I paused and waited for something terrible to happen to me.

My left hand held onto the door handle, not yet willing to push it open until I knew how much trouble I was in. When I wasn’t immediately wracked with pain and managed to maintain control of both my body and mind, I then turned my eyes up to my debuff icons to see exactly what kind of malady I had been cursed with.

[System Mute] [You are unable to access your STAR System temporarily.]

Despite being able to read this message clearly, every word of the description understandable, I did not accept it. For ten slow seconds, I remained in place, hoping the curse would just disappear before I had the chance to test it.

No such luck.

I tried to bring up my menus, but nothing happened. No Inventory, nor Map, Stats, or even the Chat. I couldn’t believe this was something even possible. But now I was… normal.

For some definitions of ‘normal’, anyway. Now without magic, a way to contact those in my Guild, or even my overpowered ability to manipulate my Inventory items… I felt more out of place than even when I had first arrived here. Standing at the precipice of whatever was waiting for me inside this tower, I wondered now how much of a mistake it would be to even enter.

I let go of the handle and took a full two steps backward.

Not a retreat, I convinced myself. I just needed a moment to regroup and consider my options. It had been a while since I had such a lack of variety of tricks in my act, and I wouldn’t want to disappoint the critics just behind the curtain.

Fully aware the mania was taking me toward an early grave, I still couldn’t shake it. I flexed my right hand by instinct, trying to draw out one of my magical cards. Still no dice. I tried to summon some dice from my Inventory. Even with my eyes making the same micro-movements as I had practiced hundreds of times, my palm remained empty.

I turned back to the pile of mangled guards and walked over to retrieve one of their spears. A little improvisation was required. While they didn’t have the manpower to secure the spellcaster in this tower against everything, they had done pretty well to make it unpalatable to attack. No spells, no STAR, no outside help.

Anyone who wasn’t a fool would turn away and not risk it. I was certain that if it was just the STAR that was inert, I could still use my magical spells innately. Similarly, I had full confidence that I could take the tower with just my even without my magic to back that up. Without either, I just had to use the tools around me.

Starting with equipping myself with whatever I had available to hand. Set pieces were only as drab as you allowed them to be.

With a smile on my face, I approached the door once more. Not really confident that I was about to sell this change of pace from the norm… but what choice did I really have?

I pushed on the door handle and swung it open. Two crossbow bolts greeted me, bouncing from the metal plate covering my suit. Dented and uncomfortable, but saved. The lower room beyond was circular in shape, the stairs at the back leading up to the next floor. Two guards with crossbows crouched behind overturned tables, one now trying to reload as the second discarded his ranged weapon to draw out a sword.

With a lunge forward, I threw the spear like a javelin. It collided with the guard emerging from cover, returning a dent to his own breastplate. Not enough to damage him, but he paused, briefly winded. I used the opportunity to grab a chair off from the side and spun, launching it at the crossbow-wielding guard. Continued my movement to leap over the closest table and barrel into the staggered man with his sword up.

His blade scraped along my stolen armor, and I turned him so that he couldn’t get a good follow-up on me. I avoided a kick from his metal boot aimed at my shin before ducking his punch. We spun away from each other, and I twirled a dagger around in my hand.

The guard looked perplexed, glancing down at the empty sheath on his waist, right before his unclasped belt dropped to the floor. The other guard had managed to reload his crossbow and was waiting for an opportunity to fire on me. I couldn’t allow it. Stepping back, I circled my opponent so that he was in the line of sight. Two sidesteps back and forth to avoid the swings of his sword.

I darted in, bringing my dagger down to slash at his neck. He blocked it, just as I knew he would. While he was intent on not letting my blade land, my left hand came in and unclipped the buckles on his breastplate. Even as he shoved me away, the reflective metal slumped to the side of his torso at an angle.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

It was enough to make his next blow awkward and ineffective. I took the swing of it into my right shoulder, the sword barely piercing through my suit to my skin. With the dagger swapped to my left hand, I brought it up into his exposed flank. Just under his ribs. He staggered away to clutch at the wound, and I disarmed him along the way, turning myself to the other guard.

By pure luck, my crossed weapons deflected the bolt fired at me, a long cut down my arm much better than taking the projectile to the chest again. I growled and flung the dagger out at the man as swapped to his own sword—too slow. By the time he had recovered from blocking the smaller blade, I was on him, driving the tip of my sword into his clavicle.

I finished them both off, dagger through the throat.

My left arm burned from where it had been cut by the crossbow bolt. On inspection, it hadn’t been the glancing blow that I had expected. Down into the muscle, for the length of most of my forearm. My suit shredded and soaked through with blood. Limb currently still operational even with the damage, so I wouldn’t complain.

I picked up the belt and put it on. Sheathed the dagger. Took a helmet, my spear, and the sword with me. Would have loved to have looted the two men, but the System wasn’t granting me the option.

In fairness, I had been expecting a lot worse than just the two guards. They probably weren’t the two from the roof, however—but the floor with the spellcaster on it would be the most well defended. Given all that they had thrown at me so far, I couldn’t imagine what could be worse. Thankfully, the current aura around the area probably affected the enemies just as much as me. I wouldn’t have to worry about…

I paused my inner monologue to listen.

It was reasonably quiet, as expected. But there was something else… just the gradual, occasional hum of something. Not really magic, whatever sense I had for that wasn’t picking up on the Guardian’s powers or anything more malign. Machinery, maybe? Technology had been few and far between in this world, but I wouldn’t put it past the Crimson Shadow to have put together something to make these spells so powerful. No normal caster should be able to maintain an anti-magic field this strong for so long.

I glanced over at the stairs. They hadn’t sent anyone down against me, so they must be in a decent position already. If Ren were here, she would probably browbeat me into looking for traps. I palmed at the air, trying to withdraw my half-eaten sandwich. Nothing. What a cruel world.

With one last look around the chamber for anything else that might be useful, I shrugged to myself and stepped over to the stairs. Immediately as I got to the base of them, a terrible smell hit my nose. Something I was unfortunately familiar with, due to my time spent in hell. Burning flesh.

That all but erased any appetite I had left. I placed my fist, as I was still holding the spear, against the wall as a moment of vertigo ran through my head. I was way too tired for this. Way too traumatized and manic. Unfortunately, I was also self-aware enough to see the irony of my situation.

I had come to this world overworked and far too focused on trying to be the best magician to function as a regular person. I had learned to temper that down. Enjoy life and take it easy when I needed to. Now I was standing before a gauntlet of ever increasing pressure, and I strived—single-mindedly—toward coming out on top. All the power and strengths I had fought for, now erased.

Maybe that was the point.

I was being fractured and brought down to my base components. No… I needed to stay out of my head. Thinking would get me killed.

Pushing away from the wall, I hit the stairs with my feet. Beat them in short order to arrive at another locked door. There was the possibility that this was cursed as well. I also couldn’t dig out a [Skeleton Key] to find out. Luckily for me, this doorway wasn’t as sturdy as the outside one.

I shuffled to the side and wedged the tip of the spear into the slim gap by the hinges. Leaning into it like a lever, I put as much force as I could into the wedged weapon. It started to bow, threatening to snap—before there was a loud crack. With a groan and waft of displaced air, the door buckled from the hinged side, masonry falling down as the inside was revealed to me.

Just as a crossbow bolt flew out, almost blinding me. I swore under my breath as I pressed myself against the wall, partially obscured by the wrecked door. Warmth ran down the side of my face. A centimeter to the left and it would have gone straight into the socket.

Perhaps worse than even that was the smell. While the door hadn’t been great at preventing my entry, it had done a stellar job of restricting most of the odor. Whatever was burning was on this floor and had been doing so for hours at least.

If anything, the Crimson Shadow had missed the mark by not putting a tougher Monster on this floor. The guards were deadly, sure, and maybe they expected anyone sensible to have given up before this point. It was also likely that they didn’t know some of us would avoid the sleeping curse, and more reinforcements were on the way. There was no use speculating - the Lady and her ilk often did things ineffectively, only gaining ground by their underhanded methods.

Throwing things at people seemed to put them off-guard enough for me to close in, so I wasn’t about to stop that tactic until it stopped working. I adjusted my grip on the spear, finally energizing myself enough to move before they had a chance to reload their crossbow. I wasn’t keen on getting any closer to that machine giving off that smell, but everything was an obstacle to getting to the spellcaster.

I launched the spear through in the general direction of my assailant, hopping over the shattered remnants of the door. The smell was almost overpowering - my eyes darted immediately to the right side of the room where a large machine of deep browns and dark metal hummed away. Box shaped, something that was more like a furnace.

To my surprise, I had managed to hit the guard straight in the face with the spear—my lucky streak clearly gathering up speed.

Of course, that was something immediately dashed, as the machine had distracted me from the powerful Monster hiding on the left side of the doorway. Another axe whipped through the air towards my head. A repeat of earlier in the day.

This time, there was no illusion.