Rayfe asked, and the Gate answered. It answered all of his questions. Bit by bit, he understood the gate’s properties. What was limited, what was not, and what was completely inaccessible.

  Gradually, he felt his mana draining - His mana reserve felt like a reservoir in his head - When he used the echo, invisible liquid drained from it and flowed out into the rest of his body, then out of it through his hands, and eventually solidifying in the shape of the gate.

  Currently, his mana reserve had about fifty percent left. He felt the toll of mana usage on his brain, like a dead weight dragging it down. Panting, he sat down in the grass, taking a rest.

  Crunch. The sound of footsteps in the mud startled Rayfe to attention.

  Rayfe saw that dark blue cloak waving around in the wind, that hardened face with those predatory eyes, and that scar that signalled battle, half covered by the wide-brimmed hat he wore.

  A deer’s corpse was slung over Silas’s shoulder, dried blood forming from a wound on its neck.

  A floating shadow platform beside him carried an assortment of sticks and dried leaves.

  “We’re having deer for lunch. Help me start the fire.”

  With a wave of his hand, the floating platform slowly melted into shadow. The sticks clattered to the ground.

  “Whoa… you can do that?”

  “I can do anything. As long as my rules and my mana allow it.” Silas lay the deer on the ground, picked up a few long sticks, and drove them into the ground, forming a makeshift grill.

  Rayfe nodded, scrambling to help him pile up the sticks and leaves below the grill.

  Silas peeled off the skin of the deer in clean slices using a knife from his belt. When he was done, he impaled the body on a sturdier stick and positioned it on the grill. He then took out some flint from a pouch and struck it.

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  The sparks landed on the dry wood, and it slowly ignited, spreading across the firewood. The blaze grew to a considerable size, drifting in the wind like a dancer in the night.

  In an instant, the smell of burning wood filled his nose. He stumbled back, collapsing on the floor. In that instant, he had relived that fateful day - all of it.

  His breaths came sharp and deep. He saw his own burning house reflected in the flames, the deer carcass his own father’s corpse, burning and charring. He saw Selene being taken away, carried on one hand by the bandit through the corridors of the blazing Hell that used to be his home.

  Silas saw. It was like he saw into Rayfe’s eyes, into his mind, and he understood. He understood and he related.

  “You’re going to have to find a way to deal with it. Usually, I remind myself of my goal.” Silas calmly pointed out, as if he was dealing with a statistic.

  Rayfe slowly steadied his breaths. He had to find and save Selene. He had to. Who knows what she was going through right now? If he died, who was going to save her?

  “Y-you’re right.” He agreed, his voice wavering quietly.

  “I-I can’t fail here.”

  Silas nodded. “So. Tell me what you found out.”

  The smell of roasting meat slowly enveloped the smell of burning cinders.

  “Yes.” Rayfe took a deep breath, inhaling the smell of meat roasting. “Firstly, I can’t open two doors at once - only one.”

  “The door… I don’t know how, but there seems to be multiple ‘rooms’ that I can access. It’s like… When I tried to open the gate… When I put the rock into the gate and closed it, I tried to open the gate again, but this time I imagined the room to be empty. And it was. But the rock doesn’t disappear. I can still access the room with the rock inside, like it’s in the back of my mind somewhere.”

  “There must be a limit to this power.” Silas remarked. “No echo is unlimited. Most echoes are connected to the brain - perhaps the limit lies there. The most likely case is that once you forget how a room looks, you won’t be able to summon it again.”

  Silas slowly rotated the deer carcass, grilling it on the other side.

  “This is true for most echoes. If someone is made to forget that they have an echo, the echo just… stops working. That’s why… mind control echoes are extremely dangerous.”

  “Mind control echoes?”

  “They exist. You should hope you don’t meet one.”

  “…Yes, I sure hope I don’t.”

  A long pause punctuated by the crackling of fire.

  “So… Multiple rooms, but only one door… and I can create things in the room that weren’t there before.”

  “Oh? Silas paused, looking up, those eyes showing a flicker of interest.”

  “I can make objects… but these take up more mana than normal… and once I take the objects that I created out of the room, they fade.”

  Silas nodded, signalling for him to continue.

  “I … can also open the door to any part of the room. I tried imagining the door on other sides of the room… even in the middle. It worked every time.”

  “I can make doors as far away as I can see, but as it gets further, it’s harder to make doors.”

  “And I can make doors on solid surfaces. The door I make can also be as big or as small as I want.”

  “That’s all?” Silas idly rotated the impaled deer carcass.

  Rayfe nodded. “I think so.”

  A short pause.

  “I see… then, we will do a spar after we’ve finished eating.”

  “A spar? How… How can I fight you?”

  “That’s a question you’ll have to answer for yourself.” Silas shrugged. “Don’t worry. I won’t injure you. Not too badly.”

  “I-I don’t know… I… I’m not ready. I’ve never fought someone before. I don’t know how to fight. Can’t… Can’t you teach me your techniques first?”

  “The best way to learn something… is to try it out yourself. This is also how I learnt to fight. With thugs on the street.”

  “Think it over. The key is your knowledge and creativity. You know how my echo works, and you know yours. Use your echo as uniquely as possible. That’s all.”

  “You have a while to think before the meat cooks.”