Chapter 47: Getting Off Topic

“So what Erin Nisei asked you for an investigation into these missing or killed researchers,” Encio said as he read through the papers of John and Eufemia’s investigation.

The group was gathered in Encio’s suite for the night. As usual, Nara fetched some snacks from a shop for the group to enjoy. There was no good discussion without food. Any discussion without food could have been an email.

“Well that really does seem like an invasion or something,” Nara said, “Does Sanshi have enemies?”

“Countries don’t fight each other much here except for a few specific cases,” John said.

“They don’t fight much? That’s odd.”

“There’s a lot of open land. Nobody tries to claim it if they can’t defend it from monsters,” Eufemia said. “Any enterprising diamond ranker can claim a piece, and people will flock to live under their protection. That’s how kingdoms are started.”

“The exception is Rowan and Nekroz,” John said. “They border each other.”

“Nekroz?”

“Nekroz is the land of the undead,” Encio said, “It’s Adventure Society policy to kill undead on sight.”

“That seems drastic. There’s aren’t like, friendly undead?”

“It should be. Vampires and necromancers have wiped out villages at a time. Let them go unchecked, and cities get consumed by the growing horde,” Encio said.

“Victims are stripped of their free will,” Sen said, grim. “Vampiric thralls lose control of their bodies, their soul an unwilling passenger to further atrocity.”

“Nekroz is Undeath’s final bastion,” Eufemia said. Her expression and aura told Nara she had complicated feelings about the land.

“Rowan seeks to wipe out Nekroz, but Nekroz has strong defenses, and a famous wide-scale anti-teleportation array that prevents bypass. Policy in Rowan is split between the war and the neutral faction. The war faction wants to dedicate resources to launch a full-out assault against Nekroz and wipe the undead out for good. The neutral faction wants to leave the undead alone. As they are, they are contained within the land of Nekroz, which makes an identifiable threat, instead of scattered.”

“It’s also a cesspool of the immoral,” Eufemia scoffed. “Some don’t want to lose access to that.”

“It’s not that simple,” John added, “There are many normal people living in Nekroz. Policy internally has been shifting as well.”

“Their internal policy?” Encio asked, curious, “I haven’t heard much about that.”

“Like Rowan, Nekroz has roughly two factions. The Conservators and the Reformists.”

“The Conservators are the old nobility, the age-old vampires, liches, werewolves, and other beings of undeath that seek to preserve their high and mighty order,” Eufemia said. “The Reformists want to change the paradigm of Nekroz. There’s vampires in there too—they seek equality and coexistence.”

“Vampires that can seek coexistence. Quick question: are these vampires the type that can non-lethally suck blood?”

“You’ve guessed it,” John said, “Vampires need blood—life force—but it doesn’t have to kill the target. These vampires are pretty much normal folk.”

“Folk that wanted their shot at magic,” Eufemia said, her expression slightly downcast. “Essences are expensive, and many never have a chance. They dream—dream of the youth, the immortality, the magic. Otherwise ordinary people.”

“They haven’t killed anyone before,” Sen concluded.

“Not a single one,” Eufemia said.

Nara had a feeling that Eufemia and John knew their fair share of harmless vampires.

“The Conservators and the Reformists are at odds, but its entirely one-sided. Nekroz is ruled by the Conservators.”

“Why is that?” Nara asked.

“It’s obvious,” Encio said. “The Reformists have no diamond rankers.”

“That’s sums it up well. The Reformists are a new faction with new beliefs. They have little in the way of political or personal power. The old Conservators rule the land, preserving Nekroz in their image,” John said.

“And the Reformists have little choice but to stay.”

“The Adventure Society and the rest of the world isn’t changing their stance on the undead anytime soon, when a single is a risk to hundreds or even thousands,” Encio said, “but we’ve gotten a bit off topic, haven’t we?”

“What we’re we talking about again?”

“The investigation into the missing or killed researchers.”

“Right, that. Sounds like the plot of some sci-fi novel or something,” Nara said, “Aliens don’t want the world to make scientific—or, hey, magic—discovery for some reason. Maybe they want to weaken the world to take control of it, or they have some other reason. So they go around killing all the academics one way or another.”

“You think aliens are killing researchers?” John expression was one of contemplation, “I can believe that.”

“I think you’d believe almost anything right now, John,” Eufemia pointed out.

“Well hey, I wasn’t seriously considering it, but if outworlders can exist, who’s the say aliens are wondering this world? They already have more than one race,” Nara said.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“You don’t have more than one race in your world? How fascinating.”

“No, I mean, how’d you get lion men? Did they evolve from lions like humans did apes? How does that make any sense?”

“Did you say humans evolved from apes?” Aliyah asked, “Could you elaborate? Is there evidence?”

“On our world there is, but we don’t have lion men. Who knows if the theory of evolution applies in a world with magic. I wouldn’t be surprised if races just spontaneously appeared.”

“Some do actually—when too much elemental ambient magic is absorbed into a race over the course of generations, they’re converted into an inherently magical race, like the abyssal elves, the thunderstrike leonids, and the snowspell runics. I wouldn’t call it spontaneous—”

“Okay,” Nara said with a grief-filled voice, “Evolution is probably out the window. It was nice knowing you.”

Evolution waved a handkerchief out the window of the departing train of scientific theory, tears in its eyes.

Their conversation was generally tangential and unproductive, but what could be expected of a group meshed from two different universes?

John and Eufemia were busy now, but they’d continue their investigation for Erin Nisei after the Celestial Book trial. It would be their last case for Erin Nisei. Like Alea had said, they would no longer need her once they had alternate employment.

John decided to finish the investigation regardless. He wasn’t one to leave a job unfinished. If he was genuinely one of the few that produced reliable investigation results, he didn’t want to leave Erin Nisei hanging on a matter of such great importance. However, for the next two parts of her request—future targets and local contacts or base of operations—John had no leads of his own.

John wasn’t involved in Sanshi academic society. He didn’t know the researchers on the ins and outs. Then he remembered—there was someone here who may.

“Aliyah, you are a member of the Magic Society, isn’t that right.”

“That’s right.”

“What is it that you research?”

“A mixture of array magic, astral magic, and other fields. I’ve tried my hand with artifice as well.”

“Do you know any researchers with these characteristics?” John presented her with a copy of the researched he had gathered for Erin Nisei.

She riled though the papers, looking at each with an exacting eye.

“I know some of these people. They’ve disappeared?”

Many researchers weren’t the best at keeping in contact, so their disappearance was a surprise to Aliyah.

“You know them? Which ones?”

She pointed them out; a mixture of researchers from all three, but many from group three in particular.

“Did you join in their research?”

“I was curious in it, yes. It wasn’t my field, but I had the feeling they were on the path to an amazing discovery. It was something that assumed something beyond mana as a basis for the framework of the world—I can’t quite describe it.”

She stood up and paced a bit, suddenly engrossed.

“It was as if our world had two energies. Mana and…something else. These energies, they weren’t separate, but interacted with each other to form reality as we know it.”

“Yo,” Nara said, gesturing with her thumb, “Is she in danger?”

“Possibly. Aliyah, could you additionally write what other of your colleagues and acquaintances are participating in research like this. Anyone you know at all?”

She stopped pacing. Her brow furrowed, “Of course. I understand.”

With even and rapid penmanship, she began to write out a list of names as well as their fields of research.

“We call them researchers of fundamental magics,” Aliyah said once she set down her pen, having finished writing her list, “Miss Nisei may already have a list like this. I have no doubt a person like her is well connected even in the Magic Society.”

“Not everyone has the same connections,” John said, “You may have seen something she did not.”

For the time being, Aliyah was prohibited from wandering alone. She spent the majority of her time either at the Magic Society or the Arlang compound, both of which were protected by array defenses. She was also Sen’s mentor in magic. She had been hired by the Arlang family to teach Sen external magic. He had learnt enough magic that his mother, Jade Arlang, was satisfied with his level of learning. Aliyah was no longer hired by the Arlang family for his education, but they maintained good relationships, and she had a small private lab on their compound.

*****

“Why do we have to go out and fight monsters?” Eufemia groaned, not enjoying the skimmer ride out into nature in particular. She was a city woman, a connoisseur of the arts, and did not enjoy the wilderness that adventuring required.

“Better that than the alternative,” Nara said, “Fighting monsters in the city.”

Eufemia grumbled and turned away. She and John had basic adventurer leathers since neither had an armor conjurations. Later, the two would buy custom made armor, as any adventurer should, but the two were tight on cash and some simple armor would do the job. It was better than the cotton shirt Nara had fought her first monster it.

The two had seen monsters before, as much as any ordinary person had seen a monster; John had been stranded on Erras for a year, while Eufemia was a native. Lesser monsters were no threat, and even children could handle them. Squashing a lesser monster that manifested on your front door with whatever was on hand like they were some common household pest was a common sight in Erras.

Iron rank monsters were different. They had resistances against normal rank damage which made killing them more difficult than their previous casual disposal. Iron rank varied wildly in danger level towards an ordinary citizen, completely unlike their lesser equivalents which were all pushovers.

They skimmed up the eastern shoreline this time, passing short sand bars and cliffs where forest abruptly ended to sea. This was a similarly short trip as Nara’s last one, just a day and a half out at most. Iron rankers were limited by their ability to travel quickly.

The Adventure Society kept loaner skimmers on hand, but not many Adventure Society members had an ability that allowed them to operate magic tools. Aliyah did, thankfully, so they could travel without buying a ticket on the public transportation methods if it didn’t suit their path.

“A few shabs have been spotted near this area,” Sen explained, “They are uncomfortably close to a nearby fishing village, so the village chief has submitted a contract to have them dealt with.”

Sure enough, they spotted the shabs on the sandbar, scuttling back and forth aimlessly on tall, spider-like crab legs. Their main body was a mixture of crab and shark, armored with orange carapace plates. A shark tail hung pointlessly off of its body, flopping around like a fish out of water—which it was. It was a tall and large monster, crab legs pushing them above the ground around four to five feet off the ground.

“Shab…I doubted the name, but I get it. Simple. To the point,” Nara nodded in agreement, “No matter how I spin it, it’s clearly a shark-crab. Or maybe, a crab-shark? A Crark? Hmm.”

John pulled out his camera, snapping a picture of the monster. Surprisingly, it listed much of the information the Monster Compendium possessed, and some more.

“So, if you take a picture of a monster no one has named, how would that work?” Nara wondered.

“Your ability also tells you the name of something when it dies,” Encio pointed out.

“Huh. True…”

Aliyah shook her head, “It’s one of the many wonders where outworlder abilities pull their information from, but a topic without much headway nor opportunity. It’s speculated that when outworlders form their new bodies through the dimensional membrane, their soul pulls information from the mana of that world. Information abilities from adventurers of this world can only pull information from this world, as far as we know.”

“I can access information from my world though,” Nara pointed out.

“That’s why it’s just a speculation. Another theory is that there is a record of all information in the cosmos, a Cosmic Compendium, so to speak. Outworlders are able to link to this compendium and access the information relevant to their immediate situation.”

“The Akashic Records? It’s what we call that concept in my world.”

Aliyah nodded, “Since all information across the cosmos is contained in the Cosmic Compendium, even monsters our world has not seen before would have been encountered by someone else in the cosmos and thusly identified. The existence of beings like the Goddess of Knowledge and the Celestial Book lends more credence to this theory than the previous. But,” Aliyah sighed, “We will likely never reach a definite conclusion.”

“Why is that?”

“Do you consent to experimentation?”

“Ah. Definitely not.”

“Please let me know if you change your mind.”