BXBX NOVEL Chapter 44: Unbound
Rudra licked his lips as he lay on his stomach beside his master, a deep and guttural growl coming from his mouth.
Tyr sat before him, chipping away at a random stick with a dagger and flinging the wood chips into the campfire in front of him.
The night was large and dark, the brilliant but dim silver moonlight barely peeking through the mushroom canopy above the Ultimatum Squad.
They all sat around this single campfire. Silent conversation occurred here and there, but the air was mostly filled with exhaustion.
Around him was a forest of large mushrooms ranging from 2 to 200 feet tall, each one a different shade of blue, purple, and red--with white spots coating its ceiling.
Large light bugs the size of cats buzzed through the air, their heads lighting up like glowfish at the bottom of the sea.
"Mycelia is only 7 hours away. We should get there by dawn at this pace." Urvil said, tending to her rabbit-on-a-stick over the fire.
"That\'s if we don\'t get ambushed by another pack of Shroom Dogs..." Hanzo replied, lying beside the fire with a book over his face.
\'I wouldn\'t mind that actually. They gave me pretty decent EXP.\' Tyr thought to himself, opening up his status menu.
┏━━━Status━━━┓
Name: Tyr Evolion Thalonis
Bloodline: Almighty Thalonis + Unknown
Age: 15 Years
Level: 48
Vitality: 28/28
Strength: 33
Stamina: 30/30
Speed: 28
Aura: --
[Stats remaining: 0
Rank: --
┗━━━━━━━━━┛
\'Im damn close... only two more levels and a lot of things will go my way. Im hoping I get a good spell and Ancestral Ability. There\'s also more memories to come I have to think about.\'
The idea of receiving these memories was nothing shy of concerning. Still, Tyr wanted to figure out everything about his past.
Especially now that he had traveled so far in Subworld.
During the past several weeks, Tyr had seen many things on his travels. Various aspects of land resembled Earth, like forests and mountains.
But, there were also regions like the mushroom forest he was in right now that he had never expected to see.
The more he traveled and saw these incredible scenes, the more he wanted to continue adventuring.
His boring life of old was now just a distant memory. He was in a fantasy world now! Like any human, he wanted to explore! He wanted to see all parts of this world.
Just thinking about seeing all of these new things excited him.
Not just the new natural environments, but the new foods, people, creatures, Aura spells, and more. It all exhilarated him beyond belief!
"Isn\'t it great?" Tyr said, a smile on his face, "This world is so vast."
The others randomly stared at him as if he was a weirdo. After a few seconds though, their expressions mellowed.
"You could say that." Hanzo replied, chuckling slightly at the boy\'s remark. He continued: "They say there are so many biomes out there that no one has conquered them all. So many planets out there that no one has seen them all."
"Isn\'t it exciting?" Tyr questioned, causing Hanzo and Jonas to smile most of all.
Everyone stopped talking for a while, letting the noise of the fire popping and clicking soothe the atmosphere.
"I didn\'t have a concrete goal in this life... but I think I\'ve found one now." Tyr\'s eyes sparkled in the fire as he spoke, his pupils dancing with real hope and aspiration.
"I want to travel the world. See everything that there is to see, and do everything fun that there is to do."
Everyone was a bit taken aback by his statement.
Cyllia found herself lost in thought. Urvil smiled warmly. Yurin gazed up at the stars, his fists clenched. Jonas shook his head, wondering about the possibilities.
Hanzo stared at Tyr, \'Those eyes...\' He couldn\'t help but be reminded of his younger brother.
A memory kicked into his head. Several years ago, his brother had said something similar when he was just 5 years of age.
"I want to run across the world! I want to see everyone\'s faces!" These were the words that Hanzo\'s younger brother had told him.
\'I remember back then, there was nothing more that I wanted than to give my family the world. To make their dreams come true. To give my mother the medicine she needed to heal from her chronic illness and to carry my brother on my shoulders across the entire world so that his smile would never fade.\'
And now, he saw a similar smile on Tyr\'s face.
"That childish, crazy dream of being free to do whatever you want. It isn\'t really possible in a world like this, Tyr." Hanzo said, sitting up.
"Huh? Why not?"
"I\'m sure you can understand... Drance, and even Seris for that matter is a very civilized nation. It\'s small and weak, yet civilized. Outside, however, there are lands where getting to see sunlight itself is what people kill each other for. There are cruel people out there, whose whole purpose in life is to destroy other people\'s dreams."
The others looked at Hanzo with squinted eyes of ponderance as he spoke.
"I know what you mean, Hanzo."
Tyr paused.
\'Im not a child... I\'ve lived even longer than Hanzo when adding up my life on Earth. I know the greed and malice in people, but on that planet, there is no special thing that can solve everyone\'s problems. There\'s no escape for the average worker, the single parent, or the abandoned child. There is no hope, no Aura. But this is no Earth...
Subworld is a magical place. Here, I can do things that I never even imagined were possible back on Earth. If I can\'t live my life to the fullest on this planet, then what\'s the god damn point?\'
"Here, I have a choice..." Tyr said out loud but meant it to himself.
The others looked at him, Hanzo retorting with slight confusion: "You have a choice?"
"If they won\'t let me, then I\'ll just do it anyways," Tyr said, his eyes calm yet raging with conviction deep inside.
His words were so simple, yet they impacted everyone sitting around the campfire that night in unique ways.
His words were the same ones that caused all great civilizations to prevail.
Each child born into a new generation broke away from their parent\'s ideals, wanting to forge a new life for themselves and therefore continuing an endless path of discovery and change throughout human history.
Each new idea created a spur of more thoughts and theories that were the genesis of all technology.
Each time a barrier was broken, a new one was placed by the next era.
This was Tyr\'s breakthrough.
Tyr chuckled, "If they try to stop me, I\'ll just get strong enough to the point where they have no other choice!" He truly believed those words. He had to since he was going to bet his entire life on it!
\'That will be my new purpose. I will be unbound.\'