The Elusive Sorcerer

Chapter 136

Aaron prepared to break his left arm as he began making a shooting motion toward the sky, a signal to begin.

Holding back the blood from flowing out of the arm that had been ruined by Extraction, Aaron nearly hesitated as he slowly raised his right hand high.

With the calmness of someone pulling a trigger as usual, a surge of shadows began to churn at the tip of Aaron's index finger.

Bang...

The gunshot was not particularly loud, yet it could be heard by all of them despite being scattered in different directions. It shattered the cold air that seemed to pierce their minds.

The moment they realized it, each of them immediately read the fragment of the sentence inscribed on the gravestone before them.

"There is no life," Aaron said clearly.

From the western side of the cemetery, in front of two leafy trees standing on slightly elevated ground above the hundreds of neatly arranged gravestones.

"There is no night, and there is no day," Hana said hesitantly.

From the southern side of the cemetery, beside a massive banyan tree where the surrounding air felt suffocating.

"An endless and unmistakable void," Mine recited calmly, though in truth she felt uneasy in this place.

From the northern side of the cemetery, surrounded by gravestones that had partially sunk into the earth, along a stone pathway.

"A place where people gather on certain days."

Zavi did not know whether the fragment of the inscription he had found was correct or not. Even so, he would still try, despite failure potentially awaiting him.

The moment Zavi spoke the final sentence, the wind throughout the sacred cemetery suddenly fell silent.

The air around the four of them turned freezing cold. The sound of Aaron's gunshot that had echoed moments ago now seemed to have been swallowed completely by the graveyard itself.

The boundary between darkness and reality became entirely blurred. The fragments of sentences they had just recited from the inscriptions began emitting a strange, dim glow. The light crawled down from the gravestones, moving across the ground like living roots before stopping directly beneath each of their shadows.

That was the clue.

Their own shadows no longer matched the shapes of their bodies.

The shadows on the ground began moving on their own. They twisted, expanded, and slowly rose upright, separating themselves from the earth. From within the darkness stretching as far as the eye could see, the black substance of those shadows condensed into tangible forms.

Aaron, Hana, Mine, and Zavi fell silent in shock. Their hearts pounded violently. Not because they feared the sacred cemetery, but because for the first time in their lives, they were seeing with their own eyes the figure that had watched over them since they were in their mothers' wombs, standing before them and staring right back.

"Who is that?!"

Of course they were shocked. The figures looked one hundred percent identical to themselves. It was as though they were looking into a mirror, except what stood before them was undeniably real.

The shock rendered Aaron speechless. Without realizing it, he raised his right hand high and then...

Bang... Bang... Bang...

The other three froze for a moment as they watched living reflections of themselves whose chests rose and fell as though they were truly alive.

Panic struck.

Hana, Mine, and Zavi immediately ran toward the same place, where Aaron stood on the eastern side. Naturally, the living reflections made from their shadows followed wherever they moved.

Upon reaching the eastern side of the cemetery, each of them was stunned to discover that they had all encountered the exact same phenomenon. Even after gathering together, their throats felt weak, the words they wished to say becoming lodged inside.

'This... this is similar to something I know from Earth. A Qarin Jinn... a supernatural being that accompanies a person even while they are still in their mother's womb.'

Zavi looked once more at his double as he lifted his bamboo hat, and the other Zavi copied the movement perfectly.

"Hey..." Zavi said clearly.

"Hey..." Zavi's Qarin Jinn repeated clearly.

"Stop copying me, damn it."

"Stop copying me, damn it." Zavi's Qarin Jinn repeated.

Zavi fell silent as he realized there might actually be some truth to his earlier suspicion.

"Qarin..." Zavi tried to investigate further by asking directly.

The corners of the other Zavi's lips curled upward into a faint smile upon realizing that the person he had followed all this time knew who he really was.

"Why? Do you want to ask me for help?"

Although it had accompanied Zavi since he was still in the womb, possessing a physical form made little difference. Even its manner of speaking was the same, despite having a different personality.

A Qarin Jinn.

"Of course," Zavi answered calmly. "All of you, don't be afraid. What you're seeing, the thing imitating your appearance and even your way of speaking, is actually a Qarin Jinn. You can think of it as a supernatural being that has accompanied each of you since you were in your mothers' wombs up until this very moment."

Naturally, the three of them did not believe him immediately. Acting on instinct, Aaron decided to ask his own Qarin Jinn directly.

"Is that true?"

Aaron's Qarin Jinn nodded with a somewhat apathetic expression and spoke to confirm Zavi's words.

"What the man in the bamboo hat said is true. I am you, and you are me. So even though we have different personalities, you are still me."

Mine covered her mouth with one hand as her sharp gaze settled on Zavi, as though she were thinking intensely.

She looked at her own Qarin Jinn, dressed exactly like her, before finally voicing her thoughts.

"How do you know that a 'Qarin Jinn' has always been with me since I was inside my mother's womb until now?"

"..."

Zavi chose to ignore the question as his gaze swept across the area, struggling to distinguish the originals from their counterparts.

'Damn it, is there an easy way to tell which ones are the Qarin Jinns?'

Once again, Zavi found himself confused. Somehow, he was even trying to figure out how to distinguish the real people from their own Qarin Jinns.

"Qarin... is it possible that you appeared because we recited those fragments from the inscription?"

Zavi's Qarin Jinn shook his head as though he wasn't entirely sure about that assumption.

"Simply put, I know that all of you are searching for the 'Lantern of Fate.' You solved the first riddle in order to find the answer, and the answer was us, the four who have always accompanied you since birth."

The other three Qarin Jinns nodded in agreement with Zavi's Qarin Jinn.

"That's right," Hana's Qarin Jinn answered. "He's the one who realized you needed to recite those fragments toward different cardinal directions."

Hearing praise directly from what was essentially herself left Hana unsure how to react. She lowered her head in embarrassment as everyone's attention shifted toward her.

"Yes. That's true. If it weren't for Hana's suggestion earlier, we probably wouldn't have found the answer to the riddle needed to search for the Lantern of Fate."

Aaron muttered quietly, still confused by the changes in their surroundings.

"So," Mine said clearly, "what do we do next...?"

Zavi shook his head and answered honestly.

"I don't know. Sirius is the leader of this group, and I always rely on him in complicated situations like this."

Aaron clicked his tongue after realizing Zavi had dragged him into something troublesome.

However, after carefully observing the situation, piecing together Kuhan's earlier statements and the riddle itself in a more structured manner, Aaron felt as though he stood before two different roads, each leading to a different destination.

Aaron spoke with a deep sigh.

"For now, we're leaving this place. We'll get something to eat and rest. Then we'll continue searching for the hidden Lantern of Fate."

Without waiting for a response, Aaron immediately added as his eyes locked onto his own Qarin Jinn.

"Do you know where the 'Lantern of Fate' is?"

Aaron's Qarin Jinn shrugged slightly and said, "If I knew, I would've told you already, idiot."

Aaron froze when he heard such piercing words coming from what was essentially himself.

His shoulders slumped, his expression turning gloomy as his Qarin Jinn walked away, following the others through the narrow cemetery paths toward the exit.

Aaron did not move an inch from where he stood as he continued thinking about his Qarin Jinn's words.

'It's true that I'm very stupid. Well, I never went to school because Siena never went either. To hell with school. Fortunately, I can read and write because that's important if you want to make money.'

Aaron nodded before stepping forward steadily, following the others so he wouldn't be left alone in the cemetery.

As the night grew deeper, the three of them; Zavi, Mine, and Aaron, made their way along a pathway in an underground chamber, through a branching corridor.

The place was located beneath a massive building in northern Chavez, a location forbidden to the public. Even standing in front of its gates was prohibited.

Using the dim light from the two lanterns they had previously used in the village, the three continued forward in silence and caution.

The hissing of steam machinery on their right made their hearts tremble, while the pungent scent of gas and kerosene mixed with the air they breathed.

Not wanting to remain there any longer than necessary, they ignored it and continued onward, because their destination lay ahead, within the dark and suffocating underground passage.

Upon reaching a three-way intersection, they turned left and walked several steps away from the corridor they had previously followed.

Relying on the lantern's light, Zavi raised it toward the right, trying to determine which room contained the information they sought.

Important documents regarding a mass grave hidden for over a thousand years, all the way to the present era.

At the very least, that information was the lead he had obtained from someone else.

After searching for a long time, they finally found a document indicating the location of a copy of the mass grave records.

The three of them immediately left the place.

Of course, getting out after struggling so hard to enter the underground facility and navigate its dark, branching passages was not as easy as they had imagined.

By the time they returned to the entrance corridor they had passed through earlier, Zavi felt disgusted at having to deal with several Hunter-Type Chalog that had appeared from who knew where.

In fact, the three of them suspected that the recent conspiracy involving Hunter-Type Chalog roaming and terrorizing Chavez was intended to make both the citizens and the city's higher authorities afraid to leave their homes.

Not wanting to do anything that might provoke the Chalog.

Aaron released the veil of shadows from beneath his feet, allowing it to spread throughout the corridor before it engulfed the two of them, making it seem as though their bodies had been swallowed by the earth itself.

As darkness took over the corridor, the Chalog growled when the scent trail of the three intruders vanished without leaving a trace.

A hundred meters away from the massive building that had previously been guarded by several men in matching uniforms with long-barreled rifles slung over their shoulders, the three of them disappeared as they observed the structure from afar.

"Is this what you wanted to obtain, Sirius?" Mine asked while wiping sweat from her forehead.

Aaron lowered the lantern in his hand and replied with difficulty, "Yes. At the very least, this will help us find the 'Lantern of Fate' itself."

Meanwhile, Zavi stared at the courtyard of the massive building with a grim expression, as though contemplating something important.

'Maybe I'll go back and see the three of them again... and say goodbye for the last time. Leaving without saying goodbye wasn't the right thing to do. I know that.'