Cristian must have been paid to help kill the other hopefuls so that Florian could get soulmarked. Florian’s mom seemed pretty mad that hadn’t worked, judging by the way she was holding Hugo up against the wall. Last time around he had gotten out of her grip by exposing the fact that she knew how the ritual worked and she encouraged her kid to kill people.

That wouldn’t work this time around. As far as she was concerned, he was a failed protector at best, and a murderer at worst.

“I didn’t kill him, but he tried to kill me. I was defending myself from him when the light flashed and it was all over,” Hugo said.

“You killed him in self defense then? Is that what you are saying?”

Hugo thought furiously. He had to redirect her anger, “He was trying to kill me. I wasn't fighting back, I just tried to stop him from killing me. The ones you want are dead. The beanpole human boy and the riese girl are the ones that killed him. They stabbed him in the back as he was going after me. I know you wanted me to protect him, but I can’t do that if he is trying to kill me. Why did he turn on me like that? Was it something you said?”

“I didn’t tell him to kill you,” she said through gritted teeth.

“When he tried to kill me, I just stopped him from killing me, that's it. I couldn't have done anything else. Even if I let him kill me, he still would have died to the human boy and riese girl. Ask the other survivors, they will tell you the same thing,” Hugo bluffed. He fervently hoped she didn't ask the other survivors because he wasn't sure what their version of events was now that he traveled back in time.

She stared at him intently, trying to decide if she believed him. An involuntary whimper escaped his lips. He was being held up against the wall and it was digging into the wound on his back.

“Why are you torturing that poor boy?” the riese father said.

“You stay out of this,” Florian’s mother said.

“Look, he is obviously still injured. At least set him down while you talk to him,” the riese said.

Forian’s mother set him down. Now that she had an audience, she seemed reluctant to continue interrogating him. She threw her hands up, frustrated, “Damn you. He was my son.” She stomped away, frustrated. He could see her walk to another group of young hopefuls, probably to interrogate them too. Hugo hoped that they wouldn't send her back his way, but there was nothing he could do about that right now.

Hugo looked up to the riese and said, “Thanks. I think you saved my life.”

He smirked and said, “It was nothing.” He looked at Florian's mom across the room and said, “Listen, my name is Noah. My daughter, Lina, was in the circle with you...”

“And you want to know what happened?” Hugo said. When Noah nodded, Hugo said, “She was very determined. Very brave. A bunch of the other kids just ran away when Florian started killing. It didn’t look like she wanted to fight but she did it anyway. She killed Hugo first, the stocky guy with the scar. She was fighting the tall beanstock guy and Florian when I escaped the fight. I guess the three of them took each other out.”

Noah sighed. He seemed disappointed with that answer. “Thanks for letting me know.” He walked away to sit on a cot with his wife. Hugo watched as they consoled each other.

There were grieving friends and family all across the room. Hugo felt guilty for surviving. Twice over at this point. He pulled his bedroll out and laid down. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault. Even though he felt bad for them, he shouldn’t feel guilty for something out of his control.

Trying to distract himself from the depressive thoughts, Hugo checked his bandages. He was healing, but it would probably be morning before he was at full strength. Every few minutes the number one would appear in his health pool and then get sucked away to heal his wound. He was glad that an empty health pool didn’t mean he was dead. That would be horrible, to have a number decide if you lived or died. Thinking about stats made Hugo realize something.

Sage Marta was wrong about the system.

Partially anyway. She had said that the Acomarian system works by affecting the soul, but he could think of two ways that she was wrong.

She had taught that healing powers worked by going off the design of the soul to reconstitute what the soul thought should be there. It was why a high level potion could reconstitute an arm or leg that had been cut off. The soul remembered what was there, and the magic brought it back. At least that was the idea. Hugo knew now that wasn’t true. His soul was in another body, recently healed, and it kept his new bodies’ form.

Marta had also taught that his formation domain was something that was burnt into his very soul. Much like enchanters burned runes into the metal of a sword, his formation domain had burned magical pathways into his soul. But his soul was in another body, but he could tell that he didn’t have the formation domain anymore. It wasn’t just that his screen showed domainless, he couldn’t feel his domain anymore. There used to be this spot, similar to his mana core, that he could feel his domain. It was gone now.

With an effort of will, he chose to ignore the fact that these two ideas indicated that Cristian was real and Hugo was the delusion. He couldn’t use his knowledge from the future to prove that he never time traveled in the first place.

He focused on the here and now again.

With an effort of will, he moved his mana around. He had access to magic, just not one of the eight domains. He hoped that he would be able to gain his domain back soon. It would be horrible to be stuck in between, like a hedge mage. He was looking forward to gaining formation skills back. He wondered if he would be able to jump to level nine in fabricate like he was before, or if he would have to slowly grind out the levels. It just depended on how the system measured skill.

Now that he thought about it, he was really curious. Did the Acomarian system record certain actions and raise the skill level after they had been completed? Or did it do an assessment of the actual skill of the mage, and grant a level commensurate to that skill? It was something he would have to test out after he was soulburnt.

...

Running down the mountain again was more exhilarating than Hugo remembered it being. He saw owlbears and beetles, raptors and strix. So many types of monsters, attacking the group of newly soulmarked on their way to the train. It was loud, he was sweaty, and he was almost having fun.

It was too bad he was so weak right now, he would love to join in on the monster killing fun. He was looking forward to rank two and getting his domain back at the academy. Then he had a thought, maybe he didn’t have to wait a few weeks to rank up. He had one skill that would help him gain more points without having to put his squishy body at risk. He could use Mana Dart. If he was efficient with it, it only needed a single point of mana. And he had two right now.

He cycled his mana through his arms a few times before he tried to expel it. Despite his abundant confidence, the first time he tried to shoot a dart, it fizzled into a puff of mana. Both points of mana were wasted. It was another twenty minutes before he had another to play with. This time around he practiced the move more and focused harder before he shot out his mana from his hand. He was rewarded with a little blue screen.

Skill Gained!

Through special actions you have unlocked the skill Mana Dart.

He had to wait another twenty minutes before he could actually use his skill. Once he had a bit of mana in the tank he jogged to the side of the column of people running down the mountain. He positioned himself between two mountain guides and looked out at the approaching monsters. An ankheg screamed and ran at them. Perfect. Hugo shot it in the face, causing it to stumble slightly.

The guard to his left swore in surprise. He recovered quickly and speared it through the thorax, killing it. Afterwards, he turned to Hugo and gave him the stink eye.

“Sorry,” Hugo said, “It was an accident.” He let himself drop back, away from that guard. Maybe he shouldn’t show off skills that no newly soulmarked had. He decided to hold off on any further shots. A quick check of his points showed that he had gained enough to rank up once.

Once he saw the shimmer trains in the distance, he picked up his pace. He remembered there was a suuruss right about here. If he stood closely as they killed it, he would get plenty of points from the survival effect.

As he neared the front of the line, he didn’t see the enormous worm monster. Had something changed? Was there some small detail he had changed that resulted in them killing the monster earlier? Or was his assumption about time travel all wrong? Maybe this was a similar world, but not the exact same one.

The front of the line bunched up, and he heard the guide in front of the line direct people to the correct train. Just as he got to the front of the line, a suurass burst out of the ground. Guides immediately peeled off to address the high level threat.

Hugo almost slapped his face when he realized what had happened. He had run faster this time around. He stepped out of line so he would still be standing nearby as the suuruss was killed. Exactly like last time, the highest ranked guides occupied the monster by cutting it up and forcing it to regenerate. They were buying time for the ritualist to set up the final blow.

Without warning, Hugo was yanked off his feet. A guide was holding him in the air, and yelled, “What do you think you are doing? Get going, get on a train.”

They were going to force him onto the train and he wouldn’t get any points from the tentacle worm monster. Hugo didn’t mind though, because he recognized this mountain guide.

A shock went through his system at the realization. This was the same barrier domain guide that fought off the train jackers last time around. He needed to warn them about the impending attack.

“Train jackers!” Hugo blurted out.

“What?” the guide said.

“Train jackers are going to hit the southbound train. We need to get more guards or something,” Hugo said.

He looked at Hugo, “How do you know this?”

He was a time traveler. Not that he could say that. The first thing that came to mind was, “Hugo told me. He said the fox gang was going to hit the train.”

“Hmm. Where is Hugo now?”

“He died up on the mountain. He said that the fox gang had an airship, and they planned on hitting the train before it reaches Tallinn.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They know that you will be carrying a mana core.”

The guide swore and grabbed him by the upper arm and started dragging him away. At first Hugo tried to get out of the hold, but the guide’s grip was like iron. Eventually he just went along with it. He did his best to jog along so his arm wouldn’t get any more hurt. This is what he wanted after all.

At least, that is what he assumed was happening. Hopefully the guard was bringing him to someone in charge, and not just throwing him in the brig. Hugo started wondering if trains had brigs, or if that was just a ship thing. Then he realized that he needed to focus, his life was potentially on the line here.

It was probably called a jail not a brig.

With that decided, he started panicking in earnest. The mountain guide didn’t respond when he said anything, he just kept dragging him along, away from the majority of the fleeing hopefuls. It was a relief when he saw that he was being brought to the man in the red vest, the leader of the guides.

“I am not sure if I believe him, but this kid says train jackers are going to hit the southbound monorail. Supposedly, they got an airship,” the blue vested guide said.

The red vested man pinched his brow, sighed, and said, “We don’t have time to verify it. Get Fermi and Feynman to join you going south,” the man in the blue vest said. He turned away to handle the next emergency.

Soon thereafter, Hugo found himself sitting across from two enormous guides. They towered over him, and both had bulging muscles. They were sitting in the first train car, which made Hugo nervous. The last time, most people in these seats died.

“So, what else can you tell us about the attack?” Fermi said. Or maybe he was Feynman. They were certainly brothers and he didn’t remember which was which.

“What else do you want to know? There is an airship, they want to attack the train. You guys need to stop them,” Hugo said, exasperated. He has already told them everything he remembered.

“Your estimate of ‘a bunch of guys in an airship’ is a bit vague,” said Feynman, maybe Fermi. “Do you at least know what kind of armaments they will have?”

“My dead friend said that the airship had all kinds of guns on it. As far as the boarding party goes, I think he mentioned something about shimmer casters,” Hugo said. He was trying to answer their questions accurately, without being too sure. They wouldn’t believe him if he told them exactly what was going to happen.

Fermi turned to his brother, who might himself actually be Fermi and said, “I think we need to use Trinity. Assuming there really is an airship, we can’t afford to be boarded if they have shimmer casters.”

His brother nodded and said, “I agree. I will go get it from our bags.”

“Who is Trinity?” Hugo said.

“Not who, what. It’s something we have been working on for a while.”

“What does it do?” Hugo said.

“Hopefully, we won’t have to use it. It’s a rather drastic problem solver. But then again, if we don’t use it, then you would be a liar, and you would have a different sort of problem.”