FINAL CORE - Additional Scenes (Patreon)

As I go through the editing process, I will be adding more new scenes to Final Core. Here are two new ones that were added to the final chapter 143 to give some more closure =)

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“Now what?” asks Deutero, looking at Marjatta.

The fairy hovers there and turns her head to look at him. She looks back over the destruction, over the wasteland that is the southern region. The witch is dead. Isaiah is dead. The tower is destroyed. Their mission to save the world was successful, but it did not go as well as had been hoped.

They arrived a little too late to save the day for everyone.

“That’s it. You’re done,” replies Marjatta.

Deutero blinks, looking at her. “...That’s it?” he asks.

“Yup.”

He stares blankly. “But… all of that training,” says Deutero. “I did thousands of push-ups…”

“Oh, yeah. It was a lot, for sure,” replies Marjatta, looking back over the water.

“-- I only swung my sword once,” he argues, somewhat let down.

She hovers down, landing on his shoulder, looking at him from up close. “And what a swing it was,” says the fairy. “Good job, champ. You did it,” says the fairy dryly. “That’s it.”

It’s quiet.

The two of them look at one another and then turn back toward the water.

“So…” starts Deutero. “Now what?”

Marjatta shrugs. “Beats me,” she replies. “I think we’re both retired now.”

“Oh… huh…” mumbles Deutero. A wind comes, moving away the heavy dampness in the air for a moment of relief. “Hey, you wanna like… I dunno, go do something together?” he asks.

Marjatta smiles, staring at the water as her finger spins around in her hair, pulling a strand of it in a tight wrap. “I’m a fairy, big guy,” replies Marjatta. “You’re a human. It wouldn’t work,” she explains.

“Wanna try anyway?” he asks.

The fairy leans over from his shoulder, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Yeah,” replies Marjatta, leaning against him a moment later and looking away with a red face. “I think the sun is going to rise in a minute,” she says. “Let’s go watch it together,” she offers. “You promised.”

Deutero nods, the two of them just walking away from the busy church caravan, collecting together with the thousands of members of the crusade as they try to organize some sort of hierarchy of control over the situation.

But that’s their problem.

The two friends, or maybe more, walk away and go watch the first sunset of the season together, and after that, they are never seen or heard from in the public eye ever again. Although rumors persist of an unusually powerful man and a fairy — which is impossible, of course, given that they can never leave the mountain in the west — roaming the world together in the far regions, offering help to those too far from the core of the world to ever receive any.

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The perfect rock.

He found it.

Somewhere, down below the soil, it sleeps. Down there, deep in the darkness below the heavy surface of the world, it rests.

The shrine-master kneels there, his hands resting on top of the small mound of soil that he has finished moving, burying the thing in its grave.

With closed eyes and his head bowed, he sits in silence, absorbing the sounds of the world around him. The rain has finally stopped. The flooding, after days, has subsided as a heavy, radiant sun, very unusual for winter, comes to dry out all of the waters shortly before the great freeze begins, sparing the world some of the damage.

The tower is gone. Everyone is gone.

Silently, the man who was once a thief says a prayer for the souls of those who were lost, his friends – Rorate, Scion, and all of the others. That is not to mention Isaiah itself, which had granted him this new life.

Where would he be now, had Isaiah never come to be?

Dead, of course.

The man opens his eyes again, looking down at the grave that he sits over, his fingers resting on the dirt as the wind of the season moves through his hair, like a hand stroking his chin to lift it. He follows the movement, staring at the distant horizon that it has to show him in contemplative silence.

— A hand rests itself on his shoulder.

Beulah looks at the shrine-maiden, the eldest, and then at the others who remain in silence. The tower has collapsed, and the magics fading. But these things that have come to life, these… people, they have remained alive without it. It’s like the seed that Isaiah planted no longer needs the metaphysical soil from which it grew. The same goes for his class, which he still has.

The man rises to his feet, looking at them.

They’re all able to survive by themselves now, for themselves and for each other.

She nods her head to the side, gesturing in the same direction the wind had guided him a moment before, and he nods to her and then to the others.

The tower is gone, but what it made and stood for remains.

Four shadows vanish into the distance, running toward the distant horizon, given speed by the wings of Isaiah on their mission that continues on despite everything.