He walked through the city with purpose, his eyes set ahead. This was where he found out if Ebi was really a scam or not, and what was going on with all the fierce mana. On second thought, he’d truly be making a mistake if he brought Ryota. The man seemed to be the core of everything, or at least a powerful source of fierce mana. Bringing a man who got triggered into a berserk state by fierce mana into the center of some kind of fierce mana zone seemed like a real bad idea to Rhys, now that he was thinking about it. He nodded to himself. Good thing I’m a smart guy who thought of all those things when he decided not to bring his volatile friend along.
He’d fixed the location of the triangulation in his head thanks to his new and improved magely eyesight and brain, giving him the power of super geometry and excellent memory, sometimes, for some things. To his surprise, the location the three lines pointed toward was in the center of the city, right in its beating heart.
He frowned. That’s not great. In fact, it was bad in a lot of ways. First off, if whatever this was went nuclear, the way he knew fierce mana not only could but tended to, it was right in the middle of town. Chernobyl 2.0 in the making. Second off, it meant that whoever was doing this was almost ready to set it off, since otherwise there was no reason to risk doing it in the middle of town, surrounded by mages. One of those mages might get ideas and do something about it, after all. They probably hadn’t expected prince serial killing to be on the table, but well, who knew? The princes were in a succession battle. Why wouldn’t they?
Third, and scariest of all, it meant that whoever was doing this was bold enough to either know it didn’t matter if they got caught, or connected-slash-powerful enough that it wouldn’t matter either way. In this world, it was most likely both. If they were Tier 6, he still stood a chance. Tier 7 or 8? Yeah, he was cooked. At that point, his only hope was that he could somehow corrupt whatever they were doing and warp out like he was fighting Calamity Pigman. Even then, he’d be praying he had the timing down well enough to not get vaporized on the way out. Though even then, he wasn’t sure he could have the timing down. A two tier gap was brutal. At Tier 5, he was pretty confident that even if a Tier 3 had a warp, he could probably kill them before they reached it, activated it, or whatever, and there was a decent chance that he could still hit them on the far side of their warp, even if they did. So I guess I just have to hope that whoever’s doing this is a wildly incompetent high tier mage.
Rhys swallowed. I’m cooked. I’m so cooked.
No, no, no, let’s focus on the positive and pretend this isn’t orchestrated by someone way over my tier! Yeah, yeah. This is all a plot by Fifteenth! I know he messes with fierce mana, and I know he’s participating in the succession battle actively! He has the motive to seed all these princes with fierce mana. And it’s even possible that he could’ve done it in their childhood. The more I think about it, the more likely it feels. Yeah, it’s definitely Fifteenth. For sure. For real, for real.
He put his head in his hands. If even his internal monologue was getting sarcastic about it, there was no hope.
Well… maybe I’ll just take a look, and then walk away and leave it alone and forget I ever saw anything. It’s not like I’m contractually obligated to interfere. I mean, I have a compulsion to interfere in things, but I can suppress that! It’s like masking my mental status conditions when I’m out and about. I just pretend like I’m not freaking out and act all normal-like and everything’s fine! That, but with not interfering. Yeah. I can do that.
A little voice whispered that he hadn’t been very good at that lately and that Ryota was definitely double-guessing their enterprise as a result, but he ignored that voice. It wasn’t a nice voice and it shouldn’t get a vote at the table even when it was right.
He drew closer to the spot he’d mapped out, extending his mana senses as far as they’d go. To his surprise, or rather, as he’d expected, he sensed nothing. He extended his trash senses as well, the impurity-based ones, and for the first time in a long time felt the annoying twinge of anxiety as they activated. He couldn’t help it, though. He was scared. Earnestly, honestly scared, for the first time in a while. This entire region was higher tier than the one he’d come from, but most of the people he’d interacted with were the puffed-up princes, with no real combat strength, or their flunkies, who were the best the princes’ limited budgets could buy. The fights he’d had that even qualified as being on his power level were limited. He hadn’t at all fought anyone above his strength. And that was fine; it was nice, in fact, after a lifetime punching up, to finally punch down a little. A bit trashy, maybe, but hey, what about him wasn’t?
Now, for the first time in a long time, he was coming up against a threat that wasn’t only a danger to him, wasn’t only on his power level, but could very well be stronger than him. A real threat, no—something beyond a threat. Something that could treat him the way he’d treated the princes, stomping all over them unilaterally without any sense of danger in return. I’d have to be insane to not be scared, he noted, taking a slow breath to ease the anxiety. Fear was healthy. It was natural. Fear meant he still recognized a threat for what it was.
But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
The point where all three lines intersected was right in front of him. From the outside, it appeared to be an ordinary line of townhouses, for the poorer or more thrifty city-dwelling mages. When he extended his ordinary mana senses toward the buildings in front of him, he saw what he expected to see: empty townhouses, though with signs of life strewn here and there; a bowl of fruit, an unmade bed. When he used his impurity senses, though, he sensed nothing. A void. The buildings in front of him were a massive hole. His senses reached their edges and bounced off, unable to penetrate the flimsy-looking walls.
Rhys swallowed. He’d expected to see enemies. High ranking mages, guards, alarm formations, trap enchantments. To instead see nothing? His stomach plunged to his shoes, and sickness welled up in its place. It was the most terrifying thing he could have sensed. It meant, without a doubt, there was something here, and not only that: whatever it was, that something was covered in a barrier that even his somewhat cheating, backdoor senses couldn’t peer through. In other words, a barrier that was so beyond his tier that his hard-earned techniques were reduced to the pitiful tricks he knew they were before it.
Cookedge.
He kept walking, pretending not to be terrified, stymied, and curious about this sudden turn of events. So… what now? He hadn’t successfully taken a peek, and to turn back now, after all the work he’d done to get here, without even finding out what all this fierce mana nonsense was about… No, I can’t do it. He’d be curious until the end of his life, forever burning up with curiosity about whatever was hidden beneath that barrier. Even if he had to force his head under the curtain to take a peek, even if he got hammered in return for his bad decisions, he couldn’t turn back now.
Right from the start, he’d known it. There was no way he could keep himself from meddling. Rather than pretend like he was going to be smart and turn back, he might as well admit the truth: that he was always going to meddle, whether it made any sense or he could survive it or not. It was in his blood. He was a born meddler, at least this time around, anyways.
Rhys took a deep breath. He found himself wishing he’d told Ryota what he was doing, where he was going, anything, so the guy could find his corpse, if nothing else. Not that he planned to die, but at this point, he had to admit it was a real possibility. Fuck around and find out, after all, and this was some world-class fucking around.
Oh, wait. I can!
Rhys opened a hoop, then took out a scrap of paper and a burned bit of charcoal. He scribbled a quick note to Ryota: About to do something stupid. If I don’t come back within an hour or so, then either run, or take a peek through this hoop. Your pick, but pick one of ‘em. I don’t recommend sticking around and doing nothing.
He shoved it through the hoop to the hoop he’d dropped in Ryota’s hotel room just a short while ago, then connected this hoop and that hoop so that even if Ryota jumped in alone, he’d still land on the other side of this hoop. With that, he stepped forward, striding confidently toward the block of townhouses. It might be stupid, but gods damn it, it was his stupid decision, and he’d stand by it. He was going to find out what was on the other side of that void, even if it killed him!
But not through the front door. He, in fact, strode confidently toward the side wall of the townhouses, hidden in a back alley with few people around. He didn’t want to walk right into the villain’s lair from the grand entrance; he wasn’t that foolish. If he was going to do stupid things, he was going to do them as smartly as possible, and that was that!
The wall loomed. Rhys lifted his hand, preparing to corrode his way in with impurities, but instead of touching a wall, his hand passed through thin air, touching nothing.
The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Rhys swallowed and shivered. I don’t like that. Steeling himself, he continued to walk forward, stepping through the illusory wall with his whole body.
On the other side of the wall was a barrier. Unlike most barriers, this one was opaque, and not only that; square, instead of a dome. He looked up and found a tiny black cube marking out the upper corner of the square not far from him. Somehow, he had the sneaking suspicion that it usually perfectly matched the shape of the illusion, giving the false walls solidity. For it to be so ajar like this implied that they were so close to finishing… whatever they were doing that it didn’t matter.
Not only that, but I feel like I’m being invited in, and I don’t like it. He eyed the opaque barrier. He knew it probably wasn’t the case, but he had the uncomfortable impression that he was being watched from the far side, that the black barrier was a one-way mirror and he was on the shiny side, so to speak.
At this point, he was already in it to win it. There was no way out but through. Maybe if I think of a few more platitudes, I’ll feel better about this. Rhys bit his lip, then sucked in a deep breath. He put his hand to the barrier. It was time to see what was on the other side.