Death... and me

Rean kept looking into his communication badge, just pretending to be using it to define which direction to take. Of course, the one really doing that was Roan, who kept paying attention to the familiar feeling coming from these ruins. 'It's in that direction,' Roan commented while pointing out.

Rean nodded and asked Bunbun on Roan's shoulder. "Senior Bunbun, the signal I'm picking is coming from there. Is that the central area of the ruins?"

Bunbun narrowed his eyes for a moment before shaking his head. "No, the central area is further west instead. The north side... has more ruins." He answered somewhat ambiguously. He then glanced at Roan again but quickly retracted his eyes. No one thought his words to be of much use, but at least they knew it wasn't the center. "Well, let's go take a look then."

Kentucky flew fast past the ruins, not seeing anything of interest. Everything had long been gone. Yet, there was one thing he noticed. "These ruins... they aren't exactly the size of Loporrits, are they?"

Celis agreed with him. "Yes, the Loporrits' houses we saw were very small, just perfect for the Loporrits. These ruins... although there are a few small ones here and there, the majority of them are made for bigger beings. Some are so big that you could only think about Demon Beasts using them."

Bunbun nodded. "You are not wrong. The beings who lived in these ruins in the past came from many different races. That's why you have buildings of all sizes."

That was the first time Bunbun mentioned anything about these Ruins. Too bad he went silent again after saying that.

"Stop for a moment," Roan suddenly asked Kentucky.

Kentucky hovered midair as Roan sat down on his back and closed his eyes. Celis, Rean, and Kentucky were used to that already. Roan started to do it every time memories surfaced in his mind. He did that to separate those memories from his own.

Bunbun didn't know what Roan was doing, but for some reason, he felt like the familiar smell coming from Roan increased just slightly. "What's the problem?"

Rean quickly came up with an excuse. "It's our cultivation techniques. I'm not talking about the Chaos Cultivation you Loporrits taught us, but our own from outside of Wonderland. Sometimes, we need to stop and focus on getting it under control."

Bunbun knew nothing about the cultivation techniques from outside, so he just nodded and kept waiting on Roan's shoulders. After a few moments, Roan opened his eyes and stood up again.

'What did you remember?' Rean asked through their Soul Connection.

Roan pondered a bit. 'It's still just fragments, but they are coming in bigger waves now. This place was once called Lafanda City. Just like Bunbun mentioned, it was a city pretty similar to the cities in the Realm of Gods, having many races. As for what is in there...' Roan looked in the direction he was having the familiar feeling. 'It was once the palace of the beings who governed this place.'

Rean took the chance to ask something else. 'Was this Wonderland like this before? I mean, did it have Chaos Laws and Chaos Energy?'

Roan tried to look into the fragments of memories he had but could only shake his head in the end. 'I'm not sure. The rest of the memories of this place are just too broken. I need to wait for more fragments to surface so I can piece them together.'

Finally, Roan told Kentucky. "You can keep going. I'm finished here."

Kentucky nodded and kept flying. He didn't fly at full speed, giving himself and the others time to check the things around and, above all, giving Roan time to see if new memories from his past life would surface. That did the trick. Roan did indeed stop a few more times to organize the fragments that kept coming. It's just that those memories were related to common daily things from this city. They weren't of much importance now that it was gone.

Every time it happened, Bunbun's doubts increased as the smell coming from Roan became more and more like the smell from Loporrits... and a very specific one. Yet, he refused to comment on that. Bunbun wanted to see just what was happening.

Five hours or so later, Kentucky noticed something in the distance. There were still ruins there, but they were much, much bigger than any other ruins so far. No doubt whatever existed there was an important part of this Lafanda City.

"Let me guess, the signal this... communication badge... is picking is coming from there," Bunbun suddenly spoke. Novel Fire - novelfire.net

Roan confirmed to Rean mentally as Rean nodded at Bunbun. "That's correct, Senior Bunbun. Do you know what was that place?" He knew it was a palace, but it was from Roan's memories. Naturally, he couldn't tell Bunbun he already knew the answer.

Bunbun pondered for a moment while glancing at the expressionless Roan. Finally, he looked at the ruins ahead and spoke. "That was the Loporrit Divine Lineage Palace."

"Loporrit?" Kentucky stopped above the so-called palace. "It seems a lot bigger than the houses you Loporrits used in your Burrow."

"That's because the Loporrits often interacted with the other races in this world, so the Palace obviously had to accommodate their size during such moments." Bunbun then pointed to a specific point in that ruined palace. "If you look there, you will see a few places where everything is made with our Loporrit sizes in mind. Those were usually accommodations made for the Loporrit Divine Lineage only to use."

"What's this Loporrit Divine Lineage?" Rean was more curious about that. "Are you not part of such Lineage?"

"I am, all Loporrits are..." Bunbun went silent for a moment. "However, we have long since cast away this idea of Divine Lineage. That's a thing of the past. We only call ourselves Loporrit Race now."

Roan ignored all of that. His eyes were focused on a location a little further back in that ruined palace that didn't seem to hold much importance compared to the rest. "Let's take a look around."