21. A Reliken Who Faces a Mafanos

I can almost hear the STSG yelling at me.

You wanted versatility? Here’s your versatility!

The ability to draw [Windows] with my sword has opened up my ‘fighting style’ like never before. Even in the heat of battle, I quickly learn that I can move the second screen by ‘clicking’ on it and ‘dragging’ it through the air, with the STSG’s tip acting as the mouse cursor. Yes, it’s as bonkers and fun as it sounds.

And it’s not just [Glock] that can [Strike] through the portal. I can also send out [Flamethrower]: a wave of fire streaming across the night sky, which is as scary and pretty as it sounds.

But maybe my favorite use of [Window] is in combination with [Dragonclaw].

I manage to pull it off when a panicking Gargoyle flies across the second screen. I stab the air right in front of me, while my eyes are pointed up in the sky, where I see the STSG’s blade pierce my target mid-flight before obliterating it in a burst of energy, smoke, and charred Gargoyle meat.

Maybe not the most practical way to go about killing things, but the combination of optical surrealism and visceral feedback is like nothing I’ve felt before. A small part of me is horrified, and rightfully so. A bigger part of me, though, is like oh fuck yes—also rightfully so.

With the options made available to me with [Window], the Gargoyles have no chance.

If they try to put their shield up, I hit them in the back with [Windowed] [Glock Strike]. If they turn around and try to face the screen in the air, all I have to do is reposition slightly and do a ‘normal’ [Glock Strike]. If they bunch up, then they’re vulnerable to [Windowed] [Flamethrower]. If they try to come at me, in reverse through the [Window], then I’ve got [Dragonclaw] waiting for them.

On top of all that, Belpha is holding down the fort in melee range. Any Gargoyle that drops down to ground level is swiftly dealt with via a [Taunt] into shield stun into halberd finisher.

Now, our formidable pairing feels truly invincible. I’m so hopped up on the hype of it all that I could do this all night if I have to. Bring on the next wave, and the one after that! The STSG demands blood. More, more, more!

Of course, no amount of adrenaline can mask the reality of physical limitations.

After the last Gargoyle falls to my blade, and after I receive a nod of confirmation from my Knight companion, the fatigue hits me all at once. I fall to my knees, panting hard, shaking and aching in every muscle.

Even the fatigue feels a little different from my Earthling experiences. I’ve had times before where I’ve exerted myself to the point of utter exhaustion and physical illness. But this… is a little bit more than just ‘physical’.

It’s hard to describe, but I’ll try my best.

Ever stayed up all night working on a last-minute assignment, then when you flop down on the bed, you find you can’t fall sleep? Even though, theoretically, you’ve never been more tired in your life?

You can’t sleep. The birds are chirping. The sun’s coming up. And the more you think about not sleeping, the further you get away from any chance of falling asleep.

Keep it up long enough, and you enter this liminal state of being neither asleep nor fully awake. You give up. Get up to go about your day like a zombie, barely functional. then at some point, when you least suspect it, sleep takes you in its sudden yet sweet embrace (that’s the hope, anyway).

That’s sort of what this feels like. Profound insomnia into mind fog into detachment from physical reality.

Later, I’d come to learn that this is a fairly common symptom of this world’s version of ‘mana exhaustion’. Right now, though, all I can do is lean on my sword and just… try to relax. Rest. Pretty sure I’ve earned it, too.

In the haze of my exhaustion-addled mind, a funny thought occurs to me. I wonder about my own heightened emotions during the heat of battle. That feeling of wanting to fight more, wanting to see more monsters fall at my blade.

There’s no other word for it. That, right there, was baby’s first instance of bloodlust.

A weak chuckle escapes my trembling lips. To think that, back at the Town Watch barracks, I’d dry-heaved at the sight of dead bodies. Now, not even an hour later, I’m demanding more bodies for me to slay.

Pick a lane, Mars Carver. Which kind of Isekai MC are you?

But then… is it too crazy to suggest that I’m both kinds? And maybe more kinds that I’ve yet to discover and confront? I’m all of these emotions, and all of these emotions are me.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I hear a metallic clink, as Belpha beside me shifts her posture and picks her halberd’s blade off the ground.

I inwardly groan. Is it time for us to move already? Can a fella have five minutes to himself and his conflicting thoughts?

But then… I feel a sudden change in the air, and I’m forced to look up in alarm and rapidly mounting dread.

At first, I see nothing out of the ordinary. At least not anything that could point to the source of my dread or of Belpha’s caution.

We’re still in the middle of the burning town of Rugok. The last of the Gargoyles have either died or fled. Off in the distance, there are shouts and noises of activity as townspeople try to put out fires and minimize the damage to their town.

The change I’d felt is unrelated to any of that. It’s a tangible chill in the air, like I’ve just been placed inside a vacuum that’s separate from the heat of the burning buildings. Something or someone has brought winter with them, and that winter has overwritten my and Belpha’s immediate reality.

And then… the fog descends.

Descend isn’t even the right word, because that would imply some kind of process or a transitional state. No, this fog just up and fills the entire space around me, as if… as if it’d always been here, and someone just now decided to switch on its visibility toggle.

Or ‘obscurity’ in this case, I guess. In an instant, the sight of Rugok is no more, and I’m slowly pulling myself to my feet in the middle of dense, oppressive fog. The fog is so thick that I can’t even tell if Belpha is still standing beside me.

Yup. This is some real Silent Hill shit.

And just like in my nightmares, I feel myself strangely drawn to the heart of the fog. Whoever has called down this fog—and whatever hides in the center of it—I must face and see it for myself.

One weak, doddering step. Then a second, firmer one. Step by step, I wade deeper into the fog, drawn by a kind of magic that, at least in this moment, I’ve neither the ability nor the inclination to deny. The impulses that drive my movement are disparate and many, yet right now, they all point me in the same direction.

I’m all of these impulses, and all of these impulses are me.

Suddenly, an object breaks through the fog and appears right in front of my face. But to my dismay and fascination, it’s not the object I’d expected to see.

It’s a… hand. Just a hand by itself, not wrapped around a pistol grip, with its fingers slightly bent in a loose grasping motion.

It’s pale—almost unnaturally so—and spindly, like it’s got its own set of gangling limbs. Its nails are long, sharp, and painted a sickly blue. It’s a humanoid hand (I think), but it doesn’t belong to anyone I know.

Then, before my impulses can drive me either forwards or backwards, the hand shoots out toward me, grasping for my face.

“Mars Carver!”

The sonorous voice of a Broadway actress coincides with the hefty shoulder barge of an NFL linebacker. Next thing I know, I’m sprawled on the ground without a pale spindly hand wrapped around my face, thanks to Belpha’s intervention.

At this point, I’m acting purely on instinct and with very little information to go on. I push myself to my feet again, and notice that the fog has cleared—as abruptly as it’d descended.

The monster at the heart of the fog has revealed itself. Only… it’s not a monster. At least, it doesn’t look like one.

He is a tall, thin Elf dressed to the nines in a dark-blue tailcoat suit, complete with a top hat and an ankle-length cloak. His pale complexion is nothing compared to the pure whiteness of his long, straight hair, which falls to his waist in a neat curtain.

And right now, his gangling right arm is held aloft, lifting an unconscious Belpha by the neck and into the air like she and her shining armor weigh nothing. The Tiefling Knight’s shield and halberd are on the ground, useless and out of reach.

I see this, and my first instinct is to charge at the Elf, with the STSG pointed into the gap between the two sides of his coat.

I don’t know and can’t tell you what my main impulse is in the moment. Courage? Sheer panic? Whatever it is, it won’t let me turn tail or stand idly by while my party member is at the mercy of this mysterious vampire-ass Elf who’s clearly up to no good.

But then, just as soon as I decide to fight back, I freeze. Not freeze in fear or shock. No, I literally can’t move a muscle, no matter how much I want to or how hard I try.

I’m frozen mid-stabby-motion, while Vampire Elf Man slowly—almost gently—lowers Belpha to the ground and lies her down next to her weapon and shield. The man then slowly—almost savoringly—turns to face me.

Gaunt face, sunken yellow eyes, and cracked lips that are as cyanotic as his skin is pale. If this guy really is a vampire, he looks like he could do with a meal yesterday. Yet, despite his picture of ill health, I know—without a shadow of a doubt—that the dude could crush me like an insect if he wants to.

So much for a Sword That Shoots Guns. So much for being the OP juggernaut everyone expects out of an Isekai MC in this day and age. Right now, I’m fully immobilized by the stranger’s magic and completely at his mercy.

Then, even as I watch on in (literal) frozen horror, the man’s cyanotic lips curl into a mocking sneer, before they part to utter a familiar phrase in perfect English.

“Are you the Conduit that was promised, or the Harbinger of calamity?”