Picking up Bulwark's headless corpse was the easy part's first step.
The long haired staff member held her by the shoulders, while Anaphol lifted her up by her legs.
Anaphol assured himself of the doubt that crept in when he picked her up. She felt a bit lighter. 'Maybe it's because I severed her leg.'
Yet, the crater he had left her body in had less to no blood pool like the one a human body will make if mutilated severely.
It was weird.
It was long haired one's turn to begin a conversation, "her body didn't bleed much because she had sustained a very large amount of cata immersion."
He glanced back at Naph, "You had fought her within her controlled cata immersion space. Uncommon for ordinary people."
"Do I not look like a common rat?" Naph's fake puffy eyes and mellow voice did not help the words.
"Oh, absolutely you do," shaking his head the staff member lead Naph to his mechanical ride.
Both helped the corpse of Bulwark be well placed into the backseat as they placed her legs on the backseat's pedals.
"Even in death, she'll be able to infuse your ride with enough cata. She reeks of it." The long haired one scrunched up his face.
"She reeks of death. Have you not seen any?" Naph asked politely, still under the cata immersion of the long haired one.
The staff member side-eyed Naph, "I have. Plenty for a lifetime."
He contemplated and discussed within a few more thoughts. And Naph attempted to move within this young teen's cata immersion.
He couldn't even take a single step. But he could breathe normally and blink.
He took notice of that.
He attempted talking to himself but his mouth suddenly spoke his thoughts aloud.
"This so-called cata immersion only restricts some parts, and not transgress into certain involuntary actions, hmm. Wait, why am I saying it out loud?!"
The long haired one responded without ever turning back, he was pacing around the mechanical ride. "That's the effect I chose to have."
Naph couldn't nod nor glance at him. His actions were restricted.
The only extra thing he noticed that he didn't voice out was a simple sense he felt from within. It felt as if he is doused in an intangible quicksand pit. His movements restricted but not all.
He considered the entire sequence of loading Bulwark into the backseat.
'That should tell me something. Wait, why can I say this inwards?' Naph queried his own thoughts.
Considering his next actions, he chose his next sequence.
He bounded together several actions into one involuntary movement in his mind.
Naph turned slightly as he faced towards the long haired one, asking a simple question, "I never got to ask your name. What is it?"
The long haired one had changed from his deep insight into a defensive stance. "This fast? Clever boy. And the name is Shrik."
Naph wanted to raise his eyebrows in response, but just couldn't. He liked that he could send someone in power to be afraid of him. It soothes his first vicious trait.
Naph wanted to say something further, but he was just stuck. He realized that intangible quicksand pit had become a bit more realistic.
He could see it as a shimmering vast cloud that enveloped him and Shrik.
A wondrous sight indeed.
Shrik shaking his head continued. "Since, the Confederation of Tarna has forsaken Sevenren, you will be performing an act of transgression if you get out of the area designated as Sevenren."
Naph wanted to ask more, he had questions. The intangible cata pulled and pushed on him, and he moved against his will into his ride.
Settling down on the front seat.
Shrik came close to him and pointed to a bag in the front compartment of his ride under the steering wheel.
"I have placed some food and water in it, as well as whatever I could find of yours in The Outro Restro. Anything else?"
Naph felt the intangible cata immersion vanishing. He couldn't see it but felt the release clearly.
And he barreled Shrik with questions.
"What is your full name? Obviously, your name isn't Shrik. Why have I never seen you much at The Outro Restro? Can you somehow tie Bulwark with your cata immersion or whatever to the pedals? I really need that her legs don't end up breaking my speed."
He was not stopping.
Shrik slammed hard on the front of the ride.
"Listen, kid. If you want to know my actual name, come back and save Sevenren. Then I will. Bulwark's legs won't bother you, she is dead but her cata will leak out slowly just by your pedaling and stick it to the pedals."
He breathed in.
"That was a lot. And remember because you are about to be performing an act of transgression on a nation with such a prized body in tow." Shrik stared into him.
Naph understood the unsaid words, and nodded.
Shrik was about to turn when, "Why the kingdom?"
Shrik was about to fall because the question's answer he was about to give nearly had him becoming dizzy. Cata truly was a mysterious entity of this world.
He circled around to the other side of Naph, and answered, "Because that is the kingdom of the…one about whom….I warned you…not to speak of."
His breath came out ragged. Swiftly Shrik placed his hand on his mouth.
His hand was bloodied; he had coughed out too much.
Shrik's eyes were suddenly bloodshot and wide. Collapsing onto the front of the ride, he whispered, "water, water."
Naph immediately tore into the front luggage compartment, finding a bottle of water handing it to Shrik.
Shrik gulped down the entirety of it.
"Thanks. Huh, huh. Talking about anything closely related to such high class beings is tiring even in most passive indirect forms." Shrik began checking his chest for something.
"No physical injuries."
He and Naph looked at each other. One with death dancing in his eyes, the other with confusion and chaos rampaging.
Naph requested one last thing. "Do you perhaps have any idea on how to cross the ocean? And in what direction?"
Shrik considered his question deeply. It was one that will dictate many future events and its importance of deciding earlier could affect the survival of the people of Sevenren.
He asked, "Do you have any connection with Sevenren to want to save it?"
He received one. Naph's short reply, "Don Extea."
Both didn't explain further. Shrik considered many choices that Naph could make.
His patience was rewarded with a simple answer. "That is the worst choice of all to want to save Sevenren. He is marked to be killed by every nation except the Confederation of Tarna, and you will be walking into their territory with Bulwark's body."
A silence walked in.
Naph let his weight into his seat as Shrik rattled his mind over Anaphol's entire conundrum. He had no reason to help, but he chose to.
He chose because Don Extea chose Naph. Because he had seen Bulwark's mutilated corpse.
He had an understanding of him.
But would people in Sevenren wait for their decision? They found out the answer.
A loud shockwave slammed into the ride, Shrik and everything around them as both Naph and Shrik looked towards Sevenren.
One thing was clear. A large explosion had happened in Sevenren.
The part that they didn't expect to see was tornadoes descending onto Sevenren. Not two or three.
But dozens of them.
Every single one visible from the spot Bulwark died.
"Go north," Shrik replied.
Naph asked, "What?!"
Shrik was gone. No sound or indication of his sudden absence.
Naph and the corpse of Bulwark were alone in his ride. He couldn't feel this cata of Bulwark that Shrik talked of. He couldn't even see or tell what happened during Don Extea and that one's fight.
And now this. Huge tornadoes, with incomprehensible strength behind them, descending.
He had to move. His ride faced westward into Confederation of Tarna's territory.
Sevenren wasn't some border city in Confederation of Tarna, it was half way closer to the center of the nation. The city was completely landlocked and atop a plateau eroded by time.
This same plateau had turned out to be an ancient caestre's grave.
Naph knew little. The best he could do is survive in the wild.
And what he was about to do, is a transgression on a nation developed enough that it could monitor its entire border very well. Yet here it was, a city of that exact nation being captured.
Shrik's words echoed within him. 'Go north.'
He let a few breaths even him out. And began pedaling.
Bulwark's legs slowly began to stick to the moving pedals of the backseat. The mechanical ride jolted when her right leg completely attached itself to it.
It jolted again for the left leg.
Some more shockwaves passed into the four wheel ride of Naph. But each shock felt closer to what Shrik's cata immersion was.
He considered many things, whether Shrik knew it because he was taught in this, or why Bulwark was such a high priority target. One question and thought did make a seat in his thought along with two more.
"Go north?"
"Cata immersion."
"Teleportation poles."