Hope born of solitus

*

To make matters short, I was invited out by Arin. A day of fun before the weekdays... I wonder how she would feel... If she knew...

From the diary it could be seen that she regards me as someone incredibly important to her. The same could be said for Sariel, but Sariel doesn't show her affection so outwardly. She tended to be in a sort of guiding role, subtly aiding or teaching me new knowledge.

I reached our meeting place early but... I have had a bad feeling since I left the house. Every step I took reverberated in my ears, like ripples of water intersecting and combining before vanishing. My thoughts are clear, unhindered. Today the world is... Too quiet. Even with the memory reset, I still retain a set of skills that allow me to survive my day to day and maintain a facade of a normal continuous human being. A strong capability to remember, likely because my mind is nearly empty. Linguistics and common logic, to blend in with the masses.

In other words I am at least equipped with the common sense to feel something is wrong. I initially denied it, dismissed it on the way here but... There's been absolutely no one around so far. Desolate, it's not possible that there are nobody around in public at this time of the day, it isn't possible to migrate a large number of people too...

Trace! I spun my waist as I leapt, landing in a position where I could see what attacked my initial position. The sound of rocks crushing was gutteral and loud, to exert that much force and break concrete like clay, it also made a lot of noise. Like bones of the earth being cracked, the rocks fragment with some flying into the air. As my feet touched the ground, my body began glowing uncontrollably.

The light instantly covered my whole body before fragmenting like broken glass. In front of me laid a large club like structure... But it's not a weapon. It was attached to the opponent's arm and it was the size of a car. An easy description of it would be 'ogre' due to its rotund yet tall and burly stature. Its skin was a shade of dark purple, its eyes were lifeless as they merely glow a blinding pale yellow in the darkness of the early morning. Without any iris or additional pigment, I couldn't tell where it was looking unless it directly faced its head at me. No wait... the morning isn't supposed to be this dark. I set out at around 7, usually the sky would brighten as I walked.

It stopped... This monster had stopped time before anyone set foot outside the house. No... This monster slowed down time. I'm moving at normal human speed even though I'm supposed to be enhanced by my magical girl transformation. That's why the world isn't completely devoid of light, yet it had a ghastly pale palette to itself. In normal time we must be moving so fast nobody could really perceive us...

Rather, this creature being able to touch time in any way is a big feat in and of itself. Yet there is a corrective force being applied on the world, with how fast we're moving we would cause an explosion that would bring down this city into ash and radioactive rubble. All of it is prevented by an invincible force, easing the energy being let out into the world so it doesn't explode all at once.

Right, slowing time would take too much energy. What the ogre Trace is doing is actually... Moving on a different vibrational frequency beyond human perception. I leaped forward and landed on my toes, my toes propel me forward with grace. My body generates momentum, moving faster and faster, though only for a short moment. I saw it, the speed at which the ogre Trace moved. Just like the goblin Trace, it was not an impossible move to track, it was not similar to that tentacle that I encountered at all.

Sariel's ability is {Swap}, I wonder whta my ability is. But it allowed me to defeat that tentacle creature. Energy based, it consumed or overpowered the enemy's attack and finally devoured them at the end. {Feed}, that shall be the name of my ability. Ultimately it is not physical, it wouldn't help in this fight anyway. But indirectly, maybe consuming energy based attacks increases my physical strength. That's why I could immediately adapt to those goblin Traces.

As proof, I took a single step and pounded my right fist into its flesh. Its power is vibration, it reinforces its body with vibrations. {Anxiety}, perhaps? Regardless, its body is sent flying. Even if it's extra durable, my knuckles will still pick it up and throw it into the air. Another step, another leap, I arrive behind the flying ogre as I launch the next punch. I won't let it touch the ground until it's beaten to a pulp. Balancing my body's weight onto my hips, my left leg springs into air, knocking the ogre high up.

With the same fluid motion, my left leg landed on the floor softly before I propelled myself with both of my legs. Not only the force I can exert with my fists, my jumping ability has also increased. I catch up with the mid air ogre in not time, my knuckles hurt from the previous beatings but I can't stop now. I throw my arm upwards, tearing the air apart and landing it onto its torso. The air trembled with a low roar as a column of air flowed downwards to occupy the vacuum left behind by the ogre's absence.

... I begin to plummet towards the ground. I roughly jumped a few floors high, about the height of a small building. My combat abilities are probably around such an estimation too, the destructive limit of my strength is likely that of the volume of a small building. All things considered, there was no way to test my body's durability other than confronting danger.

In a couple seconds, I reached the ground. Without any sense of inertia, I landed onto the side of my body with no control to my orientation. The concrete floor was cracked, my right elbow and knuckles were aching terribly. I landed on my left side, so I wasn't looking good on either side. However... I lived. I even stayed conscious, and...

I picked my own body up. I could still stand, I was looking far better than expected. A few metres away, the ogre seemed to share a similar situation. It was still filly conscious as it stared its beady eyes at me.