He took a step closer to the Memory Knight for a better look but it vanished the second he inched.
"Kuso!"
Hiroko gritted his teeth as both surprise and frustration welled up inside him.
Why did he have to vanish just when he wanted to see the man a little bit clearer? The Glance had just dropped a whole bomb on him and didn't expect him to be curious? That was supposedly Sir Lancelot. The one and only Sir Lancelot, one of King Arthur's Knights of the Roundtable.
"Okay, brown hair, maybe blue eyes."
Hiroko had mumbled through his head when he lit up.
"Wait! Did he say Sir Lancelot?! As in, the man who vanished into history and no one knows his demise back on Earth? He came here? He was kidnapped by a vortex?!"
He shot his eyes at Rocky expectantly.
"Hold on a second. Buddy, what happened to him? How long ago was this? Is he still alive?"
The creature that was bombarded with questions tilted its head and remained silent. Hiroko sighed in frustration and glanced back around to where the Memory Knight was. The area was so still that even the metaphorical breeze did not blow past.
"It's just a holographic hallucination…"
Hiroko sighed and started walking forward. He had been doing that for a while now. Where he was headed, even he didn't know either. Rocky followed a few meters behind.
A couple of hours later, Hiroko sat on a boulder eating one of those beet spud-like vegetables while the golem stood at his eye level, silently staring at him.
Hiroko raised his eyes and met with an intense gaze. He swallowed and extended the beet-spud to Rocky.
"Want some? It takes like butt. Don't ask how I know that."
The golem didn't move a rock, it just maintained its flaming, expressionless gaze. Right up to the point Hiroko gave up.
"You wouldn't be able to handle the taste anyway."
He turned aside to take a huge bite when a man walked right through him.
"I am still trekking through the desolate Black Rock plain…"
Hiroko watched with a mouthful as the memory knight turned around and landed his blue eyes on the large memory rock statue standing a few meters behind him.
"...The local life which is a Black Rock Golem, the only one of its kind, is still tailing me. Slowly. My attempts to establish communication were foiled by the creature's lack of basic communication skills. It turns out to be nothing but a masterlessgolem."
"Day four, the sunlight here burns through skin like fire… I'll start to... avoid the rays…"
The scenery changed and Hiroko watched as Sir Lancelot uprooted a beet-spud and sniffed it.
"Only source of sustenance are these bizarre potato beetroot vegetables. Not the best in taste but they are edible."
"My man Lancelot talked to himself as well." Hiroko scoffed. He turned and focused on the knight once more.
"Eight days ago, I applied them on my injuries and I came to find their flesh has remarkable healing properties. My wounds are barely visible."
Hiroko looked at the spud in his hand, swallowed and scoffed. "Oh?"
"Day twelve, I am still walking across the desolate Black Rock plain… Uh... The golem is still following me…"
"Day fourteen… I haven't spotted any source of water around. It's a wonder the spuds are even able to take root in this obsidian steely earth… If I don't find water soon… I'll perish."
"Day sixteen. No sign on human lifeform anywhere, and no sign of water… but I'm still chatting." He glanced behind and sighed softly. "My companion is still with me…"
"Day twenty…" Memory Lancelot said with a slightly cheerier tone. "Luckily, these potato beetroots contain enough water to keep me hydrated…"
"Day twenty-eight," Hiroko watched the man bend over and vomit. "The taste gets unbearable at some point. Ugh, this place smells worse than the King's outhouse after a feast."
While he covered his nose, Hiroko glanced at the spud in his hand and shrugged. After a while, he had gotten used to it. The smell and the taste, that is.
"Day thirty-five, no form of life. I am still alone with the obsidian golem… The burning rays travel in a pattern; right to left, as in northeast to southwest…"
"Day fourty-one…"
"Day fourty-four–"
"Day fourty–seven–"
"Day fifity-nine–"
"Day seventy-three–"
"Day ninety-eight–"
"Day one hundred and twenty-five…" He paused and looked back at Memory Rocky. "Right…"
"Day two hundred–"
"Day–"
"Day–"
"Day–"
"Day–"
"Day–"
"..."
…
"..." Hiroko watched with a conflicted expression as Lancelot stood with his head craned up at the purple clouds, his eyes bleak and face pale.
"I overslept out in the open last night…" He raised his left hand and it was burnt through the first layer of skin. "This needs a spud…"
But Hiroko saw he wasn't in any hurry to dig up any vegetable any moment soon. There was then a muffled sound on the ground and a beet spud rolled up to his foot and gently tapped him. He lowered his sight and saw it. The football-sized vegetable at his ankle. He looked forward and saw the golem staring back at him. There was a moment of silence before the corners of the memory knight's lips tugged up into a faint smile.
"Thank you... Friend…"
The Glance changed again and showed moments of Sir Lancelot walking across the desolate land with Rocky following way behind. He stopped and called the golem to walk with him. It easily caught up to him and the two continued the journey together.
It was mostly a quiet excursion but it carried a thousand meanings and Hiroko clenched on his lip the entire time watching.
"Day two hundred and ten…" the voice came out relaxed tired behind Hiroko. "I wish I could see the stars, same as back in the kingdom."
Hiroko turned around and saw a Glance of Rocky seated with a knight nestled in his rocky lap, staring up at the purple clouds at night. He raised a hand up to the heavens.
"The kingdom…" he repeated, his eyelids drooping.
Hiroko felt a pang in his heart. But it was softened when he heard:
"Day whatever the heck it is… I am retaining my mental stability by recalling all my swordsman skills. The Black Rock Golem seems like a worthy practice dummy."
The scene changed to the knight panting on a knee.
"He is not a dummy, that's for sure…"
Hiroko then witnessed a lot of practice sessions that took place in a blur right in front of his eyes. Then moments of Sir Lancelot struggling to get out of tar pits, only for Rocky to pull him out like a small figurine. There were the loud moments during sparring time, then there were the casual moments where the knight conversed with the golem as he would with another human… and then there were the quiet moments where the knight stared up at the clouds. Lost in thought.
But what concerned Hiroko the most were the days when the endlessness of the dimension seemed to take a toll on the man. Just the thought of a continuous valley of black rock filled with nothing but geysers, tar pits and bizarre potato beetroot vegetables in some places was enough to push anyone to the verge of insanity.
Hours passed with Hiroko silently watching the Glance like some psychological 3D movie. Night time came and he was still watching alongside Rocky Golem, who was as silent as ever.
"Day four hundred and eighty-two… it's safe to say my brain still functions." Memory Lancelot chuckled as he and Rocky sat quietly on a cliff at sunset.
The scenery slowly dissipated and wafted away, leaving Hiroko and the real Rocky gawking.
Hiroko was conflicted, very, very conflicted. He stared hard at the face of Lancelot as it disappeared, the dark of the night slowly creeping in.
How long had Hiroko been there, exactly? Had he been keeping record of the times he almost lost his mind due to the savagery of Modest and the previous Rocky Golem?
As he stared at the last fading remnants of the knight's face, he felt a lot of contrasting emotions swirling inside him. His chest clenched and he wondered if that was the only vision of the knight he was ever going to see.
The shadows around him stirred and rose up. He lazily inhaled them and tasted another kind of emotion.
"Loneliness…" he mumbled. Then he turned and faced the golem. "Hey! Why were you so nice and docile to the knight? Why didn't you treat me the same way when we met?"
Rocky tilted his rock skull at Hiroko. Hiroko rolled his eyes.
"As if you'd have favorites. What's wrong? Lancelot and I both have swords, we're both good-looking chaps–me surpassing him, of course."
He watched the golem bend its huge body to take a seat and turn to face him with its flaming eyes. Hiroko was a bit taken aback.
"You... You want me to… s-sit on your lap?"
He glanced behind himself and back at Rocky.
"Just like Lancelot did?"
The monster did not give any sort of reaction whatsoever. Hiroko smiled sheepishly and cleared his metaphorical throat.
"Ahem. I'll just pretend you're a very big teddy bear…"
He awkwardly made his way to the golem and cautiously nestled in its lap.
"A very… muscular teddy bear…" he mumbled, holding his sword with both hands over his chest.
After a while, he had to admit that was sort of comfortable. He gazed up at the cloudy sky wondering what happened to Sir Lancelot in the end. He scoffed:
"My brain still functions too."
Eventually, he felt sleepy. Then he surrendered to the luscious luxury of unperturbed slumber.
For the first time in Modest's nineteen months...