Finding my Parents in Another World-Chapter 72: Volume 2 Prologue

Fred had never wanted to take up this job. For the umpteenth time he cursed Old Boy Finley for convincing him to join the Border Force.

The Hiran Border Post was the northernmost border post of the Anasuril Kingdom. Generally there were a small battalion of fifteen men posted there, with the men regularly switching every fortnight. For after all not even a madman would want to be so close to the Mist.

Fred sighed and put the binoculars to his eyes once more. Each border post resembled a small village, with basic huts clustered together, and a tall tower standing in the very middle of the cluster. The tower helped the border post to see outwards and detect threats a long distance away.

Of course nowadays there was only one threat to the Kingdom as a whole.

Fred couldn’t see the Mist clearly at all, he had never been able to. He could only see columns of a black substance coiling towards the sky. It seemed almost sentient as it moved around the ground far away, even though Fred knew that was impossible. Whatever the Mist might be, a sentient cloud it was not. Still it didn’t fail to send a shiver down his back.

Fred had heard the stories of course. What child in Anasuril had not? The Great War among the three kingdoms, the epic final clash in Chrysafenios, and then...something. Something happened in that clash which has been removed from history books, which led to the deaths of literally every single participant of the battle, destroyed two kingdoms for good, and left the last one teetering on the edge.

Fred could never shake off the notion that whatever they were doing in this Border Post was completely useless. They were not capable of stopping something as existentially dreadful as the Mist, they didn’t even know what it was. Fred had definitely seen the power of the Emperor Knights up close, after all the second most important reason he joined the Border Force was because he was inspired by Emperor Knight Kudulkan, who rose up from the Border Force.

But even so, at the end of the day, the Emperor Knights were mere humans. The Mist was like a force of nature, a wave of the ocean. What hope did normal human beings have against a thunderstorm?

Fred focused the lenses of his binoculars. Specifically he was looking at the clearly natural demarcation that denoted how far the Mist had encroached.

Friluise was right. The Mist is coming closer at a much faster rate..

Even as he watched through his binoculars, Fred could see or rather feel the Mist approaching, growing closer. He had heard tales of groups of Adventurer’s venturing into the Mist, and then hearing voices, seeing illusions and ultimately succumbing to madness and death. He had scoffed at those tales when he was back in the Capital, when he had been far from it all. When it had been easy to dismiss it as a fairy tale invented to scare children.

Now though, as he stood in the closest border post to the Mist, the northernmost border Post of the Kingdom of Anasuril, he believed in them for the first time.

"Fred!" A voice called out in panic from below him. Fred grunted, putting down his binoculars and looked down.

It was the new guy, Dinothea. He had come last week from the capital, still fresh faced, still believing that the job they were doing had some noble purpose.

"Whats the matter Dino?"

"Its Friluise. He has gone."

"Gone? Gone where?"

Dino gulped, shifting his eyes nervously.

"Gone where Dino?" Fred repeated again in frustration, although he probably already knew where that blasted madman had gone.

"To the Mist."

"Oh heavens why the fuck is he so adamant!" Fred cursed to himself. In a quick motion, he descended fast from the tower, and immediately started making his way to the stables, Dino closely behind him.

"How long ago did he leave?"

"Just five minutes ago."

"And you didn’t stop him?"

"You know how he is like. He wanted to prove his theory, he wanted to present it before the King himself. And he can’t prove the Mist is encroaching, if he doesn’t take measurements from the front."

Fred cursed again. Of course he knew how thickheaded Friluise was. Also how foolhardy.

You can’t report shit to the king if you are dead.

Fred quickly took one horse out of the stable, and mounted it.

"I’ll go after him. He shouldn’t have made it far. Hopefully I’ll catch him before the Mist."

"And if you can’t?"

Fred didn’t answer. "Don’t tell anyone about this yet. I don’t want the Captain finding out about this shit and reprimanding Friluise. Stay here and wait for us to come back."

Dinothea nodded vigorously, and watched as Fred kicked at the horse and began galloping out through the Border Post gate.

.XX.

It was early morning when Fred had left the Hiran Border Post. The sun had barely started rising. Now though, the sun was shining brightly in the sky, almost directly above him.

Have I really been riding for such a long time? Three hours?

It didn’t feel that long to Fred, and it certainly shouldn’t have taken that long to catch up to Friluise. His horse had left tracks on the grass from the Border Post gate, but those had disappeared abruptly within minutes of leaving the Post. Fred had then begun to search through the fastest road towards the Mist itself, but he had seen no sign of Friluise at all.

And now it was almost four hours later, and Fred was wandering in the jungle, still looking for his friend. He had made sure that the Border Post was visible to his naked eyes at all times. It served as the best guiding post he could ask for.

He stopped his horse and took stock of his surroundings. He was in the middle of some shallow jungle. It probably had a name before the Great War but now it was just known as that small gathering of bushes before the Mist. In a way it served as a warning for lost travellers. If you are inside the woods, that is your cue to turn back because going forward would only amount to marching to your death in the Mists.

Fred had gone forward, quite a lot actually, but he was still confident that he had not ventured too far out. He was still safe.

But he wasn’t sure Friluise was anymore. He had scoured the path upto here. If he was not here, then it could mean only one thing. The Mist had taken him.

Sighing, Fred turned around his reigns, urging the horse to go back.

"Aaaargh!"

A scream pierced the air. Fred stopped directly in his tracks, straining his ears.

"Oh goood, help me. Help me please!!"

The scream came again. It was not Friluise, in fact it seemed to be the voice of some girl in trouble.

Fred turned his horse back again and began galloping towards the sound. He was not a fool, he wouldn’t risk his life by going into the Mist for a stranger. But the sound was coming from his left, and the Mist was in front of him. As long as he stayed in this line, and didn’t go forward, there was no risk of him going into the Mist.

The cries and screams got louder and louder as Fred galloped towards the left. There was no other sound coming from around him, except for the thundering of his horse’s hoofs on the ground. And then.....

The sound stopped suddenly, abruptly.

Fred immediately pulled on the reins of his horse, stopping the animal. He seemed to still be in the same jungle, but now it seemed it was evening, because the sun had already set.

"Damn." Fred muttered under his breath. He wanted to be back in the post before dark.

He looked around a few times, trying to see if he could find the source of the screams. But there was nothing, no sign of any human life, not even any sign of human life passing through.

Sighing, Fred turned around. And then he stopped in horror.

The Hiran Border Post had vanished.

No, that was not it.

He was no longer able to see the Border Post. And that meant only one other thing.

It was not sunset.

He was in the Mist.

A cold sweat broke out in Fred, and his teeth began chattering involuntarily.

But....how? I made sure not to go forward, only straight left. How did I end up inside?

Unless...

Fred almost screamed out aloud. The presence of the Mist here could only mean one thing - the Mist had encroached far more in this part of the jungle than in the open path. This secluded part of the jungle, which no guard post was watching because all of them assumed the Mist expanded uniformly, was housing a Mist moving much further along.

Almost like the Mist is alive. Almost like it is deliberately deceiving us. Showing us a slower rate of enroachment where we are looking, while moving forward rapidly in areas we are not looking.

Fuck.

The implications of this were much more devastating for Anasuril than any of them had ever imagined. Fred turned around the horse and then began galloping behind him. Even if he could not see the exit, it should be directly behind him.

SPLAT

One moment Fred was blazing through the forest on his horse, and the next he was lying sprawled on the ground, crashing heavily against a tree.

What the fuck just happened?

He looked up laboriously in confusion. His horse had been reduced to a blood spot, like a huge rock had just crushed every atom in its body. It lay sprawled out onto the floor, flat and dead.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Fred slowly got up, holding the back of his head as blood slowly dripped out of it. He turned once more to where he was galloping, and then he began running at full speed.

He could hear IT approach from behind. He could hear the ground thump as IT was running behind him. He didnt dare turn back for fear, and also for urgency, but he knew IT was coming.

And IT was gaining on him.

Finally, in a defiant gesture, Fred shouted and turned back, prepared to punch the being running after him.

"Dear God." Were his last words before he fell dead onto the ground.