The OP Lich is a Returnee, Chapter 91

Chapter 91 – Preparations

After dealing with the seal of Life in Australia, I did not immediately run to the next seal, but instead returned to my castle in Japan. The reason for that was simple enough. Now that my quest was revealed to the world, and the seals were all under guard by more than just their guardians, I could make preparations so that there was less chance of something going wrong. Preparations that would have been impossible if I was still trying to keep things quiet.

Part of those preparations were why I was back at Athelian Arms, with my crafting students. They were all busy, of course. Traditional crafting methods took time, even with a master’s hand. Sometimes, they took time because the hand was that of a master, and they knew that haste meant waste. A table could be put together far faster with wood screws and power tools than it could by fashioning traditional joins into the wood itself, so that the weight of the table itself kept it together, locked in place, and prevented things from wobbling about. One could be done by any random person with a kit they bought at a store; the other could only be done by someone who knew their craft, and put in the time to make it happen.

However, there was still room enough in their normal work load for my project. Especially since it was quite important. After all, making a delivery of an enchanted necklace on time was a good thing, but that paled in importance to ensuring that there actually was a world that humans could live in, rather than the unpleasant alternative.

Fortunately, this was not a case where we needed to do anything terribly fancy. These artifices were not intended to be something used for the long term. Indeed, once activated, they would only work for a month at most, before the enchantment overwhelmed the wood that they were carving runes into, and the magic would fail. However, by that time, I knew that the situation would have already been handled, or I would have had time to devise something more permanent.

The artifices themselves were simple enough. Each one was a wooden plank, twenty centimeters long, five centimeters wide, and two centimeters in thickness. The wood I chose for this was ash, thanks to some of its properties. Each plank had runes carved into them, which would cause three spell effects to snap into place.

First, it would lock the plank’s position in space relative to the Earth. This would effectively anchor the plank, and keep it from being moved about, even by heavy seas, as well as protecting the plank from outside damage and forces. That was important, since the planks were going to be positioned in a wide circle in the ocean around the island where the Seal of Water was located. If they were able to be tossed about, then the other parts of the spellwork would either fail, or potentially turn into hazards.

The second spell effect was a sterilization barrier. Any microbes, algae blooms, or other unseen nastiness that tried to escape the area of the seal would find themselves annihilated by the barrier. The number of planks helped ensure that there would be no gaps in the barrier, which would extend down to the sea floor, and above the ocean’s surface to a height of one thousand meters.

Third, and most important, was a repulsion field. This field would convince any creature with base instinctual awareness or better that there was ‘danger ahead’, and make them turn back, away from the field. Even thinking creatures, like humans, would feel it. Only those truly mindless creatures, like algae, or those immune to mental influence, such as most undead, would not feel that compulsion to turn back. Any creatures that somehow had the strength of will to overcome that urge would be met with the sterilization barrier, and like an insect hitting one of those old bug zappers, they would not appreciate the experience much.

The whole thing was transient and rushed, of course. A proper barrier spell would be anchored on something more durable than wood. Stone, most likely. And it would be placed on the island itself, so that it could draw power from the earth, rather than trying to pull it out of the ocean or air, which were less conductive. Most importantly, it would be tailored, so that only those creatures or beings who were unwanted would be kept out, rather than keeping everyone and everything at bay.

That kind of barrier, though, required more knowledge of the land, so that you could properly put everything into the spellwork. It was also a fair bit more permanent, and not something you could just turn off and on at will. In other words, what my students and I were making was the equivalent of taking chicken wire and running it between several hastily planted stakes in the ground to make a temporary barrier, while the proper work would be a stonemason or bricklayer putting in the time and effort to make a sturdy wall. That was preferable for permanent fortifications, obviously, but was less than ideal for a temporary measure like this.

While it was a temporary measure, and most certainly rushed, I was proud to say that my students did not do shoddy work. Forty-eight planks were carved and enchanted, and each one of them passed my inspection, meaning that they would do their job, for the length of time I needed them to. My students, tired as they were from the effort, were all pleased with my praise of their work.

Of course, I needed more than just that barrier if I was going to be certain of victory. There was a very real chance that the seal would be completely underwater, or at least have submerged areas. Probably with aquatic monsters ready to attack. It is how I would have set things up, and I had to assume that the people creating the seal were at least as clever as I was.

Fighting underwater was troublesome. Even discounting the whole ‘needing to breathe’ bit, being undead and all, I was still forced to admit that an aquatic creature would be able to press me far harder than they had any right to in their native terrain. Not only would they have attacks that worked with the water, rather than against it or in spite of it, but their movement would be more fluid and instinctual. That was just asking for some creature to humble you, in my opinion.

It was the same reason that one did not fight a Greater Mountain Roc in the air unless you had no choice. Humans may have found ways to fly through the skies, may have even found ways to give themselves wings. However, they merely adopted the skies. The Roc was born to the sky, molded by it. A Roc would not touch the ground until they were nearly full grown, and going on their first hunt.

So, I needed something to even the playing field. Water breathing enchantments were child’s play to me, so any living creatures who came with me would be fine, in that regard. Same with the cold, the dark, and the weight of the water itself, if we found ourselves in the deeps (or at least a space mimicking the deeps). Already, I had trinkets in my armory that would allow the living to deal with such things, since I had at one point considered an invasion of the Demon King’s lands from the sea, before I settled on marching through the Free Kingdoms to assault his lands.

No, the challenge was going to be movement, and the way that water interfered with the senses. Sight and sound were my primary senses, and though my ability to see magic and sense living beings would help cover for those senses being hampered, it would not be enough, especially if I was still limited to a human’s methods of movement. And that, too, was a great challenge, as even if I could see, it would mean nothing if I was stuck trying to swim in my arms and armor.

Of course, I did not have to reinvent the wheel, here. Even if the people of the other world tended to use summoned heroes rather than ensure that their people could stand on their own, there were still adventurers, and other types, who sometimes needed to go in the water, and they needed to be able to fight when they did so. Which meant that I had several options to choose from when preparing to face the seal’s defenders.

The first option as to get an aquatic mount. This was the simplest option, and the easiest for even weaker warriors and mages, since the mount’s senses and innate swimming abilities would cover for much of the rider’s deficiencies. However, it was not ideal, even if you found a way to share senses with the mount. Guiding a mount underwater was far more difficult than riding a horse, and a knight’s training would work against them. Worse, knights often got unhorsed in battle, and if the aquatic mount was not as durable as the knight riding it, then even a slightly clever enemy could kill the mount, and then the knight would be helpless. That, as one might guess, was a bad thing.

The second option was to ‘fly’ through the water using magic. Whether it was the normal flight spell, or a variant designed to be used underwater, this offered the spellcaster a way to move in three dimensions that would be more familiar, and would take less time to accustom oneself with. The drag of water would affect them, of course, and the flight spell wouldn’t help with the senses, which would need additional magics to overcome, but it was possible. However, using such magics meant that you would have less reserves to give to the fight. That wasn’t an issue for me, typically, but it was something to keep in mind as I weighed my options.

The third option was the deceptively simple one of “turn into a sea creature”. While that sounded like a perfect solution, on paper, since you would have the creature’s senses, and be able to move like they did, it was not without its pitfalls. The normal transformation did not give you the instincts of the new form. It also tended to subsume your gear into the transformation, keeping it safe while you were a fish or octopus, but removing all the enchantments and magical effects they offered while they were suppressed in this way, unless some special enchantments made them necessary.

That third option was actually slightly worse for me. With the new forms would come the strengths of those forms, certainly, but I would lose some of my own power while doing so. Being a Lich conveyed a great many benefits, after all. I had boundless stamina, immunity to many harmful effects, and my affinity with death magic was greatly amplified. Those would all go away temporarily if I turned myself into some other creature.

My human guise that I often wore when I didn’t want to be in ‘Lich Queen’ mode was not the normal version of transformation magics. It essentially coated my bones with flesh, and gave me the outward appearance of being alive. I still had all the same strengths and weaknesses I always did, but to any nonmagical test I looked normal. And that spell had taken me a great deal of study and trial-and-error to complete, and it had only been that easy because I was very familiar with the human form.

There was a fourth option that was only really possible for someone of my magical power. I could create a barrier underwater, and drive back the sea. However, those kinds of tricks only worked when the sea had somewhere to go. If I was in an underwater cavern, then my spell might result in bringing the whole thing down on my head as water tried to force rock out of the way. It was an option, if I wished to fight on the sea floor in the open ocean, or needed to get my forces across a sea, but, in the end, I had decided long ago that it was a waste of mana just so that I could pretend to be someone out of an old holy book. Still, I had not forgotten the spell, so it was another weapon in my arsenal.

Unfortunately, this was one of those times where there were no perfect solutions. The closest I could get to the perfect option would be to prepare all four methods of dealing with the water, so that I could adjust accordingly, depending on what was needed. It was a lot of work, but I was someone who had conquered the Demon King and all his armies. A bit of work did not frighten me.