Chapter 38
Emil scratched his chin as he contemplated the ritual before him. It was functioning as intended, but he wanted it to do more than that. He hadn’t forgotten or disregarded Aisha’s request to improve the simple ritual that illuminated lifelines, and he spent a few minutes every day contemplating the problem between his other projects.
So far he’d had no major flashes of insight, but he kept at it.
As his knowledge and expertise in ritual magic grew, the parts and processes of the ritual were becoming more clear to him. For example, he’d identified a common part of many rituals which was designed to pull from the ambient mana. Alone this sub-ritual did little but create a slight shift in the ambient mana, something which he’d been able to detect thanks to his recently unlocked level thirty skill, The Tides Around Us.
Thanks to that skill he now understood his level one skill, Overcharge Ritual. Although he still didn’t understand why, Emil’s ability drew in vast amounts of mana from the environment then funneled it into the ‘inlet valve’ of the ritual. This allowed him to produce a far greater effect than the passive absorption that rituals usually achieved.
Of course, the inlet ritual was important, but it was ultimately irrelevant to fulfilling Aisha’s wishes. The amount of mana that the lifeline illumination ritual consumed was minuscule. Replacing or improving the inlet with a more powerful version wouldn’t unlock any new secrets about the human body’s mana circulation system.
He’d tried that. He’d just gotten the lines that showed up on the subject’s skin to glow more brightly, or the effect to occur over a larger area.
Since that wasn’t solving anything, he’d been exploring the other closed circles of the ritual, examining them individually to see how they changed the mana passing through them. It was a tedious process, first isolating the various parts of the ritual and then figuring out which symbols and circles did what.
Surprisingly, he’d isolated thirty-two marks which could be removed from the ritual entirely. They had absolutely no impact in the the way that mana passed through the ritual at all, from what he could gather.
Emil was investigating the properties of the pared down ritual in one of the buildings that Tom had erected for the Urban School for Magic when the door opened and one of the new summonees came in. Emil finished jotting down a note before looking up in response.
“Yes?” he asked.
“You’re Emil, right? One of us, from Earth, but you came through before?” she asked. Emil found her quite beautiful, with brunette hair and emerald eyes. She wore a blue dress and sandals.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Can I help you?”
“Tom suggested that I talk with you,” she said. “He said that, well, the reason you were summoned was that you were murdered?”
Emil frowned. What did that have to do with anything? He’d mostly put the tragic and traumatic end to his vacation into Europe behind him and focused on his new pursuits, but he still didn’t particularly like being reminded about it. He didn’t particularly appreciate Tom bringing it up in conversation.
Then he realized one of the circumstances in which the boy might have done so.
“Oh,” he said. “I’m so sorry. That’s why you’re here too, isn’t it?”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said. “Not yet. It’s … too raw.”
Emil nodded. “I won’t ask any questions, and you don’t have to say anything you don’t want to,” he assured her. “I’m not sure how much I can help you anyway. It was a random street crime, in my case. A mugging. I was walking through somewhere where I perhaps shouldn’t have been when a criminal attacked me. He stabbed me, then while I lie dying he went through my pockets. I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t properly process what happened until I was waking up in this world.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That must have been terrible.”
Emil nodded. “It took me a while to come to terms with it. These days I mostly just focus on improving my skills, researching ritual magic, and a few other hobbies.”
“Like giving this world indoor plumbing?” she asked.
“Yes, like that,” he agreed.
“It’s so strange that they don’t have toilets in this world,” she admitted. “Like, I get it, there’s magic stones that eat poop or something. But it still boggles my mind that nobody thinks its strange to go in a pot and just leave it there to evaporate.”
“Well, it definitely saves on the amount of infrastructure I have to invent for them,” Emil said. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I know your name, or what you did on Earth.”
“I’m Elisa,” she said, extending a hand to introduce herself. As she moved, the skin on her hand began glowing faintly as it crossed the circle between them and began glowing. She flinched in surprise.
“It’s a harmless bit of magic,” He assured her. “One of the other Heroes is investigating the mana circulation system in this world, and I’m trying to help her.”
“The mana what now?” Elisa asked.
Emil smiled and stepped inside his magic circle, causing lines of a bluish white color to appear on his exposed skin. “They’re sort of like fingerprints, so far as we can tell,” Emil explained. “Everyone is unique.”
“That’s,” Elisa paused for a moment to think of the word. “They’re beautiful. Everyone has these?”
“They’re invisible without certain kinds of magic,” Emil confirmed, “but yes, everyone has them. Aisha was in the process of investigating them when she left to help the people harmed by the dragon.”
“Right, the dragon,” Elisa said, hesitantly. “Doesn’t it bother you? There’s a war looming in this world, and a dragon, and dungeons and everything else!”
“I’d be lying if I said no,” Emil admitted. “But nobody is asking us to solve all of this world’s problems, Elisa. Weren’t they offering you an administrative position in the Adventurer’s Guild?”
“Yes. Wonderful. A perfect fit for me,” she said sarcastically. “Emil, I’m an artist. I don’t know the first thing about business administration or guild administration or whatever. I make things that are beautiful, I don’t know the anything about running a guild.”
“You’re an artist?” Emil asked. “What’s your medium?”
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“Charcoal and watercolors,” she said.
“So … why not do that?” Emil asked. “I’ve seen plenty of paintings, sculptures, and other art since I’ve come to this world. There will definitely be a market for your work.”
“It’s just … a confidence thing, I suppose,” she admitted. “My husband was, well, he was the reason I could dedicate my time to sketching and painting. Without him to support me I don’t know that I have the skills to pay the bills, as it were. And I … am still coming to terms with the fact that I’ll never see him again.”
“I’m very sorry,” Emil said. He was quiet for a moment. “You know, if nothing else, we do need someone to help Aisha with her project. I hope you don’t repeat this to her, but her artistic skills were decidedly lacking, and it showed in the records she made of the subjects of her studies. Here, I’ll show you.”
Emil stepped out of the magic circle and fumbled through his notes, eventually pulling out the binder filled with drawings that he was holding on to for Aisha. He began going through the pages, showing her the childlike sketches that the physician had done. Elisa covered her mouth to keep from laughing.
“I’m sorry, it’s not funny,” she said.
“Actually I think it kind of is,” Emil said. “At least they’re better than stick figures.”
Elisa took the sketchpad from him and began flipping through them. She read the notes in the margins carefully, considering. “What was she hoping to discover?”
“She said that it was a purely academic exercise,” Emil answered, “But she was looking for any sort of pattern or meaning, I think. That’s only a small section of the data she’s collected, there are a dozen people working on this project now. They’d examined hundreds of individuals.”
“I see,” Elisa said. “Maybe I should volunteer for this. It does seem like something that I’d be able to actually contribute to, and it might be best for me to do something productive.”
“There you go,” Emil said.
“It doesn’t fix what happened to us,” Elisa pointed out.
“No,” Emil agreed. “But it helps.”
~~~~~
They were outnumbered seven to three. The gnolls charged forward, but their leader stopped dead as the lightning enchanted arrow caught it in the throat, dealing fatal damage. Marcus redrew his bow while the two melee fighters stepped forward to protect him. He managed a second shot before the enemies were too close to his allies to shoot safely, injuring one of the gnolls with a shot to the shoulder that caused it to drop its club.
That was the last that Akira had time to think of his Arcane Archer companion as he met the charge. With the conjured sword and armor that he’d gotten from Tom, he joined the melee with a swift downward slash that caught his target in the shoulder and nearly split the gnoll in two. Back-stepping and pulling his blade free in the same motion, he caught the blow of another charging enemy on his bloody blade and a second attack on the side of his torso, the black conjured substance protecting him from injury.
It still hurt.
Back stepping further to gain distance, he blocked and slashed as the two gnolls caged him in. He took more strikes, but although the reverberation stung, the conjured substance of the armor held off the worst of the damage. He caught the gnoll on the left on the forearm, causing it to drop its club, then with swift reflexes Akira dashed forward and sliced its throat.
The blood spray got into his mouth, and he spat the coppery liquid out as he turned to focus on the final enemy. It was revolting, and he struggled to maintain his composure and remain in the moment. Realizing that the enemy wouldn’t be so easily put down, the remaining gnoll turned to flee, only to run directly into Ophelia’s waiting spear.
Akira glanced and saw, to his dismay, that while he’d been occupied, the Chrono Warden had dispatched two of the enemies by herself, with Marcus slaying another with an arrow to the eye. He frowned, the competitive part of him resenting that he hadn’t killed more than his companions. Then he spat again, wishing he had something to rinse his mouth with. He did have a cloth to clean his face with, and he began doing that.
He felt the swarming energy that was Experience entering his body as the battle came to its conclusion. It wasn’t enough to push him into level six, but it was still an exhilarating feeling which he’d never get enough of. Akira had never once tried drugs, excluding a few sips of alcohol, but he knew that he was addicted to leveling.
“Make sure they’re all dead,” Jessica called from the rear. Akira liked to pretend that they were protecting her, escorting her deeper into the dungeon, but the truth was the opposite. The level twenty-nine sorcerer could have ended the battle against the seven gnolls in a literal flash.
Following Jessica’s advice, the party of heroes-in-training stabbed the already dead monsters in fatal locations. It proved to be unnecessary; none of the gnolls were feigning. This time. Once in an earlier pack, one of the monsters had seen the coup de grace coming and attempted to make one last attempt at taking one of its enemies with it. Akira’s eyebrows had nearly been burned off when Jessica had incinerated the monster to protect him.
He’d been more careful around wounded enemies since then.
“Right, good job,” Jessica said. “I think that’s it for today though. Let’s make our way back to the surface.”
Akira sighed. He was so close to level six that he could taste it, but he didn’t argue. He wanted to press forward, but he also felt the ache of exercise from a days worth of delving. The armor that Tom had conjured for him wasn’t terribly heavy. A breastplate that looked like it was crafted from some kind of bone, vambraces, grieves, and a helm that reminded him of a men from kendo practice.
After wearing them all day, he was sweaty and slightly sore, and he was looking forward to a shower.
Er, right, showers weren’t a practical thing in this world. Not yet. Emil was apparently working on that, but the infrastructure hadn’t trickled down to the common people yet. The A.G. was supposed to be getting locker rooms for its members to change into their adventuring gear before delving which would include showers, eventually, but the non-stone parts of the building were still being put in place.
Leaving the corpses of the monsters behind, the group made their way back to the stairwell to the fourth floor. Jessica stepped up next to him and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good job. I can really tell that you have some experience with swords. You have an actual form to work with. Ophelia might have her crazy time-perception thing going for her, but you’ve got skills,” she said.
“Thanks,” he said. “But I think that this is the last time I delve for a few weeks.”
“Oh,” Jessica said. “I’m sorry. I thought you—”
“I’m missing something,” Akira explained. “I thought that when I was actually in combat I would unlock the magic part of my Magic Swordsman Class, but I didn’t. I mean, I could Enhance my weapon just fine, but I guess any Warrior can do that. I was expecting to ignite my sword or imbue it with lightning or something, but nothing happened, even in the heat of the moment. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “Perhaps you should ask over at the magic school?”
“That’s what I was thinking, yeah,” Akira agreed. “I wish my magic was like yours and I could just blow things up with my mind.”
“Yeah, it’s awesome,” Jessica agreed. “But I’m pretty useless if I run out of mana. I mean, I was practicing with a quarterstaff when I was lower leveled, but compared to what an actual Warrior could do with the thing it’s barely worth carrying around anymore. What level did you get, anyway?”
“Level five,” He answered.
“Congratulations.”
Akira smiled. It didn’t take them long to climb out of the dungeon. They checked in with the guards at the entrance who were there to ensure that only those qualified to delve would enter the dungeon, then parted ways. Marcus and Ophelia both headed off together. They’d both been in their fifties before dying and being returned to the bodies of twenty-somethings, and they got along well together.
Akira suspected there was a little something more than merely being comrades in arms building between them, but it wasn’t his place to ask.
He glanced at Jessica, then glanced away. He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she was.
“I’m heading to the magic school anyway, so I’ll go with you,” she informed him. “Their headmaster wants to study my Skills, so I try to stop in now and then. He’s been awfully busy lately, though, so we haven’t gotten much done since he started organizing things.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“He’s a pretty cool guy. I hope the stress of making a bunch of wizards agree to work together on the school isn’t going to make him go bald,” Jessica said.
Across the city, Ubo was pulling his hair out.