“Hinnom,” Beltane answered my question with a meek scratch of the back of his head. He turned toward the townspeople within earshot as if to suggest that it wasn’t the right time to speak on such matters.

“Anyway,” Beltane continued. “I have to call down that rainstorm.”

Beltane spent the next full minute working on some esoteric ritual. He used his wand to draw an arcane circle in the mud as he chanted in the Ancient tongue. In the game, [Call Storm] was cast instantaneously, so I knew nothing of what, precisely, Beltane was doing.

While Beltane worked on his ritual, I healed the wounded townspeople that had congregated within the Guild Hall. There were about a dozen wounded people, and they were all healed within five minutes. It was somewhat insulting to my previous profession that someone in this world could just say some magic words and even the deadliest wounds would disappear.

As I crouched down next to the first injured townsperson, I focused for a moment on their wound. After a few tries, I was able to activate [Triage].

Injury: Deep cut to the back of the lower-left torso. Multiple perforations to the small and large intestines. Damage to the inferior mesenteric artery. Patient will bleed to death within thirty minutes.

It was strange. The System spoke differently when I was using [Triage]. It used medical vocabulary that one would expect a doctor to use in an emergency room. I appreciated the efficiency with which the System delivered the information to me.

With the use of healing magic, I didn’t really need to use [Triage]. The [Second Prayer] worked automatically. I didn’t need to point the [Prayer] in any particular direction for it to work.

I stepped out of the Guild Hall after everyone was healed, and Beltane was still working on calling down a rainstorm. The arcane circle he had drawn in the mud was glowing silver, and his chanting in the Ancient tongue had reached a fever pitch. To my eyes, the spell more closely resembled some pagan ritual than the sober academic process that I expected from long-form spells.

A few seconds after I had started watching Beltane, he reached one grasping hand high into the air, shouting, “Mater terra, benefic haec homines pluvia!”

A chill raced over my skin, and the hair on my arm stood on end. Beyond that, however, nothing happened. The arcane circle stopped glowing, and Beltane stumbled slightly, grasping his head in pain.

I walked up to him and asked, “Are you okay?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Yeah,” Beltane answered shortly. “It’s just the effects of mana drain. [Call Storm] uses up a Hell of a lot of mana. I think I used up more than half of my mana reserve all at once with that one.”

“Huh…” I said thoughtfully. “That’s a lot of mana for a spell that honestly doesn’t look that impressive.” I delivered this line with a smile, attempting to lighten the mood somewhat.

Leaning against his staff, Beltane chuckled slightly and said in a good-natured tone, “Conjuring a rainstorm from nothing is pretty impressive, if you ask me. Maybe you’re just hard to impress. Do you have any idea how much water is dropped when it rains?”

“A lot, probably. Are we sure that [Call Storm] actually does anything? Even if it does start raining, you might have just gotten lucky.” As I spoke these words, it was clear to anyone listening that I was being facetious.

“You’re right, Lord Thale,” Beltane said, holding his hands up in a symbol of mock surrender. “[Call Storm] isn’t a real spell. It’s all just a big conspiracy to get nobles to pay charlatans like me for fake weather magic.”

“Is that right?” I asked, turning my head a few degrees and allowing my mouth to fall open in shock.

Beltane started laughing in earnest, and I followed suit a few seconds later. After a few seconds of inopportune laughter, Beltane said, “You seem rather comfortable, considering that you just witnessed me use Blood Magic. Has your father not taught you to fear forbidden magic?”

“I just don’t see anything necessarily evil with the manipulation of blood,” I said.

“Eh, well, ‘evil’ is just a word used by people to justify their fear of the unknown, anyway. What the people of Etronia consider evil is wildly different to what the people of Yomotsu consider evil.”

Before I could respond to Beltane’s philosophical argument, I heard a loud, droning sound from the west. It took me a moment to recognize the sound, but once I did, my good mood instantaneously evaporated.

From the west came an orcish war cry. We had thought that the only group of orcs was to the east, but it turned out we were surrounded. Armond had disappeared to meet up with Lord Riomed Koravin. The orcs would be upon Beltane and I before Armond would have a chance to return.

As that horrifying realization dawned on me and the smile disappeared from my face, I was not concerned for my own safety. Feldrast Manor was to the west. The orcs would reach Tabitha, Miriam, and Merrick before they reached the Guild Hall. The orcs had probably reached the manor already.

Fear quickening his step, Beltane approached one of the mostly intact orcs and pressed his palm to its chest. “Mortua bestia, ad vitam.”

Beltane’s voice echoed unnaturally as he chanted those words. When he completed the incantation, the orc jerked unnaturally and began to move. Its eyes had transformed into a pure black color as if blood had seeped in and completely coated its eyeballs. As it lifted itself into a seated position, a strange black liquid flowed from the orc zombie’s eyes like tears. Beltane imbued two more corpses in such a fashion before the orc raiders from the west turned a corner and saw us.

Seeing half a dozen living orcs turn the corner, Beltane said in a clear, commanding voice, “ᛄᛣ ᛂᚻᚮ, ᛐᛊᛓ ᚮᛗᛔ (ga dit, doda honom).”

Whatever language he spoke, it was not Common, and it was certainly no language from Earth. The language had a harsh pronunciation, and it sounded like Beltane was delivering an oath as he spoke.

Beltane’s command had a clear effect on the zombies. With the efficiency of mindless automatons, they moved forward and engaged the attacking orcs in fierce hand-to-hand combat.