"You almost fooled me, Deity of the Cooter Clan,"
"Wittral."
There was silence in the room for an instant, followed by a golden flash aimed at her face, stopping a millimetre before her skin, blocked by a grey flash. As both the flashes came to a halt, they were revealed to be a golden needle and a grey kite. A second later, the golden needle crumbled into grey sand and was absorbed by the kite.
"Calm down, Wittral." Maroppa said, her expression cold as she tapped a tray before her and turned it into grey sand, speaking upon observing his shock, "Does this ring a bell?"
"Sandy-Grey Void!" Wittral tensed up in response, glaring at Maroppa as he became ready to unleash his strongest attack, "What's your identity?"
"Are you Loot?"
"Do you believe I'll reveal myself to you like this if I was Loot?" Maroppa rolled her eyes and retracted her Prana, "Relax, I'm not your enemy. After all, your Secondary Nature is something I created."
"What?" Wittral was stunned for a moment before connecting the dots, exclaiming in shock, "You're Amita's teacher!"
"You can say that," Maroppa nodded and watched in silence until Wittral calmed down. "Are you surprised?"
"Weren't you captured by Loot?" Wittral asked, still retaining his suspicions. But the one before him was Maroppa. If she had been Loot, she had more than enough chances to harm him in the more than dozen years they knew each other.
As nothing like that had happened, it meant that he could at least hear her out, as long as he doesn't let down his guard entirely.
"I was, at the Sanrey Plains." Maroppa nodded, "But I was merely in his captive for three days before I managed to escape."
As she spoke, she unleashed her true presence, revealing power at the Gold Grade, "I was already at the cusp of my evolution. Through Amita, I succeeded. Loot didn't know that yet and had underestimated me, using which I made my escape."
"If you had escaped, then why didn't you save her?" Wittral asked, "She didn't have a peaceful life until she lost all her powers."
'If I didn't know any better, I would have believed this too. How the fuck did Inala weave together this lie? Even the Boar King is a fucking guarantor of this story!' Maroppa was losing her shit mentally as she kept her cool externally and continued speaking lines from the dictionary of content given to her by Inala a couple of hours ago, "I didn't dare."
"My power is to create the Sandy-Grey Void, that's it." She sighed, "If I were to unleash it, an entire region would get destroyed. Once it grows beyond a certain level, even I cannot stop it."
Wittral recalled his time at the Dralh Sea when the Sandy-Grey Void appeared. It was uncontrollable and consumed everything in its path to spread further. It was absolute terror, "Will…Sumatra be destroyed in that case?"
"You do realise that Sumatra Continent is surrounded by the Sandy-Grey Void, right?" Maroppa shook her head, "Its borders are never affected by it even though they are in contact with the grey sand. The Sandy-Grey Void is to Sumatra as water is to marine Pranic Beasts. It's only a problem when grey sand appears in the interiors, since the continent has no defences against it there."
"So," She pointed her index finger upward, "The Mystic Tentacles living in the Transcendent World will take action if the danger exceeds a certain limit."
"The Transcendents cannot actively affect this place." Wittral argued, "They can only interfere with any influences of Transcendents or similar existences that leak into our Continent. My Clan has a few Transcendents too, so I know that they have serious limits."
"They can't interfere…"
"If they want, they can." Maroppa said, "The price to pay for it is a loss of their power. But yes, if they're hard-pressed about Sumatra's survival, they would do it without hesitation. They had already done it once against my race."
"I…didn't know this." Wittral expressed shock.
"Yeah, that's why the Mudropper invasion weakened drastically. The remainder were wiped out by the Mahira Tusk and Renduldu." Maroppa snorted, "Anyway, ignore that. I came to find you for a reason."
"All along, after I found Amita in the Brimgan Empire, I was observing her actions. I wanted to be absolutely assured that Loot no longer has any influence on her." She said and stared at Wittral, "I was worried that you're some pawn arranged by him. It took me a while to learn your true identity and everything that led to the two of you coming here."
"You were observing all along?" Wittral was terrified by the statement. This woman before him had acted like a casual friend of Amita, got close to her over time, became a frequent visitor of the Misty Flake Tea House, and befriended Wittral too, all to find out if they were free from Loot.
"I couldn't take any chances," Maroppa sighed, "After all, Loot has my power."
She placed the box in her hand on her lap and opened it, taking out a Nature Orb from within, "I believe you recognise this?"
"Nature Weapon," Wittral's eyes widened in surprise.
"Now, I want to know." Maroppa said as she unleashed her Prana, focusing on Wittral, "How did you get your hands on a Nature Weapon with the power of Kinesis Deity?"
"I stole it from Loot when he showed himself at Fentan City a decade ago," Wittral said, not revealing any details about Inala. He didn't want Maroppa to know that there was another body of Amita out there.
"Alright, I believe you, since I stole these two." Maroppa said, "Now that Loot has been captured, it's a bit safer here."
"Now, I want you to be honest with me." Maroppa stared at Wittral, "Are you…aiming for the Attribute?"
"How did you know about it?" Wittral asked in surprise, "Only the Royals are privy to the information."
"Are you a Royal?" Maroppa stared at him and smiled, "There are many others involved in the scout groups. So, those with the means can figure out what is happening."
"And, I want to advise you on something." She made a concerned face, "Don't bother entering the Attributed Region. You'll die. I don't want my student to die a fruitless death."
"That's impossible!" Wittral shook his head, "I have to get the Attribute."
Maroppa stared at Wittral's expression for a few seconds in silence before screaming in realisation, "You…freaking dumbass. Are you telling me she hasn't extracted the Sumatra Gold from her stomach?"
"No," Wittral shook his head, by now getting the confirmation that the woman before him was indeed the Mudropper that taught Amita Brimgan. Until now, even though he believed the other party, he still had some doubts. It was why he revealed partial information, but upon seeing Maroppa easily fill in the other parts, he had his confirmation.
"That idiot!" Maroppa grunted in frustration, "Is she still stuck in the shadows of her past? I told her to forge her own path. She's a Free Human. What aspect of her life is free?"
"Fucking Fhoong Brimgan!" She spat out in disgust.
Wittral didn't interject and simply listened to her ramblings, getting a clearer idea into Amita's past, 'It seems she has downplayed her situation. Her life has been worse than what she had told me.'
He sighed in sadness, finally asking Maroppa, "What is the reason you've decided to reveal your identity to me?"
"I felt the presence of a Nature Weapon inside you. Only I alone am capable of it, since I'm been researching Loot's power all these years and have developed some countermeasures." Maroppa's tone then turned serious, "But Wittral, you've merely equipped the Nature Weapon in your Nature slot. Loot can remove it any moment."
"I'm aware," Wittral nodded.
"Then, do you know that the one captured by the Brimgan Emperor is merely one body of his?" Maroppa said in seriousness, "I'm afraid his other bodies have already begun to arrive here one after another. Major Treasures are one of his objectives too. So, even if you have changed your appearance to that of a woman, he would recognise the Nature Weapon in you."
"And unlike you, the appearance of both of Amita's genders is known to him." She said in worry, "So, the moment Loot detects her and sees that she's regained her powers now and is stronger than before, he'll capture the both of you once again."
"Fuck!" Wittral glared in rage, recalling his conversation with Yarsha Zahara at Varahan Mansion, thinking of the information that one body of Loot was hiding at the Mammoth Clan, 'It's almost time for the Mammoth Clan to arrive at the Brimgan Empire. So, another body of Loot might already be prowling the streets here.'
"You have a plan, right? Isn't that why you approached me?" Wittral asked as his expression hardened, ready to face whatever may come at him next.
"Yes," Maroppa nodded and pointed at the Nature Weapon in her possession, "Using my power, I can assimilate it into your body to transform the Nature into a derivative of your power."
"The resultant power will be compatible with your state as an Empyrean Snapper."
