Repurposing the leg of an old chair in their attic, I began carving various glyphs and symbols on the soft wood. I had never dabbled much in artificing, because I had never needed it. Whatever artifact I needed, I just paid a professional or got my family to gift it to me. However, with the scarcity of money, I was now forced to learn. These professionals cost hundreds of gold, which, even though my family was by no means poor, was too much. I didn’t really mind - it was the only thing I could realistically do to keep my mind occupied until I was old enough to participate in hunting with my father, Adam Henderson, who was the leader of a hunting group.
Our home was near the center of the capital city of Alderast, Eidwin. Mother had taken me sightseeing to the city center several times, and during these trips I had gathered more intel about the current state of affairs as well as important materials for artificing.
My mother’s occupation was a diplomat focused on public safety and war prevention, and she had a tendency to ramble on about politics and whatnot during our carriage rides.
I had learned some crucial information. There were great political tensions between the various noble houses as they desperately scrambled to win the royal family’s attention. The royal princess had just passed the age of 16, and the royal couple declared a search for a suitable marriage partner.
The tensions between the demonic kingdom and Alderast were also rising as not long after I was born, scouts sent from the demonic kingdom were spotted around Alderast’s borders.
200 years ago, the diplomatic relations between all the races were somewhat good, but then I came along. Back then, the demon kind had renounced the human’s gods and began their own religion, which my petty contractors apparently disliked heavily. I was sent to the human realm, and the rest is history. I seemingly did a good enough job that I was now supposed to protect the demons as they were “the gods greatest believers”.
But it seemed that there were too many demons who remembered left in high enough positions, who now resented humanity for what I had done to them and were preparing until the demon race regains its strength to show their hatred.
My mother had not spoken about the other races whatsoever, so it seems I would have to find someone higher up to pump for information regarding that issue. But for now, this amount of information was enough.
I finally finished carving runes into the wood by creating a miniscule scalpel out of mana. The upkeep of this tiny mana blade for a mere hour took half my mana reserves, but it did its job.
I shot a tiny pulse of mana through the wood, now shaped into a small knife, and the runes lit up dimly as they started draining mana from the tiny mana crystal embedded in the handle. The edge lit up dimly as mana flowed along it, creating a sharp edge of mana.
With another pulse of mana, my creation deactivated itself. I finally had a knife which I could use for carving and other utilities, freeing me to use my tiny amount of mana on more important tasks. With nothing else to do and my parents firmly asleep, I picked up another part of the table and started anew.
8 years later
“I can’t believe my son is already 12 years old!” Said my mother as she hugged me, handing me a present. She said this every year, but I agreed with her this time. The time passed quickly, with no noble responsibilities annoying me.
“Thanks, mom. Can I open it?”
My mother nodded excitedly as father entered the room with a cake. It must have cost quite a bit as it had intricate chocolate decorations and whatnot, but I couldn’t wait to dig in.
“Johanne, as my gift, I’ll take you hunting! You’ve been asking me to take you for months now, so I got together with the guys and we’ll make it happen. It’s in 3 days.”
“Hey, how come I wasn’t told about this plan?” Mother spoke out angrily.
“Well because you would be against it and wouldn’t allow it. But you know how much he’s been wanting this, are you reeeally going to ruin it now?” Replied my father with a slight smug smirk. His cunningness reminded me of one heavenly asshole I talked to 12 years ago.
My mother was left speechless, dragging father into the study, probably due to the bookshelves insulating the sound of her yelling.
Finally, I would go into the wild. I had many gadgets I created over the years that I wanted to try, and I haven’t been slacking on the physical side either. In terms of raw physical strength, I was already much stronger than the usual teenager. I could definitely keep up with the hunt, so much so that I hoped I would be allowed to go again after showcasing a spectacular performance. If you’re good at something, profit off it.
But today wasn’t a day where I could afford to care about such things. I opened the gift, finding a bunch of toys which I had specifically picked for their useful materials, mostly a bunch of metal components.
Nowadays, raw metal and other artificing materials had become much more expensive as the big movers started preparing for an upcoming war behind the scenes. Sometimes, it was actually more cost efficient to buy products containing whatever you wanted and disassembling them yourself. My parents knew about my interest in it, as it took up many hours of each day for me, although I hadn’t revealed everything.
As one kept using mana, the capacity would grow. Due to the fact I had been practicing magic every single day, my mana capacity had doubled over the years, but It would hit its apex and plateau soon. This growth was theoretically infinite, but the realistic and practical cap was around 2.5x. Even great archmages and mercenaries were able to triple it at most because of the diminishing returns. The increases were so astronomically small it wasn’t worth even mentioning. Even if i got 4x the mana I have now, I would be merely average in terms of the capacity.
…
“So, how’s work?” I asked my mother while we were strolling through the city.
She sighed. “Stressful. We recently sat down with a bunch of demon nobles but they kept blowing us off, making outrageous demands and even threatening us. They’ve always been a little snarky, but I’ve never seen them this aggressive. Makes me want to punch them in the face sometimes - not that I would do it, of course. Anyways, It’s all left up to us because the nobles of our country are currently all unavailable as they’re infighting, of course. The late prince who married the princess 7 years ago just died last month, so now they’re all scrambling to suck up to her again. Ugh, poor girl. Her husband, which probably didn’t even love her anyway, dies, and they try to marry her off again instantly. Savages, I swear. They say he died of unknown causes, but if you ask me, he probably got assassinated. Although I shouldn’t say that in front of my 12 year old son and on the streets.”
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“Why not? I’d give those bastards a beating. Also, yeah, assassination is pretty likely. With how competitive and vindictive they are, I wouldn’t rule it out at all. Just flip the presumption of innocence around when dealing with that scum,” I replied.
My mother gave me quite a funny look before speaking. “First of all - language. And second of all, you can’t just go around beating people up. You would be wise to remember that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I was just kidding. Anyway, why are we here?”
“You need some new clothes, equipment and supplies for the hunt. And also…” I ignored the rest. Every time we went shopping, mother ended up dragging me to various different stores and by the end of the day I ended up carrying 10 different bags of miscellaneous stuff and 2 bags of stuff we actually came in for.
After finishing shopping, I did my evening training. Well, more like midnight training, because we returned home very late. Simple magic exercises for precision, such as manipulating mana into certain shapes or causing objects to spin. Then, strength training and calisthenics, and afterwards I swung around an iron sword I had crafted, and then went to sleep.
…
It was the day of the hunt. My father introduced me to two other people who would be hunting with us.
My father was tall and in his mid 40s, with straight brown hair down to his neck. He lacked a beard, and the only thing giving away his age were some wrinkles on his face. Without them, just by the look of his body, one would take him for a young adult who worked out a lot. It seems I got most of my genetics from my mother, as my hair was a midnight black and my body was slimmer, with blue eyes to boot.
“Johanne, this is Blake and Jacob. Everyone, this is Johanne, my son. I promised him we’ll go on a hunt behind his mother’s back, she found out and well.. I slept on the couch for a few nights, but here we are!”
Blake, a shorter man with glasses, immediately offered a handshake, which I accepted. “Ohh, another sprout of the Henderson family, huh?” Father shot Blake almost a poisonous glare. Another? “Pleasure to meet you, young man. Your father here talks about you more than you’d expect. Let’s see if you live up to the legend!” He laughed heartily.
Uhm.. What the hell has father told them?
Jacob on the other hand was even taller than my father, and had short hair. He only said one word, “Pleasure,” before grabbing his hunting gear and walking out.
“Don’t mind him, he’s a little grumpy,” My father patted me on the back. Jacob turned around with a frown. “I’m just kidding, just kidding.”
Those two personalities should never mix.
“Hey, I’m Johanne. Thanks for letting me hunt with you, what will we be hunting?”
Blake pointed out his index finger at me. “A panther!” He said with a grin.
My father was rather proficient in mana manipulation, and according to him, his teammates were as well. The beasts which used mana did not roam the woods we were at right now, as they were deeper in the forest or hidden deeper underground, where the mana was richer. Even then, mother would freak if she knew this. “I told her we went to hunt deer!” My father grinned. Oh god.
We were walking around the forest, following the tracks of this panther. Apparently they had been hunting this thing for a few days, but as it had been very elusive they still didn’t catch it. I honestly regretted bringing such a large backpack filled to the brim with my creations, not because it was heavy, but because the items were poking through the back and making it really uncomfortable to wear. Maybe I should invest in a subspace pocket, or better yet, learn to create one.
“Hey, kid, come here! Look, there’s a little bit of blood here and the bark on this tree is a little scratched. The bushes are also weirdly disturbed. What do you think this means?” Blake pointed at the scene. The bushes looked as if someone, or multiple someones, had walked through them. The blood was darker than one would expect from a human and the scratch on the tree bark were clearly claws.
“There was a fight, someone was chasing the panther,” I replied. “The moss on the ground over there has also been uprooted. The attacker probably went that way.”
“Hey, maybe your son’s a prodigy hunter or something. Took me months before I was that quick at figuring out the situation. Hell, I didn’t even notice the moss.”
My father simply smiled. “Alright, let’s go. I like that idea, we’ll follow the disturbed moss.”
We were approaching a small, open area where the trees let some sunlight in. As we snuck in, we saw the panther, heavily wounded and bleeding, surrounded by a group of what seemed to be around 10 bandits.
“Be very quiet. Johanne, bandits got here first. I know for a fact they are bandits due to the symbol on their shoulder. That symbol represents Horr, one of the three bandit kings.” I looked over, noticing a symbol of some sort of wolf and fox fighting. “We generally don’t fight bandits as we don’t want to grab any attention or get in danger,” my father whispered. “Don’t make any noise and we will retreat!”
Ahh, good old bandits. The nostalgia almost brought a tear to my eye. No matter how much society progresses, there will always be scum. But bandit kings? It seems the bandits have unionized. I figure it’s because I wiped out most of them 200 years ago and they thought that would give them a better chance of survival as well as more manpower. I have no idea how they managed to work together enough to form factions, but I suppose the bandit kings rule with force. I’ll have to give them a visit one day.
But right now, I wasn’t sure if I could defeat these bandits. I still had no clue about my limits as a practically manaless person. I estimated that I could kill 3 or 4, but that’s all my mana would allow.
We started retreating, but we heard a loud voice scream out behind us. “We have some rats! Kill them!”
“Damn it!” My father scowled. “Johanne, run. Blake, go along with Johanne in case some follow him. Jacob, with me!”
My father took out a shortsword from his back, and Jacob took out 2 daggers. He never struck me as the dagger type, moreso the mace or hammer type.
Their battle stances were decent. They were at least at the level of a squire, but the bandits weren’t bad either.
5 bandits went after us, while the leader and 4 other bandits faced my father and Jacob. This wasn’t looking very good.
“We have no choice but to fight,” I said as I turned around and brandished my masterpiece, a dark blue longsword. By professional artificer standards, this was quite laughable, but I was very happy with it. An iron sword which could lengthen itself by creating a long, sharp mana blade on its tip. This made it at least 3 meters long, giving me the range advantage even when facing a lance or a spear. Using my study of efficient mana usage, the elongated blade was almost transparent as very little mana was wasted. It would serve as a great surprise attack.
“Kid, you know how to fight? Why do you carry a sword?” Blake sounded panicked, but he pulled out a fold-up spear in a practiced motion. He had his priorities straight - first survive, questions come later.
“That isn’t all I carry!” I yelled as I pulled out a spear myself. Its sheer purpose was to amplify any force exerted on it. This made it incredibly hard to control in an actual exchange, but this downside could be mitigated. One could throw it at a speed fast enough that even with magic-amplified reaction speed, anyone below a knight could not react fast enough to dodge.
Without speaking, I fully extended the spear and threw it at the closest bandit before they had any chance to react. The mana stone lit up and the strike successfully hit its mark, blood flowing out from the massive gash as the spear continued on, creating spear-shaped holes through multiple trees before it finally stopped.
With no time to be surprised, Blake ran toward the closest bandit, exchanging blows with two at once. If he took on two, I would take on two as well. I could not afford to waste mana here, so I rummaged through my backpack. Finally snapping out of their daze, the two remaining bandits sprinted towards me so I could not bring any other item out, but they were too late.
I pulled out three metal disks. I put one in front of me and quickly threw two to the left and right respectively. With a tiny pulse of mana, the disks established a tiny thread of mana as a connection relay and the ground up mana crystal inside each disk glowed, creating a very thin sheet of water in a triangle shape between them. Then, the water froze and the bandits hilariously fell to the floor and slid on the ice, bringing them directly to me.
My blade successfully slit their throats as they writhed on the ground, as they were still struggling to figure out what the fuck was even going on.
Blake successfully took down one of the two bandits, and was now in an exchange of blows with the second one, who was smirking smugly.
“As soon as my brothers dispatch that fucking kid, you’re dead meat!”
That’s when a sword pierced his chest from behind, causing the bandit to ragdoll on the floor, as limp as a rag. I guess I nicked the spine.
“H-how? To just a fucking kid?” The bandit looked at me and uttered with his dying breath.
“Ingenuity.”