "And it looks exactly like that."

  With that, he immediately thought of something in the upper portions of the city. An area that was designated as a gathering spot and was even highly decorated during one of Eyrndral's most popular holidays.

  "How are you feeling after waking up from that box? Do you have the energy to go on a small trip to another part of the outpost? There's something I want to show you."

  Sarah already had an idea of what he was going to show her, and she was very curious about what it looked like and how it'd feel to interface with it in a world that was apparently cut off from all the others, so she happily said, "I'm really damn tired, but I want to see it! If it's only a small trip then I'll be able to make it."

  Yuji watched as Sarah looked all over the platform, kicking her feet back and forth like a kid as it slowly rose toward the city above.

  "Hah, you like the platform that much?"

  "Yeah! I've never been on something like this before. These are normally for mechs in massive military bases. It's not usually something you create to transport people between two different areas of a city. I mean, look at how massive this thing is! You could fit five thousand people on here easily!"

  He pushed down the urge to ask what a 'Mech' was as he looked around the platform to confirm that there wasn't anyone nearby. The closest person was over fifty yards away, so there was no way they'd be able to hear anything the two of them were saying.

  "So, just wondering, but what did you think about the mission it gave me?"

  "The one where you need to absorb a Kitsune or some other person? Seems like a pretty harsh 'Trial' if you ask me. But then again, if your trial is supposed to set the tone, then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect going forward." She continued, "What's your plan for it? And do you have the stomach to kill someone? You could always just not do it and see what happens."

  "Odds are I'd die... I'll show you what the Archives say later, but it sounds like Awakened have a very good reason to kill other Awakened. And my plan is to go for the bonus. It's why I called that Elf Protector to the warehouse after we found you and those little girls. He's looking into Dai, one of the targets, so I was hoping to use that to approach Dai. I don't know how well I'll be able to play them off of each other, but if I'm going to do this Awakening thing, I might as well aim for the bonus."

  Sarah slapped his back hard, "Ooh, look at you! Now that's the attitude I love to see~! I expected a normal person in your situation to be sulking or looking for a way to escape, but here you are, planning to swindle two people so you can kill and fully absorb one of them to get stronger. What a cutie you are~."

  "Well I'm not exactly excited about it either." The memory of him scaling the large cliff side to return home appeared in his mind, "... At least I think I'm not. I have two abilities at the moment, and while I've only used one of them so far, it's already something I don't want to give up. It feels really good being able to float. Way more than you'd think."

  Sarah giggled, "I believe you. I've seen a lot of people over the years who had just begun to use magic, and while most of them usually had to quit since it's sadly not for everyone, the ones who were able to stick with it always looked very happy at the start."

  "What about you? Was it the same in your case?"

  "......" She leaned back and looked up into the dreary sky, "... I was possessed by a Demon after everything changed on Earth. I'll tell you about it some other time. It's not a pretty story."

  He now knew why she had Demonic wings on her back, but he was feeling a little bad about reminding her of something horrible she'd gone through, so he ended up saying nothing in response.

  They sat there in silence as the platform finished its ascent. Yuji was fine with that though. He had a lot to think about after everything he'd learned the past couple of hours.

  Eventually, the platform reached the top and locked into place. Yuji, Sarah, and everyone else then gathered near the front, waiting for the five-foot-tall gate to lower.

  In the distance, there was a one-hundred-meter-tall transparent crystal in the middle of a large settlement.

  "... It looks so strange like that, it's making me want to cry. What the hell is going on with this world of yours, Yuji?"

  He looked at the crystal but they were still too far away to see anything other than a large transparent crystal, "How is it supposed to look?"

  "Alive. It's supposed to spin, and be lit up. Also, you'd be able to feel its comforting energy from here. But look at this one! No energy. No light. No spinning. There's just... Nothing. It's like it doesn't even exist. I know this is normal for you, but for someone like me who was seen and interacted with over ten thousand of them easily, this is just miserable to see..."

  The gate lowered and Yuji held his right hand out toward Sarah, "For now, let's go see it together, okay? I know this is making you sad, but let's try connecting to it. Who knows, maybe someone like you from the outside can do something with it."

  Sarah smiled sadly in response while grabbing his hand. The two of them strode forward with the crowd, slowly making their way to the gigantic crystal.

  ? The Archmage is Baking Now! ?

  by R.C. Joshua