Chapter 124: Couldn’t Even Wait Five Minutes?
A few more days of searching had passed, and my studies into the runic formation had improved. I now had three crystals, which I felt had enough runes stored within them to properly perform the Adjustment ritual.
While Espr said it wouldn’t work on me, it was fun to hypothesise if it did. Maybe I could actually generate Starlight or merge my Sun and Fire energies with Starlight better.
I hadn’t heard many cases of an Adjustment vocation occurring, and I only knew of two people where it actually happened.
Lila and Tyell. Though the latter might be a bit of a stretch.
Lila going from [Lightning Mage] to [Lightning hand] made sense. [Lightning Hand] for all intents and purposes, was simply an advancement from [Lightning Mage] while offering some more utility with [Pocket Lightning]. It removed a weakness of the Voication by allowing certain spells to be created ahead of time.
I could see other variants from [Lightning Mage] focus on other aspects, like more large area spells or direct lightning usage, but [Lightning Mage] to [Lightning hand] made sense.
[Package Runner] to [Light Highway Runner] on the other hand made zero sense. [Package Runner] only offered some basic movement skills and a small inventory for the self while having extremely bad mana growth.
[Light Highway Runner] pretty much had none of those weaknesses, as its movement skill was powerful and the Voication had a much higher mana growth rate, which Tyell would experience as he levelled up, and because he came from [Package Runner] he still had a storage skill. That was all good, besides the leap felt too massive.
Like [Lightning Hand] it removed a weakness, which was the user's low mana, and enhanced the user's main trait, which for Tyell was his movement, but while that made sense objectively, the jump was still massive.
I knew Espoiramissa had something to do with Tyell’s transformation, but I wanted to know by how much. Did it simply activate the ritual on him? If it did more, how did it do more? Those answers weren’t likely to come from Espoiramissa and investigating further was getting difficult, but it was something I wished I knew the answers to, as it could be helpful.
This light doesn’t even feel warm… sigh… this sucks…
It was a new day, and I was ‘sleeping’ on the edge of the meraimaka. It was quiet, and there was no one around. The purpose of my sleep was to try and absorb mana from the atmosphere again because I was fully focused on this endeavour.
My progress was still awful. I was able to take in some of the mana, but it was really not enough.
Come on, stupid, you can do it.
Chanting to myself wasn’t the greatest plan, but anything to focus on was helpful.
(“ Why do you keep going? ”)
Shouldn’t you know the reasons?
(“ I know, but honestly now, I don’t understand. At the moment you are on the edge of fulfilling the deal with me, and while I was enjoying the competition, the damage you took from that sneak attack ruined the fun and has left you in a state you might not recover from ”)
But it is something you can fix.
(“ Yes, upon the completion of our contract I will have enough power to start the healing process ”)
(“ It will take some time, not that long, but I want you to be in perfect condition so of course I am not going to leave your new form in a rushed state ”)
Your greed is showing.
(“ Yes, I have a greed for you, and I would rather you not die before that happens ”)
After everything, I really didn’t know if Espoiramissa's nearly heartfelt attempt was done out of manipulation or actual concern.
Golden mana-draining sand flew towards my armour as it flew along a sharp wind.
I created a small, near-invisible wall of Starlight around my body where the sand landed.
I didn’t move and pretended to still be sleeping. I had been up for a few days, so it wasn’t unexpected that I needed to sleep. Everyone had slept, even the two humans besides me, so I figured it would be worth pretending to sleep while also doing my mana recovery practice.
Though I didn’t expect anything to actually happen while I was pretending to sleep.
Coming from above, I saw a man with a metal blade with mana radiating Wind energy ready to stab the weaker portions of my armour.
Moments before impact I slipped out of the way and pushed the man into the floor, creating a Starlight Sword and stabbing the man through his armour into his back.
“You can come out as well.” I deactivated the Starlight layer and had the mana-draining sand fall down.
The guard walked into view. His mana rifle was in hand; it must be one of the types that could compress into the armour, but it was no danger to me or my current gear.
“Good to see you again. I know it's only been a few hours, but damn, how things change,” I said, twisting my sword in the bastard's wounds. I was very annoyed.
“Why, just bloody why?” I complained as I pushed the Starlight sword further into the man’s back.
He tried to counter, “You wouldn’t understand–”
“Oh, I don’t care about that.” I interrupted his ramble. “Why did you have to ruin my fun?”
My comment caused both men to pause.
“I was expecting something when we broke into the core room, when the portal opened, during a big fight, or something at least interesting, but no, seriously, you tried the boring strategy of attack while I was asleep.”
I wasn’t dying for entertainment, but just thinking about what I could do to counter whatever plan they made was at least something fun to do during my non-researching runes and formation time, as most things besides that didn’t exactly require my brain.
“Well, I don’t need you around anymore.” I retracted my spear and stabbed it through the man’s head.
The guard just sat in horror.
I asked, seeking to provoke him. “What’s got you in a twist? You are a guard, aren’t you? Have some backbone.”
“What the fuck do you know?!” He screamed, “I’ve seen so much shit that I have never wanted to see since coming here.”
“And? Didn’t you make the mistake of coming in here, or was the money too good to risk going through a portal before proper safety had been checked?” I stepped forward towards the man.
“How…” He stopped his question and said something else. “He knew you were lying.” I don’t know if this was an attempt to gain some sort of upper hand, but it was laughable.
“I wasn’t lying completely; there has been a time difference of over a month since you were trapped.” I laughed, “I was curious if one of you two could detect lies or not, so I spread a mix of both.”
Lie detection skills were always a pain; I didn’t have to worry about the Nelatta having them, but someone from Dominous Hood? There was a chance they could have one; it would depend on their work, but I knew it was a possibility.
“He probably told you everything I said about the company was true, right? That they handed me the orb, and they were prepping for a month? Well, by my definition, the company is me and some of my allies.” My smile widened. “I can’t say I am great at dealing with lie detection skills, but I have gotten better.”
I reabsorbed my sword. “Now what do you want to do?”
“I…” The man raised his weapon. “Will do what I must…”
“Really?” I asked, genuinely dumbfounded. “Did he brainwash that much? Or do you really think raising your gun at me is going to get you out of this world?”
“I–I have been here too long…” His voice was shaky.
“You have been alone for a few weeks,” I said with a hint of concern in my voice. “You even had a friend during this time.”
Honestly, I knew everyone was different, but my empathy for people who weren’t my friends and family was extremely low.
“I’ve known people who have been alone for much longer periods of time, and I’m not even talking about myself in those examples.”
In a moment I dashed in front of him, and he tried firing his gun; while distressed, he still was good at aiming, but he wasn’t fast enough. I knocked the gun out of his hand and punched him right in the face.
His body collapsed to the ground. “If you want to give up, I mean, sure, go ahead. I could use your body for some experiments.”
My calm statements caused his heart to race.
“Or you can listen to me.” I pulled out one of the Adjustment crystals from my backpack. “And maybe you can make it back home.”