Polymath Redux

Chapter 5//Greetings from Another World

“Hmm, so like, where are we even?” asked Morialia as she glanced around her surroundings. The only things she could make out about the place was the deciduous trees caused by the miasmic aftereffects of her summoning ritual. “I don’t recognize this place.”

“Truthfully, neither do I,” Mordred admitted. “All I can say for certain is that this world is different from the one you and I knew.” ‘This place’ was neither the beloved world of the game in which Morialia originated from, nor was it the bumbling and harsh reality that Mordred had been familiar with all his life. A completely new, fantastical world. “If I’m correct, this world is known as ‘Aria’.”

“Aria… nope, never heard of it,” Morialia carefreely shrugged. “Anyway, assuming that’s the case, isn’t ‘gathering information’ or something supposed to be the first thing we try to do? That’s what all those protagonists of those stories tended to do. I know my beauty is irresistible but don’t get too distracted,” she slowly caressed her small body in a seductive manner- however ineffectual against Mordred it may have been- but quickly realized there was another, more pressing matter, “actually, no, scratch that. Our first priority should be finding an inn; a proper place to sleep! I’d rather not have to camp out in this cold, and surely it’s your duty as my master to ensure a fine lady like me doesn’t have to!”

Ignoring the fact that she seemed to be misunderstanding the relationship between master and servant, Mordred could see where she was coming from. Being suddenly transported to a world where dangerous creatures like dragons roamed around, it would indeed be a wise decision to get a foothold of understanding about the place. A base of operations such as a private inn was also a good idea to serve as a place of information consolidation. “Gathering information…” he muttered to himself, but another thought occurred to him. In this situation, there was a fine difference between ‘priority’ and ‘necessity’. At his and Morialia’s levels, mere creatures of the wilderness- even a Flame Dragon- couldn’t possibly pose a viable threat. Not to mention, as their bodies were fundamentally designed, it should be possible to go a few days without sustenance and still not feel the effects of hunger or exhaustion. That was to say, it wasn’t strictly a ‘necessity’. “No, there’s something else we should do beforehand.”

“There is?”

A calm and conniving smirk stretched across Mordred’s face, one filled with enough malevolent intentions to send chills down a veteran soldier’s back. He formed a ball of blue flames over his hands and played around with it, making it dance around and do tricks. “We have to test our abilities. More specifically, your abilities.”

“Huh? But aren’t you already insanely powerful? And I’m the Demon Lord, so obviously I’m no pushover!”

“I don’t doubt you, and it’s true that I managed to kill a Flame Dragon without much effort. However, a weak little thing like that couldn’t possibly serve as a proper benchmark for what I’m capable of. You, on the other hand, are quite durable as I recall.” He continued to explain as Morialia slowly distanced herself with an obvious face of foreboding, “Well, don’t worry. On the off-chance you die, I’ll re-summon you with the insignia. It’d cost a small fortune, but nothing I can’t spare.”

“You… you’re a demon.” Morialia embraced herself. “You’re seriously going to hit a frail looking girl like me?! Do you not have even a shred of remorse?!”

“Hmm, no, I suppose you have a point. Such an experiment would only provide skewered results. Very well, in that case you have my permission to hit back. That way I’d be able to test out my own defensive limits.”

Within the game’s system, enemies were tagged with the same class categories players had access to. The difference was that a set limit had been imposed on how many each monster could hold. Typical monsters and enemies usually possessed one, though there were exceptions in which they had up to two. The boss-tier monsters of raid dungeons all had access to three different classes, all at maximum level. Among them, the ‘final boss’ known as ‘Demon Lord’ Morialia was very special in that she had been given five classes.

With a strong emphasis on the arcane, her set classes were: ‘Necromancer’, ‘Magician’, ‘Cleric’, ‘Puppeteer’ and ‘Alchemist’.

“No, that’s not the… oh, whatever,” Morialia conceded with a resigned sigh. Continuing to argue against the monstrous being who killed her several hundred times over merely for the sake of gathering materials was a futile endeavour. She understood this well. There was no reason he’d show mercy now just because the situation changed slightly. “Still, are you sure you want to do this? Though it may just be a practice match, unleashing even a fraction of our powers here could result in at least half of this forest’s destruction.”

“That’s fine, or rather, that’s the point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about it. If we left such an obviously threatening scene, do you think that the people in charge of this realm would sit still? No, obviously they’d come rushing in to investigate what had happened; a destructive event on this scale would pose a serious risk to national security. When that happens, we can take the initiative to do whatever we want with it.”

“Huh?”

“Say we wanted to spread rumours about how a powerful new monster appeared, we can attribute this to that monster and it’d give credence. Or perhaps we could be the one to approach those investigators and pretend to be witnesses so we could curry favour for selling information. It just depends on what I need to do at the time; the effect can come before the story.”

“Geez, you’re much more deserving of the title of Demon Lord than me,” Morialia reeled back a little. “Haah~ if that’s what you wish for, ‘master’, then this lowly servant shall oblige.” She flew away to create a bit of distance. Suddenly the side of her mouth curved up into an excited glee, “ah, but, don’t come complaining if I hit a little harder than you expect!” she shouted from the top of her lungs as she thrust her right hand forward.

The clouds above suddenly darkened to an ill black, and from it a massive pressure of magical energy was exerted. The dark clouds quickly shifted red then to a bright orange as it swiftly parted to reveal what had been hiding behind.

Grand Master tier Flame Magic: ‘Meteor Strike’. It was a spell that rivalled Mordred’s own ‘Hell Storm’, at least in terms of Magic tier.

Yet, upon Mordred’s face was an unconcerned expression. “Good, we’ll start off easy then,” satisfied with the answer she gave him, he extended his own arm forward and conjured up a mid-level ‘Knight’ skill: ‘Sword of Justice’. Five holy swords constructed out of celestial white light appeared behind him and moved with the orchestration of his hand- as naturally as though they were part of his own body. Despite being the first time to use such an otherworldly, fantastical skill, he knew exactly how to manoeuvre the swords with mastery and elegance.

The individual swords ranged about two metres in length and moved about in the air like fishes in water. Morialia floated in the sky with her chest puffed out, laughing away maniacally as she remorselessly unleashed upon her master one of her most devastating skills. Yet, that ‘master’ of hers did not show concern as he moved the swords straight towards the incoming Meteor.

The two skills collided into massive eruption, and for a solid few seconds the sky was completely blackened out as flaming chunks of the Meteor’s wreckage fell to the surface of the earth. Each fragment bombarding the forest with the power of a falling truck on fire. The nearby trees in the vicinity, if not already devastated, were caught up in the inferno. However, surviving still in the skies and brightly illuminating through the smog and ash were the five swords created from Mordred’s skills.

“What the?!” Morialia shouted in confusion. “How…?!”

Cleared from the ashes, Mordred’s unscathed form emerged. “At the risk of sounding like a villain; this is the difference between you and me. Even the weakest of my abilities could rival your strongest.”

“Are you mocking me?!”

“A little.”

“Grrr! You…! I’ll show you!” however, before she had time to conjure up her next spell, the five glimmering light swords shot straight for her body, aiming at breakneck speed with full intent to kill. “Wait, hey! I’m not ready!” she protested, but the swords did not stop. “That’s not how you ‘start off easy’!” she moved her hand to activate a more instant-cast defensive spell. A silver and ornate mirror slightly bigger than her body appeared in front to shield her. Grand Master tier Holy Magic: ‘Heavenly Mirror’. As the name implied, it was a spell that absorbed and reflected projectile based attacks with 300% of the destructive output.

The mirror swallowed the five swords without trouble and only a few seconds later returned them back to the sender with even greater force and ferocity.

There was a brief window of opportunity for Mordred to react. Instead of conjuring up a second spell to intercept the flying holy swords, he opted to change tactics. This was what he was waiting for; to test out his own offensive powers against his defenses.

‘Holy Resistance’

‘Divine Shield’

‘Magic Shield’

‘Mana Deflector’

‘Natural Defence’

‘Elemental Defence Boost’

‘Hymn of Elemental Protection’

‘Alchemy Circle of Divine Protection’

‘Effect Dampener’

‘Mana Shield’

‘Paladin’s Armour’

‘Titanium Skin’

‘Phoenix’s Protection’

‘Undead’s Tenacity’

Moments before he was hit, several layers defensive abilities were activated to ensure his safety. The following collision momentarily lit up the entire forest and caused a second massive explosion to rival the flash of sol itself. All the trees were knocked down from the mere shockwave as though they were domino pins. Even Morialia’s position in the sky was compromised as she was knocked back a few metres.

“Whoa… Whew! Fufufu~ foolish master, do you finally see my… true… power…? What?” when the ash and dust settled, the same figure clad with an obnoxiously bright white overcoat made to look like a lab coat appeared with a mocking scoff. As if to say, ‘is that all you have?’ “Kuh, you damn!” Morialia’s face twisted in anger, though still maintaining a minimum level of cuteness. Her hands burned with furious white flames as she shouted back, “how about this then…?! Wait, what?!” the instant she thought to unleash her full fury, her master was not there.

“Come now, even if it is a practice match, don’t think your enemies will just stay stationary for you,” a soft, calm voice whispered into her ears.

“… When did you…” from the expression on her face, her heart looked like it would jump out of her chest from the sheer surprise.

“What do you mean, ‘when’, you realize I always had the ability to ‘blink’, right?”

Before she could give her reply, Mordred moved his hand over to her forehead where he delivered a powerful ‘forehead flick’. “Oh shit!” of course, contained behind those fingers was unimaginable power. Reflexively, her body cast an intermediate level defensive spell: ‘Mana Shield’ to protect her. Morialia’s body rocketed back to the earth and kicked up a tornado of dirt. Perhaps she had even lost consciousness for a good few seconds but bursting out from that dust was a hurricane made of flames. Advanced tier Flame Magic: ‘Inferno Hurricane’.

“Good, she can still continue.”

Interestingly, despite possessing countless god-like abilities, the one thing that Mordred lacked was the ability to fly. Thus, even though he managed to close the distance in the sky with the ‘Blink’ ability, he had no way to get manoeuvre or dodge whilst in the sky. Of course, it wouldn’t be too much of a problem since the ‘Soft Landing’ ability would kick in and save him from fall damage. “From sitting duck, you’ll become roast duck! Muahahahahahahaa!” Morialia took advantage of her master’s lack of aerial mobility to launch a surprise attack from the dust. The ‘Inferno Hurricane’ expanded and engulfed a good portion of the area and continued to spread out and consumed even her master. “Die! Die! Die, you jerk! This is for all the times you killed me! How do YOU like it, huh?!” She giggled to herself as her sharp teeth revealed themselves.

“I think I need to teach your body directly who the ‘master’ in this relationship is,” a sinister voice whispered into her ears once again. A nauseous shock ran down her spine as her palms quickly gathered with cold sweat.

She turned her head back to see not a single sign of scuffle or a spec of dirt on his pristine white coat. With one hand arrogantly behind his back, the ‘master’ pointed his finger directly at her face. “What…? What are you trying to do?”

“I just got done telling you I could ‘Blink’, so why did you forget it so quickly? Are you a goldfish?” the master’s finger glowed a sinister white-blue hue. An ‘Advanced’ tier of Ice Magic, ‘Cocytus’. As a primarily Flame oriented magic user, it was an element she had struggled dealing with. Above all, it was vexing to her that Mordred wasn’t even using his highest-ranking spells.

She knew instantly what this spell did; extreme burst, ice-attribute damage with a 99% chance of freezing the opponent and everything within at least a 200-metre radius. “Uhh, that… that thing about wanting you to die, that was just a joke- it’s demon joke! Master… you… uhh, you’ve got to chill… ahaha… haa…”

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll ‘chill’.”

The land that Morialia had scorched with her ‘Meteor Strike’ and ‘Inferno Hurricane’ had frozen over by a thin layer of thorny ice particles. Whatever trees or objects managed to somehow remain intact were entombed in a case of thick ice with the durability of steel. At the centre of it all was a block of ice with a small girl frozen inside with an unbecoming expression of fear and pain upon her face.

“Honestly, the in-game lore specified that you were vulnerable against Ice-attribute attacks, but perhaps what you were truly weak against was the ‘Blink’ skill.” With this the experiment had reached its conclusion. “Still, it’s an overall acceptable result.”

“Mffufttbleeee?!” a muffled voice shouted from within the block of ice. Soon, cracks appeared on the surface and not long after, the glacial egg had shattered, giving birth to a small girl shivering from the cold. She fell to her knees and rubbed her arms trying to warm herself. “A-a-a-acceptable you say?! Is-is-is-is that all you have to-to-to say?!” her words stuttered from the pain of being frozen.

“So, you managed to survive. Excellent,” heartless words came from the ‘master’s’ mouth.

“D-d-d-did you expect me to-to-to d-die?! You fiend!” Morialia warmed herself back up using low-level ‘fire bolt’ spells.

“Are you dissatisfied? I’m quite okay with the results as is.”

“You froze me! You actually froze me! I demand workers’ comp! And hazard pay!”

Mordred let out a sigh as he dismissed her plight. With a quick peek at the terrain around him, most of it could be described as ‘devastated’. The mountain he initially found himself on was no longer even there, and the nearby ones were completely toppled to the ground. Several enormous craters were marked all over the field. Half of the place was covered in prickly ice sheets, while the other half was a molten mess. “This should be enough evidence.” The key was to make it look deliberate, this was so the higher ups of the country would take notice. “We’re leaving.”

“Wha-hey! Come back! We aren’t done yet! You seriously used ‘Cocytus’ on me and you expect me to let this go?!” of course, ‘Inferno Hurricane’ was a magic spell on the same tier as ‘Cocytus’ but that fact was conveniently omitted.