Tales of the world on the other side was a concept that Zalanir found unbelievable. For him, death was death. The brain stopped working. The heart ceased to beat another note. Similar to a dead animal, the leftover corpse was the only thing that remained after the control function ended its tasks. Up to that point, one would no longer be able to tell what was happening, because the cognitive mind was no longer there to perceive, absorb, and interpret whatever information passed on by the body.

  At the same time, it was probably one of the most, if not the most, sought-after explanations from the masses, all of scientists, zealots, and normal citizens alike. Even though it appeared under hundreds of different names — the afterlife, the life beyond, the world where Gods ruled, etc. — at the center, it represented the same thing: death. For without death, none could enter that world.

  Though there was some who claimed to have traveled there and gone back alive, proven by their ability to call upon details about the ancestors of a complete stranger, or a family secret that unless they were witnessing or having access to the deepest chambers, there would be no chance for them to know. How did they do that? Zalanir had no bloody idea.

  He had once participated in a “soul calling” ritual when his grandfather brought him to see a shaman. His poppa wanted to talk to his grandma again, which made him curious to tag along since he had never seen her even once. The vast land and the sea between the two countries robbed him of the chance to do that.

  The shaman did the dance, and in a weird way after a while, his voice changed to that of a woman. Zalanir thought it was a neat little trick to make things more believable, but his poppa burst into tears and started to say “thank you!” non-stop when talking with her. The whole ordeal lasted only three or four minutes, as the shaman said that the soul could only be allowed to return to this world for that long. Who set the rules and gave the permission? He asked but was scolded by his content grandpa for offending whom he shouldn’t. Even on the way back, his gramps just outright refused to answer his questions. But his glittering eyes and wide smile signaled to Zalanir that perhaps it was best to leave it be.

  That experience didn’t change his perspective on all the afterlife stuff, but it was intriguing. As he grew up, he soon realized that there were many paths to a destination. Just because his neighbor had a family at 25 and kids at 26 and was ecstatic at that didn’t mean the same applied to him.

  Happiness to him was the pursuit of a tennis career, to give his all and show up every day and night, whereas his neighbor put family above everything else. He was sure that the shaman had done the same. By invoking a sense of mystery and maintaining a neutral attitude at first by exclaiming something vague like “You, you are …” or “It’s good to see you again”, he had goaded gramps into driving the interaction and then it was just a simple act of following the established lead. In Zalanir’s position, what he could’ve done was maybe show his poppa the pictures of grandma, or take him to the cemetery. But would it be more effective than the shaman’s method?

  Death, spirits, souls, the afterlife, incense burning — everything just weaved together in creating a fascinating notion that even though he had no belief in, it remained a topic of interest to him. But he had no idea that it was this captivating that managed to grasp all of his brainpower in this current situation.

  Yes, he wasn’t dead yet, as if he were, he wouldn’t be feeling all the bumps and stops on the road. He was woken up by one of those for perhaps an hour already, but his body just couldn’t budge no matter how hard he tried. He had mistaken it to be on the way to the afterlife at first, but the voice of the cultists told him otherwise.

  Apparently, they didn’t kill him but instead captured only and were taking him to their lair. Also, they cursed the increasing presence of the enforcers in the nearby area, especially around the flower valley. Sound Sense managed to pick this up when they talked to each other about the search for hunters. So just as the enforcers were hunting them, the cultists were also looking for their own targets. A similarity that made Zalanir question what all of this was about.

  But the mention of the enforcer was good. He didn’t see any during his time there, though. Perhaps they were outside or up on top of the cliff? Whatever. The enforcers would be one of his tickets to get out of this situation. Hopefully, they would find him soon.

  Back to the afterlife, since this world was so different compared to Earth, what would the general attitude and belief toward death be? If the System were as omnipotent as in some games he had played — and he believed it was — then could it bring someone back from death with a legendary item or a skill called reincarnation or something similar?

  Reattachment of body parts was possible, so perhaps rebirth wasn’t that far-fetched of a concept. Death. This single word held a critical concept that Zalanir desired to find out the true meaning behind. Life and death situations weren’t rare in this world, so at least he wanted to know what his options were. He marked that as a mental note to explore later.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  How far was this lair of theirs? He had been wrecking his brain about all the philosophical stuff for quite a long time already, but they were still on the move. There was even a long moment where everyone just ran away, leaving him in a spot where the rustling of leaves being blown by the wind was all he could hear.

  As his body was paralyzed in an unknown way, Zalanir drifted his mind into the little soul that he had been nurturing non-stop with his mana. A quick attempt was all it took to confirm that he could still direct his mana into his mind to feed the soul, so seemed like only the external parts of his body were locked away.

  If it wasn’t for his time witnessing the power of the lantern through Verizss’ia’s eyes, he would probably have stopped doing this altogether already. The little soul was just a bottomless pit that kept on devouring anything he threw at it. Could he really fill a lake with one bucket of water per day? It had been around half a month since he had caught it and started feeding it with his energy, but the only change was that it was a tiny bit fatter. Hurray! A thousand more of that, then perhaps he could get one rivaling a random soul that Verizss’ia pulled from his lantern. A random soul.

  His mana went down 20% to hover around the half-way mark when Zalanir stopped. He couldn’t meditate, and from the look of it, his health hadn’t regenerated much when he passed away from the big staff slam either. Either the time hadn’t been that long since then, or it didn’t count as sleeping by the System for the sake of refreshing his resources. The second explanation seemed more plausible from his point of view, as if getting knocked out counted, then didn’t it mean it was actually preferable in a group fight to be taken down only to come back when the opponent was already exhausted fighting others?

  Only passive regeneration maintained its function, it seemed. He remembered his health had been floating around 45% of the total bar before his last attempt to break through from the encirclement of the cultists. He didn’t recall seeing the usual flickering at the 20% mark, so perhaps his health ended at about one-fourth of the total pool at the end? If so, then the fact that the red bar was at one-third now meant that passive regeneration definitely worked. What a silly thought! Of course it works, because it’s passive, for God’s sake. Stop over-analyzing. Zalanir tapped his head three times with an imaginative hand, aka nothing.

  Luckily that it wasn’t his actual hand. The top spot of his head was still in pain from the hit earlier. The same went for his thigh and chest as well. He was so used to meditating after a fight to recover his resources, which in a sense had also helped ease the pain. Now that he paid attention to this issue, all the wounds flared up and wrecked havoc again. The pain intensified from just a stray thought. Oh typical.

  Being tied up like this sucked, but fortunately, his ears picked up the sound of footsteps again. If only he could tell from the sound who was who. The high chance was that the cultists came back from whatever they were doing, but there was also the possibility of some random wanderers. If that was the case, he wished they were kind and helped him escape.

  A thud impacted the area to his left. Something hard was pressing on his right arm. The weight wasn’t egregious, but after a while, still enough to make his arm go numb. You can scream all you want, bud. I want to move just as much as you do. His mind told the fretting relative that was his arm.

  They were on the move again right after the arrival of whatever was next to him, which wasn’t good news, because it confirmed that it was the cultists who had returned. Seemed like they had gotten what they wanted.

  The road transformed from occasional bumps into now a bumpy path every other second. His body bounced on and off constantly, similar to the feeling of riding a boat on a stormy day, except that this one was a bit tamer. His arm was the best beneficiary of the new situation, as it was free again. However, his neck and back now took its place, with the neck being pressed against the frame of the cart — he was certain that he was lying on a cart of some kind — while his back was having a massage with the rough, splintered cart deck. Which was to say, not a very pleasant experience. Even the arm stopped the joy of getting its freedom back at the suffering from the other relatives, as it knew best what it was like when being paralyzed and unable to do anything.

  He could tell that they were trekking upward, likely on a rocky hill. The sound of crushed stones mostly confirmed that. He had to give the cultists applaud for their strength. Even with the buffed man who used the staff to finish him off, it would still be difficult pulling the cart uphill, especially with several bodies weighing it down. Yes, after various bumps, he was sure that there were at least two other people lying next to him, likely in the same disabled and immobilized state. Were they dead or alive? He had no idea. Perhaps in the same circumstance as him, being caught by the cultists, and was now waiting to be transported into their lair.

  This partly confirmed his suspicion earlier that his fight with them wasn’t a random encounter. The way they came up with synchronized motions and clearly defined roles, as well as seemingly had an answer to all of his power, was just too good to be true. The fact that there were others who also got caught like him meant that this was on purpose.

  The question of “for what” wasn’t really something he could ponder, as there could be hundreds of them, but why him? This bothered Zalanir the most, since this should be the first time they met him. Unless the dead cultists that he killed somehow find a way to tell them, or that they had some kind of divination guiding the way. Or perhaps the dead ones left a mark of some kind on him that signaled their accomplices? He went over all the occasions when he had met these barefoot cultists again, hoping to find a lead, but was cut short only several minutes in.

  The cart had stopped. And a greeting that told him that they had likely arrived at the destination.

  “A good hunt, huh?”