The fires burned all around me. Large parts of the Velgein town were aflame. I could hear shouts and screams as I raced alongside the freedom fighters of the northern insurgency against the Horuthian soldiers who were occupying this region.
My black hair was matted from ash, sweat, and blood, and my bright blue eyes stung from the smoke, though both appeared pristine to those around me, presenting as the pure white hair that all Velgeins had paired with sharp yellow eyes due to my 5-point illusion magic.
I skidded to a stop when we came upon a group of soldiers from Horuth, steel weapons and armor gleaming ominously from the fire reflected off them, my native region’s soldiers wielding the resources of the north against their oppressed. The Velgein freedom fighters following me raised their swords, and I stepped forward and lifted both my hands.
“It’s the Metaleater!” one of the soldiers shouted. “Kill him!”
I grimaced at the nickname that had developed for me over the summer months as the rebels and I had pushed across the north fighting back against the occupying force. I saw one of the soldiers turn back, running to get aid, but I barely had time to think as the soldiers pushed towards me and several archers loosed arrows towards me.
The arrows would bounce harmlessly off a magic barrier, so I swiftly created one, which had become second nature, while I focused most of my attention on one of my 4-point magic circles. In the last year, I had discovered that 4-point magic was not elemental magic like most people in this world believed, but rather, magic that dealt in oxidation. Through it, I could control and create oxides, and so I focused on the steel and iron of my enemy and converted all that gleaming metal into rust.
Red dust sloughed away from the weapons and armor of the soldiers, and several screamed out in terror despite having heard the rumors. I collected the rust into a spinning red disc, and held it up with an open hand overhead, though the hand motion was mostly just my flourish. It was fear that broke enemy ranks faster than anything else, so I had developed a propensity for putting on a bit of an act. Moving my body in time with my magic seemed to have more of an effect on the soldiers than if it simply happened without any visible input. I brought my hand down in front of me, aiming the scouring rust buzzsaw at the troops from Horuth, and watched as several fled.
The freedom fighters moved forward to take care of the stragglers. It was their fight, not mine, and while I was helping to liberate them, I was not there to relish in cutting down my own countrymen. As such, I did not actually launch the magical oxide attack, but rather, collected the rust into a calm and concentrated orb. Without the skill or know-how to convert it back into solid iron ore, I ensconced the orb in a small amount of stone from my inventory, the silicon oxides significantly easier for me to shape into a solid, and then set it down nearby. After the battle, I would bring it back to the refinery for smelting back into iron for steel processing to help equip the Velgeins with more materials as the rebellion grew in strength and numbers.
My Detect skill warned me of danger before any of my senses did, and I threw myself to the side as a massive boulder came crashing down where I had previously been standing. I looked up to see the soldier from earlier who had fled for help, accompanied by another man.
I appraised him, and cursed under my breath. It was a combat mage.
The longer the fighting in the north went on, the more the Kingdom was investing to maintain its claim on the Velgein country and the steel manufacturing that occurred here. When basic soldiers no longer seemed to cut it, the Kingdom brought out one of their strongest cards: magic wielders.
The Velgein people had no magic, so once access to the north was created by a pass cut through the mountain range and the hostile environment was accounted for, the Kingdom was able to use their superior magical force to take the north, although not without lots of bloodshed. Even with magic, there were many more regular soldiers than mages in the Kingdom, and the majority of the fighting was done with sword and might. I was fairly certain that my father in this second life, Horg, had been one such soldier in the war that took place just over a decade ago. It must have been the secret to his disproportionately high level and strength. In this world, killing other humans was a rapid route to power through the hidden experience system.
My mother, Sharma, was a magical researcher, and her master, Vorel Bargolson, was on another level entirely. He made my father look weak. He must have been a combat mage of the highest order, and I could not even fathom how many Velgeins he must have killed in the war to take control of this region.
Fortunately, the mage I now faced was not such a monster. He was an advanced 4-point magic user, and while that would be a real problem for many Velgein combatants, I believed I could handle him easily.
The Kingdom was now aware of my presence in the rebellion, but I did not think they actually knew what I was. As far as they were aware, there was a Velgein in the rebellion who had the strange power to eat away at metal, but no one seemed to make any connection between that and 4-point magic. They must not be able to believe that I was a true magic caster, since I presented myself as Velgein, and while they did not understand what trickery I was using they had started confidently sending underpowered mages to take care of me.
Knowing my Velgein companions would not be able to deal with such a foe, I steeled myself to what I would have to do next. It was not the first time I had killed another person.
The mage’s face scrunched up as he contorted his magic to move large stones through the air, bringing them down on top of me. With a heavy boom, the stones slammed into my body, crushing me into the ground beneath. The mage laughed triumphantly at his victory, seeing the blood splattered out from beneath the stone.
My baselard erupted from the man’s stomach, and he looked down in surprise. I ripped the short blade back out of him, dispelling the illusion I had left to take the attack for me, and reappearing from my invisibility as his body slumped to the ground. I whipped the shortsword towards the ground to get some of the blood off it.
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His guards who had followed him to the battle moved to engage me, but I cast a sleep curse on them, and they collapsed as well. I would leave them for the Velgeins to deal with. I had already killed enough men for the north in this battle.
* * *
I heard a Velgein chant being shouted out that I had learned indicated their victory, and started moving through the town putting out fires, quelling the combustion by interrupting the formation of carbon dioxide or simply putting out fires by manipulating nearby sources of water when they were available.
A large hand thumped on my back, and I turned to see Toch, one of the Velgein freedom fighters who I had helped rescue from a Horuthian camp with a young woman named Leiren when I first arrived in the north. He had a large grin on his face.
“I heard you took out another mage?” he asked, not at all bothered by the killing that just took place. To him, this was a perfectly justified revolt against an occupying force. Their deaths were his path to freedom. Toch seemed perfectly capable of intentionally forgetting that I was Horuthian, as well.
I had tried to avoid killing the Horuthian mages when they first started showing up, simply knocking them out and leaving them to the Velgeins. Despite stripping the caster of all his magic circles and appraising him with no MP, it was only a matter of time before he recovered enough MP and scratched a 4-point circle into something and managed to kill a whole group of Velgeins prior to being put down. I still cursed myself for that oversight. I no longer took any chances, but it was not something I celebrated like Toch did.
“Yeah,” I responded without enthusiasm.
“Well done,” he said with a laugh. “The only good mage is a dead mage.”
I turned, glaring at him, and dropped my illusion, returning from looking like a Velgein back to a Horuthian. Toch blinked, and at least had the good graces to put on a sheepish smile.
“Except for you, of course,” he said after a moment.
“Of course,” I said, rolling my eyes and walking away.
Despite myself, I could not help but think of my own progress and growth having killed so many powerful and magical foes. I was trying quite hard to consciously not think of my growth as a reward for killing these people, but an unfortunate byproduct. After spending years trying so desperately to gain experience points for levels, the vast amounts of experience I was getting now was hard not to enjoy. All I could do was constantly remind myself that the cost was other human lives.
Pilus Horgson (Lv 26)
HP: 248/248
MP: 82/313
Status: Absorption (major), Protection (major)
EXP: 2341/2600
Skills: 3-Point Magic(+), 4-Point Magic(++), 5-Point Magic(+), 6-Point Magic(++), Acrobatics(+), Brewing, Butchery, Cooking, Detect(+), Enchanting(+), Foraging, Inkmaking, Inventory(+), Knotting, Literacy(+), Needlework, Negotiation, One-Armed(+), Ranged, Smithing, Stealth(+), Strength(+), Taming(+), Tanning, Two-Armed, Unarmed
Familiars: High Treehopper (Lv 10), Wooly Ramhog (Lv 10)
I had been powering up my 5-Point Magic and One-Armed skills of late, trying to bring both to double-advancement to match my best skills. Both were skills I regularly used these days.
Grimacing at my low MP, I decided to try and find where the Velgeins were holding the Horuthians. My self-made Absorption buff would let me pull down some of their MP to restore my own faster than was otherwise normal, without depleting my ever-shrinking supply of magic crystals for potions. The ambient magic in this region was so low that it could be days, if not weeks, before I would be full otherwise. The Velgeins had no MP at all, perhaps an evolutionary quirk from their people living in such a low magic environment.
I was still unsure as to why the magic in the air was so thin in the north. I looked toward the horizon, the familiar face of the gas giant on the horizon obscured behind the mountains. I could not even see the beautiful purple rings of the celestial body, just the bare tip of the orange body of the giant. It made the north dark and cold, a harsh place for anyone to live.
The mountains separated the north from the sea. My studies of magic in my hometown Mirut suggested that the ocean was a magical concentrator, of sorts, so perhaps being landlocked was part of the reason. Thinking back to Earth, oceanic currents transported heat from parts of the world to others, and whole regions were only habitable because of that. Was it possible the ocean here did something similar, for magic?
As always, I had endless questions about the world I now lived in, and oftentimes had no idea how to go about finding the answers to them. For now, all I could deal with were my immediate problems.
I came upon the prisoners and what was rapidly becoming an execution site, Velgein swords dripping with blood as they slaughtered the captured soldiers. This was not a war in which prisoners were kept alive and ransomed back. The losers in these fights lost their lives, every time.
With my practice over the summer, I was able to cast an improved version of my Absorption buff with my further advanced 6-point magic. As I walked past the prisoners, I sensed my MP rising as what little magic the soldiers had dropped to nil. Unless they were mages, they would not even notice, and in any case, they would not live long enough for it to matter. I kept my face impassive despite the looks of shock, confusion, betrayal, or horror to see a Horuthian clearly working with the Velgeins, but I did not want to waste anymore MP restoring my illusion. These men would not be reporting back to the Kingdom, in any case.
As I moved back away from the people and with the fires around town largely put out, a small gust of cool air made me shiver. Summer was coming to an end. I would be eleven years old soon. I never could have expected this was where I would be or what I was doing, a year ago, when I left my hometown of Mirut. I had wanted to see the rest of the country, go on an adventure, learn more about magic and beasts and this strange new world I found myself in since I reincarnated here.
Instead, I was embroiled in a revolutionary war. I had made the choice myself, but never once felt like I could walk away from it once I came to my decision. Leaving these people to be crushed under the boot of my own country and kingdom, where I would benefit from it as a citizen, was not an option to me. All I could do was try and help liberate them entirely, after which I would figure out what I would do next.
With my MP restored, I set off to find any injured people I could help with healing, to lend my aid in a way that left me feeling better about myself instead of worse.