Ishrin was feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day when they met again the next morning. Lisette too was looking amped up and ready, dressed in sharp blacks and armed to the teeth. She seemed to make an impression on little Liù who, despite her initial misgivings, gave in and examined her outfit closely. Dressed for battle (not in tatters like Ishrin had originally found her) and not in her casual attire, she looked stunning. Her dark hair highlighted her unnaturally red eyes and pale face, and her permanent scowl was not out of place on her focused face.
Melina on the other hand looked like she had seen better days. There were dark circles under her eyes, and the fur on her tail was clearly not groomed properly. Her ears twitched around at the slightest sound, and she was on high alert for any source of possible threat. She was still dressed for the job, green fabric tightly bound by brown leather complementing the stunning sunset orange of her hair and gold of her eyes. Eyes that studied Ishrin and their surroundings very attentively, much more so than even a Tier 6 adventurer should be expected to.
“Everything okay?” Asked Ishrin.
“Not really,” she replied snappily, “but let’s move out. We have a long day ahead.”
“What? We are not testing in the orb?”
Melina shook her head. “It’s best if we don’t. Something has come up. Come.”
She led them out of the city. The weather was marginally better than it was yesterday, but the air was still filled with gases from the volcano. Faint tremors that might or might not have been born out of Ishrin’s imagination shook the ground at random times. Birds flocked in the air, migrating out of season. Perhaps it was not just a figment of Ishrin’s imagination, then, because it sure looked like something was about to happen soon.
“Hey Ishrin, where did you say you come from?” Melina asked. She was leading only a few paces ahead of him, but her voice was loud enough it would have carried for several meters. Nervous. Uncomfortable.
Ishrin cleared his throat to buy himself time. “I never said where I was from. I simply implied I come from far away. Why?”
She ignored the question. “What’s the name of your hometown then?”
“Eternia.” He said dryly. In the end, he had nothing to lose except his potential freedom, or even his life. Surrounded by two much more powerful adventurers than he was, he only had Liù should the conversation turn sour.
On second thought, he did have much to lose. Better be careful.
Melina considered the name for less than a second, then replied quickly, “Never heard of it.”
“Told you it’s far away.” Some irritation was seeping into his voice. Old habits. Perhaps not the safest course of action.
“On what continent is it? I know many places, and surely a place where magic is as developed as you led us to think yesterday would be pretty interesting to visit.”
“You wouldn’t know it,” Ishrin said. Even he cringed as how suspiciously evasive his answer was. For a moment, his brain tried to trick him into thinking he was the one in the wrong here. “Just drop the matter, Melina.” Ah yes, now I sound like a proper villain. Reminds me of the old me.
“Right. How did you get here, then?”
“I traveled.” Ishrin said, tone making pretty clear she should drop the matter. Not that he could make her if she decided to be stubborn.
Which, fortunately, did not happen.
They reached a small group of trees that was large enough to hide them from the outside world. They were no more than two hours away from the city, but three rows of hills separated them from the walled cluster of civilization, hiding it from view. There were only fields here, colorful with their wild assortment of magically aided crops, and windmills. A lone manor took up the top of a nearby hill, with a thick wall delimitating its domain of trimmed grass and well-tended gardens, segregating it from the mundane yet much more colorful agricultural land nearby.
All the way to the testing place Ishrin kept an eye on Melina, who was still acting very strangely. He didn’t have a good feeling about any of this, and he was starting to feel some of the jitters and nervousness he had felt when she first barged into his room in the inn. It wouldn’t make much sense for her to lead him all the way out here if she just wanted to kill him, but given what she knew about what he knew, he couldn’t be completely sure that she didn’t have any nefarious motives in mind.
He was very much against the idea of dying so soon after the god Albert’s treatments. Especially when it was probably going to be permanent.
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It was with this level of wariness, as well as a very alert Liù who had been made completely aware of the circumstances with no half words, that they all stopped to eat.
“Is this the place? Looks very… unassuming,” Ishrin said between bites. He had stored the food for the whole party in his inventory, which apparently worked better than Melina’s storage spell. Understandable as her spells only went up to Tier 6, equivalent to perhaps Tier 4 in Ishrin’s own ranking.
“We had to get away from prying eyes.” Melina said dismissively.
There it was again. First the strange questioning, now this. It was blatant that Ishrin was lying about where he came from, but yesterday Melina didn’t seem all that interested in it. What happened that made her change her mind overnight? Was it connected with whatever was making her irrationally paranoid?
“Did the orb count as prying eyes, then?” Ishrin said with no intention of hiding his irritation. It either did or it didn’t, and he didn’t like any of the two scenarios.
Melina just shrugged at that, offering no purchase. Which irritated the man even more. But whatever. Neither she nor Lisette – who was looking so confused he might even believe her if she said she had no idea what was going on – had given him any real reason to suspect them. Perhaps by the standards of his old world, and of his old self, he should not trust them and look for a way to get out of here fast, but he was dead set on becoming a better man.
Dead set. Focus on the dead part, courtesy of god.
“Fine. Let’s begin, then. You should know that all I will cast will be Tier 1 at best. But it’s my tier one, and you’ll soon see what that entails compared to the magic you are all used to.”
What followed was an afternoon of explosions, gawking stares and awed expressions. Lisette had already had a taste of Ishrin’s nonsensical – in her eyes – magic power, so she was mostly in her stoic mode, but Melina had not. The first fireball had caused her jaw to hang open so wide it might have fallen off, followed by a barrage of questions that started with the disbelieving ‘how is that even possible?’ And then becoming a bit more structured and aiming at grasping the technical question of ‘how is that even possible?’
Which was the same question, but asked in a more scientific-oriented mindset.
Ishrin took some pleasure in deflecting all of the questions until the demonstration was over. It was clear that Melina had become so engrossed in his show of power that whatever had been going through her mind on the way here had all but been forgotten.
It might have been petty of him to extract this small victory after the perceived slight, but he told himself that the road to becoming a good man was long and he didn’t have to do it all in one day.
He was also happy to see that the duo of girls was not pulling any underhanded moves on him, and he was slowly relaxing.
“These are some of the most basic combat, utility and defense spells I know at Tier 1. Most of them aren’t even optimized since they were created to be used at a much higher tier and I had to adapt them on the spot.” He said. Around him, trees were burned, walls of earth stood tall and solid, and a spring of water created a waterfall from a point suspended in mid-air. A little creek appeared where the water was digging the loose topsoil. It disappeared somewhere behind some bushes, muddy and slow moving.
“I expect them all to improve as I grow used to working with limited resources.”
“Even more powerful?” Melina couldn’t help herself. “Ishrin, some of these spells are powerful or complex enough to qualify for Tier 3, maybe even Tier 4 on the basis of complexity alone! I am standing here, watching you cast them with my own two eyes and I can barely believe what I’m seeing.”
“And I still haven’t shown you what Liù can do. Which… I don’t think I will just yet.”
“How?” Lisette said suddenly, her voice even but dripping with finality. She had seen what the pixie could do, although she had not been in her best mind when it happened.
“How what?”
“How did you get her? I want one.”
Ishrin shook his head. “No can do.”
“Why? You were no higher than Tier 1 when you got her. I am Tier 4. I am more powerful than you, even with your fancy spells. I can do that.”
“It’s the ritual,” he said. “Exotic materials. I can give you a list but I doubt you will find even half of them on this planet.”
As soon as he was done uttering the last sentence, his head immediately turned to face Melina. His eyes bored on her, studying her expression. And indeed, he thought he saw something in the way her muscles twitched, but he couldn’t be sure. Her face returned to normal far too quickly for him to catch anything, and his Tier 1 senses were nothing compared to the speed of a Tier 6 expert.
He was sure she knew, though. By looking at her as he said the word planet, he had also made sure she knew he knew.
I hate playing these games. That’s why I used to kill people so quickly back in Eternia.
“Well,” the woman in question said, “what’s another revelation today, right? Please, show me what your pixie can do. After all, knowing you can summon such a being at any tier with the right materials might change the very foundation of magic as we know it, but I doubt it will do more damage than everything else you’ve shown us so far. Starting from the foundation healing ritual to the overpowered spells.”
“It’s not the spells that are more powerful.” Ishrin grinned. “Not just the spells, at least. They might be more efficient than what you use, but it’s just as important to build your cultivation right or your power will be crippled.”
Ishrin was about to launch himself into a lengthy explanation when the sound of someone yelling caught his attention. As one, the trio turned towards the intruder, who looked like an old leather in the vague shape of a person. He was waving sharp but rusty, almost comically rusty, farmer tools at them menacingly.
“Stop right there!” He spat between missing teeth. “Cause any more mayhem and I will call the town guard. Who in the hells do you think you are?”
There it is. Melina’s setup. Plausible deniability, she throws me in a guild dungeon and I’m never to be seen again.
Not today. Ishrin dropped into a battle stance, paranoia getting to him after a full day of odd behavior from everyone in the party but Lisette. And unlike last time, he was armed and ready.
“Liù. Fly high, suppressive fire strat.”