James nudges Ryan’s elbow. “I bet that is the thing Ashes pointed us to, right?”

Ryan let’s out a quiet nod, before clearing his throat, clearly still stunned by what he did to Ashes. “…Probably, yeah.” 

James pats Ryan on the shoulder. “Dude, get over it, you did what you had to, by killing Ashes, you gave people no more reason to be scared of the forest and avenged the ones he killed.”

Ryan nods again. They walk over to the strange rock, noticing a human-sized opening in it. As they enter, they notice the inside has some kind of hallway, leading up to a larger room. Ryan brightens the green energy surrounding his arms, using the glow as a torch. After a few minutes of walking through the narrow hallway, they enter into a slightly bigger room, the main feature of it are carvings on a wall and texts in a ancient language which have been translated by a previous wanderer, who is now a skeleton in the corner of the room. Ryan speaks up: “What happened to that poor guy over there..?”

“Probably starved to death, I guess?” James replies, glancing down at the skeleton, noticing torn exploration clothes and gear on it, along with a worn journal in it’s hand.

“Although, I don’t know why he didn’t just leave.” James continues, before he grabs the journal out of the skeleton’s hand, the movement accidentally causes the skull to fall off and Ryan gets a faintly disgusted look. James opens the journal and starts to read through the most important days. “He wrote down here that he found this on day one…” 

Notes: “Day one: This absurd rock formation crashed into the forest, so I went ahead and travelled toward it, in order to investigate it. I found an entrance into a hallway and went inside, after a few minutes, I found this strange room with these intricate, ancient-looking carvings on the walls. After a few minutes of investigating however, some rubble blocked off the entrance into the room, I haven’t figured a way out yet, but I’m sure I will.”

“Day seven: Alright, so far, I haven’t found a exit yet and my food supplies are nearing their end. BUT, I’ve managed to translate most of the carvings on the wall with sticky notes. Although I’m starting to feel faintly frightened… Will I get out of here alive?”

“Day fourteen: My food and water has been gone for days now, I don’t even know anymore. I’m losing hope, but my grip on sanity remains absolute… Hopefully.”

“Day twenty-one: I can feel the plants tickling my Orionis, Grabfighly the second will save me from death. I wanna kiss my raw onions in the circublum. Am I dying?”

Ryan raises his eyebrow after reading the last line, before looking at James. “What the hell was he talking about in those final pages?”

“I think he went insane, man.” James responds, before closing the book and tossing it away over his shoulder. He looks at the sticky notes next to the carvings that the wanderer wrote down. 

"The battle between The Celestial One against The Creator and the Nirvana Army commences, the fate of Existence relies on the outcome.”

James scoffs, before shaking his head. “Why would you battle against my God? That’s bullshit, The Creator is a good Deity dude.”

Ryan gives James a confused look. “I didn’t know you believed in Ethionism?”

“I hope that doesn’t make me more irrelevant in your story” James replies with a shrug. Ryan shrugs too. “Nah, I’m fine with it, honestly. Believe what you wanna believe.”

Suddenly, behind them, the entrance into the Prophecy room is covered by falling rubble, which turns out to be an ancient trap. Ryan screams out of surprise: “What was that?! We’re trapped man, fuck! This is what happened to the Wanderer!!”

“Dude, relax. Unlike that guy, you have powers and I’m trained to be able to break stone with my fists.” 

James replies with a roll of his eyes. He shoves Ryan towards the direction of the blocked entrance, implying he should do it. Ryan groans and walks up to it and punches at the rubble. He unintentionally uses too much force and creates a giant hole in the wall, clearing away the rubble and causing a small earthquake through the area, causing permanent, giant cracks through the surrounding earth, almost causing a small crater surrounding the mountain’s peak. James grabs the wall with his hand to steady himself. “Ryan, dude! Careful with your own strength!” 

“Hey, you made me clear away the rubble! I just lost control for a millisecond! No big deal!” Ryan replies as he dusts his fist off on his pants.

“ ‘Lost control’?! Buddy, you caused a mini earthquake!” James replies with wide eyes, pointing to the outside of the mountain’s peak, showing Ryan the cracks. Ryan gulps as he sees the damage to the terrain, that he caused.

“Ah shit, my bad, man. But can you really blame? I barely know how to use my powers.” Ryan responds as he scratches the back of his neck, James slaps the palm of his hand against his face in frustration. They walk out of the peak of the mountain and back into the forest. 

“So, what do we do now?” Ryan asks, looking at James as they walk through the forest.

“Let’s go back to our classic technique of getting answers: Interrogating the locals!” James replies, a grin on his face.

Ryan: “Please, no…” 

Ryan sighs out, but nods as they start to walk back to the village. Once they’ve entered the entrance gate, they spot the same guy from before, who under pressure, told them about Ashes’ legend. The man had just bought a cheese coin, before turning around and screaming hysterically at the sight of Ryan and James again, dropping the cheese coin on the floor and stumbling on the ground, scrambling a little away from them. “Not you two again!! Wasn’t burning the collar of my shirt off enough for you, you green-haired freak? And my fucking cheese coin!”

James walks up to the man. “Hello again sir! Would you be able to answer a few mor-“

“No, fuck you two! Think twice before you waste a man’s cheese coin, I paid five Yen for that! And you burned my collar off too! Damn punks!” The man interrupts as he tries to crawl away a bit more from them.

Ryan sighs and walks over, grabbing the man by his sleeve. “Sir, listen, we killed that thing in the woods from your legend, so no need to worry about that anymore. But, he pointed us to a prophecy in the peak of a shattered mountain further into the forest, but it’s missing a lot of info, do you happen to know where the rest of the prophecy could be?”

The man gives Ryan a very confused look, having no clue what “Prophecy” he is talking about. “Prophecy?! What prophecy?! And a mountain peak? There’s no mountains anywhere around here! Did that fight screw you over that bad?!”

James grunts and Ryan lets go of the man. “Ahh, forget it...”

“Well, that was our only clue of info so far, any other ideas, Ryan?’ James sarcastically asks.

Ryan and James walk through the village, Ryan’s feet are kicking a small rock forward every other step, a few people give him strange looks due to his glowing white eyes and the green glow on his arms, which reach from his hands to just above his biceps, the glow is visible through the fabric of the gi, but he ignores them. Eventually, as they reach the market of the town, they walk past a newspaper stall. Ryan notices a headline from the corner of his eye, saying something about a mysterious mountain in Portugal. Ryan stops James by grabbing him by the shoulder, he points to the newspaper, the headline says: “Mystery of Portuguese mountain peak being sliced off still a mystery after 250 years”. “Dude, look! This mountain on this newspaper looks like the peak was sliced off with a blade! Maybe the peak could be the one we were just in?” 

“Eh, that could be, but how the hell did it end up in a somewhat remote Japanese forest?” James asks as he looks over to Ryan.

“I don’t know, I wasn’t born then to witness it man.” Ryan responds, picking up the newspaper to read the article.

The kid behind the stall speaks up, grabbing the newspaper back and covering the article with his hand. “Hey, you gotta pay for that, dishonorable bastard!”

“Okay fine, damn.” James grumbles out in annoyance as he tosses the ten Yen in front of the kid, who smugly smiles and holds it out for James. “Thank you, thank you!”

Ryan narrows his eyes and snatches the newspaper back, muttering under his breath. “Jeez thanks, little fucker.”

Ryan turns the newspaper to page one to read the head article, quietly whispering out what he reads. James reads along over Ryan’s shoulder. “Ah, so a peak of a Portuguese mountain somehow got cut off and no one was around to see who or what did it? That’s a lucky convenience.” James sarcastically comments.

“It is weird, not gonna lie.” Ryan agrees, before closing the newspaper. “They say the mountain is Serra da Estrela, somewhere up in the North-East of Portugal.”

“Well, how are we gonna get there? Can you fly like Ashes, Ryan?” James jokes.

“Totally dude, I just don’t feel like it right now, man.” Ryan jokes back sarcastically, before he closes the newspaper.

“Okay, so you flying us there is off the table, so how are we going to get to Portugal from here?” James asks. The kid behind the newspaper stand speaks up: “If you guys wanna go to Portugal, why don’t you just take a boat to mainland Asia, the buy a car and drive through Europe, into Portugal, no?”

“Woah, that sounds really long.” Ryan sighs out, but James rubs his chin, actually considering the kid’s idea.

After about half a day, they decide to go for it. James and Ryan head back to the dojo, James closes it up, packs the necessary stuff and locks the doors. They walk over to his car and start to drive to the coast of Japan to get a ferry to China. Once they’re on the ferry, they get out the car and lean against the railing. 

“So, what’s the plan once we get it China?” Ryan asks, staring out at the sea. “We use my car to drive through Asia, then we head through a small part of the Middle-East into Europe, then we go to Portugal and go to that damn mountain, simple.” James says, nodding over to his car a few meters away from them. 

After a few hours, they arrive in China, exchange their money for the local currency and buy some more stuff for the road trip. “Wait, so how long is the road trip gonna take?” Ryan asks as they walk through the store, ignoring the glances from strangers at his glowing arms and eyes. "Probably a week at max, if I had to guess.” James replies as he grabs some instant noodles for their dinner. Once they have enough food, they get back on the road, taking a few quick stops every so often, sometimes in different countries. In Austria, they decide to take a break after four days straight of driving, stopping at the border between Austria and Switzerland, they decide to take a small break in Liechtenstein. “Dude, we have been driving non-stop for FOUR days!! How much longer is it again?” Ryan asks with a tired groan as they sit down on a bench. “Dude relax, I have been the one driving anyway.” James sighs out as he leans back on the bench. “It’s two or three more days anyway.” After a hour or two to stretch their legs, they get back in the car and start to drive the final lap toward Portugal. They arrive 2 days and one hour later, exhausted from the journey as they park the car at the base of Serra da Estrela.