A Journey Unwanted-Chapter 432 - 421: Thoughts settle

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Quadling Country]

The General eventually seated himself upon a broad slab of stone not far from the marble wall.

His sabatons scraped lightly against the rough surface before settling. Once seated, his posture leaned slightly forward, armored forearms resting loosely upon his legs. The heavy black gauntlets hung near his knees, fingers relaxed.

He simply stared ahead.

Beyond the wall and the narrow gate stretched a wide expanse of uneven terrain. Rock formations pushed up from the ground in long ridges, broken occasionally by crude paths carved by travel. Here and there the stone dropped into shallow cliffs, then rose again in layers that seemed to stretch endlessly across Quadling Country.

His helmet faced the horizon without movement.

The expression beneath it, whatever it may have been, remained unknowable. Of course, Grimm had not chosen the stone merely for rest. His attention was moving across the landscape quietly. He was looking for something interesting.

There was very little.

Most forms of life in Quadling Country had clearly gathered near the domain of the Witch’s castle. Grimm had already noticed the pattern earlier. Fauna that should have been scattered across such a large region instead clustered toward a distant focal point, as though drawn there by something.

Which meant that here, in this outer stretch of land, the environment had become strangely empty.

There were no caravans, no more settlements and no more wandering creatures worth observation. The only mild curiosity came from the way certain animals appeared to gather in oddly specific pockets of terrain, as if following invisible boundaries. But even that was only mildly noteworthy.

Nothing particularly compelling.

Nothing that demanded attention.

Yet there was something else, something very distant. So distant that an ordinary observer would never have noticed it at all. Grimm’s helmet shifted a fraction toward the west.

("West... toward the Good Witch’s castle.") His awareness extended further than sight alone. ("Mana is leaking there. In considerable abundance.")

The phenomenon was small but not easily ignored. The flow of magical energy in the region behaved irregularly, pooling and dispersing in ways that suggested instability rather than any natural circulation.

("And there are additional energies present, foreign ones. Not something I recognize.") His head tilted slightly as he continued measuring the disturbance. ("The leylines here do not appear drained. Their flow remains stable in this region, which suggests the leakage originates closer to the castle itself.")

That detail narrowed the possibilities.

("Though I did not perceive this earlier.") The observation lingered in his thoughts. ("Which means either the disturbance began recently, or it was concealed.")

Neither explanation was particularly comforting, still, the situation itself was familiar. Grimm had seen such phenomena before.

Leyline disturbances.

The term carried very specific implications within the Vel’ryr Empire. When leylines sustained sufficient damage, the vast streams of information and energy they stored could begin to leak into the surrounding world. The leylines functioned as more than reservoirs of magical power—they were repositories of recorded experiences, echoes of events and pieces of memory embedded into the structure of reality.

Vel’ryr’s scholars had studied them extensively, their empire depended on them after all. The energies accumulated within leylines served as the backbone of many of Vel’ryr’s technological systems. Entire fields of research had been built around siphoning and refining that power.

Most of the time, the process worked.

Sometimes it did not.

And when it failed, the consequences could become unpredictable.

("Leyline ruptures rarely behave the same way twice,") Grimm reflected silently. Occasionally the leaking energy would manifest as violent storms of raw mana. Other times it created illusions—visions formed from pieces of recorded history spilling into the present.

There were even cases where physical manifestations appeared, creatures or constructs born from the chaotic interaction of past information. The leylines themselves were not sentient, but they did possess defensive responses.

("Their reactions resemble defense mechanisms,") Grimm concluded internally. His gaze remained fixed westward. ("If such a phenomenon is occurring near the Witch’s castle... the result could prove interesting.")

He considered the possibility of investigating it directly.

The impulse was immediate, yet the idea dissolved almost as quickly as it appeared. Grimm had given Puck his word that they would be moving quickly rather than lingering endlessly in this land. More importantly, he had told her to indulge her curiosity.

Which meant that for the moment, his own curiosity would have to wait.

He would simply remain here until she finished, patience was rarely difficult for him.

("Still...") Grimm thought. His attention shifted briefly toward the marble walls of Bunnybury. ("I do not understand how sentient rabbits wearing suits constitute something particularly fascinating.")

Their interests overlapped at times, but the origins of that interest were often very different. Grimm tended to pursue anomalies tied to power, systems, or foreign structures. Puck seemed to pursue whatever caught her eye first.

And yet their paths still crossed more often than not. He supposed that somewhere between those approaches there existed a meeting point. A place where curiosity—no matter its origin—could lead to the same destination.

Still, the fairy herself remained a far more compelling subject than the rabbits she had gone to visit.

Grimm lifted his helmet slightly, gaze drifting along the white marble wall beside him.

("Your curiosity is relentless,") he reflected quietly. There was no criticism in the thought, only observation. ("I wonder how much damage that curiosity of yours has caused over the years.")

Whether the answer was small or catastrophic, he suspected Puck herself would never consider it reason to stop.

Grimm’s thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

There was an immediate shift. Somewhere behind him, carried across the open stone and barren terrain, came the sound of heavy paws striking the ground. The padding was filled with fatigue, each step slower than the last.

Grimm turned his helmet slightly to the side. A few paces away stood the Cowardly Lion.

The great beast looked winded. His sides rose and fell in slow, tired breaths, the thick mane around his neck shifting as he struggled to steady himself. Dust clung to the fur along his legs, and the tremor in his stance suggested that he had pushed himself much harder than he was accustomed to.

Exhaustion, of course, was unavoidable.

Grimm and Puck had traveled through the air without effort, gliding across the terrain. The lion, however, had been forced to cross that distance the old-fashioned way.

Running, all the way here.

Impressive in its own right.

The lion stopped several paces away from Grimm’s stone seat, lowering his head slightly as if uncertain whether to approach any closer.

Grimm observed him for a moment before speaking.

"You did not take the opportunity to run." His voice was merely observational, the Cowardly Lion avoided his gaze entirely.

"I-it wouldn’t be safe... alone," the lion muttered quietly, his maned head dipping lower as the admission left him.

Grimm studied the response for a moment, then he gave a small hum.

"Hm. Cowards often make the most practical choices when survival is involved," Grimm remarked, his tone almost thoughtful. "It is an unpleasant truth, but fear tends to sharpen judgment rather than dull it."

The lion frowned slightly at the word coward, though he did not argue the point.

He simply shifted his weight uneasily.

Grimm continued, voice unchanging.

"Well then. Rest assured, I will keep you alive so long as you remain useful in sustaining my interest."

The words were delivered plainly, simply as a fact. Grimm, in his own way, had just promised that the lion would not die under his watch. But the reassurance brought the Cowardly Lion no comfort at all. Because the meaning behind those words was painfully clear. He was not being protected as a companion. He was being preserved as something far less dignified.

An object of curiosity and a passing interest. And objects were only valuable for as long as they remained interesting.

The moment Grimm grew bored, the lion would likely cease to matter entirely. The realization settled heavily in his chest, forming a pit in his stomach. Yet before the thought could grow any deeper, something else caught his attention.

The lion’s eyes drifted past Grimm.

Toward the towering marble walls of Bunnybury.

Recognition struck him instantly, his eyes widened.

"W-we really shouldn’t be here," the lion said quickly, the nervous urgency in his voice impossible to hide.

Grimm’s helmet turned slightly in response.

"You still fear retribution from the Good Witch," Grimm observed, his tone calm. "Your fear, however, changes nothing about our current position."

The lion swallowed.

"E-even so..." he stammered, glancing again toward the towering walls. "She’s... she’s very fond of them. Too fond, really. If she finds out strangers are this close to their city, I don’t think she’ll simply ignore it."

Grimm listened without interruption.

Then he asked quietly,

"You possess considerable fear. Tell me, did your strength diminish when that spell of courage was taken from you?"

The lion blinked, clearly caught off guard by the question.

"N-no," he said after a moment, shaking his head slightly. "It’s not like that. I’m not weaker or anything... I just... I just don’t want to fight if I don’t have to."

Grimm considered the answer.

"Then it is something beyond mere cowardice," he concluded. The distinction seemed important to him. Slowly, Grimm pushed himself up from the stone slab where he had been sitting. The movement was unhurried, the heavy plates of armor shifting softly as he straightened his posture.

He lifted one gauntleted hand to the side of his helmet.

Then casually cracked his neck.

"You were a fool to ever surrender your fear," Grimm said calmly, the statement delivered without insult. "Life without emotion quickly becomes tedious. Fear, anger, curiosity—these things sharpen existence. Without them, the world dulls into something painfully predictable."

The lion stared at him in confusion.

Grimm continued.

"However..." His voice lowered slightly. "It appears your fear may be justified."

The Cowardly Lion barely had time to react.

Before he could speak again, the ground beneath them trembled. At first, it was only a small vibration, small enough that it might have been mistaken for something distant. But within seconds, the tremor deepened, sending small cracks of movement through the stone around them.

Loose pebbles rattled as dust lifted, the rock beneath Grimm’s sabatons shifted. Then, slowly, chunks of stone began to rise from the ground itself.