(Feydon’s point of view)

Crestfallen, Carletta dropped her head. In the end she couldn’t answer.

It would’ve been better if I didn’t ask, but at least her response seemed genuine.

I knew where I stood and that was better than being left in the dark while others whispered behind my back.

Cole didn’t say anything, and despite the arguments he made to Carletta previously, he wouldn’t meet my gaze. I guessed that he probably wanted to trust me, but was struggling to settle on what he would believe.

In either case I left the room without another word. As soon as the door clicked shut, Cole began lecturing Carletta at a half whisper. I wasn’t interested in trying to hear what he was saying.

I reached the entrance hall of the castle as Audrey was coming out of the console room.

She flinched the moment she saw me. “You’re awake…”

“Yea, and I’ve heard that you think I’m a rogue mage, is that true?”

She shook her head. “I never said that!”

“Really? When I awoke Cole and Carletta were talking about how you see things we don’t. Cole even suggested that you might be “one” too, whatever that means.”

Her shoulders dropped as she exhaled. “I knew I should’ve stayed quiet.”

“Quiet about what?” I roared louder than I intended to. “What exactly do you see?”

“Mana… I see it everywhere, but sometimes it feels like it can see me too.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like that beast in the cave. After drinking that black liquid, mana started rushing into the creature… then the mana came to life.”

I had guessed as much on my own, although X had called the creature a spirit. I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but maybe that’s where the spirit came from in spirit reaper.

“Are you saying that I’m like them? You think I’m one of those monsters?”

She shook her head, “No not at all… but you do have more mana inside you than a person should be able to handle. It makes even less sense since you’re inept. You shouldn’t have any mana inside you.”

I guess I can see how that would put the others on edge, but…

“How can you see mana?”

I’d never heard someone being able to actually see mana inside another person. What I had done earlier was only visualization based on the flow of energy, but I couldn’t actually see it.

Audrey’s eyes popped at the question. “You aren’t worried about your situation?”

“Not really… I feel just fine so what’s there to worry about?”

“I see, well I’m supposed to go to the other castle and trade places with Mai. We’ve already accomplished as many objectives as we can, at this point all that’s left is to hold both castles until tomorrow before we eliminate Gregor to get the most points possible.”

“Right… sounds good.” I noticed what she did, redirecting and then changing the topic like that. It wasn’t worth trying to press her though, I didn’t think I’d actually get an answer.

I’d only half paid attention to her words. But when I repeated them to myself a realization struck me.

Have I really been asleep for three days?

----------------------------------------

I waited a while after Audrey left, then I left the castle as well.

I didn’t know what Mai might’ve heard or assumed about me, but I didn’t care to find out.

After the confrontation with Cole and Carletta I wanted some space to work through my own thoughts on the situation.

The forest at the bottom of the path was quiet, peaceful even, but it was too close to the castle. I didn’t want to risk being found by anyone so I wandered down into the valley and north until the bend.

Usually there would’ve been lots of wildlife. The further one strayed from the main path the more likely to encounter stronger beasts.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

On this field however, there were no wild beasts. Blood Fang had likely eaten all of them. When I came around the bend I found what looked like an old campsite.

A mechanic tent, missing its door and a few panels from the walls, sat near the charred remains of some logs piled together inside a circle of stones.

It wasn’t much, but sitting inside would be better than sitting out in elements and heat.

Tall grass covered much of the floor inside and a rust covered storage cabinet looked as if it might break from the wall any second. What should’ve been a sofa was now a tangled mess of thorny vines and blue flowers. A leafy plant, with long colorful leaves, growing under the holoscreen. Its long leaves, just reaching the bottom of the screen, caused the image to flicker on and off continuously.

The room at the back was in better condition. A desk inside the door had only been partially claimed by vines and the grass stopped short of the bed. The walls were a bit rusty, though not nearly as corroded as the first room.

The mattress was still comfortable, a welcomed stroke of luck, though the pillow had a hard rectangle inside its yellow cover, a journal perhaps.

Curiosity and boredom prompted me to confirm my suspicion.

The name Zeri was carved into the cover, but the first several pages of the book were stained and completely illegible. It looked like someone had spilled something on the book, causing the ink to bleed across the pages.

I flipped through maybe twenty pages before coming to one with a few legible words.

‘… Lilaena… xperimemt… ucces…’

The words still didn’t make much sense.

As I kept turning pages, a small strip of metal fell from the book and bounced on the bed. I recognized it as a holocard so I picked it up and turned it on.

I’d expected this to be a typical hero card, or maybe one of the hero candidate cards, instead this one showed a purple beast with black horns.

The name beneath the creature was scrambled, probably due to damage or corruption, some parts of the image were affected as well, though so much that I couldn't make out what it was.

The creature in the image was young. It lacked ferocity, maturity and girth, but it was unmistakably a young Blood Fang. When I flipped the card over there was another image. This one was human. She was a young girl, maybe five or six, with slick black hair. Her eyes felt empty, devoid of joy but not life.

Below the girl's picture was the name Lilaena.

My curiosity reached a new level, urging me to flip through the journal for anything else that might be legible.

The only remaining text was on the last page.

‘… what we did… inexcus . I’ve returned to… hopefully… elixir… re erse… of the poison…’

Was Blood Fang human?

The clues I had to go on were pretty flimsy, but it seemed the most logical conclusion.

Too many questions were swirling in my mind, but only one mattered.

If it was true, did the heroes know about it?

I wanted to believe they didn’t, that they’d never allow human experimentation. What need would they even have for the sort of experiments that could turn people into monsters?

The memories I saw when absorbing the spirit made me consider that maybe need didn’t matter. It might’ve been for some sick pleasure or maybe even just for relevance.

What if every monster a hero has killed was made this way?

…

No… that can’t be.

I was taking a leap off the deep end. I wasn’t even sure of my theory about Blood Fang and I was already trying to tie it back to the heroes.

What happened to my sister was wrong… I wasn’t going to let it go, but that didn’t make the heroes responsible for everything bad in the world. This could also be the work of spirit reapers, or maybe it was some other group that had somehow remained secret.

How they got into the game field was another mystery, but Gregor was most likely connected to spirit reapers.

Hopefully after this match he’d be arrested and questioned.

“All players from team ‘Ghost Spider’ have been eliminated. The match has ended…”

As the computerized voice spoke, a white light enveloped me.

After the flash of light, I was sitting back in the console room with the rest of my team.

Despite our victory there were no smiles, whoops, or cheers. The atmosphere was stiff and awkward as we stood from our seats.

“Calculating points…”

The metal door slid open and a host of enforcers rushed into the room from the team hallway.

“Feydon Ray.” MCI Cordavous barked as he entered after the others. “You actually had me fooled. I was thinking before, it doesn’t make sense how an inept managed to defeat a mage with full integration, but now it all makes sense. You were never inept to begin with, were you?”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Of course I was! I spent my whole life watching my sister cast and wishing I could do magic.”

“Sounds like a convenient lie. A perfectly innocent cover, that was just believable enough to convince the measurement clerks.”

My heart started racing as I recalled the measurement. When the affinity stone malfunctioned, I actually believed for a moment that I really did have magic.

That moment was like a dream come true, now the MCI was using it against me to suggest that I’d been hiding my magic all along…

I looked at each of my teammates, hoping to find support. One after the other, they turned away from me except for Mai.

She locked eyes with me, her brows pressed together, eyes wet and narrow as her lips slipped into a frown.

There was a sense of regret in her expression, but unusual and shocking was the sense of loss. Like what was happening to me was somehow an act against her.

I turned back to the enforcer, “I didn’t lie! If I’d been able to use magic, why would I hide that?”

He shook his head with obvious annoyance. “Just shut up and come with us.”