Isil leaned back against a tree, stifling a yawn. She played around a marble palm-sized polyhedron, etching runic lines into it with a small etching knife. The knife itself only held a simple sturdiness enchantment, and was nothing special. The strength of enchantments came mostly from the mana that was put into it. Personal, highly refined mana made stronger enchantments, but were harder to produce; on the other hand, natural, ambient mana that lingered in the world made weaker enchantments, but were far easier to produce. The rest of the strength came from the skill of the enchanter.
An enchanter’s skill was a majority of knowledge on how enchantment worked, and a dash of dexterity and strength to keep the runic lines clean. The lines could be equated to an artificial mage, using mana to construct a spell, while not having the diversity of spells that most mages have. Here, Isil was conferring with the mystical memory supplier to create an enchanted polyhedron. In place of using the expensive mana crystal, she decided to create a training device that would do the same job. She had originally put the plain marble polyhedron into her bag simply because it was a strange curio, but had since thought of this use for it.
At the same time, she was also training her mana sense. Previously, it was unable to detect Ella, who had vacated all the mana from her body into her soul. It was this failing that irked Isil, who saw her mana sense as a life-saving skill. In the event of an attempted assassination, any assassin that hid their mana in their soul could easily sneak up on her. Since her physical prowess wasn’t enough to escape an assassin’s dagger, she needed to rely on her magic to combat that weakness. More importantly, she needed her mana sense to detect things that didn’t have mana in them, such as throwing knives or arrows.
Her solution to this was detecting the world’s natural mana and the shape they took. It was like sensing where air was, and where other, solid things were. While this meant a bit more mental stress, due to the amount of mana she was sensing, it wasn’t too large of a difference for her to disregard the method. Although her processing of the information was a bit rough, she was able to see every knight in the camp, as well as Ella, who still did not allow mana into her body. She would continue to practice it until she could get no better at it.
“That should be good...” Isil muttered to herself, admiring her finished polyhedron.
She gathered her mana, moving from her soul to her body, and then into the polyhedron. She continued to fill the polyhedron until it was full, which was relatively small. She then set it down on the ground in front of her, allowing the enchantments to ‘digest’ her mana. After waiting a minute or two, she activated the enchantment with her mana, causing it to be instantly thrown away from the polyhedron.
Isil was surprised. The polyhedron was more powerful than she thought. She smiled slightly, proud of her work. She shifted back into a training mentality, and began pushing at the polyhedron with her mana, meeting significant resistance from it. The repelling force began to make the polyhedron move along the ground, rolling towards the center of the camp. She quickly stopped its momentum, and began pushing at it from all sides.
The exercise reminded her of her childhood and playing with magnets. It felt like when she had aligned two of the same poles and tried to make them touch. The magnetic field pushed back hard, causing the two magnets to split to the right and left instead of staying straight. Now, she was pressing on only one pole, with the same charge coming in from all sides. She chuckled slightly when remembering her shock when she had first learned of magnets.
Wait. Isil froze for a moment, an idea coming to her. Could I… switch the polarity of my mana? Like a magnet? Completely bypass the repelling force?
Suddenly, a fire of curiosity was lit in her heart. She instantly went about altering her mana in any way she thought possible, each and every way ending up unsuccessful. She wanted to continue pushing, but she could make no further changes without causing excruciating pain. Isil frowned, angrily rubbing her thumb against the side of her forefinger. However, she sighed and her anger began to fade.
Well, what else could I have expected? I hadn’t done any research into my own mana. I’ll need to do that… somewhere more isolated. Don’t want to blow anyone else up.
Isil returned to her training with the polyhedron. Time sped up for her as the sun began to dip below the horizon. Though the training was challenging initially, she was able to reach roughly the same proficiency with the polyhedron as she did with the mana crystal. She stopped as dinner handed out to the knights and Ella. Perhaps due to the baron’s distaste of her, she was told to get her own meal.
Isil didn’t mind too much, she could cook more than just pan-ready food. In fact, she had a decent measure of pride in her food. Her – his – parents were… she hesitated to call them neglectful, as they did try to be loving, but they did as well as a fat man in the Olympics. Most of his childhood was him arriving to an empty house, petting his cat (at least for a few years before it died), and cooking his own dinner. She couldn’t say she hated them, but she couldn’t say she liked them either. Apathy was a good word to describe most all of her feelings in that life.
It wasn’t a life one could call enjoyable. Every day was just a carbon copy of the previous one, and any joy she could get had likely been drained away when she was still young. Yet, she still wanted to go back. Yes, it was pitiful, deplorable, and he was a soulless husk of a human being, but it was his life. It was all him, down to every second of it. Her? She was a stunt double that had replaced the main actor after she was abducted by aliens. As much as she liked playing the part, it wasn’t her role.
Isil scowled and kicked the existential crisis back down into the abyss of thoughts that spawned it. It wasn’t going to die any time soon, but sleeping was good enough. After all, sleep was just death being shy, and death would get over its embarrassment soon enough. Eventually, it would even get calm its nerves enough to get her. When that finally happened… well, she’d cross that bridge when she got to it.
Isil unwrapped a raw chunk of meat from her bag. She grabbed some nearby sticks, and boosted their durability with mana. She cut a chunk of meat off with a Mana Blade, and caught it. She stuck the sharpest stick right through it, and began to set up a small spit. There was a large multitude of rocks nearby that she used to surround the smaller sticks she would use for the fire. She had trouble getting all the small sticks to stand up, but just decided to light the thing on fire rather than waste more time.
The fire roared as it sprung to life, nearly touching the spitted meat. Isil didn’t have any seasonings to sprinkle on it, so she just let it roast itself plain. It wouldn’t be the best thing she’d eaten, but it would be filling. A sense of disappointment filled her as she turned the spit. Plain meat, bereft of any seasoning or artistic touch. Faced with this, she wasn’t sure if her reasons to return to Earth was solely because of the food.
Isil quickly grew tired of waiting for the food to be done, and had the spit turn with magic. After Sound Enhancement was made, she discovered she had a talent for creating utility spells. She didn’t need to use them too much, but if she lacked somewhere, it only took a few tries to create a utility spell for the situation. She wasn’t quite sure if she could explain how it came to her, as she hardly even needed to use her memory supplier after the first couple new spells. Though she hesitated to call herself as such, she was very talented in spell creation.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Isil dusted off her hands and picked up her polyhedron, once again activating its enchantment. She concentrated on the polyhedron, using her mana to force it upwards, trying to keep it steady in the air. It was considerably hard, but her previous training made it much easier. As she began to get a good grasp of the tricks to having it float, she decided to change it up a bit. She had the polyhedron began a slow crawl down and to the left, imagining a figure-8 path that it would need to follow.
It was slow at first, but -
Intruder. Array: disturbed. Alert. Intruder Alert!
It was a message from her magic alarm circle around her tent. She had grown too lax and let slip her mana sense. Without realizing it, she had unintentionally stopped using mana sense. Thankfully, the magic circle detected an intruder entering her tent. She hadn’t put any deterrents into effect because she assumed she wouldn’t need them. It seemed she was wrong.
Isil reacted on instinct, selecting the fastest travel spell she knew and cast it. The Master Alteration spell Teleportation was cast in less than a second, her destination already selected. Her vision warped and twisted as the scenery changed. It was momentarily disorienting, but she had already grown used to the slight nausea of the spell. She appeared in front of her tent, and threw open the flaps dramatically. Instantly, a sense of déjá vu filled her, right after the rage.
The scene from earlier that day flashed in her mind. Shocked adult man, vulnerable, helpless little girl. A knight stood over Ella, dagger raised high. Her dagger. Ella was still asleep, blissfully unaware of what was happening around her. The knight returned to his senses faster, turning away from her and plunging the dagger downwards. However, even though Isil snapped out of it slower, she acted faster. An unstructured blast of mana, erupted from her outstretched right hand, blasting the knight with a force strong enough to break bones.
Unfortunately, it also ripped the tent apart and was loud enough to wake anyone that had already gone to sleep. Isil quickly glanced down at Ella, but was stunned to see that she had not awoken. She knelt down to check her breathing and pulse, and found them to be fine. As far as she could tell, Ella was just sleeping. She cast a Status Scan spell on Ella, revealing any physical status effects she might have on her. Though there was no longer the status icons from the game, the spell instead translated its finding directly to her mind.
Isil let go of a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Ella was just sleeping, and there was no poison in her body. It was obvious it wasn’t a natural sleep. The loud crash, the tent ripping apart and getting a face full of cloth, not to mention the commotion of the knights should’ve woken her up. Isil could only think of one reason why this was – the food had a sleeping drug in it. Why they didn’t put her to sleep too, she didn’t know, but it wouldn’t have mattered, as her passive Poison Resistance would’ve neutralized it.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!” Baron Vernon roared, stalking towards her in full armor.
Isil’s eyes accounted for almost every knight she had seen before, save for a few. Her mana sense detected them, still in their tents, lying in a sleeping position. She frowned. Had they drugged some of their own men as well? Were they left out of this plan?
“That’s my line,” Isil calmly rebutted. “Though now that I see its climax, I think I get the gist.”
“What nonsense are you spouting?! You attacked one of my men!” Vernon drew his sword as his knights gathered around him.
“Alright, so here’s my summary. Correct me if I’m wrong…” Isil put her hands together and began to compile her evidence.
“Shut you-”
“This all started with the kidnapping of the ambassador’s daughter, Ella, sometime a few weeks ago. Whoever the ambassador was meeting with dispatched knights in pursuit. Presumably, your master gave orders to them to kill Ella or hand her off to the slavers. While I’m not too sure on the goal here, whoever instigated all this wanted to harm relations between Ghent and Eberheim. I became a perfect scapegoat to keep the true mastermind hidden, and you would still succeed in making Eberheim angry with Ghent for their incompetence.
“Now, then. Tell me, how close was I? Pretty close, yes?” Isil concluded, spreading her arms out as if waiting for praise.
“...” The knights were silent. They fell into formation, while a few threw nervous glances at Vernon, who remained quiet.
“Heheheh...” Vernon chuckled to himself. “Hahahahaha! What a keen wit you have there you cockalorum! Color me impressed.”
“Cockalorum? No, never mind, I look it up later...” Isil blanked.
“Everything you said is correct, but I will not divulge more. Consider this my… respects for your intellect, my dearly departed.”
“...” Isil was silent for a minute. “Nobles really are on another level, talk about wordplay.” She said with true admiration. “I don’t know whether you’re naturally talented, or if noble education is very good, but I am left speechless. Just a few sentences, and you have really, truly, awed me.”
“As they say, a noble must always have a sharp sword.” Vernon took the compliment in stride.
“It’s a real shame I’m going to have to kill you.” Isil said, pretending poorly to sound sad.
“By all means, cut your hands on our blades, and break your feet on our armor. Not a one of your attacks shall reach us.”
Isil, lacking a good comeback, opted to let loose a Flamethrower spell, instantly cooking the foremost knights, including Vernon. Surprised as though they may be, the knights maintained discipline, and reacted well. They broke formation and began to charge her from different directions. An arrow shot out from within the forest, piercing the neck of one of the knights. No one reacted to it, however, as they were all focused on Isil.
Ah… so Ambassador – Telvin? Yeah, I think it was Telvin – sent out his guards. I was wondering where they were. Isil smiled, a fuller view of the political stage shaping in her mind. She flicked a Split Mana Bolt to her right, which split into three and hit their targets. This left only five more knights, who had already stepped quite close to her. Knowing her lackluster performance in close combat, she activated her signature spell, Perception Shift. She combined it with numerous physical enhancement spells, and leapt away into the air.
Despite the physical enhancements, she couldn’t reliably do a mid-air flip, so she made it look authentic with a push from a Wind spell. As Ella was still close by, she had to aim with precision shots instead of an area spell. She turned her right hand into a finger gun, the action happening almost in real time due to the physical enhancements. Then, she put her left hand near where the hammer would be, and mimed shooting a revolver and cast five Super-heated Heat Bullets with every hammer reset.
The bullets traveled fast, faster than she could see in Perception Shift. However, she saw where the bullets melted through the helmets of the knights. Thankfully for her, there was no horrifying sights of humans melting like candles, or gory explosions. She ended her perception shift and finished her landing by tripping backwards and completing a full roll right into a tree. Unfortunately for her, someone had seen that.
“You were amazing… right up until the end.” A soft male voice spoke mirthlessly.
“And here I thought that was funny. Why aren’t you laughing?” Isil asked good-naturedly, falling to the side.
“Because I was afraid you thought I was one of them. That doesn’t seem to be the case though.”
“I saw your arrow,” Isil said, rising to her feet and getting a good look at her conversation partner. “Nice shooting by the way.”
The person in front of her seemed to be a young man in his mid-twenties. He had the signature ears of the elves, as well as their good looks. His unblemished face was a pale shade of beige, and his light blue eyes sparkled like a picturesque sea. His blond hair was cut short, but not too short as to be a military cut. He wore a set of green and brown leather armor, along with a brown bandolier and a leather wristguard. The yew bow in his hands seemed only a little but shorter than himself. He screamed stereotypical elven ranger.
“My thanks, but your praise is unnecessary. All of the King’s rangers must pass strict marksmanship guidelines – I am no better than the rest of my comrades.” He smiled, putting his hand over his heart and inclining his head.
“Humble too, good to see in a person.” Isil said, searching around for Ella while talking.
“Worry not, I have not touched her,” The ranger held up a hand and spoke. “Thankfully, she did not need any assistance.”
Like he said, Ella was still in the remains of her tent, slightly buried by cloth, but unharmed. Isil breathed a sigh of relief, then gave her attention to the ranger.
“I have many questions.” Isil said simply.
“We have time, and many prisoners to interrogate.” The ranger nodded, gesturing towards the camp.
“Let me say this before we do anything else,” Isil said, she and the ranger walking together towards the camp. “I’m not exactly in the trusting mood at the moment, so could you tell me what you plan to do once we’re done with them?”
“I must get back to the Ambassador as soon as possible, and it would be faster to take a ship from Ashiron back to the Confederacy’s capital, as well as rooting out these slavers on the way.” The ranger explained.
“Huh… déjá vu.”