Chapter 14: Were woes

The strongest monsters, in any location, will always be found in the centre. Whether that be the middle of a wide plain, a clearing deep in a forest, or a cave system low in the mountains doesn’t matter.

Pure mana, which comes from deep underground, plays a large part in the strength of the monsters appearing in an area, but so too do the various other types of mana. And those other types are found more often above ground than under it, save perhaps earth and lava.

In, for example, a forest, the most common elements would be earth, wind, water, darkness, and to a lesser extent, decay.

Although it may seem strange to some, the most troublesome of these elements is darkness. Monsters of darkness are crafty and sly, though it does not inherently guarantee aggressive traits.

Along with light, darkness is one of the two elements which can grant a monster intelligence.

- An unknown scholar

Aaron feels a sense of relief as his blade cuts a bloody track across the palm of the werewolf.

He hadn’t shown it, but he had become very worried after being unable to pierce the tough fur of the ironback alpha. Worried that his weapon is insufficient, that his strength isn’t enough. That he doesn’t have enough time.

The prime of his life has long passed Aaron by, and his age is starting to creep towards the point where the physique begins to decline. He is starting to become unsure whether he will truly be able to become strong before that deadline.

The ironback alpha is an iron difficulty rank monster, only one up from copper, practically the lowest possible rating for a monster. But above iron there is still steel, mithril, orichalcum, adamantine… A mere iron rank is nothing. Will he really have to rely on magic to break past the defences of higher rank creatures?

But it appears that it is not so. Even among higher ranked monsters, there can be monsters with lower defences than that of lower ranked ones, depending on which monster you are using as comparison.

Some monsters have strengths in other areas than defence… Like strength.

Metal screeches as a clawed hand rakes across a tower shield, leaving only shallow scratches on the tough metal but striking with such strength that it forces Jakin back a pace.

“He be a tough one, alright! Watch out for those claws, Aaron, I don’t think yeh could take a hit from that!”

The werewolf is a steel ranked monster, and beyond what Aaron can defeat on his own, probably even if he uses magic.

Jakin pushes forward, attempting to knock the werewolf back. The werewolf braces itself and stands unfazed, too heavy for him to push back on his own.

But perhaps with two people, something can be done. Boaz charges in, slamming his shield against the beast with great momentum and knocking it backwards.

Unfortunately, before they can use the opening to attack, the werewolf is back on his feet and considerably angry.

Focusing on Boaz who knocked it down, it rushes at him and collides with the shield, engaging in a frenzied barrage of swipes.

Meanwhile, Aaron is slowly edging around the clearing, desperately attempting to stay unnoticed by the werewolf. Ending up behind it, he raises his sword –

And dives to one side as it sends a powerful kick his way.

The close call leaves Aaron breathless. If he hadn’t considered that it might have heightened hearing and smell, or if he’d been a second slower… He might be unconscious with several ribs broken right now.

Nevertheless, even a monster at steel rank can’t fend off attacks from three directions without taking damage. Perhaps stronger monsters can, but this isn’t a stronger monster.

A deep hole appears in its shoulder, then another, and another, unable to react as it reels in pain.

Before long the werewolf is almost dead. Almost breathing its last, it lets out a long howl which sounds throughout the forest before being cut short by a heavy blow to the head. Dead.

Confirming the kill, they breathe a sigh of relief and relax, holstering weapons and preparing to strip the werewolf of materials.

It doesn’t take long for them to get battle-ready once again, as red eyes shine out of the darkness all around them.

Wolves, dozens of them. And that isn’t all. Among them are several with the same distinctive metallic shine on their backs as the one earlier. Ironback alphas.

‘This… might get a little difficult’ Thinks Aaron. ‘What would be the most effective use of my magic right now?’ Now is not the time to be holding back.

For a moment, he furiously thinks. Then, happening on an idea, he calls out to the twins.

“Everyone get close! I’ll make some fortifications!”

He is already hurrying towards them as he says this, and while they are somewhat sceptical, a situation such as this doesn’t allow for hesitation. They move towards him as the wolves run at them, howling.

Meeting up, they stand back to back, preparing for the incoming tide. The twins haven’t seen more than a short demonstration of Aaron’s magical abilities and had previously assumed that he either has very low talent or a small mana pool, as he has only ever used the sword in combat.

At this moment, that assumption completely disappears from their minds.

In a surge of mana beyond the sum of both their mana pools, they are surrounded by a sea of glowing magic. A moment later, that glow is replaced by earth. But Aaron isn’t planning a simple wall. No, what good will that do?

The pack of wolves is sprinting full tilt at the trio when the earthen mana condenses into a circle of long spikes projecting from the ground.

Unable to stop their momentum, and not intelligent enough to notice the danger in time, several wolves run into the spikes.

The lucky ones come out with broken limbs. The unlucky ones… become part of the barrier.

Jakin and Boaz stare in shock, but snap out of it within moments, and begin to repel the wolves that are slinking in-between the spikes.

It will be a long battle.

Panting, I ready my sword for the next attack. Wearily looking ahead, I see that the next opponent is a ironback wolf.

Close combat will be dangerous, but if my life is at risk, why in two earths should I do that?

One of the spikes, the size of a jousting lance, breaks from the ground. In but a moment, a crunch comes from the spike, and in its place is a small arrow of earth.

Soaring forwards, it is sadly deflected by the flashing claws of the beast. Undiscouraged, the arrow loops around for a second try and nails it in the eye from above.

It would have been much more satisfying if I could do it with a sword, but this is good enough.

Corpses of wolves are strewn around the trio in a knee-high barrier, but also extending far enough to make the spike barrier almost useless. Still, limp corpses aren’t good footing for anyone, and they hamper the wolves significantly.

But we have been fighting for a long while, and I’m nearly out of mana. It seems unlikely that I will be able to continue fighting for much longer.

…So, may as well use the rest of my mana while I still can.

The spikes uproot themselves from the ground, pulling free of the restrictive corpses draped over them. Wolf corpses fall to the blood sodden ground with a thump, and a series of cracks and grinding sounds emanates from the spears of earth as they constrict and compact into smaller and significantly more solid arrows.

Shooting out one by one, I turn in a slow circle to aim each missile appropriately at the circling wolves, giving the majority heavy wounds and outright killing some.

Then, an angry pain pulsing in my head, I fall to the ground, unconscious.

I awaken with a tent above my head and a crackling fire warming my feet.

And a headache pounding in my head like a bloody snare drum.

Groggily, I shuffle my way out of the entrance, sincerely hoping there is something warm to eat, and trying to remember how full my water skins are. My throat is dry, completely devoid of all things moisture, and my stomach seems to think it’s an angry dog, growling constantly.

“Ah, you’re awake. Took yeh long enough. Did yeh know, after yeh flopped to the ground like some fish outta water, we had to take the rest of them out ourselves? There were still eight of the bloody things, fer god’s sake. A blasted nightmare, that was.”

And sitting next to the fire is Boaz, launching into an extensive tirade at the first twitch of a foot. Groaning, I sit down at the fire, stretching out my cold hands to warm them.

“Then, still tired as my aunt’s copper kettle, we had to skin all forty-nine of them, find a clearing away from that mess of blood and guts, lug all the skins all the way over here, gut one of the beasts, start a fire, lug YOU back here, set up tents, cook the wolf, and take turns doing the watch fer half the night, which, of course, is when yeh decide is the best time to wake up!”

Did he rehearse that? If not, that’s impressive.

“I must say I pride myself on my precise timing. If I hadn’t slept so long, I might have had to do some real work! Glad I decided to take a nap when I did.”

I can’t tell if he’s sputtering in anger or laughter. I decide to press on regardless.

“Now, how about we quiet down? I have a shocker of a headache, and we might wake up Jakin.”

A voice comes from one of the other two tents surrounding the campfire.

“Too late fer that, yeh’ve already woken me up. Can’t a dwarf get some sleep after a hard day of fighting?”

Oops.

“Well, don’t suppose you saved some food for me? I’m starving!”

Boaz holds out a piece of cooked wolf meat on a stick to me. Directly over the fire. If he was human, his hands would be developing burns right now.

“Here. Might be a bit burnt.”

“Thanks.”

I take a bite out of it and begin to chew. Damn, that’s tough. This might take longer than the battle did!

“Anyway, what’s with that absurd magic power? Why are you a warrior if you have more than enough mana?”

Good questions. Shame for him I’m still chewing. I hold up a hand and point at my mouth, moving my jaw in exaggerated motions in the universal gesture for ‘can’t talk, I’m eating’.

When my saliva and incessant chewing have finally done their jobs, I swallow the piece of meat. My word, now my jaw is as exhausted as the rest of me. I Take a swig from my water skin, swirling it around in my mouth before swallowing, now ready to answer questions.

“Well, I was just born with this massive mana pool, I suppose. Not much to say about that. As for why I’m a warrior, that’s partially because I don’t have the cash to learn magic, but it’s mostly because I don’t want to be a magus.”

Their jaws just drop. Not a surprise, really. Magi are useful in a wide range of areas, and are very powerful. For someone to discard that opportunity? And someone with great talent, at that? It must be incomprehensible to them, no doubt.

“Now stay with me here. Imagine you grew up with everyone praising your magical ability, saying ‘you’re going to be a powerful magus one day’ and things like that. Most people would be happy with that. Me, I just got pissed off by it. They’re all just assuming I’ll learn magic because I’m good at it? Obviously, not one of them had considered I might have other ideas. So, I became a warrior.”

Incredible. Are all dwarves able to open their mouths to this extent? Any more and their jaws will become unhinged.

A fly wanders into Boaz’s open mouth, causing him to start coughing violently. Moments later, a spittle covered black projectile comes shooting out of his mouth and into the fire with a brief hiss.

“I’m not so stubborn that I won’t use it if someone’s life is in danger, at least. Now, I need to refill my completely empty mana pool, so I’ll keep watch till morning, if that’s fine with you two.”

Coming out of their shock, the twins just look at me in disbelief.

“You’re crazy.” Jakin says, shaking his head at me. “But I suppose having a trump card like that isn’t bad either. Now, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. See you at dawn.”

“Night.” Boaz too retreats into the relative comfort of his tent.

Silence. Now I’m alone, if one doesn’t count all the insects scurrying around.

And this splitting headache.

Here’s hoping this night will be boring. Tearing another piece of meat off with my teeth, I settle down to watch and listen the night away.

It wasn’t an exciting night. Hooray. On one hand, no monsters, on the other, nothing much to do.

Except train. There are always ways to train, if you have magic. I spent most of the night trying NOT to burn a stick with fire magic. It’s easy enough for it to not burn me, but that’s mostly instinctive.

Like sticking your hand on something hot and reflexively taking it off before even feeling pain, fire mana that goes near you doesn’t hurt you unless you want it to.

Not so much for other things. Which is why I’m not:

Wreathing myself in fire as I charge at my enemies. Forming slowly contracting rings of fire around enemies, burning them to a crisp. FIREBALL! FIREBALL!

The first would burn my clothing. Not a cool sight, and costly for me. Second and third would set grass or trees ablaze. Hey presto, forest fire. I wonder how many fires are cause by thoughtless fire magi every year?

So, I’m trying to train my control. Honestly, it’s seriously annoying to only be able to use my dangerously effective fire magic to start a campfire. I mean seriously, where can you safely use fire magic?

Forest? Burned down. Plain? Grass fire. Caves? Goodbye, oxygen! Rocky mountain? Yeah, could work. I hear you say, what about in a snowy region? Steam explosions. The frigging ocean? Wooden boat! How about a desert, nothing to burn there, right? And you want to make that environment hotter with some fire, do you. Real clever of you.

So yeah, bleak mountain tops, beaches, rocky regions… Not really common places.

I’ve made some progress, at least. This stick hasn’t burnt, and it’s been over my flame for a good twenty minutes now. While I’m doing this, I’m also properly keeping watch. That helps with the practice too, in a way. You don’t have much focus to spare in a battle on concentrating on not burning something.

This makes me envious of… every element except fire. Even though I have them!

Adding a few more sticks onto the fire, I take one for my own use.

Now, onto not burning two separate sticks.

(POV Greg)

As I skim across my self-created ice rink, I appreciate just how easy it was to create it.

Contrary to what I’d originally thought, I didn’t even need skates made.

I just needed to design a spell that made them myself.

It wasn’t hard at all. I did have some earth affinity, after all, and thus I just needed to create a formation that made the earth go in the correct shape around my boots. Took me a couple hours to figure out in the library, but it sure worked.

Well, after that I had to learn how to skate. That turned out to be the harder part. I wince as I remember those particular memories.

I had fallen.

A lot.

At high speeds.

I broke a few bones. Not an entertaining experience, but at least I didn’t break my neck. Holy magic can’t do much for that, unlike other injuries. Or rather, it can, but you’ll already be dead if your neck is broken. Not much point fixing up a corpse.

Then I made some formations to create an icy ground on which to skate on. Again, extremely simple. A metre wide, a few metres long, a few centimetres thick, and you have a straight stretch. Couple that with a quarter-pipe type formation and the ability to move said sections of ice around mentally after creation, and you can easily create a path to skate on.

Didn’t have as much luck with wind magic, I’m afraid. I can do a bit of a breeze, but much more than that and I start feeling queasy.

Well, it’s something.

Then the mana reinforcement. Potent stuff.

Feeding a trickle of mana into my heart, I watch the world slow down around me.

Thousands of dust particles in a ponderous dance.

The profile of a guard, reflected in the curve of the ice, turning slowly monstrous as it is distorted.

Clouds like statues in the sky, unmoving puffs of marble and granite.

And me, moving at an almost normal pace within it all.

The feeling is so surreal, it’s almost how I image getting high is. Without the blurriness, visual distortion, slow reactions and other negative side effects…

That’s what I imagine it to be like, at least.

It has improved in mana efficiency and effect drastically since I first used it. It’s so effective that I bet all magi would use it in combat, if they had the mana to spare. It is a constant drain on my mana pool, however, and mine isn’t as ridiculous as…

Anyway, that’s why I’m focusing on making my other spells more cost-effective. The minimum possible thickness of ice, the narrowest I can make it without flying off it, and training so I can safely navigate thinner paths, all to reduce mana consumption.

On other news…

I… killed a man.

Part of the training was a bandit subjugation, you see. It was supposed to make us come to terms with taking the lives of other people, I’m sure, but… It really didn’t. I don’t think there was anyone who wasn’t vomiting after that. Most people refused to come to training for a few days afterwards.

Some refused to eat.

I don’t blame them. Not that I was any different. Most of us here follow one religion or another, and if there’s one thing that’s common in most religions, it’s that killing people is a bad thing. Not to mention the laws against it and the common values of our previous society making out murder to be one of the most morally wrong things you can do.

Not that that’s a bad thing.

It’s great, and murders are now a rare tragedy, compared to what you hear about ancient times.

But that was back on Earth. Other Earth, that is. And here, it can be kill or be killed. Bandits, rebels, thieves… There’s all manner of people who will try to kill you, even if you’re just a common merchant or farmer. Let alone ‘heroes’, who people will no doubt expect to try and fix any wrongdoing they see, like some fairy tale.

It would be good if we could, but I’m only human, after all. There’s only so much I can do, so many things I can know about, and I can only be in one place at once. Unfortunately, this system of magic does not support clones.

And it’s not like we are invincible.

In the end, killing is bad. It felt terrible, looked terrible, smelt terrible. I’ll forever remember how it felt as I, in a panic, unleashed a bolt of lightning, his face turned from glee to horror in an instant.

That face… that face. It haunted my dreams since the day I killed him. The fear in his eyes. His mouth stretched wide in terror. The trembling…

Get out of my head, would you?

His screaming voice. The convulsions that came upon him as the lightning coursed through his body. Steam rising from his body, the stench of charred human flesh… the tang of bile rising in my throat.

I was trying not to remember that, overactive imagination. But no, it’s fine, go ahead and ruin my mood.

Well… Antonio? He fell into depression after Phil…

Must have shocked him back to reality. Poor guy. He’s a real douche, but he’s still one of us. He hasn’t been talking so boisterously as before, which has been different. Not even sure if it’s a good different. I had gotten so used to his voice loudly praising himself, somewhere. But now the meals, the training, free time… silent.

Either way, I hope this has a positive effect on him, rather than a negative one.

But change he must. And so must we all.

It’s been decided.

We’re leaving.