Chapter 44: Stretching

Cycle 3085 AF: 12th day of the Fire Phase

Sometimes things do not go to plan. Sometimes things go so well that it shocks you. Sometimes Nalks just showed up and… were themselves

The last few weeks had been the oddest mix of the first two and I honestly had no idea if the Nalks had anything to do with it.

Our original plan had been to work as a traveling medic, using our talent to pay for food as we made our way to the border. At first this did not sound like a bad idea and I was personally familiar with some people who had dedicated their lives to doing just that. Still, upon closer inspection, there were more than a few problems with this, most of which I should have expected, but two problems stood out from the rest.

First off, the amount of food I needed to heal someone compared to how much the local peasantry could afford to pay. This was not an issue for the first few weeks because I had at least some pocket change from the Baron, but as I was traveling during planting season it was a bit more difficult.

People were still willing to trade me, but the few winter crops had already been counted and harvested. Since only some of the new farming techniques, like crop rotation, were practiced here the resulting harvest was only a little above subsistence. Things were changing fairly quickly everywhere else, but the areas I had gone through had only recently starting to experiment.

As a result, it was my runes that earned me the most food during this time. After all, runes did not need me to use magic and would last long after I was gone. That said, only smiths, millers, and the occasional trader could afford anything more complex than a few small heating runes – which was not helped by the start of the Fire Phase.

That said, I had a second problem, which was less problematic at first, but it quickly agitated the first.

In large part due to the lack of mages that the burnout epidemic had produced, no one seemed used to mages wandering around. As a result, not many people believed that I was a Mage. In my previous life weak mages, derogatorily called ‘sensitives,’ were fairly common and made magic something people could accept more easily.

In that world the lower classes were used to mages, if not strong ones, while the nobles were well aware of how even the strongest of them were still human. Here, people did not seem to understand the limitation of magic, or the mages who wielded it.

After all, most mages were nobles and nobles would never admit to having trouble with money, always appearing rich, powerful, and untouchable. As a result, seeing one traveling on foot between cities, alone, was very odd. Those few who saw me and believed I was a mage were also extremely suspicious of my motivation: perhaps I was a criminal mage or the lover of a powerful man’s wife or daughter.

I wanted to laugh when I heard that kind of thing whispered behind my back, but it was leaving a damn clear trail of where I had been.

As I approached the border of Istoria though, that problem completely reversed itself. As a result, of increased border tensions I was delayed a few times by some fairly unpleasant guards, demanding that I prove that I was not a spy.

A combination of spells for their memories and painful kicks to the groin helped my case, but it was also a bit of a waste as the ‘guards’ I ran into hardly had any decent rations. Their iron was welcome, but that kind of thing was much harder to explain, given that I could not melt it or pay someone to remove the Kingdom’s symbols.

Then a trade caravan helped me out by hiring me as a guard and helped me get past the border.

That had been a wonderful stroke of luck up to the incident a week ago, which was quickly making me suspect that the Nalks had decided to take a more active interest in my life.

…

“I have no interest in hunting bandits, thank you for the offer.” I tried to kept my voice polite, but the more the man asked questions the more annoyed I got.

“Come now, does hunting down bandits really sound so bad? You will not have to get you robe dirty and my lord, a Baron of House Ferrum, has personally guaranteed the terms.”

“No, I have just hunted enough of them the next few life times, thank you.” I tried to hand the map back to him.

“Oh really? Just how many would you have to hunt down to get tired of it? We could get you a captainship if you are really that experienced.”

Just under nine thousand, excluding the ones I delegated, but I was more interested in moving away from the border than investigating bandits. Especially given the fact that these stoning fools sounded more like sponsored raiders than anything else, given what the man said about how close together these attacks were.

I ignored the question for a moment and gave the map another look. It had a few markings indicating villages that had been attacked in the surrounding area. Given the spread, there was no way that it was just one group, unless they were literally running from village to village.

No, reputation was important, control was important, staying alive was important. If a bandit killed too many, or looted too large of an area, they attracted attention, particularly from men who had the money to make their lives stoning difficult.

I had survived in my previous life by staying in unoccupied lands that no army had been able to keep and then making my group dominant. If the kingdom you were raiding was busy or you removed yourself and the spoils quickly enough, I could see someone pulling a raid like this and scattering, but this…

“There was no purpose.” I stated flatly, shoving the map into the guard’s chest who reflexively grabbed it. “The most valuable things in those villages were the people, but there is no slave trade and the churches would come down on anyone who took them as bound servants. You can find these idiots on your own, just look for the mob of madmen.” I walked away at that point.

When we had arrived in the town the man had immediately come over to ask if we had run into any trouble on our way there. After that, he quickly asked the leader to identify any mercenaries or guards.

Apparently the merchant who headed the caravan had told the guard about me, because he already knew that I was a mage when he approached me. His terms were generous, good pay and food rations, but the map was why I did not want anything to do with this little adventure.

I could come up with several reasons why, but the main reason was that the whole thing was wrong on more than a few levels. For example, why would anyone let someone as low level as this fool have a map of large scale banditry activity? It was basically a decree of local incompetence, a literal picture that scream: “Hey, we have a problem and cannot handle it ourselves!” To anyone with even half a brain. That is was so close to the boarder only made it more suspicious.

Istoria was one of the largest kingdoms on the eastern continent. Its borders were fairly well patrolled, from what I could tell, and yet this stupidity was going on. While we were several kilometers away and they had the majority of their forces to the south at Haereticus, it still sounded suspicious.

Furthermore, the villages that were attacked were just that, small villages. What purpose could attacking them ever serve? Not that women and wine were not excuse enough for many, but on this scale? The last time I had even heard about something like that was… Anubis.

Ah, stone it all, I did not want to think of that creep, but he was a good example. If the raiders had a mage or two and wanted to take advantage of an area. A private war between nobles suddenly seemed likely and I made a mental not to not linger near manors for the near future.

From a bandit’s perspective they made little sense, but if they were trying to spread the guard out, or just embarrass the local powers?

Regardless, I collected my pay for some quiet medical attention (the concept of regular cleaning had still not made much headway apparently) and we went north the same day. The southern branches and streams off of the Ketchdown River would mean fish and there were enough towns and border patrols to make it reasonable safe.

…

One of the resulting discoveries of what I honestly expected to be the more peaceful rout, was a village that had just been lite on fire.

Was it luck? Nalks? A phantom penis that sensed desperate women? (I gave Bella a mental chop for that) Did it matter?

I was on a small ridge near a thousand meters to the south of the village, cutting through part of a forested area but what passed for the town’s protection was just a loose pile of rocks that encircled the village, around a meter and a half high. The low level of protection let me see into the village and confirmed that the fires were relatively new, having yet to spread very far.

That said, there were no mass of raiders or even their horses, no howling cries of pain and suffering, just the growing flames. Had a part of the raiding group stayed behind? There were no bodies that I could see…

Technically it was none of my business, I could just stay out of it all and see about looting some provisions after the fires had died down without worry. That said, the Guilt would hunt me down if I could easily save someone and just let them die. Using the smallest amount of magic, I cast a “far sight” spell.

The spell quickly bent the light around one of my eyes and allowed me to see inside the village. It was not very big, room for a few dozen families at the most. I thought that it was already over for a moment after not seeing anyone move. Then a small group of women, clothes in taters, caught my eye. They were being dragged away from a thatched roof house that was clearly going to get caught up in the spreading fire.

I shook my head and dismissed the spell. It was over after all, these lagers had obviously stayed for the women. Putting down our traveling pack, Bella and I both focused and we started jogging towards the village, slowly picking up speed.

Bella did not need to look in my memories to know what I thought about rapists. Graveborns like those took power, took choices, away from the individual they assaulted. Bella made a few snide comments about the Pervert and myself being similar to such creatures in the past, but she was wrong.

In our lives we only had the ability to choose our own path and even the stoning Nalks could not change that. Even with a knife at your throat you had a choice to make the other person use it. That said, I found that far too often rapists did not want to give you that choice.

A gag to keep you from biting your tongue, a few iron nails to keep your magic at bay, and chains to bind your limbs made your choices very limited. It would get even worse if there were potions, the type of disgusting mixes that made your own body your enemy, while the ground away at your sanity.

I pushed down the feeling of hate that started to boil up in me and instead focused on reshaping my facial structure. I did not need any survivors spreading rumors about what I looked like and while my current traveling robe was generic enough not to worry about it.

It took us less than three minutes to cover the distance, during which time our face grew more angular and harsh. We also changed our eye to a bright yellow, shortened our hair, and Bella took special care to restore our pointed ears.

I also altered our bone armor slightly. Where it was previously distributed just for travel, I changed it to form arm and leg guards, while reinforcing chest, especially around the heart. Part of the bone also formed up over my head as a type of helmet, but it did not actually cover much, mainly forming reinforced bands around my skull and more importantly protected the back of my neck.

With the modifications to my bones I could likely take a hit directly to the head without too much damage, but my brain and spine were still very fragile things. Concussions were possible and if my attacker left iron in me than healing around it would be nearly impossible. Plus, I had no idea how to heal brain damage, so my best defense was flexibility and not getting hit.

I had a couple of iron knives on me, which I had ready at my waist, and my only sword was in its sheath for the moment. If there were no mages with the other group than my excess bone mass could be shaped into a better weapon than the stolen weapon, but we would see.

Leaping over the small wall was easy, but there was basically no way to hide my approach. Even though they were not looking for me, the small group of men seemed to have known that something was coming. By the time we found them on the opposite end of the village, the five men were already armed and waiting for me when I got there.

There were also several bodies in front of the men, the women we had seen earlier. A quick life detection spell showed that two of them were alive, but only one of them was close enough to let me directly inspect.

“What is a blighted elf doing here?!”

“Hey, you think it is a man?”

“If it has an asshole does it matter?”

“Shut up you pig, you are the only one who likes that shit.”

“It’s a freaking elf! Who cares it if has a vag or asshole, they both probably have teeth!”

Most of it was whispers that I ignored as I quickly bent down and treated the injured women. Her throat had been cut sloppily, which was the only reason I could do anything. The other one was bleeding out too quickly, a similar, but deeper cut on her throat.

Bella kept track of the other men as our magic sealed the wound and made sure the woman’s was not about to die from blood loss.

“Did it just heal the slut!?”

I took a slow breath at that, shaking off old memories. This women would recover soon enough, and I might even get to practice a plasma creation or transfusion spell. Breathe out, keep calm.

“Shite-pickle-biscuits, it is a mage.” I looked up at the brat who said that. He was just old enough to be called a man, but young enough to make you regret that choice of words… In fact a better turn of phrase might be that he was old enough to rape, but not old enough to keep from pissing himself before a fight.

I glanced from him back to the young woman’s throat, where a pink mark was all that remained of the previous injury. The only reason she was alive now was that it had been a quick, panicked, cut. I recast my life detection spell looking at the other bodies, but it was already too late.

That said, the spell also let me know that there was someone moving behind a small house. Modifying the spell, I found two more circling around me for a total of eight men.

The oldest member among the one in front of me, clearly experienced with some sort of combat, was yelling at the fool troupe. “Shut up the lot of you, and stop cursing Riles, you are shite at it. Surround the freak and nail it to the ground- THEN you can see if it has a dick for you to suck, or whatever the bloody twelve you are into!” Most of them responded to his words and started spreading out more, though they clearly took no joy from it.

“It is a mage!” Riles repeated, his whole body now shaking.

“Get your shite together Riles, Healers are piss-poor fighters and this one does not even have the church symbols on her.” Their leader was fairly calm, but his movements were still a little jerky as he started advancing. Had he ever seen what a mage could do when angered? If he had than he had not than he might be planning on running instead of fighting.

I thought about just forming a couple pain spells and then interrogating them after, but that would be too easy. Instead I decided to go ahead and use it as an opportunity to stretch.

Bella, rather noticeable, did not object.

The majority of them had iron tipped spears and the leader was left wielding a longsword. That said, only the leader looked to have any sort of well-practiced stance. Naturally he was also the only one I could see that had iron chainmail on, though I saw a pair of the spear wielders had small bronze shields on their backs.

So they were smart enough to know that running was likely pointless, that (normal) mages did not have eyes in the back of their heads, and that bronze shields were basically useless against magic, only able to slightly weaken a spell. They also disposed of witnesses the second they thought someone was coming and attempted to set up an ambush in response.

Bella and I gave them a six out of ten for the response, but a two out of ten for not thinking their plan through. For instance, there was a distinct lack of horses nearby to get away quickly. Even if the beasts were expensive to take care of, the speed would be more than useful in this situation. After all, if a patrol was close enough to see the smoke they would be watching the roads closely as they called for assistance.

Overall the fools were not dangerous enough to merit a serious danger so using them as test subjects was a reasonable idea. If things got serious, one berserker spell fueled jump would get me enough distance to heal or cast magic safely. Beside which, we had to test our new body some more.

On the way here I had next to no time to set up any type of reasonable way to test us. Shadow training and practicing sword forms could only prove so much, even with Bella able to help me manipulate the mental opponents we trained against, it lacked the unpredictable aspect of a real battle.

Every day at sunrise, noon, and sunset Bella and I went through and closely monitored our body, looking for defects, unexpected mutations, and problems arising from our current sexless state. Hormones, growth rate, etc. we measured and kept track of everything we could and since the change we had the unexpected challenge of height to also deal with.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Also, where I had previous suppressed our body’s growth, now our balance, our abnormally dense muscles and bones, and muscle memory had to be reworked or retrained from my ongoing growth spurt. As a result, I had lost some of the previous level of bodily control that I had during my prison escape. Something these soon-to-be-eunuchs could help me fix.

Still, I felt obligated to at least offer a way out. “I will make you a deal.” I spoke slowly, giving my voice a soft feminine tone, before adding a small smile that showed off pure white teeth. “Tell me about the group that did this and I will let you off mildly: with a curarized castration instead of letting you burn alive.”

The leader of the men sneered at that. “NOW!”

My smile probably looked quite vicious for a moment, but I did not feel as excited as I thought I would. As they all started forward I had time to wonder if I just was not taking this seriously enough before Bella picked out a familiar sound that echoed from behind me. Not thinking, I dropped to the ground and rolled ungracefully to the side as an arrow passed through where I had been standing.

I took the opportunity to pull one of my knives while Bella tracked the arrow back to the archer who had circled around behind us and shot a stun spell at him. The other two ambushers turned out to be swordsmen and they charged me as soon as they stepped out.

Meanwhile, I had to deal with a dirty looking spear wielder, trying his hardest to stab me before I could get my bearings. I was already on my feet though and knocked the blade away with my bone-crafted guards, which took the blow quite well.

As I stabbed at the man’s thigh I made sure Bella was watching for anyone trying to flee. Getting some distance I heard the a few uninspired obscenities and I dodged a shield that someone threw at my head.

I could have caught it easily, but the whole purpose of this was to remind my new body of my old martial movements. Normal mage martial movements involved dodging, getting distance, and never touching anything other than iron. My version had a slightly difference focus as I preferred to keep far closer than most mages were comfortable.

I charged a spear wielder and rolled to the underneath his attempt to hit me, coming up much more smoothly this time. I almost killed him there, but a screech from the Riles brat behind me reminded me that I was dealing with bugs.

I blocked the man in front of me as he attempted to hit me with the side of the spear, giving him a long cut on the arm. I also blasted the man with killing intent, causing him to freeze and giving me time to step just out of the way of a thrust of one of the sword armed men and near another spearman.

Using my right hand, I stabbed up into the bottom of his mouth, his attempt to dodge spilling more blood as the stabbing movement turned into an impromptu slash as well. From my left hand I came a stun spell which dropped him to the ground.

I turned around and reflexively bat away the spear point that I found aimed at my chest. I mentally cursed that I knocked it away with my arm and gave the man a deep stab near his knee to compensate.

Touching anything that could be enchanted with anything other than iron was armature hour.

After that I backed up quickly and noticed that the loud brat was still charging, though he was almost upon me. In response I threw my dagger so it bit fairly deep into his thigh, right before I slipped past a sword strike and attempted to move out of the encircling mob.

Apparently the men who had been hiding were both somewhat competent swordsmen as they worked with the leader and all tried to slash or stab at me as I moved.

Seeing three men with spears down and the bowman unconscious made the last spear wielder desperate enough to throw it at me right before he turned to run. Bella did the honors of hitting him in the back with a stun spell, rendering him unconscious mid step, creating a rather spectacular fall.

All three of the remaining men were the sword wielders, but they did not waste time staring at their allies and quickly decided to rush me. For my part, I was satisfied with my performance. I used throwing knives a lot, but they were not my best weapon and using them as daggers was annoying, especially given their lack of reach.

That said, even though I was clearly winning, something did feel wrong, like I was missing something important. That said I had no idea what it was, so I had Bella use another detection spell to look for more hidden enemies, while I drew my sword. She complied, but immediately after nothing turned up she turned her attention inward to see if she could not find the source.

It was a nice thought, but even we could not see too what our sub conscious was picking up on. At least she was not wasting more energy though, the life detection spell was oddly mana heavy for its caloric cost.

I fought off all three of the armature swordsmen easily enough, making sure to move around and doing my best to face them one at a time. My strength easily matched theirs and my swordsmanship was noticeably better than the two underlings. Still, had the shortest reach and was aiming for nonfatal blows, which made it harder.

As we moved around a change in the wind blew a large amount of embers at us, heating up the air quickly. I took the opportunity when one of the men caught something in his eye to attack, kicking the leader in his chainmail to knock him away. The man who was rubbing at his eye quickly backed off and gave me enough alone time with the third man to remove his sword hand.

Naturally, I also cast a spell to seal the wound, which sent the man to the ground screaming in pain as a mix of regular fire and healing magic briefly wrapped around his severed hand.

Just because the Guilt never affected me during battle did not mean I took it lightly. Unless I had already killed someone, I would prefer to let someone else bear the guilt.

I turned to face the other two when Bella did something. It took me a moment to realize that the thing that had been missing the entire fight had not been another opponent, but my adrenaline. From the beginning, my adrenal reflex had not kicked in like it was supposed to.

While not exactly a magic combat potion, lacking an effective adrenal reactions was causing my body to underperform and I did not feel the usual rush when beating someone… Though that might have been more connected to testosterone than adrenaline.

Hormones were an odd grey area in my inherited knowledge, I knew lots of general information, but there was still a lot I did not know too. In any case, Bella temporarily fixed the issue by dumping a blast of adrenaline into my blood with a bit of magic. Interestingly, she used a bit too much and I was left with a racing heart and two very unlucky fools.

In fact the fight had lasted all of a few seconds as I started to really move. I sidestepped the first man and emasculated him without pause. It was boring. I wanted more.

How should I- no, too slow. Move…

Then the leader was down with a broken collarbone and I was trying to calm down.

I could not think about what I was going to do, or I would slow down. I could not plan my moves out, for everything was moving too fast. I moved faster than anything except pure reaction could keep up with.

That said, catching the leader’s sword barehanded, while he was in mid-swing, was a bit excessive, even by my standards.

“Stone it all.” This was the danger of messing around with the human body. Even after many decades of cutting others open and nearly another decade of research and study in the different methods of healing, it still was not enough. I needed test subjects, a place to conduct controlled experiments, and time in order to truly make myself, or anyone else, into something more than an abnormally muscular person. Blighted runes should be able to do that by themselves.

Still, it seemed that I was years away from accomplishing anything meaningful. Stones, at this rate the biopuppet design might be complete before I was finished working out all the little kinks in my own body.

Bella’s response was typically opposite of me: “then stop wasting time.”

I walked around slowly, taking deep breaths and lowering my heart rate while checking on the idiots. No one’s life was in immediate danger, despite their wounds and the growing fire. Though I had to use a few more stun spells.

Riles, or whatever his name was, had managed to limp to nearly a hundred meters outside the village before my spell took him down. The other spearmen were still in the village, having tied very crude tourniquets over their wounds. One had even tried to ambush me after failing to wake the bowman. I knocked them all out as I systematically moved them outside the spreading fire.

Ignoring the vaguely cannibalistic aspects of it, I also took the time to use mana roots on one of the dead women to increase my reserves, before casting flesh fire on them as a group.

Unlike a normal fire, like the one growing behind me, it used mana from the air as fuel and would only burn animals. It was a common, easy to cast spell, which would destroy the dead flesh and leave behind all metals and usually even clothes untouched. Although the origin spell was said to only consume flesh, most modern versions of it would also weaken and crack the bones that remained.

Given enough time, even those bones would simply blow away as dust in the wind.

Both fortunately and unfortunately it was also incredibly easy to stop with magic. Making it both very controllable and very ineffective against the undead in control of a Soul Mage. It was also said to be the second worst way to die, only outdone by having your soul consumed by said Soul Mage.

When we were all up wind and far enough away I quickly organized everything. Starting with making sure that the woman was covered up and that she did not need a blood transfusion. She was not going to wake up soon without one though, so I took the opportunity to practice.

Afterwards, I made sure to remove anything and everything from the men responsible for the bonfire not too far away. If they got burned that would not be any of my concern. I also made sure that they would not be able to move their legs even if they woke up unexpectedly.

Which actually did happen, just not with the men. I had just finished burning the disgusting rags that used to be the men’s clothes, when I noticed her out of the corner of my eye. She did not scream, but sat up frantically grabbing at her throat as she tried to make sense of her situation. The robe that I had draped around her seemed to confuse, but help her as she noticed the conflagration.

I used a spell on her to try and keep her calm before I spoke “Over here.”

Her reaction, even under my spell to the presence of what appeared to be an elf was obvious shaking.

I shook my head, “do you want to find out why they burned your village or not?”

That got her attention as she quickly looked back from me to the naked men to the burning village. Eventually, she made her way over as I quietly looked for anything worth looting in the men’s belongings. There was nothing, which greatly surprised me, had the first group carry off all the coin?

“Did they stash something when I was approaching the town?” I called, looking back at the women who had actually put on my spare traveling robe. Given that it was a bit too small, I found myself momentarily confused and we both ended up staring for a moment.

The woman had a good enough body, a pretty face despite the dirt and soot, and the abnormally tight fitting outfit was quite nice too look at. Still, there was no warm feeling of enjoyment that used to come with looking at attractive women, no desire to wrap my arms around her and start letting them wander- yes, yes, yes, I am concentrating Bella.

I sighed, closing my eyes and shaking my head. At least I was somewhat used to the feeling, I had it on occasion back before I died after all. Still, to not have some sort of reaction to what was an interesting new idea was odd. Something to get used.

“Y-yes, behind th-the wall where you…” Her voice was far too quiet, I was barely able to hear her, even with my sharp ears – stop groaning Bella – and she was still standing well outside of my reach, shaking as she adjusted her robe.

I used a quick spell confirmed that the others were all going to be out for a while before I woke up the leader.

There was some thrashing as instinctive fear told him to get away from me, but he was amazingly professional once he calmed down. Apparently realizing that his legs were not going to obey his commands he quickly understood his situation. Aside from the initial shout there was no screaming, threatening, or even begging for his life.

It was the only pleasant surprise I got that day.

“You know what I want to know?” I asked, wondering if this was going to be easier than I thought.

“The main group that attacked the village right? What do I get in return, since you already took my legs?” By the gods this was refreshingly straightforward.

“I can give you back your legs and if you do not…” I produced one of my knives and tossed it to the woman, who squeaked and jumped back. It did not inspire confidence, or fear, and the leader did not look impressed until I finished my threat. “Then I will restore you sense of feeling and let the amateur go to work on you. Before healing you, over and over.”

Mentally, I had Bella go over our ‘calming’ spell to see if it had actually been effective. Then again, based on the semen traces she had in fact been raped, so her being that expressive at all was surprising. Still, the psychology of ‘what women are supposed to act like when rescued after being raped’ was not in my memory banks.

I understood things like shock, Stockholm syndrome, and trauma to a certain extent, but I actually had a greater understanding of these things from afflicting them upon others than the Nalk granted knowledge in my head.

So I decided to largely ignore her while the leader and I had a brief question and answer session that answered very little. Instead it raised one very large, alarming question.

He and his troupe were just bandits who moved into the area given the instability they had seen a large group ride away at speed from the village and went in after they saw the “cremation magic” (Bella and I both agreed it was a boring name) burning out.

While gathering what they could, found a handful of survivors, and one of his idiots set fire to the place by accident.

By the time he was finished the woman had finally gotten out of whatever state of shock she had been in and got angry.

“You blighted shite-stains killed my friends! Justin was only nine you bloody piece of the thirteenth!”

“Please be quiet.” I was trying to think up a good explanation for why he would have found a knife like that.

“Why in the blasted dungeons should I?! HE-”

I held up a hand. “Please.” I looked at her and she shrank back, still angry and defiant, but not looking me in the eye.

Deep breath time again…

I looked the leader in the eyes, “you made me pry that out.”

“I answered your questions.” He hid his fear well.

I considered burning out his eyes and healing them back to make that fear come out, but it would be largely pointless. “So you did.” I hit him with another stun spell, leaving him unconscious.

I was not really interesting in who was raiding the countryside, but that stoning knife he told me about could be traced directly to me.

I shook my head, everyone knew that the group had gone west, but why would they ever raid a village like this? Mathalaus was definitely not the type of person to let his clan do something like that, no matter what type of drudge they had to settle here.

Furthermore, the River Stalkers knew how to clean up behind themselves. Even if they used horses and left by the road, they would not leave as a group, nor would they be foolish enough to leave a knife lying around with the mark of their clan’s personal smith.

I turned back to the woman. “Do not kill them. I am going to check on the things he mentioned.” I silently cursed and started jogging around the slowly calming fire that had consumed the village.

Bella put their odds of survival at three in ten while I argued for one in four. Regardless, we had no incentive to keep them alive, besides not dealing with the Guilt and if what he said about the knife was correct…

It was easy enough to find the general area, but the smoke was horrible. Behind the small pile of stones around the village, the bag of loot was basically untouched by the fire. It was easy to grab, but neither my lungs nor my eyes were happy with me running around in the smoke.

The reward for my efforts? A small knife with the same stoning mark that was on the back of my mithril coin, a burning tree.

I put a fair bit of mana into a small flame and made sure the symbol was unrecognizable before running back into smoke and ensuring the bag landed in a burning building this time. If I was lucky, the bandits would all be dead or not know what exactly the symbol on the dagger was. If not… than I would have an interesting race on my hands.

This was turning into a giant pain in multiple ways, but it was just as well that I got to the bag before anyone else did. Exiting out of the other side of the smoke I saw the movement in the distance and recognized it more from experience than ability to actually see the cause.

Horsemen were coming. There were a couple dozen at the least, large enough group to be an annoyance by themselves, but worse, they likely had at least one mage with them.

Mentally cursing I immediately started debating the idea of turning back into DeMorte or changing my look entirely. Looking like one of the mythic enslavers, the “Elves” of legend, was good for messing with people’s minds, but pushing to too far would only leave bad impressions.

The problem was that I could hardly hide in the area and I needed the girl to prove that I had come into the village to help. The nearest tree farm would be searched the second those bandits started waking up and mentioned an elf.

So, Bella naturally pointed out the irony of how my plan to change my face backfired… I groaned.

Turning back and moving quickly, I came back to find almost all of bandits alive, with around 4 of them having a large bloody spot where their manhood used to be. I almost winced in sympathy out of habit.

The outer most ovals had yet to produce a flame to match a woman’s hatred.

I only spare a brief glance for the professional leader of fools, who had died after having the general area of his loins stabbed to the point where he bled out. I spared the man a quiet prayer to Gorith despite everything.

The wind wrapped around me and the air chilled for a moment as I finished the prayer and looked on at the other newly minted eunuchs.

After the leader, the woman had moved down the line. The Riles brat was about to join the group when I came back and I had to contain a sigh. “That just made a lot of work for me.” If she had chosen to kill them I would have avoided the Guilt without risking the others talking about the knife. “I hope you got it out of your system, there are horsemen coming.” I mentally congratulated myself for making such a strong spell that the men had basically been neutered under anesthesia.

The woman jerked at the mention of horses and started looking around frantically, starting to breathe even faster. It was hard to tell, since all the stabbing had obviously tired her, but the movement of her nicely sized chest changed noticeably.

“They looked like guard, they probably saw the smoke.” I offered, looking from the eunuchs to the woman. “I need to change my face, you forget about the ears I trust?” She nodded frantically, clutching the bloody knife to her chest.

“Y-y-yes lord e-e-e-elf”

I shook my head I could not get a handle on this woman. Partly putting aside the matter started working on my facial structure. Hopefully I could minimize any ‘elf’ talk after the fact, but the last thing I needed was to be arrested. Being someone who had only just entered the kingdom and having a local for a witness would be a decent safety net.

“I am not a damn elf, they are extinct. My name is DeMorte.”

*     *     *

New Kingdom of Sokoku:

King Yoshitake looked at his new treasury, speechless.

From all over the Western continent (whose name he still found odd) he had not only received praise and recognition, but treasure and exotic gifts. Everything from gold and beautiful jewels to weapons and armor to women, who’s every move seemed calculated to test his self-control.

He now had a treasury, a harem, a throne, no less than nine children, and an unofficial war with almost every church and kingdom from the central continent.

After the massacre, the king had responded violently, specifically he had done a medieval version of ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately for him, many ‘elves’ had enchanted devices that let them pass as human for a while. Even more unfortunately for them, there was also a curse to make someone normal gain pointed ears.

Once they had combined the spells with a few bastard children, the king, a highly religious man, had a few nobles killed and the civil war really started. In fact, said war was not yet over, but Yoshitake had the edge of being from a world far more advanced than this one.

Apparently talking about the basic details of some FPS games had planted the ideas necessary for unique weapons that had turned everything in his favor. Rifled cannons with stabling legs, long distance communication, sealed orders, etcetera.

Many things were not new, even in this world, but drawing out every seemingly minor detail had swung thing that much more in his favor.

When the church of Prometheus, the god of Humanity, had tried to intervene, his ‘advisors’ – who were the real power at that time – had demanded that the defensive pass be taken and held, which was the real key to the current situation.

Apparently they had been a large, controlling influence, which had been spreading uncomfortably quickly in recent years. As a result, the rich kingdoms of the west had seen his new kingship as an obstacle to be built up against the church.

That the explosive cannonballs had torn a large hole in many of the new competing armies was just additional incentive.

With the previous King’s recent death and the invasion of the former Palos Kingdom by other kingdoms, Yoshitake had become the leader of a noticeable military power in a key location.

Though the idea that his being a ‘human puppet king’ for the elves actually made him more attractive to the local ‘nobility’ still made him sick.

Storming off away from the treasury, Abukara Yoshitake tried not to think about all the sycophants who constantly commented on how arrogant and rude the ‘elves’ were to him and how he should not have to take such disrespect.

There were very few places that he could hide from them these days and one of the few was his current destination.

Denying the obscenely big palace’s attempt to keep from seeing them, Yoshitake made daily visits to his children and tried to keep track of them.

Today though, before he made a big visit, he wanted to drop in to talk to one of his older daughters in particular, Maria.

He found the little one painting by herself, ignored by even her supposed caretakers, who had already been replaced twice. So she has an imaginary friend, why is everyone so darn scared of that? She is what? Five?

Said little girl was also adorably cute, with long golden-amber hair, slightly pointed ears, and a face made all the more innocent by the small splashes of pain on it. “DADDY!” She ran over and did her best to swing on his neck as he bent down and hugged her. “Come on, you have to see what I made! You have too!”

She stopped hugging him and dragged him along instead, making him chuckle for a moment before he realized that the painting was another of the ones that scared the caretakers.

“See, I am getting better, I almost got him this time!” Indeed, the girl had a serious talent for brushwork, but she was still only five or so.

“Maria, we need to talk about him.” He tried to be gentle, but the girl instantly got defensive.

“NO! I AM NOT GIVING HIM UP! HE IS MY HUS-”

Yoshitake had not been born a violent man and he certainly did not know how to handle children, but he almost gave the girl a spanking right then and there. “MARIA!”

The young girl shut up and sniffed a few times with tears welled up in her eyes. “I am not.” She stubbornly grumbled. To her ignorance, her now platinum blond hair seemed to twist and react to her emotions.

For her father’s part he was astounded, she was manifesting magic. His little girl was only five, yet she had magic and perhaps… Yoshitake looked up at the painting, perhaps even one of the ‘talents’ he heard about on occasion.

Wondered about the rough man he turned back to her. “Do you know his name?” Maria opened and closed her mouth a few times before shaking her head, causing al her hair to return to normal.

Maybe he was real after all, but they had no way of knowing, “I am sure you will learn it eventually, but we need to talk Sweetie.”