By the time the villagers went back to their homes, the sun had already begun its slow descent toward the horizon. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys and somewhere in the distance a cow let out a long, unimpressed moo. I floated a little higher, looking around the village more carefully.
Something was off.
"There's no inn."
"What?"
"No inn. Think about it, Darling. A village this size should have at least one place for travelers but there's nothing. Just farms, houses, barns and chickens judging us from fences."
Ely turned slowly, scanning the area with narrowed eyes. Now that she was actually looking for it, she noticed it too. The entire place was agricultural. Nothing was meant for outsiders.
"Strange."
And yet the villagers themselves didn't seem to mind our presence at all. In fact, a few had even approached earlier, kindly offering spare rooms or empty lofts for us to sleep in for the night. It was rural hospitality, apparently. But we declined, not because they were untrustworthy. If anything, they were almost painfully genuine.
It was because we didn't trust the situation.
So instead, we moved a short distance away from the main cluster of homes and set up a small camp near the edge of the fields. The enormous beanstalk was still visible, twisting its green body so high until it vanished into a the clouds. Even from here, it dominated the landscape.
The fire crackled softly as night settled in. Elyonari sat on a flat rock near the edge of the field. Her gaze fixed on the colossal plant as if she were studying a puzzle that refused to solve itself. That's when something occurred to me.
"Hey Ely. You can sense flora, right?"
"Yes."
I tilted my head toward the towering stalk.
"What about that thing?"
Elyonari exhaled slowly.
"The plant's been bothering me since the moment I saw it."
Veneri looked up immediately.
"Bothering you?"
"It shares the same Nature Energy as the World Tree. The structure of the energy is similar but at the same time, it isn't."
"What does that mean?"
Ely rubbed her temple slightly, clearly frustrated with the difficulty of explaining it.
"I tried speaking to it."
"You what?"
That was the first time all evening he looked genuinely shocked. Elyonari noticed immediately and raised an eyebrow at him.
"What?"
"You tried speaking to the plant?"
"Yes."
"You can talk to plants?"
"Of course. Anything that lives has a soul, even flora. Trees, flowers, vines, they all have consciousness in some form. It's just different. But this one is strange."
"How strange?"
"It's like…" she searched for the right words. "It's sentient, but also not."
"That sounds contradictory," Veneri said.
She tapped her fingers lightly against her arm as she continued.
"It is. The plant responds to presence. I can feel that much. But when I try to reach its mind, it's frozen, like something paused it mid-thought. Imagine a living being trapped inside a statue. That's the closest comparison I can make."
None of us spoke for a moment. The wind rustled softly through the surrounding fields.
Finally, Ely sighed and shook her head.
"Either way,.we still have to climb it. Darling, according to the fairytale, how long is the beanstalk?"
Veneri looked up toward the towering plant.
"So long it reaches the clouds."
I stared up too.
"Okay but… how is that possible?"
Both of them looked at me.
"No seriously. Cloud level is ridiculously high. Humans can't just climb that, even with breaks. Gravity exists too. That thing is basically a vertical marathon. This is actually the first time I've seen humans with no energy. In Spheraphase, every living being has some form of energy flowing through them, even ordinary citizens. But the people here are completely empty."
"They still have souls though."
Ely looked at him.
"Yes."
"Which means they're real, not constructs. The people living in this world are actual living beings. But if this is a story, the world is fixed to that story."
"What do you mean?"
Veneri looked back up at the beanstalk.
"Ely, in the original tale, Jack climbs the beanstalk. He steals from the giant and eventually, the giant chases him down the stalk. Jack cuts the beanstalk before the giant reaches the ground."
Veneri suddenly shook his head and rubbed his face.
"There's something I'm missing. It's just... sorry, this is too absurd. I used to read these stories to kids at the orphanage in my past life. Reading it from a book is one thing but why would Vasreveilder create three entire worlds just to test people for ownership for a spaceship?"
Ely stepped closer behind him and quietly wrapped her arms around him from behind.
"You're tired."
Veneri didn't argue.
"Yeah. I used the Time Divinity too much earlier. If I had all five Time Fragments, it wouldn't matter but I only have one."
Ely loosened her arms slightly. She sat down on the grass behind him and patted her lap.
"Then stop thinking. Lie down."
"You're serious?"
"Yes."
He hesitated for about half a second before he shrugged.
"Alright."
He shifted around and laid his head on her lap and almost immediately— I mean immediately— he fell asleep.
His head rested comfortably on her lap. Earlier he had been talking, analyzing, worrying about the logic of the story and the dangers waiting above the clouds. Now that tension was gone, he looked completely at peace. Her fingers moved slowly through his hair, almost absentmindedly, brushing the strands back from his forehead whenever they slipped forward again. I watched the two of them for a while before speaking.
"You really like seeing him like this."
Ely didn't immediately respond. She kept gently combing her fingers through his hair. After a moment she smiled faintly.
"I might not know Darling the way you do but I know when he's tired. He tries too much."
I floated a little lower as I leaned back in the air.
"Too much how?"
Elyonari let out a quiet breath.
"I don't really understand how the patriarchy works on Earth but I've noticed something about him since we started traveling together. He keeps trying to put everything on himself. Every danger, every responsibility, every decision, he throws himself into it before anyone else even has time to react."
She paused briefly, then shook her head with a small smile.
"And the strange thing is that normally it should be the opposite. In Spheraphase, women are usually the ones who carry that kind of burden. Divine authority, military command, political power, most of the strongest figures are women. Men contribute in other ways of course, but they rarely throw themselves into the center of every dangerous situation."
I folded my arms while hovering beside the fire.
"On Earth, men are usually expected to be the strong ones."
Elyonari glanced up at me.
"They're expected to protect their families, provide for them and handle danger so that the people they care about don't have to. In a lot of cultures, that's what being a man is supposed to mean."
She considered that for a moment.
"That sounds exhausting. Maybe that explains why he risks his life so easily. He probably thinks that if something happens to him, we'll all be fine."
I didn't answer right away. The idea wasn't new. It was something I had noticed too. In fact, I noticed this way before the Epoch Cycle. For example, when Stephos was hunting him, he didn't care about himself but making sure Adelasta was safe.
"Who taught him to think like that, Phae? Every time I tell him we're lucky to have him, he treats it like a simple compliment. Like I'm just being polite. He nods and moves on as if it meant nothing. He doesn't actually believe it."
I nodded slowly.
"Yeah."
Elyonari leaned back slightly, still supporting his head carefully.
"He thinks he's irrelevant. If he truly valued his own life, he wouldn't have pushed himself this far just for our sake. Too bad none of us can really change that. Whatever made him like this probably happened long before we met him."
"His life on Earth?"
"Most likely. Actually, you're not the only one who thinks that way. Asenane told me something similar once."
"She did?"
"Yeah. She said that he cares so much about everyone else that he barely thinks about himself at all."
"That sounds exactly like him. Well, I'll change that eventually. Because if he dies during this Epoch Cycle like last time… the world won't be the same."
She laughed quietly, though there was a serious weight behind the words.
"He's holding the sanity of five extremely powerful women together."
I stared at her for a second.
"When you put it that way, that sounds incredibly dangerous."
"I honestly don't know what I would do if he suddenly disappeared from our lives."
I watched them for a while before answering.
"I wouldn't want that either."
For a moment the only sound was the fire burning softly and the distant wind across the fields. Then Elyonari suddenly smirked slightly.
"You know what's still strange, though?"
"What?"
She gestured lightly toward the sleeping man in her lap.
"That this handsome Aeterium somehow ended up with five women."
I couldn't help laughing quietly.
"That part still surprises me too. How did he make a cocky Celestial and an ex-Phantasm like him?"
"And two of them are literally sitting here right now."
"Which somehow makes it even stranger."
"You don't mind?"
"Not really. He's just… him."
"That might actually be the best explanation anyone could give."