Chapter 219

I’m Not Here To Start A War

Honestly, I think we all kind of saw this coming. Or at the very least it should not have come as a surprise that I ended up here like this.

Of course, this is likely going to only add fuel to the fire about my needing to have a handler. Someone around who will constantly monitor me and my actions for any signs that I am going to do something that might cause political, financial, or undeterminable consequences that could come back on the Midnight Hunters Guild.

What exactly happened?

Well, to be simply put, I found the enemy’s hidden forced labor camp. Not that it was really hidden, but it apparently is the camp where all prisoners of war are gathered and forced to work in dangerous mining conditions in order to extract raw ore and resources that will ultimately feed into the Legrand war machine.

Honestly for a nation as large as Legrand, I would expect there to be dozens to a hundred of these. This one camp with a few hundred workers is probably a drop in the bucket for the Legrand Empire.

For a moment, I almost thought about just finding my two targets, the biological parents of a little girl named Izzy, grabbing them and then getting out. Parents that I found thanks to my handy, if poorly named new spell Family Tree Finder (Leaf to Branches Edition).

Then I realized that this would leave close to 498 other people who would later curse my name about why they didn’t have their own Izzy that sparked a mission like this.

With that, I began going low key.

First, I reconnoitered the whole place, looking for entry and exit points, communication relays, power sources, alarm systems. I even searched for magical detection and prevention sources.

Then I began systematically breaking everything. Starting first with the magical detection systems. These are oddly enough the easiest to deal with, as they focus on alerting based on a disturbance of mana in the immediate area. The goal is to hide them in as inconspicuous a place as possible so an unsuspecting mage will not notice them in the air vents above.

The only problem with this design is that for someone with Angel’s Sight, those mana attracting runes look like glowing flowers that draw in magical dew to my sight. Once they are found, disabling them is simple, you just grab them with Telekinesis, and yank them free of the alarm system that they are attached to. See these magical detection systems require mana to run, and need to be recharged constantly, thus they are designed to be disabled in such a way for ease of maintaining coverage.

Looking back on it, old Mickey Eight-Toes was the one who taught me how to first disarm this type of trap. Just remembering that thought brings a smile to my face as I realize I definitely need to make sure Mickey is still there to help a new generation of kids. So that they too can grow up to be vigilante terrorists, if they want.

Then realizing that I am doing this for Izzy, a kid who I very much want to teach these types of self-sufficient skills to only causes me to move a bit faster.

Once the magical detection runes are separated from the alarms, I quickly crush the alarms with Telekinesis. Then I look internally inside the alarm systems that the runes were attached to and tear apart the different needed components. As I move with surgical precision, I remember even more lessons taught to me by the guild. Lessons that I now use like second nature. Whereas when I first began, I would rip the entire object to pieces, now I just strike at the five or ten internal points that will consistently cause the most damage and then move on.

Perhaps this is where my expertise as a doctor came from, as I have used many of these same focusing techniques to improve the internal workings of many patients.

With the magical detection alarms down, I then focus on the magical prevention alarms. I focus on them to see if they are even worth dealing with, then quickly realize they aren’t. These are the standard magical prevention focuses, anti-elemental mastery, anti-teleportation, anti-mental attacks, and anti-healing/augmentation. To test myself I make sure to Teleport next to these, only to find that there is a slight tingling sensation to the magic, but nothing I can’t handle.

Honestly, with the way those wards are structured, they will honestly help me more than hinder me, especially as I don’t plan on attacking anyone while here. This was another great teaching from Mickey, don’t bother wasting time on disabling all the traps. Just focus on disabling the traps that will hinder your mission.

With the magical component taken care of, I begin taking out alarm systems and communication relay lines. Since this is steampunk, noticing lines that run electricity is rather easy, even if they are deep underground. Most of the time all it takes is a quick thrust of Telekinesis to push, pull, or tear a copper wire line apart.

Before I knew it, all my preparations were complete and I was ready to execute.

At first I really meant to go in subtly, and steal 500 forced laborers in the night without anyone noticing. That was honestly the plan.

Of course, that was until I saw her.

Lady Legrand, the daughter of a duke in Legrand who supposedly was brothers to the King or something. Honestly, I forgot all about the entire power dynamic.

All I remember was the lopsided contract she made me sign, one that if it had gone differently, I be little more than a magical slave working for pennies on the dollar.

Worse, despite my showing her the error of her ways by stealing all of her funds and experience from her tournament, she didn’t learn as she now had no less than five mages all bound by magically binding contracts to her. Seeing them bound in such a way, I could only feel hollow inside.

For a moment I wondered what life would have been like had I decided to stay with her, to continue being her Tobias. Could I have prevented this, these fates for other mages?

Or was this always the fate that awaited me, had I not thought of my own way out of the contract.

Then just as I was focusing on her own unique magic signature, I noticed something.

A taint of corruption.

Well not corruption, not really, but a forced magical mutation. Looking at Lady Legrand and her entourage of bound in servitude mages, I saw something that felt oddly nostalgic.

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Actually, multiple things here felt oddly nostalgic, though I couldn’t place where all of these feelings of Déjà vu were coming from. The land felt nostalgic for some reason, though I was fairly certain that I never came here before. That of if I had it was while running very quickly for my life. Still, I couldn’t help but feel that I knew of the odd dry resonance of the land.

Yes, the land was dry, as if drained of all magical potential. But that dry sensation wasn’t the most pressing thing on my senses, as I also noticed that while the land looked and felt unnaturally depleted of magical resources, the people who were in charge of guarding and running this camp were oddly infused with magical capabilities.

The magical capabilities were so off putting that I had to truly sit and stare at them for a moment, while I figured out what exactly was off. These mages were all mutated, but it wasn’t a truly natural mutation.

Only once I counted the tier ratings of a few of the mages did the oddly nostalgic mutation seem to make sense.

From but a glance I saw with my Angel’s Sight, the differences that my bloodline provided to these people and to Lady Legrand.

Vomit.

Yes, I vomited up mana glitter.

The with Lady Legrand and all of her bound servants all had been corrupted and changed by my bloodline. Worse, I knew exactly who had done it. Then to make matters worse, I suddenly understood why the Legrand Empire, always a force to be reckoned with, was suddenly an unstoppable juggernaut of force.

My son, Rob Jr., or Trenton as he now likes to be called did all of this.

This was my work, my sweat, my tears, my trials, my hopes, and my want to make the world better suddenly shoved in my face.

Seeing the mage overlords, I quickly noticed their little wristbands, and amulets. These were the protection devices needed to bypass the protective anti-magic wards that were active throughout the camp.

I was going to be quiet.

Just a quick sneak in, grab a few people, then get out.

However that all changed once I saw the method of imprisonment. Once I realized the root cause of this sudden rise to power was due to my very bloodline, I realized why bloodlines were so important. Especially Legendary Bloodlines like my own.

Trembling.

My hands were trembling, but this was okay. At this point using my hands was unnecessary, as such whether my hands trembled or not was inconsequential to my ability to cast spells.

Words were unnecessary, which was good as I suddenly felt something akin to cotton forming in my throat.

I also didn’t need to see, at least not with my eyes. This too was good, as it meant I could cry my tears of pain I now felt coming up.

In a way, I had caused this. I left my son alone, realizing that he had fallen in with bad crowd again. I let him lead his life here how he wanted, only to see the gift of magic, my gift to the world being used to enslave others. Worse, even those doing the enslaving were also slaves.

For a moment, I wanted wrath.

Thunderclap.

I’m leaking mana and qi simultaneously. My emotions are so wild that without even realizing it, I have caused a supernatural storm to appear out of nowhere.

Drain.

As the supernatural storm starts, I feel the primitive anti-magic wards come to life. They try to put out my storm. They only thing they don’t realize is that this is a Qi and Mana infused storm, by taking away the mana, all you do is strengthen the external Qi.

Fwoosh!

The external Qi of the storm, uses the anti-magic properties of the wards as an accelerant. Suddenly what had just been a static filled breeze became a torrent of wild energy. Energy that seemed to buck and convulse wildly, wanting to be left free.

For a moment, I thought about letting it go free. Letting the energy wreak its own seemingly personalized form of justice on the land.

The land was clearly starved of mana, and this odd storm was a direct result of that starvation fueled by a rapid expulsion of energy that I let flow from me, apparently. This created a vortex effect, where the land that had apparently been mined for mana particles was now desperately trying to absorb the energy from the Qi and Mana storm, before it was even allowed to be fully created.

This was the equivalent of a parched desert receiving the first rain fall of the year, how it was able to pull down absorb the liquid and leave only a silhouette of where the rain drop fell to die and disappear into the sand.

That is what the land was doing now as it gobbled up energy particles.

Feeling the desperate cry of the war torn earth being awoken by this energy, I could almost feel the pain of the earth crying out to me. This was due to my Nature’s Friend Title I received. A title that was further enhanced by the title that my Midnight Hunters also had.

Nature’s Friend (X):

You have helped clean up over one hundred thousand pounds of trash, and have been recognized as one of nature’s true champions. Rewards: Life and Nature based Spells are now 50% more efficient. Neutral rating to most woodland and creatures found in the wild.

Perhaps it was the cry of the dying earth that caused me to snap.

Before I heard and felt the travesties that the inhabitants of the lands were performing on the lands, I likely would have been able to avoid violence.

As it stood, I could only feel the intense need of planet to have the infectious parasites removed for a time, so that it might recover. That is what the excavators were to the planet just parasites that were stripping away the bones of the carcass that was the world.

Then as if by fate, I was given yet another message from the world all but telling me to act as a rabid Lorax.

New Quest Identified: Purging the Desecrators (Ongoing): You have come across a scene of absolute destruction. Magical Parasites have set up a dig site stripping the land of magical resources, which have in turn begun to poison the ecosystem. Eliminate the threat to the local area, and become a protector of the world. Current status Grand Mages purged (0 / 9), Mage foreman (0 / 12), Mage Leaders (0 / 27), excavators (0 / 508). Rewards: Experience, Bloodline Evolution Markers, Badges, variables.

Seeing the quest, I mentally nodded as I now understood what I was up against.

Pausing for a moment, I couldn’t help but chuckle, as this quest all but demanded I become both an ecoterrorist and the thing that Mallory feared most, an overpowered villain.

At least, that is what would have happened if I didn’t take a moment to pause and read the exact wording of the quest.

The moment I forced myself to stop and think, was the moment the answer to this problem was made blatantly apparent. I mean the answer was also implied in this quest in that I was also supposed to eliminate the excavators. This was a task I could not do, or rather would not do as it was initially inferred by the wording. Yet, this quest like all quests can be interpreted multiple different ways.

The key words were for me to Eliminate the threat to the local area.

Realizing that was the goal of this, I could accomplish this task multiple different ways. I could go in spells blazing and strike everyone down in a hail of magical fury. This would not be something that I would feel comfortable with.

The next would be to focus on different definitions of eliminate, which really means to completely remove or get rid of.

To get rid of these people would be simple, I could just open a quick portal to nowhere, force everyone through and be done with the quest right there.

Or I could go for option three, which would be a slight combination of one and two. Spells blazing, while removing the people I wanted to save from here.

Ultimately I decided to go for option three. Particularly as this seemed to be the way to fix my mistake. Well multiple mistakes.

Now that I felt the earth crying out in pain, I focused on what this operation was for.

The Legrand empire was forcing their labor camp workers to do strip mining for mana flakes. Flakes that felt oddly familiar, but I couldn’t place where. Not until I felt my hands fidgeting.

Fidgeting by itself is nothing new, as I often find myself fidgeting. But this set of fidgets seemed oddly purposeful.

Only after a moment did I realize that the reason why the magical resonance of the ground was oddly nostalgic was due to the fact that it reminded me of the overpriced Tier III smithing metals and materials that I had been pestering Mallory to get and procure with my own funds.

Dry heaving.

At that, I realize that my want to get rare parts and materials for my projects at the cheapest prices possible was also funding the Legrand Empire’s relentless conquest.

Yes, I know this is a fact of life. That in a system with interchangeable commerce, buying and selling materials that ultimately lead to funding wars is inevitable. That if you look hard enough, you can find similar processes everywhere.

Also, it is very likely that Mallory and her supply staff knew to avoid buying directly from Legrand sellers. Possibly causing the higher prices, but forcing a buffer in between the selling of the materials to our guild, which would them make it back to me. All this did was make it so war profiteers got rich off of our own personal morals.

All of this was impossible to find out. At least it was impossible to find out at this moment in time, as I had greater things to think about right now, like saving a little girl named Izzy’s parents. Parents that are victims of this war just as much as we all are.

Still, all this shows is that we are only focusing on the symptoms of the war, we aren’t actually solving anything.

The Legrand Empire has proven themselves to be highly capable and adaptive to perceived threats.

By doing this mission I will all but declare war on the Legrand Empire.

That said, I am okay with this being a consequence. This is also when I go back to my old mantra that has always seemed to serve me well in times like this.

“Act first, and issue an apology after,” I say, while making an old religious gesture that has seemingly followed me here. Still the gesture is comforting, if nothing else.

Rising up with the storm, I focus on what I will do.

“I am not just. I am not out to enact justice. I am only doing this, so that I can sleep easier at night, knowing I did my best. And that’s going to be okay.” I say to myself, not wanting to glamorize or justify any of the actions I am about to commit. Instead, I just want the end goal present. “War is selfish, my participating in this war is purely selfish.”

Inhale.

Strong gust of wind.

Exhale.

Thunderclap.

Either I am melding my conscience with the storm, or the storm feeling my sympathetic magic is melding with me. Regardless of the reason, I feel the power and surge of the storm around me, encouraging me to do what needs to be done. What I need to do, so I don’t hate myself for sitting around and doing nothing while the world burns.

Badump, badump.

I let my heart beat once, then twice to calm down. That’s when I relax my mind. I relax my mental controls that are always in place to prevent me from being too violent.

Then, just like I was taught as a kid. Now that I have the enemy right where they are most vulnerable, that is when you make your move.

This is when I Strike.