Arcanist In Another World-Chapter 6: Strange Company

Valens stumbled away, sweat dripping down his chin. He was already off balance, relying only on his sound-vision to find his way through the path, stones digging sharp into his feet. He twisted about and turned a corner, passed over the burnt bones and came across the gaping hole on the ground, skirting unevenly around it, breath hissing in his throat.

I can’t believe I’m being chased by an animated corpse, clad in perfectly crafted plates and a giant sword! Where is the logic in that?

The sanity was indeed in short supply as of late, as the creature still lumbered after him, armored feet pounding on the ground, sword clasped lazily in its hands. It leapt over the hole and landed clumsily to the ground, the mossy floor exploding under its feet as it kept pressing forward.

“Stop running!” it growled, voice thumping in Valens’s ears. “My bones aren’t made for this. Shit! I didn't have the time to change my legs. My legs! Stop. Running. You little shit!”

“Stop. Chasing me. You mad corpse!” Valens returned as he gave a look over his shoulder. He saw the undead jabbling onward, dragging its left foot. Beyond the visor, its emerald eyes seemed to be furious at Valens for making it work like that.

But what did it expect? For him to present his head like some sort of prize? An animated corpse was a shock in itself, and now there was an intelligent pile of bones clad in gleaming armor coming for his life.

He couldn’t stop. Master Eldras hadn’t risked a death sentence for slipping him into this world just for him to give up on this precious second chance.

Valens focused on the apathy as he returned to the veil of greenish fog, the one he’d used to handle those Skeletons digging the ground, and yet something told him that fog wouldn’t be enough to stop this new abomination.

So he decided to get creative, and focused on the spell formula. His fingers glowed with fiery tongues, fire mana responding wildly to his call. He kept the Resonance tight over his hands, letting the frequencies build slowly at the tip of his fingers. Making a move for the ceiling was too risky, and the undead seemed too heavy for wind magic to affect it.

Fire, on the other hand, had worked on these corpses. Worked well, to Valens’s experience. He just needed a bit more than a Fireball, something that would melt that armor and seep into the bones underneath.

The air vibrated, its song blooming in Valens’s head. His focus was a blink away from slipping from his hold, so he kept his eyes open and ears perked up for the frequencies around him.

He released fiery threads from his hand as he kept scrambling away, weaving them indiscriminately over the walls around him, making sure to leash them all to the tip of his fingers with delicate focus. Some of them bounced from the undead’s armor, straying toward the walls and the ground. Others brushed silently at the gauntlets, the visor, and the chestplate, the undead paying them little heed.

Mana drained from the pool in his chest. He struggled to keep hundreds of threads alive while fueling them constantly. A good trick, a risky trick, but he was past the point of playing it safe.

He waited for the heavy blanket of fog to lump over his shoulders before he turned, regarding the undead’s emerald eyes one last time as he twisted both hands with all his worth, binding the creature’s carapace with hundreds of threads.

“Not bad,” it growled, clearly amused as it came to a skittering stop and glanced at the fiery threads. “But we don’t have time to play, young man. There’s been a case of—“

Valens sucked at his teeth. Wind mana slithered toward his hands as he prepared a Gale. The undead seemed to notice the shift around the air, trying to wriggle his way out from the threads’ tight hold instead of finishing its words.

Ding! You have learned the Class Skill ‘Gale - Master’ Do you want to register it in one of your skill slots?

“Enough with your games, you mad bastard!” Valens cursed, and accepted skill before he thrust his hands forward as he released the Gale. “Dodge this.”

Ding! The Class Skill ‘Gale’ - Master’ has been registered into your skill slots.

Remaining Class Skill Slots (4/10)

The air exploded inside the cavern, a strong wind blasting from Valens’s hands and feeding into those fiery threads. Flames roared as they spread all across the path. The undead flailed mindlessly in the thick of the firestorm, sword trying and failing to find anything material to free it from its misery.

Ding! You have learned the Class Skill ‘Inferno - Adept’. Do you want to register it in one of your skill slots?

Ding! The Class Skill ‘Inferno’ - Adept’ has been registered into your skill slots.

Remaining Class Skill Slots (3/10)

Pain rose from his chest. Valens doubled over, blood trickling down through his nose. He pushed it too far, but the situation demanded everything from him. A little pain seemed an easy bargain for dealing with the threat.

Ding! [Mana Manipulation(Master): 4 > 5]

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Deep in the fog, he finally released all the threads from his fingers. The fire storm slowly consumed the undead’s silhouette.

Valens wheezed out a breath. His chest heaved with the lack of mana, but he refused to tear his eyes away from the creature. Those words hadn’t appeared yet, which meant the undead was still alive.

Somehow.

His mind raced. This place was different. This world was different. His research about Warmagic had started because the deep stretches of arcane fascinated him, and it was just a stroke of luck that he came across that old text about the connected worlds. Yet he had never thought that a day would come and he would be forced to use his spells to burn skeletons and blast creatures into pieces.

But the zest… it was difficult to describe. There was something about the way the air burned with his command. A mind numbing pleasure that settled right around his chest.

That was why his Master always said it was dangerous. Warmagic ate away one’s mind.

Valens shook his head. Pain alleviated slowly, barely a sting now that his mana pool started building up again. He floundered to his feet as the flames began to fizzle out. The resulting heat splashed to his face over and over again. Even if the spell hadn’t been enough to kill the undead, it would surely do a number on the damned thing.

“Bloody… Fucking… Lord,” came the same gravelly voice.

The ground trembled. A sword cleaved the last of the flames apart, its tip glinting painfully sharp as the undead hauled itself back to its feet. It wobbled forward, shook its head as if to gather itself, before fixing those emerald eyes to Valens.

“Are you mad?!” it growled, jabbing with one armored hand into Valens’s face. “You can’t kill me! Not when the Pact is active. So why in the Nine Hells are you trying to make my life miserable when we have hundreds of Skeletons to deal with? Don’t tell me you’re one of those bastards, thinking a deal with the Ninth Legion is beneath you humans.”

Valens cocked his head to the side, eyes widening at the undead. “W-What?” he spattered. “What are you talking about?”

“A mad Mage, and… what is an Arcane Healer? Some sort of Priest?” the undead said, patting its chest armor to put out a particularly stubborn tongue of flame.

The Inferno seemed to have worked, at least on its armor. The left gauntlet was a melted heap of silver, metal dripping slowly down the ground. The helmet stood strong, so did the chestpiece, but Valens could see the skeletal legs of the creature. Problem was, the cadaver hardly seemed to care about the damage.

Then again, why would it care? It was already dead, wasn’t it?

It clacked its jaw as it continued. “Look, friend, I don’t know what a fucking Arcane Healer is, but you look human, and I tend to believe these sockets of mine, so I’m not going to act on my gut and carve your flesh out of your bones. I suspect we’re in a terrible misunderstanding, though I’m not sure yet what is the reason causing it.”

“You’re an animated corpse!” Valens responded with a jab of his finger. “What misunderstanding? Clearly you want a piece of me, since I had to put down dozens of your kind on my way here!”

“What do you mean your kind?” The undead snapped its head at him, green eyes growing wide. It then banged a fist to the left wall. “You bastard! How dare you take me for one of those stoneless, bone-headed lessers? I’m an honored soldier of the Ninth Legion, an officer in the making! I won’t take your insults if you keep acting like that!”

It drove its sword deep in the ground, then unhitched the straps binding the chestpiece to its bones. Slowly, without keeping its gaze away from Valens, it removed the armor, and revealed its upper body.

A gasp escaped Valens’s mouth. He had to shade his eyes when green light burst forth from the undead’s chest, shimmering from the heart-shaped stone pulsing in the left side of its chest.

“Get a good look! My Heartstone is the proof of my identity. I’m not a criminal brought from its rest by some dark work! I’ve earned my place in the Legion’s ranks!”

It snorted as it put on the chest piece once again.

The frequencies… Valens had never quite heard anything like that before. That stone had a song, hidden under the greenish lights that seemed to be of the same nature as the fog surrounding him.

But that alone wasn’t enough for him to lower his guard.

“You’ve mentioned a Pact,” Valens said, checking his mana pool once again. He hadn’t enough for a Fireball, let alone another Inferno. He had to stall this creature. “Tell me, then, is this a part of the trial? Are you one of those mad Magus’s minions? Did he put you up to it? What does he want from me? I don’t know why he’s making me suffer in this wretched, damp, rot-smelling, skeleton-infested cave!”

“You don’t know anything?” The undead seemed to arch an unexisting eyebrow at those words. “Do you really expect me to believe a Priest to suffer from amnesia?” It waved him off. “Look, I get it. You are scared and it can get tough here under the ground with all this black magic going around, but my folks often tell me that I have considerate bones under this armor, so I’ll give you a pass.

“Now, speak, how in the Nine Hells a Priest like you is here in the Broken Lands? You don’t look like you’re one of Zodros’s people. Don’t you know the Duality Guild and the Ninth Legion have claimed this Rift for the Queststone? How did you slip inside?”

Valens wobbled stiffly back on his right leg, wincing slightly under the undead’s heavy gaze, but he was beginning to get a little furious. “First of all, I’m not scared, just baffled by the notion that there are corpses talking and running in this place. And I have every damn right to be!” He breathed, then went on. “Secondly, stop calling me a Priest! I’m a Resonant Healer. And for your information, even if I’d lost my memories, amnesia is a particularly difficult subject as it takes time and gentle care to nurse the mind back to its original state. It is not something you can patch over with a cloth and expect it to get the job done. We’re not talking about fixing a bunch of bones here. So stop blabbering, and tell me the true reason why you blocked my path. I’m getting sick of this little game!”

“Dear Lord… A mad Priest. Great. Reckon it’s fair. I’ve deserved it. Anyway, Hook would crush my bones if he hears I left a Priest to die here, so I’ll tell you.” The undead sighed out a long breath. “The Pact is a simple business alright. A deal between Melton Kingdom and the Ninth Legion. When a Rift opened in the Westleaf Town, the Duality Guild made a bid for it. Now, normally you wouldn’t expect a D-tier guild to try to challenge a C-tier Rift, let alone the authorities to accept their suicidal interest. They have those tiers for a reason. But the nature of the matter was different. Our Lord received a strange offer from Melton’s King. He promised gold and steel in exchange for our help.”

“Wait. Stop,” Valens raised his hand. “This isn’t simple at all. I barely understand a thing.”

The undead tipped his head. “Right… You forgot, eh?”

“I—“ Valens scratched at his stubble, feeling as helpless as a pipe clogged with the winter’s ice. It didn’t work. Nothing he was ever going to say would make this creature understand him. So he decided he might as well play the part. “Yes. I don’t remember. I’m amnesiac and sick in my mind. Happy? Go ahead, speak.”

“You…” the undead breathed. “What else do you want to know?”

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Valens gave it a look, and said in the manner of a stubborn student demanding the questions of the test. “Everything.”

….