'I'm thankful for the clothes and all, but damn it's so hot out here I'm about to tear them off,' Arthur thought, wiping beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. 'Holy crap, I didn't know it was summer in Aragon right now.'
The relentless sun beat down on him from above, turning the monk's robes into a personal oven. It was getting progressively harder for Arthur to maintain his focus and not give in to the roses' siren call as the scorching heat drained his mental fortitude. Every step became an exercise in willpower, his concentration wavering like a flame in the wind.
Thankfully, the sun hung low on the horizon, promising relief in the coming hours. Arthur squinted at the distant skyline, noting how the light had taken on the golden hue of approaching sunset. Nightfall would give him one less discomfort to contend with, though he wondered what new dangers darkness might bring to this already perilous realm.
The field of dead roses stretched endlessly in all directions, a barren wasteland devoid of geographical features. No hills, no valleys, no streams—just an endless carpet of the greyed roses extending to the horizon.
'It's like the whole world is contained in this field,' Arthur mused, his eyes fixed firmly ahead. 'What kind of god needed all this? And why?'
He let his curiosity wander, using his speculations as a shield against the roses' influence.
'From the field of roses and the drawings in the temple, my best guess is some sort of god of nature or something... though nature isn't usually this... monotonous.'
These ponderings helped occupy the spaces in his mind where the roses might otherwise take root, giving him mental refuge as he trudged toward the persistent pull of his realm core. Each step brought him marginally closer to his goal, though the distance remained immeasurable to his senses.
Arthur was so lost in thought, so careful about keeping his gaze lifted, that he nearly missed it—a dark shape lying among the roses directly in his path. He stopped abruptly, his body tensing as instinct flared warning signals through his nervous system.
For a long moment, he simply stood there, uncertain how to proceed. A quick scan of his surroundings revealed no alternative path—the shape lay directly in line with the pull of his core, and deviating too far would mean losing his most reliable guide in this featureless landscape.
Taking a deep breath, Arthur summoned his odachi from his realm core, the familiar weight of the blade providing a small measure of comfort as darkness coalesced into solid metal in his grip. With his weapon in hand, he cautiously approached whatever lay on the ground, maintaining his mental barriers against the roses.
Standing directly above the shape, Arthur still refused to look down, knowing the roses surrounding the object would immediately assault his mind if he allowed his gaze to drift toward them.
'Screw it,' he thought after a moment of deliberation. 'I need to know what this is.'
He closed his eyes and lowered his head, taking a moment to fortify his mental defenses, clearing his mind of all distractions and concerns.
'Don't think about the roses. Just look at what's on top of them.'
With painstaking care, he opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the scene before him. His grip tightened reflexively on his sword hilt, and he nearly jumped back before forcing himself to remain still.
Below him, nestled in the bed of roses, lay the corpse of a monster—the same type of creature he had encountered in the temple. Grimhound, as he'd been calling them in his head. Unlike the one Arthur had fought, this specimen wasn't mutilated or beaten down. It appeared to have suffered only a single, fatal injury: a clean cut fully encircling its neck.
Curious, Arthur gently prodded the head with the tip of his blade. As he suspected, the head rolled away from the body with minimal resistance, confirming it had been severed.
"Gross," he muttered, his face contorting in disgust as he watched the head tumble through the roses. His expression darkened completely when he accidentally caught sight of a rose whilst following the rolling of the head.
Instantly, the familiar headache began to build, pressure mounting behind his eyes as the roses' temptation clawed at the edges of his consciousness. Not wasting a single second, Arthur jerked his head skyward and closed his eyes tightly, desperately trying to clear his mind of the intrusive thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him.
'Empty. Calm. Focus.'
After several moments of internal struggle, peace returned to his mind—or as much peace as one could expect given his dire circumstances. The roses' influence receded like a tide pulling back from shore, leaving him momentarily free of their corrupting touch.
Opening his eyes, Arthur kept his gaze fixed on the distant horizon, refusing to look down at the field surrounding him. The sun had dipped lower, casting long shadows across the crimson landscape and painting the sky in hues of orange and purple.
The dead Grimhound troubled him more than he wanted to admit. Its presence raised questions he wasn't sure he wanted answered.
'That head was cut clean off,' he pondered, resuming his seemingly endless journey across the rose field. 'Something like that would only be possible with a blade, which begs the question... who else is out here with me?'
The possibility of another human presence in this desolate realm both excited and unnerved him. An ally could mean the difference between survival and death, but there was no guarantee that whoever—or whatever—had slain the Grimhound would view Arthur as a friend rather than prey.
As twilight deepened around him, Arthur's thoughts raced through various scenarios. Perhaps another candidate from the Academy had been sent to this region of the Second Realm. Or an experienced chosen exploring the realm.
Less comforting was the possibility that whoever had killed the Grimhound wasn't human at all, but something even more dangerous—a predator that considered tainted beasts mere prey.