What We Do to Survive

It took four painfully long minutes to get Cayla into a state where I felt comfortable moving her. My diagnosis spells told me she’d cracked and broken a number of bones, but thankfully hadn’t punctured any organs or major blood vessels. As long as I was careful, I just needed to get her to Avalon’s hall of healing. Her body would be fully healed by the end of the day and I was pretty sure there shouldn’t be any lingering soul damage either.

After some deliberation, I ended up paralyzing her with a third-circle combat spell––a full stasis would have been better but I just didn’t have the time or materials–– then transmuting a rough, padded sack around her with a strap that I slung over my shoulder.

Through it all, my mind was still racing with all I’d just seen and heard. Professor Williams’ words couldn’t have been any more clear if she’d gone and said it all outright. It looked like I had at least one class for next semester locked in, and if that wasn’t an invitation to take her as my mentor after fourth year I didn’t know what was. I didn’t really know what I’d done to make her like me as much as she clearly did, but I wasn’t going to question it. Well, not yet at least.

Furthermore, I’d finally remembered where I’d heard the name Miira before. It was the name of the false god that Lea’s uncles had prayed too when I visited them for dinner. I had no idea how that had happened, but I guess it hadn’t really been a false god after all? Or maybe it had? If there was a connection between gods and outsiders, I didn’t know anything about it.

Well, it was dead now, so hopefully I wouldn’t have to worry about it. I just needed to gently nudge Lea away from whatever beliefs they had tried to press onto her. Outsider cults, and this certainly seemed like one, were dangerous. Information about them tended to be incredibly suppressed.

Summoning and dealing with outsiders tended to be horribly illegal in most countries and even Avalon had strict rules about when and how it could be done. I’d done some more research after Miranda had told me her story and I’d mentioned the possibility of helping her resummon her mother. If I ever went through with the attempt I would have to jump through an enormous number of hoops without even considering the difficulty of the magic itself.

Stepping out of the warded area Professor Williams had prepared around us, I found the air outside was noticeably hotter and drier than it had been inside. There was so much ambient mana in the air that it almost hurt to breathe and cut down my sensory range to nearly nothing. It would disperse soon, but for now someone without a mana core would be dead in minutes from soul damage.

That wasn’t even mentioning the slowly dispersing remnants of the strange, oily-looking energy that the outsider had been using and the lesser outsiders that I knew were still lurking around here somewhere. Professor Williams had gathered most of it, but some traces remained, sending shivers down my spine every time I looked at them too closely.

After the outsider had been destroyed, the portal above it had snapped closed almost immediately stopping any more things from passing through, but I had seen quite a few of horrors scurrying away with all possible haste during the fight.

Our carriage was a lost cause. I only needed a brief glance to see that. One side was fully caved in, half the wheels were a shattered mass of kindling, and the horses we’d hired along with it were both dead––mundane animals simply couldn’t survive in the aftermath of so much magical energy being thrown around.

That was rather annoying, but it was a problem I could worry about later or preferably never. Cayla had hired the carriage through family connections and I was confident her parents could cover the cost. That was basically the point of acquiring her after all.

I was about to hurry away when I felt two weak mana signatures flickering at the edge of my awareness. It was the carriage that had passed us on the road right before the explosion, I realized quickly.

The carriage driver was dead. I could see his corpse sprawled across the road a few meters away from the overturned vehicle. It looked like he’d been thrown clear of the wreckage and broken his neck on impact with the ground.

Inside however were two survivors. They’d gotten lucky. I could feel the remains of wards carved into the bleached-white wood of the carriage. It hadn’t been enough to protect the carriage itself, but it had likely dampened the shockwave and impact enough that the people inside had survived.

On their own a pair of survivors wasn’t enough for me to care. I didn’t particularly care if two total strangers lived or died. Judging by the location and carriage they were almost certainly nobles and would be fine. Xethis barely had a justice system in the first place, and nobles could get away with literal murder as long as their victim wasn’t rich or connected enough to make someone important take notice.

However, this wasn’t just anyone. Now that my mind wasn’t addled by whatever had been going on with the outsider, I recognized the insignia on the carriage. More than that, once I got a little closer to the carriage I recognized the mana signatures as well. Even as weak as they were and with my senses further muddled by all the mana in the air, I had spent too much time familiarizing myself with those two signatures to ever mistake them for something else.

Before I really knew what I was doing, Cayla’s bag was on the ground and a razor-sharp blade of hissing force was cutting through what had once been the top of the carriage. Wood parted like butter in the face of my magic, the wards that had once reinforced it completely overloaded by the fight and preceding shockwave.

Once I’d carved a reasonably large circle through the wood, a tendril of telekinetic force grabbed the disk and pushed it out of the way, giving me an unobstructed view into the carriage. Sunlight poured in through broken windows, shining down on two battered, unconscious bodies. Doran and Nettle Shieldlight. Two of the students that had attacked Lea the night I’d first found her.

My eyes flickered between the unmarked bag I’d made for Cayla and the pair of bodies inside the carriage. I was strong, between my natural build and circulations I could pretty easily carry Cayla’s dead weight. Another bag was probably manageable. Two more? Unlikely, it would simply slow me down to an unacceptable extent.

I bit my lip, horribly aware that time was ticking. I needed to get out of here. I really, really shouldn’t have stopped for this. I’d already decided that I was going to take care of them later. Later.

Lea’s face flashed before my eyes. There was dirt smeared across her bruised cheeks and her crystal-blue eyes ran with hot tears of pain. I could almost hear them again…

‘A proper brothel’s too good for a twat-eating hag like you’. The crack of bone and a heart-wrenching shriek of pain. ‘No room for a dumb slut––’

The Shieldlights had a manor around here. We passed it on the way to the Warbringer estate. There could be Shieldlight mages scrambling towards here even now. Doran and Nettle were the Lord’s third and fourth children, not heirs but still important members of the family. The Earthshadows were already after me, did I really need to make more enemies in Xethis right now?

But… there they were. Right there. They’d hurt Lea. I’d seen them hurt Lea. My Lea. Mine. The thought of just turning away made my heart clench and my soul ache more than it already was.

I took a deep breath. Doran was on the shorter side, but heavily built. His white vest was stained red with blood leaking from his nose and I didn’t have time to use the diagnosis spells that could tell me if there was anything else wrong with him, but he certainly didn’t look good.

Compared to him, his twin sister had gotten away considerably better off. She’d been sitting closer to the blast than her brother and his body had cushioned her impact against the carriage wall. Unless there was some internal bleeding I couldn’t see, my force spike had done more damage that night, though I wasn’t sure if she’d lost consciousness from the impact or from the mana overload.

Looking at her, she honestly reminded me a lot of Adonia, with the same heart-shaped face, olive skin, and nearly-black brown hair. Considering how insular Xethis was and how often the nobility intermarried, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were related in the last few generations.

She was rather pretty, all things considered. Xethian nobility tended to favor youthful, willowy builds with a hint of lean muscle and she fit the image to a tee, but in my eyes she couldn’t hold a candle to my wonderful Lea. That someone like her had dared touch somethi––someone so beautiful, so wonderful, so kind… It was unforgivable.

I had to consider things logically. He was heavy, she was slender, and thus light. She was comparably much less injured. There was a chance if I tried that he wouldn’t make it all the way back to Avalon, or ever woke up even if he did. The decision seemed easy enough from there.

It certainly helped that I could still see the arrogant sneer from that night echoed on her face. I hadn’t let her finish her sentence then, but her words had reminded me why I loathed useless, worthless nobles. They were almost as bad as elves in a way, so much potential and wealth wasted on fools happy to squander it.

I could definitely find a better use for her than she ever had.

A tendril of force roughly dragged her out of the carriage and dropped her onto the cracked granite beside me. I folded her in half at the waist to save space, paralyzed her temporarily with the same spell I’d used on Cayla, and then packed her away in another transmuted bag.

I wanted to do more, but there would be time enough to make her regret messing with my Lea soon enough and it wasn’t like she was conscious to feel anything I did now. I grabbed both bags and took a few steps back away from the carriage. The weight was noticeable, but I could manage.

I gave the carriage one final look. Well, no reason to leave any evidence behind. Or survivors. It was an easier end than he deserved, but all the books I’d read told me to tie up loose ends whenever possible. There was even an entire chapter about it in the Avalon student handbook. I’d just have to make sure to take his fair share out on his sister instead.

A tendril of force looped around his neck and then squeezed until I felt his spine crack and windpipe collapse under the force. A moment later, force became fire. The padded benches caught first, followed quickly by the curtains and bits of wooden scrap.

I turned my back on the growing conflagration and hurried away. Best not to test my luck any further. I hadn’t managed to do everything I wanted to in Xethis, but I’d accomplished more than I had been expecting this morning. I had felt bad about the idea of testing spells and potions on an innocent nobody like my darling Rea. I had no such compunctions about Nettle.

Two down, five to go. Adonia and the others would simply have to wait until I was ready to deal with that monster Seatamer. Those who had hurt my Lea would learn to regret it eventually. I had waited for a decade already. I could bide my time.

Professor Williams had opened my eyes today. Someday, when I could make the world itself tremble before me, I would be back. Seatamer, Earthshadow, Firewalker, and the others would all learn the error of their way.

For now though, I needed to get back to Avalon. I hurried away, the carriage rapidly becoming just one more fire amidst the destruction. Despite the circumstances, my lips were stretched into a broad smile.