Jonah and Serina walked through the Jador Woods and the forest’s tall trees. Jonah was still unnerved by his whole situation, what with how he was in a different world and classified as an invader, which meant he was to be killed on sight.
“So, when are you going to start teaching me the language?”
Fortunately, he had someone he could talk with to alleviate his troubles. Or at least distract himself from them.
“Not so fast, buddy-boy. How easy do you think it is to teach someone a new language while on the move?”
“You’re going to teach me how to speak the language, right? Writing can come later. I’ll just take off this, and we’ll get started. Isn’t it better if I learn it as quickly as possible?”
“It is. But the forest is still crawling with inquisitors. If they catch me teaching you the language around here, which everyone already knows, we’re both dead. In the meantime, I can teach you about other things you’ll need to know for when you enter the Institue. Ah!”
“What?”
Serina stopped walking and turned to Jonah after her sudden exclamation.
“We’re in trouble!”
She grabbed Jonah’s shoulders and shook him.
“No shit?”
‘Memory loss in addition to SPD? I’m so fucked.’
They, especially Jonah, had been in trouble from the very beginning. The fact that Serina only now realized was alarming, to say the least.
But as Serina continued shaking him without explaining, Jonah got the feeling that it wasn’t that simple. He grabbed her hands to stop the shaking. He held them and looked Serina in the eyes.
“Calm down. Tell me what you mean.”
Jonah’s calm and commanding voice helped Serina focus. Well, she wasn’t that distraught, to begin with. She just wanted to shake Jonah around.
“I was homeschooled, so I forgot about it. But most places that teach magic, including the Chambria Royal Institute of Magic, do deep scans. They’ll find out about [Decapitation]!”
Jonah frowned.
“That’s not good.”
“No shit!”
“No need to shout, princess. I’m not deaf.”
“No shit.”
Jonah let go of Serina’s hands and rubbed his brow to ease away the wrinkles. Talking to Serina was frustrating at times. He sighed.
“So? What do we do? I needed to enter the Institute to solidify my identity, right? And as proof of my talent. Do we look for another place where I can get enough credit for you to use me in the future?”
“Hmm….”
Serina sank into deep thought while rubbing her chin. She walked in circles around Jonah as she pondered. Ackster wondered why she chose to do that, but he could guess that he would only get a nonsensical answer should he ask. He also didn’t want to distract Serina when she was thinking about how to solve the problem of him possibly ending up in trouble—the kind that got people killed.
He probably wouldn’t get outed as an invader just because of [Decapitation], but trying to enter an institute of magic with such an ominous skill that obviously didn’t fit his backstory was suspicious. And while he didn’t know the investigative methods and sleuthing capabilities of this world’s inquisitors and mages, he could understand if the exposure of his skill warranted a thorough investigation.
And then, after a little asking around, any decent detective would find out about Jonah’s connection with Serina and how they had crossed through the Jador Woods right after a stormy disturbance caused by an invader’s arrival on Thyskria.
“Hey, is it really that strange to have something like [Decapitation]?”
Serina answered without looking up.
“Of course. It’s in the name, no? The skill was ranked (RARE), wasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Jonah didn’t even need to look at his system window to see since he remembered it.
“But is there no one else who has [Decapitation]? Like, can’t we find an excuse or explanation that works?”
“I mean, you could probably find a bunch of executioners or something with it.”
“Hmm….”
Both Jonah and Serina thought about it in silence. Serina continued walking, and Jonah stood in place, his closed eyes facing the sky.
“Decapitation, decapitation, decapitation.”
Jonah thought out loud to urge his brain to come up with a solution.
“Decapitation is the act of severing the head, right?”
“Yeah?”
Serina responded and let Jonah bounce his ideas off of her like a true partner in crime.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean human heads.”
“Oh! And since you’re from a rural village, you could have gotten it from, you know, decapitating farm animals!”
“Exactly!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jonah and Serina pointed at each other in celebratory exclamation as they came up with an explanation. It was a little farfetched, but, combined with Jonah’s unique magic and how useful it was when it came to decapitating, it made enough sense to cover Jonah and hide his tracks from the inquisitors.
“Ah, wait!
Jonah patted his forehead with the butt of his palm as he realized something.
“Won’t I need another skill to, like, support my experience as a butcher?”
Jonah looked at Serina with worry.
Serina slowly shook her head.
“...No. Nope, not if all you did was decapitate the animals and not much else. You shouldn’t underestimate what it takes to get a skill. You actually have to be skilled at the target area, and simply killing a couple of animals here and there won’t get you a butchery skill.”
“I see. That’s good, then. So, this works? No change of plans?”
Serina shook her head thoughtfully again.
“No.”
“No?”
“I mean, yeah, this works. But there will be a slight change of plans.”
“Why, if it works?”
Jonah could guess that Serina probably had a good reason, but she, for the first time, wasn’t very talkative, and she was spending more time thinking than conveying her thoughts to Jonah, the subject of those thoughts. So, he had to fish for a proper explanation.
“Yep.”
Serina nodded decisively as if reaching a conclusion.
‘That’s not an answer.’
Fortunately, Jonah didn’t have to encourage her to talk as she finally looked directly at Jonah, no longer caught up in concentrated thinking. Though, she was still walking in circles around him.
“While you don’t need a skill to supplement your [Decapitation], you do need levels.”
“Meaning?”
Serina gave a bright smile that sent chills down Jonah’s spine.
“You’re going to have to work hard until we leave the forest.”
‘That’s not ominous at all.’
Jonah rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t ignore the chills that crawled down his spine at the light in Serina’s eyes as she spoke.
Although Serina’s smile was bright and her tone warm, Jonah couldn’t find comfort in the meaning behind her words. But he could find the meaning, even without asking her to clarify.
Serina hadn’t told him everything there was to know about the System, but she had told him enough.
Since they were going to use the explanation that he used his triangles to decapitate farm animals and whatnot to justify him having [Decapitation], he would also need levels. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense for him to have such a skill.
Serina might have bought his explanation that his theoretical knowledge earned him the skill. But she knew he was an invader. She also knew he had just connected to the system. Of course, he was level 1.
It wouldn’t be that easy to get others to acknowledge his rightful presence of Thyskria once they started looking into the inconsistencies of his status and identity.
The mention of his level had also made Jonah realize that regardless of what they did, if he showed up at the institute and they did this deep scan and saw that he was level 1 with a bunch of strange-ish skills, he would get suspected and eventually pegged as an invader.
“Shit, wait! Serina, didn’t you say they were going to do a deep scan and see my [Decapitation]? Won’t they see [Mana Heart] as well?”
Jonah was once again filled with worry as he looked at Serina, his one and only hope for survival in this strange, systematic world.
He couldn’t believe they had forgotten about such an important thing when they made their plans. Though, if Serina was to be believed, she made the plan before Jonah arrived, so maybe she hadn’t thought he would have such conspicuous skills. If [Decapitation (RARE)] would raise a couple of eyebrows, what would [Mana Heart (EPIC)] do since it was clearly of a greater rank?
“Don’t worry about it.”
Opposite to Jonah, Serina was cool as a cucumber and nodded sagely once before putting a hand on Jonah’s shoulder and urging him to start walking again since they had already solved their troubles.
“What do you mean ‘Don’t worry about it’?! This is my life we’re talking about here.”
Serina just patted Jonah’s shoulder again and kept walking.
“Ey, we’re in this together, you know. It will blow up in my face if you get in trouble.”
“I’ll make sure of it.”
‘Seriously, another personality?’
Jonah glared at Serina’s willful attitude as he inwardly bemoaned that Serina was once again altering the way she talked and acted.
“Ah, fine. You’ll just continue pestering me if I don’t tell you, right?”
“Yep.”
Fortunately, Serina wasn’t uncompromising.
“Sure, getting caught with eye-grabbing or high-ranking skills like [Decapitation] and [Mana Heart] is bad, but there’s a difference between the two.”
“And that is…?”
“In the first place, the deep scan is mostly to verify the students’ identities and filter out any rotten apples or bad eggs. What institute wants to accept murderous lunatics into their halls, you know?”
Jonah stayed silent since Serina obviously wouldn’t get to the point any faster, even if he urged her to.
“In that case, someone with [Decapitation] is bad news. On the other hand, even if [Mana Heart] is an (EPIC) skill, it’s a mage’s wet dream. Probably any mana user’s, really. Even if only with a vain hope of trying to learn how to get that skill, the Institute will welcome you with open arms.”
“...”
“Besides, the deep scan results are ‘confidential,’ and those who see them are oathbound to secrecy. Only one or two people in addition to the headmaster will know you have those skills.”
‘What’s with the air quotes?’
“So, when I say ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I mean it. [Mana Heart] will also help them overlook [Decapitation] to some degree, regardless of whether they buy our explanation or not.”
Jonah nodded. Serina’s words made sense. If she had spoken the truth and the (EPIC) rank was any indication, [Mana Heart] was a good skill, and most mages and mana users on Thyskria would want it. He couldn’t quite see it from her perspective since it was such a fundamental and essential part of being a mage on Earth, where the mana in the air was too thin for a natural awakening.
But when he thought about how his mana was rising in real-time with each breath, thanks to the density of the mana in the air on Thyskria, Jonah had an easier time accepting the fact that he was a walking treasure trove. He just hoped he wouldn’t get targeted by someone for it since he was so weak.
Learning it by observing him during his stay in the Institute and learning it by any means necessary were two widely different things, after all.
Serina had already demonstrated enough of her strength to tell Jonah that he was in deep shit. Sure, she was the daughter of an apparently renowned, powerful, and influential person, so she was probably stronger than the average mage around her age. But at the same time, among mages of all ages, she probably wasn’t anything worth mentioning.
Jonah hadn’t spent a long time with the System, but his mind had been working overtime since he arrived, and one of the things it had concluded was the fact that time created monsters. If someone lived with the System for a long time and lived a life of killing, there would be no telling how strong they would have become.
Besides, with how dense the mana in the air was and how the System helped people accumulate even more within their bodies, high-leveled mages and mana users probably weren’t as strictly confined to the mortal lifespans of man.
He didn’t know what Serina’s level was, but if someone like her lived for a couple of more years and spent those years killing beings and getting their effort recognized by the System, Jonah could only imagine how powerful they would become.
He dreaded encounters with people like that. But he was also looking forward to it.
Well, it would be more accurate to say that he was looking forward to more powerful magic, more magic, in general even. He was still worried, anxious, and scared about what his future would hold.
But as Jonah gradually calmed down, he realized and accepted that he was headed to an Institute of Magic, a renowned one, and he was in a world with dense mana where magic flourished. Regardless of what Serina had shown him about the magic culture so far, Jonah was looking forward to it.
He literally had a whole new world of magic to explore.