Mash rode with the army, patiently waiting for the pursuers to follow them. His eyes crawled over the skies behind them. He kept checking the ground too, looking for footsteps in the snow. Even invisible they would leave a trail with all the snow around. Again, though his watch was secondary to Jill’s. Meanwhile, Lisa explained who the white-haired woman was.
She wasn’t important in the way that he had assumed. The assassin wasn’t a member of a royal family, nor was she part of an accomplished noble house of any kind. Instead, her fame came from the singular connection her class had granted her. And it was one that did cause Mash to sweat and could explain why the hunters weren’t on their backs already. They were likely just as worried as Lisa was. After all, the person whom he trapped within a dungeon was the suspected child of a dragon.
A rumor like that wouldn’t pop up without some genuine truth to it. Dragons, for all their mystery, were largely known to be petty creatures. It made people hesitant to use their name or visage in any way. If this woman made this claim openly and was famous for it, there was likely something to it. Lisa believed it and so did the general. Apparently, there were people that had seen her beside the dragon. Mash doubted it very much. It wasn’t that he thought it was impossible, he just figured that someone getting support from a dragon would be at a much higher level. He had said as much, but it didn’t change Lisa’s mind. His friends also chose to believe Lisa, but only because he was who he was.
Whether it was true or not, he decided to warn his brother. It was a small precaution, as Arthur wasn’t really planning on harming the people. He was just there to capture them and prepare to funnel several thousand people into a new city. Mash didn’t think it would all happen so easily. His plan had worked through.
The rest of the trip was surprisingly empty. The pursuers didn’t chase after him. While he didn’t understand why he didn’t particularly care. The fact that they didn’t attack him, or the army was to his benefit.
[When you get to the city, open the portal again. We have worked out a deal with most of the northern kingdoms.]
The message came from General Irkish through his brother. Well, that explained the lack of pursuit.
[How?]
Mash didn’t understand why they would go from a bloodthirsty assassination, to completely ignoring him.
[An entire kingdom and your life aren’t worth losing the eleven high leveled individuals you had captured. Even if we weren’t going to kill them. The northern kingdoms are too divided to be willing to lose their most powerful individuals.]
The answer was disappointing and blunt. Mash didn’t really get the tone that the general had used as the message was constructed by Priscilla, but he hoped that she was as disgusted as he was. It was the kind of mentality only a kingdom could have. To look at two people and decide that one was worth more than the other was wrong. Although, if kingdoms regularly fought one another, they would care about something like that.
Now that the deal was made, he didn’t worry as much about any assassins. He still kept watch, unable to trust kingdoms that tolerated slavery. Even after everything, Mash fundamentally hated this place for allowing it. The one time he lost his ability to choose his class had been awful. Slaves had to live their whole lives never having a choice. His blood felt hot whenever he thought about it. While he had wanted to go and help Timor, he didn’t want to stay here any longer. Next time he decided to travel somewhere, he would check their laws more carefully. For now, he tried messaging Timor.
[It won’t work. He either destroyed the imitation or placed it into a storage space. Either way, the connection has been severed.]
Mash thought about it but could understand the decision. Whatever Timor thought of Mash they had only known each other for half a day. And Mash was considered a terrorist now, but that didn’t seem to count for much as they were letting him go with the better part of an entire kingdom for the sake of a couple of people. Mash shared the information with everyone, the soldiers included. They celebrated their supposedly guaranteed freedom.
The sour thoughts clung to Mash despite the celebration, which mostly just involved crying and hugging. He didn’t like the deal though, and he looked around for something to distract him. He saw Jorg and Lisa and decided it was a good time to learn about their classes. Lisa had offered to share information about her class, and Jorg seemed amiable enough even if they couldn’t see eye to eye. Plus, their classes had some similarities.
His approach was noticed. It wasn’t like he was hiding, but most of the soldiers kept making very obvious glances toward him and his friends. The fight with Jorg was only part of the reason for their gazes. The soldiers knew that they were free now mostly because of Mash and the others. As such, the soldiers approached them often. To thank them and offer them one gift or another. All of which he refused. Few were unhappy with Mash’s decision to stop the complete slaughter of everyone that had kept slaves. Most were just glad to be free and to have some assurance of that freedom now. Mash got a surreal sense of having experienced this before. Multiple times at that. He shrugged them off now and spoke to the two as he got close.
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“Hey Lisa, want to talk about classes some more?”
Lisa’s eyes seemed to sparkle a little when he asked.
“Really? I mean, I would like to.”
She was really fascinated by the subject, even more so than Mash. He was more interested in the class system as a whole. Her interest was clearly directed more toward the classes themselves. A small difference but one that made talking about the subject interesting to both of them. Jorg did not seem as interested as he tried to get out of the conversation.
“You two have fun with that, I think I will go join the celebrations.”
Mash spoke up trying to get a little from the man.
“Wait, can you tell me what your class is called? And the domain skill?”
Jorg shifted his head from side to side as he debated answering. He gave Mash a careful look over before responding.
“I’ll tell you if you let me and my army do as it pleases.”
“Really, you still want to do that? Just talk about it with the General when you meet her.”
Mash frowned, not really wanting to rehash the argument again. He didn’t care all that much either way, but he felt better doing as the General had instructed. Plus, he was fairly certain that the people involved wouldn’t be getting much mercy from his kingdom either. Mash wasn’t actually even sure if what he was doing would even help those people. Honestly, letting the soldiers kill them might be more merciful in the long run. Jorg seemed to get something from Mash’s expression and grunted.
“I will do that. My class is Apex Beastmaster, and the skill is called predator’s aura.”
Mash was surprised to get an answer. Especially, because Jorg had said it while walking away from them. He thought about it and asked Lisa about it.
“How is he a Beastmaster?”
“His class lets him command beasts that are weaker than him. He can’t force them to do anything, but most creatures tend to listen when a predator tells them to run. Why did you call his aura a domain?”
Lisa answered his question swiftly and asked one herself. Mash had told her a little about his class and had mentioned his domain briefly before.
“When we met, his skill challenged mine for dominance. Something along that line at least. It didn’t work and I kind of just stopped his skill altogether.”
He still remembered the feeling of crushing Jorg’s aura. It had been odd at first, but he adjusted quickly. Interestingly, it had been kind of like glaring at someone, though in a more spiritual sense. He didn’t bother trying to describe it to Lisa. There was no good way to describe it unless she had a similar skill. Thinking about that, he decided to ask her about her class.
“Do you have an aura? Or something like it? And what did you do to the fireball earlier?”
She nodded, replying happily.
“As I mentioned before, I’m a mana dancer. The skill I used for the fireball was actually a combination of skills. The first skill I used was mana signature. It lets me mark a spell with my mana. Although, it is invisible to everyone else.”
“I saw it with my domain.”
Mash interjected with that piece of information. It was a little rude, but she seemed interested in his additions as well.
“What did it look like?”
“Here, I can just show you.”
He thought about explaining the weird symbol he had seen but just had Priscilla help him in recreating it. He could’ve sent her an image like the woman, but the symbol was simple enough that he could make it out of wood easily. He held up the strange symbol. To him, it just seemed like a random series of interconnected lines.
“It's from an old dwarven language. They used symbols to represent things. It means happiness. My mother had shown it to me, and it just stuck around. That’s not really important to you though.”
She had grown a little melancholic as she talked about her mother, and Mash wished he had something to say. He didn’t try though, and just let her move the subject to something else.
“The skill marks any spell. And lets me use my other skills on it freely. The other skill I used to contain the fireball, is my unique skill, Partner of Mana. The mark changes the mana of a spell to match my signature, and Partner of Mana, lets me manipulate it to my ‘dance’.”
She paused as if waiting for Mash to ask for something, and he obliged with an obvious question.
“So, that means you can just steal mana from it?”
She looked a little disappointed at the question, and Mash raised an eyebrow at her frown.
“Most people ask if I can use the magic later…”
“I could kind of see what you did with my domain. You kind of absorbed the mana in a similar way to one of my skills. But I’m assuming you can’t replicate the magic, right?”
Lisa sighed a little, but it was clearly an intentional gesture. She was still enjoying the conversation.
“Yeah, you got it. I could redirect the attack if I wanted to, but I can’t just use it whenever. I essentially just turn it back into its raw state and absorb that.”
“That’s still useful. What other skills do you have?”
Lisa’s gaze seemed to freeze now, and she spoke a little dully.
“That’s it for really interesting skills. My other ones are blander since my class is fairly generic. The sleep skill you saw earlier is an advanced soothe and charm skill, known as a dancer’s pull. It lets me influence people to a different state of mind, but they need to already want it to some degree. Everyone tends to want to sleep. Other than that, I have general skills to improve my attributes, appearance, and perception.”
“Is that how you saw through my façade, back when we met?”
Now that attention was brought to the subject, Mash realized he really wanted to know how she had known. Lisa shook her head slightly.
“I didn’t exactly see through it, but I could see that your rhythm didn’t match your actions.”
“Rhythm?”
“It’s kind of like your aura or presence. Imagine that you constantly emit something like that. I can feel that from everyone. It was really useful for the king. For making more slaves.”
Her voice grew quieter, and again Mash felt like he didn’t have anything to say. He imagined what Priscilla might say to him.
“Now, you can use it for whatever you want. Help whoever you want, even yourself.”
He regretted the last part immediately. It was something Priscilla might tell him, but it probably wasn’t encouraging in the right way to everyone. It seemed to lighten the mood though, as Lisa started to laugh. It quickly grew louder and a little hysteric.