Ruby swung her scythe towards her opponent. This scythe was something she'd forged yesterday in a few hours of work, and while it was no Crescent Rose, it was still sharp and sturdy enough to serve as a makeshift weapon.

Pyrrha blocked Ruby's scythe with Miló, currently in its sword form. She then retaliated with a slash at Ruby's chest, which the younger huntress dodged by stepping backwards.

Next, Ruby activated her Semblance and began circling around Pyrrha at high speed. Not only was she moving much faster now, she was also obscuring Pyrrha's vision using the petals created by her Semblance. Finally, Ruby closed in and attacked Pyrrha's seemingly unguarded back.

Pyrrha whirled around and blocked Ruby's attack using Akoúo̱, then struck Ruby with a powerful blow that sent her flying backwards. And before Ruby could recover, Pyrrha stood above her and pointed Miló at her throat.

"Ugh… I yield," Ruby said.

Pyrrha helped Ruby up to her feet. "This might sound repetitive, but you really don't need to be so hard on yourself," she said. "This is already the twenty-fifth time you've practiced today, including the times you sparred with Luka. You've already regained most of your skills."

"I know, it wasn't my fault for being kidnapped," Ruby said. "But that doesn't change the fact that with all the danger in this world, all of us need to get stronger. And I've got much more catching up to do than anyone else."

"You need to at least remember to rest yourself," Pyrrha warned. "Even if your Aura can be replenished by the healing magic of this world, your mind isn't built for fighting too long."

"I know that too… but thanks for the advice," Ruby said. "I'll stop now, then."

Ruby separated from Pyrrha and began heading for the Pocket House. Along the way, she thought about the outcomes of her recent spars with Pyrrha. She'd lost all of them, which wasn't bad on its own—even back at Beacon, she would never be able to defeat Pyrrha in a fair fight. Probably not even in an unfair fight. But it was how she'd lost that was the problem.

Pyrrha never shifted Miló into its alternate forms, not even once. It has to be… because she doesn't want to remind me of the fact I lost Crescent Rose.

Her old sniper-scythe was a product of years of loving care, starting from her time in Signal and lasting up to the night before she'd been kidnapped by Granberia. She'd never gone a day without maintaining Crescent Rose and thinking of ways to improve it further. She'd come up with several ideas incorporating magic and Tartarus technology, but before she could put any of those into practice… she'd lost her partner forever.

It'll take a long time to make anything even half as effective as Crescent Rose again… and… ugh, I shouldn't think about this anymore, it'll just make me feel worse…

In addition to that, Pyrrha hadn't used her own Semblance when sparring against Ruby, nor had she used her recently obtained power as a hero. She was clearly going easy on Ruby while the latter was still retraining, but it was irritating to not see even a hint of Pyrrha's true ability. It also meant that Ruby was only able to see how heroes fought when she sparred with Luka and Sonya.

But those two have improved a lot while I was away. Luka especially, he managed to beat me roughly two times out of three.

Ruby herself had been baptised as a hero by Micaela. It happened on the day she'd been rescued. But since that happened just three days ago, Ruby couldn't use any of the hero abilities yet. That was another reason she needed lots of training.

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruby noticed Hild. The gynoid was currently talking to Luka, apparently asking him about how she should interact with people in contexts other than battle. Ruby quickly hurried on without looking at them.

Ever since reuniting with the others, Ruby hadn't talked to Hild even once. This was because she was reminded all too easily of Penny around her. The fact that Hild was also unfamiliar with social interactions just made it worse.

Finally, and still with doubts in her heart, Ruby entered the Pocket House. She made her way to a room that had been turned into a laboratory by Promestein and Chrome. The two scientists had crammed this room full of scientific instruments, paper notes, vials of chemicals, mechanical parts and other paraphernalia.

Maybe I should try helping them invent the scroll, or something similar, so they don't need to keep notes on paper, Ruby thought, as she deftly navigated the mess. That would reduce the mess in here a little.

"Ah, you've returned," Promestein said, briefly glancing up from her work. "I've been testing this idea of yours, slotting thunder stones into the electric flux emitter. I've successfully done so and now we only need to test its output."

Promestein held up a large mechanical weapon that consisted of an oddly shaped gun linked by a cable to a backpack consisting of two large coils.

"That's great news!" Ruby said, her spirits lifting considerably. "What should we test it on? There's a lot of rocks just lying around out there…"

"I have an idea about that," Chrome said. "I've recently completed my first doll, one that's focused on defence! What better way to test it out than to have it take a blast from this weapon and survive!? It would be killing two birds with one spell!"

"Um, are you sure about this?" Ruby asked. "What if it's not strong enough and ends up being destroyed?"

"Don't worry, there's no chance of that!" Chrome replied confidently. "I've made something that can take anything short of a dragon's attack!"

"We should accept this suggestion," Promestein said. "There's no logical reason to refuse. If either of our creations proves to be a failure, we will still learn from that failure and know how to improve our next creations."

This made sense, so Ruby nodded and then the three of them went outside. Chrome brought a bulky, somewhat crudely made doll with her.

They set up their experiment at a considerable distance away from the Pocket House, to avoid disturbing any of the others. Chrome clicked her fingers, causing her doll to stand at attention and hold up a massive shield composed of solid steel. Ruby put on the backpack portion of the electric flux emitter, then aimed the gun portion at Chrome's doll.

Hopefully, this works. Worst case scenario, it blows up in my hands and I survive thanks to my Aura.

Ruby squeezed the trigger, sending out countless arcs of electricity at Chrome's doll. The electric barrage lasted for three seconds, then subsided. Immediately after that, Chrome's doll fell to the ground, dropped its shield and started twitching weakly.

"N-No way!" Chrome cried out. She hurried over to her doll. "I spent a week coming up with the design, and another week making it! How could this happen!?"

Ruby and Promestein also walked over to the wrecked doll. Sparks were flying out from its joints and an acrid smell filled the air. Furthermore, both the shield and the arm used to hold it were melted, as if someone had taken a blowtorch to them for several minutes. Chrome opened up a panel on the back of the doll, showing that its internal circuits had been thoroughly fried.

"I-I'll help you build a new one, okay?" Ruby said quickly. "One that won't be damaged by anything!"

"I'd be grateful for that… but can you conjure up new parts out of nothing?" Chrome said. "Making this took all of the parts I could scavenge from my old mansion, plus all of the parts I could afford in Monte Carlo."

"I can't conjure them out of nothing, but I should be able to help you in getting new parts more easily," Ruby said. "I've got a bit of experience forging the parts I need out of whatever metal I can find. I had to do that quite a lot after arriving in this world…"

"I can assist with that as well, having spent centuries trapped in a Tartarus," Promestein said. "On a different but related topic, we should examine the electric flux emitter. The output is clearly greater than before, but was it damaged as a result?"

Ruby took off the electric flux emitter and carefully disassembled it. There were no signs of any damage.

"Looks like it handled the extra power just fine," Ruby said. "But I'm not sure if it could handle it if we loaded even more powerful thunder stones. There's also the question of how long it'll take to recharge."

From previous tests, the unmodified electric flux emitter expended all of its charge in one shot, then took thirty seconds to recharge ab absorbing ambient mana. Even now, Ruby could feel the faint thrum of its coils being filled up by energy. The weapon continued recharging for forty-two seconds until it stopped.

"It takes a bit longer to recharge now," Ruby noted. "Will the power stay the same for a second shot?"

Ruby took aim at a random boulder and squeezed the trigger again. A second barrage of electricity struck the boulder for roughly three seconds. When it subsided, half the surface of the boulder was now glowing red-hot, though there were no signs of it melting.

That's expected, electricity isn't exactly good for damaging solid rock. But if it can do this much, the power definitely isn't any weaker than last time.

"Overall, this modification has both improved and harmed the weapon," Promestein said, also writing in a notepad at the same time. "The power of individual shots has increased, but so has the time required for recharging."

"There should be a way around that," Ruby said. "After working on this for the past few days, I think it might be possible to increase the capacity of the coils. It would increase the weight of the weapon a bit, but it would let it fire two shots before needing to recharge."

"True, but that would require rare metals not readily available," Promestein said. "We'd need to scavenge more technology from the next Tartarus…"

The three of them began returning to the Pocket House, still discussing ideas about what to make next.

-ooo-

Their next stop—and Ruby's first stop after being rescued—was Rubiana. This was a small fishing village found right at the southernmost point of the border between the Natalia and Safina regions.

According to the information the others had gathered, Rubiana was originally just a small fishing village of no particular importance. But one day, every single inhabitant suddenly disappeared. When this was discovered by passing merchants, it led to an investigation team being dispatched from Sabasa, but apparently the mystery remained unsolved.

While approaching the village, Ruby saw soldiers in armour standing guard outside the entrance. She also saw that the village looked completely intact: the buildings were undamaged, the ground didn't have craters, even the vegetation didn't have a leaf out of place. It was unlike the ruins of Iliasville and Rostrum that she'd seen earlier… but it was still creepy in its own way.

"It's kind of like how Harpy Village was abandoned," Ruby said. "Could something similar have happened here?"

"Perhaps… but humans cannot fly, unlike harpies, so they wouldn't be able to abandon this village as quickly," Ilias said. "And the population of this village is much greater than that of Harpy Village, as is apparent from the number of buildings. For none of them to be seen by an outsider… it's odd."

Alice sniffed at the air. "There's no unusual smells in the air," she said. "Rather, it's unusual in that there's not enough smells in the air. It doesn't have any of the smells you'd expect from a village that was inhabited until recently. It's too… clean."

For Ruby, it was still a bit surreal to see Ilias and Alice actually getting along now. Apparently this had happened as a reaction to her own kidnapping, but their cooperation was so surprising that Ruby sometimes wondered if she was dreaming.

They were now near the entrance of the village, so one of the guards called out, "Stop, please. What is your business here?"

"We don't often see… a group as varied as yours," another guard said.

"We're here to try and find out what's happened to this village," Luka explained.

"You're free to try, at least," the first guard said. "Though we haven't found anything even after weeks of looking around, so you might end up wasting your time."

Ruby's group passed by the guards and entered the village. The place wasn't completely abandoned as there were scholars and more guards wandering around, but it was still eerie how few people there were. Then the group split up to gather information.

The first person Ruby talked to pointed at the soil in front of a house, which had been freshly dug. "We checked to see if the villagers had actually been killed and secretly buried," he said. "But there was nothing in the ground. Nothing except for some old rubbish that the villagers had buried."

Next, Ruby spoke to a guard standing on the village docks. "This village has a lot of fishing boats," he said, gesturing at the boats tied up at the docks. "Not one of them is missing. They're all tied up securely. It's odd… if the villagers were forced out, they wouldn't have had time to tie up their boats, but if they left because they wanted to, then why wouldn't they leave using their boats?"

After that, Ruby entered one of the houses. It was incredibly neat and tidy, another discomforting similarity with Harpy Village. It would have taken considerable time to get the place so tidy. However, many things had been left behind: food, medicine, money, clothing and tools. All of these were things that the villagers would want to bring with them if they'd left willingly.

At one point, Ruby was approached by one of the scholars, who'd been in the village for more than a week and wanted to know how the outside world was faring. In exchange for this information, the scholar explained another aspect of Rubiana's mystery: the villagers had relatives and acquaintances outside of the village, so why hadn't they mentioned anything to them?

Finally, Ruby met up with the others to discuss their findings. One thing that everyone mentioned was how clean and tidy Rubiana was. Then they began talking about more specific findings.

"There's no lingering signs of unusual magic in this village," Ilias said. "Though considering the amount of time since then and the number of people investigating this village, it's possible those signs have been obscured, like old footprints being overlain by newer footprints."

"We found evidence of pets and livestock that the villagers were keeping," Luka said. "But the actual pets and livestock are missing. The villagers must have taken those with them."

"There's small fields of vegetables on the outskirts of the village," Sonya said. "These have some vegetables big enough to harvest, but they've been abandoned for the animals to eat. How could anyone from a rural village just abandon the crops they worked so hard for?"

"Everything about this situation is weird," Ruby said. "Hmm… what's the nearest other village? Wouldn't they have seen or heard something, at least?"

"The nearest settlement, village or otherwise, is apparently Monte Carlo," Promestein said. "The population density in this region is low overall, since it borders desert and highlands. Only the coast is productive enough to support human settlement, and it seems only this part of the coast is suitable as a port."

"There is one closer place where people live," Chrome said. Her face twisted, as if she was recalling an unpleasant memory. "It's the Puppeteer's Tower, a tower in the highlands to the northeast of here. It's where a famous line of puppeteers lives, who go by the name of 'Kagetsumugi' when they take up the family craft. But I don't think they'd know anything about what happened in this village, since that tower is on the other side of a mountain range from here."

"Wait, is there any chance this Kagetsumugi is responsible for the disappearances here?" Luka suggested.

"Maybe, but I doubt it," Chrome replied. "The thing about the Kagetsumugi line is that they hardly interact with the outside world, and I've never heard of them bothering humans. Maybe the current Kagetsumugi kidnapped the people of this village, but even if she's a really powerful monster, I doubt she could manage it without leaving any evidence."

"We could at least talk to her, see if she knows anything," Sonya suggested.

"No," Alice said flatly. "Kagetsumugi isn't the kind of person who should be approached unless you have no other option. My mother, the… Monster Lord, she specifically told me that. And even if we have a fallen Seraph with us," she nodded towards Micaela, "it would be a major risk."

That suggested that Kagetsumugi was on par with the Lilith Sisters and the Heavenly Knights, at the very least. Ruby wondered just what this strange puppeteer could do to have such a fearsome reputation.

Can she control anyone who comes near her, like puppets on strings? That… would definitely be something to be afraid of.

"More importantly, I heard something that might be relevant," Alice said. "Apparently, the people of Rubiana had unusually strong faith in Ilias. Not to the point of rejecting all monsters like Luddite Village did, but enough that no monsters felt comfortable living here."

"And on that topic, the investigators found just one message left by the villagers," Micaela said. "It had just one line on it: 'We set off to the world of the Goddess.'"

That caused everyone to fall silent. It was just a few words, yet it had countless possible interpretations.

Eventually, Micaela continued, "Assuming that they're not referring to Alipheese, they must be referring to Ilias. And it's unlikely that they're referring to the Ilias here or the Ilias of this world, who both seem to be relatively powerfless… but what about the Ilias of a different world, such as the world those strange Seraphs come from?"

"But… what would that Ilias want with the people of this village?" Ruby asked. "And would they really go along with her plan so easily, not even telling anyone else about it?"

"I can imagine boons that an alternate version of myself could offer," Ilias said quietly. "Living in absolute safety, not having to worry about harsh weather or disease or famine or war… it would be an attractive prospect to anyone, even those who are not particularly faithful. It would also explain why these villagers didn't bother bringing any food or other necessities with them."

The idea of a full-powered goddess with unclear plans being out there, somewhere, was terrifying on an existential level. The Ilias here had mellowed out after losing her power and living on the surface world, but even she had done some horrible things in the past… another thing that Ruby had only learned recently.

"Does anyone else have relevant information?" Hild asked suddenly. "Or any plans to deal with this threat?"

"That's all I know—does anyone have something to share?" Micaela said. When everyone else shook their heads, "Then for now, there is little we can do to plan for this threat. We don't know their motivations, the quantity or quality of forces they command, we don't even know if it really is the Ilias of a parallel world who is responsible."

"Then what could we do to discover that information?" Hild asked.

"At the very least, it doesn't seem like we can discover anything more from this village," Pyrrha said. "We've just explored it and these investigators have been doing the same for weeks, yet this is all we know. Are there any stories of similar disappearances? Besides the one in Harpy Village, I mean."

"I heard a couple of those back in Monte Carlo," Luka said. "But I'm not sure how trustworthy those stories are, given that they were being said by drunks in the bar. And they were about places in the north of Sentora, a long way away from here."

"Then for now, wouldn't it be best to focus on threats that we know more about?" Hild said.

This made sense to everyone. Between the war started by Grangold, the three Monster Lords—four when including Alice XVI—the Tartarus and the parallel worlds beyond them, the Lilith Sisters, the strange Seraphs… there was already so much to deal with.

"Then I believe we've done all that we can do here," Ilias said. "It is time to move on."

This was met with agreement by all, so they walked out of the village and resumed heading towards the west.

As they walked, the air became hotter and drier, the vegetation became smaller and more scattered. And as they walked, Ruby became lost in thought.

In the end, we couldn't really do anything here… not that I could have contributed much, even if it was possible for us to do anything. I've been out of the loop for weeks. I've fallen behind when it comes to fighting, and my friends here have gone through major changes that I'm only hearing about now.

Ruby took a deep breath, then lifted up her chin and focused on the path ahead.

But I can't let myself give up because of that. All of us are making progress, even if it seems slow. We're learning more and more about the mysteries facing this world, we're getting stronger bit by bit… We're still not sure of how to return to Remnant, but exploring more Tartarus should help with that.

Ruby pictured the faces of her teammates, of everyone else at Beacon, of her acquaintances back on Patch, of her Dad and Uncle Qrow. It had been more than a month since she'd seen any of them, but she could still remember them all.

I will come back to them. I won't let anything stand in my way.