Someone other than the receptionist led me to the apartments here in Arconia which were reserved for Rank Three Liberomancers. Instead of actual small houses available for rent like back in Arconia, due to the limited space on the hill, these were more like traditional apartments back home. They were rows of blocks neatly piled atop one another, up till five stories tall.

Back on Earth, the higher or greater your reputation was, the higher the floor you worked or lived on usually would be as well. The CEO’s office was often located on top of the building, and hotels had their VIP suites at the very top. This was only possible because of the invention of modern elevators - in earlier times, it was the opposite. The floors on the bottom were more expensive, because it was far more cumbersome to take anything to the upper floors.

Thankfully, there were still some buildings whose ground floors were empty even with them being more coveted than their higher counterparts. You’d probably be hard-pressed to find empty housing in this city, but this was all reserved for Rank Three Liberomancers; who usually preferred to live in fancier places than this as they had the means to do so. But it was perfect for someone like me, who was traveling as it was far cheaper than a similar hotel room would be like.

The inside was minimally furnished with just the bare essentials when it came to furniture, but that was fine with me. It was rather spacious though - I estimated it was between two to three times the size of an ordinary apartment would’ve been, and it had a good number of windows.

That might seem like an odd thing to compliment, but I knew from talking to a few people in Arconia that a large number of apartments only had a single small window with very poor ventilation. I remembered someone telling me that at minimum you would want two, ideally opposite to each other, so that air could easily move in through one end and out the other, ensuring a good amount of circulation throughout the day. However, many people could not even afford that kind of luxury.

“How do you find the accommodations?” my guide asked. He was a short man wearing glasses, and had worn an unchanging poker face throughout our entire interaction.

“Wonderful, I can’t complain.”

“Right, regarding this-” my guide continued. “-I do wish to inform you of one thing. We received a complaint, to put it mildly, from the Liberomancer’s Guild back in Arconia. I’m afraid you will be limited to at maximum two servants while staying here, Master Liberomancer, and that we might occasionally send someone to check up on such at some times. We request you comply and cooperate with us in this regard, otherwise we might have to strip you of your privileges of renting out a place like this in the future.”

I realized what he had been getting at - did news of that stunt I had done with some of Granny Qi’s villagers really spread this far? Well, I guess it was only natural that the two Guild branches would talk to each other. I was expecting that. I just hadn’t expected for them to take such offense to what I had done. At the time, I was only trying to help out some people who would otherwise be homeless - but I think what really had burned them was the fact that they had invited even more people in on top of it.

They had even charged me a higher cleaning fee than usual when I had moved out and back in with Granny Qi once the siege had ended, but I had thought that meant that it was all just water under the bridge and the matter had been settled. After all, I was not only a Master Liberomancer, but a war hero to boot. Surely they wouldn’t hold a grudge over something that small - such had been my line of thinking.

Clearly things were more complicated than that. Or, maybe there was another way of looking at things - it was because I was respected so much that they were even giving me this second chance and not just revoking my privileges immediately after that incident.

“Don’t worry,” I said, reassuring the man. “I had only been trying to help out some of the relatives of someone who I knew by offering them some kind of employment during the siege - I hadn’t been aware they were going to try to bring in more people behind my back. I don’t know anyone like that here, and the siege is over - regardless, there’s nothing for you or the Guild to be concerned about. I can promise you that.” I relied on the guild for a lot, and I didn’t want to risk offending them in a way that would lead to an irreconcilable difference between us.

“I see,” he said. “Would you like for a woman to be arranged for you then?”

“Eh - what? Excuse me?” I sputtered out incredulously.

“If you don’t know anyone in the city, we can find someone to help clean and cook for you,” he said. “The guild doesn’t keep such people on its payroll, but we could find you someone reliable on your behalf, and quickly at that. Of course, you’d still be expected to pay their salary.”

“Oh, like a housekeeper or maid?” I realized, fighting to keep my face from flushing. When he had ‘offered a woman’ I had thought he had been referring to something else. But of course, the Guild might’ve done quite a lot for me if I asked, but they obviously weren’t going to indulge in arranging that kind of service. “No thank you, I can handle things on my own.”

While I had gotten used to many of the privileges of being a Master Liberomancer, I still couldn’t really get with the whole servant thing. Coming from modern time, it just felt weird. And I honestly didn’t want anyone else where I was living, touching my things. I did remember something else though that might’ve been helpful. “Back in Arconia, I was given some ink and paper every month to help me with making grimoires and the like. Would the same service be extended to me here?”

“I will have to check up on that, but I will get back to you,” he said. When I didn’t add on anything for another minute, he added, “Will that be all?”

“Er, yes, thank you very much,” I said.

He left and I walked into the apartment. I had very little to unpack, and just tossed my stuff in a corner. I then washed myself before almost collapsing in the bed.

Back on Earth I read about people in old times traveling for weeks or months on end to get to where they wanted to go - though it never really hit me how exhausting it would’ve felt! I had taken a long flight with my parents for vacation once - it lasted fourteen hours, and even that had felt like it had drained a lot from me. And yet, that was nothing compared to the time I had spent coming here.

That was why I really wanted to find a way to fly - it would’ve made the journey so much shorter and far more convenient, and I wouldn’t have gotten into that odd situation with that Liberomancer who had tried to rob me.

The bed was comfortable - almost too comfortable after time spent sleeping either on the floor or on rough and doughy mattresses in villages. It was like I was sinking into a giant spoon of mashed potatoes.

And yet, sleep came anyway.

I woke up a few hours later, feeling a bit refreshed.

Now, it was onto business.

First off, I was too tired to cook so I got something off the street. A lot of houses in the capital, I’d heard, didn’t have working stoves. Some of them back in Arconia didn’t either - but it wasn’t because of a lack of cheap fuel - no, it was because in many buildings it would be a massive fire hazard.

I hadn’t exactly been forbidden from cooking in the apartment, though I had been warned to be careful. With [Create Water] I couldn’t see it becoming an issue, but I was already on shaky ground when it came to this whole apartment thing and the guild, so I was definitely going to be very cautious about that.

Much like back in Arconia, most of the street food was seafood. I bought a fish skewer from a local vendor, noting the fact that it had been overcooked slightly but not bothering to really care in the moment. I just wanted something to fill my stomach.

Next, it was time to seek an audience with the king. I hadn’t received any specific date or time, just an invitation to meet with him, as it had been unclear when I’d finally be able to leave Arconia, but it would take time to settle this out, so it was the next thing on my to-do list.

While Lance, the governor of Arconia, had lived in a palace, the king lived in a proper castle. It was designed, much like the rest of the city, entirely for defense. Many of the guards wore proper plate armor, which you didn’t see often back in Arconia - they mainly used wooden lacquer pieces combined with leather jerkins there. It did not look like a comfortable place to live in and even had something of an oppressive aura to it. With that being said, there was an air to the place that spoke of several centuries of history and culture behind each and every brick or stone used to build it, even if it didn’t look nearly as comfy as Lance’s palace.

As could be expected, there was a long line of people who were seeking an audience with the king - humans and lizardmen alike. The line led to a building right outside the castle walls. People were not allowed to enter the castle grounds proper unless deemed to have good reason for such.

I looked at the line apprehensively - this could very well take until sundown, I realized. But I wondered if I might be able to use my influence here to make things go a bit faster. I had gotten into a number of quagmires because of my reputation, why not try to see if it could get me out of one?

Actually, as I thought about it and reached for the invitation in my pocket; I realized that all might have been completely unnecessary. I had been invited here by the king, hadn’t I? And I remembered then that it also had his seal on it.

I went up to the guards and showed them my invitation, and they led me right to the front of the line.

Several people glared at me, likely wondering why it was that I was getting such special treatment, until they saw the purple sash I was wearing; and seemed to just shrug it off afterwards.

I felt bad about this, because some of them might have been waiting in line for a few hours…

...but on the other hand, this saved me the problem of having to wait in line for a few hours.

“I see, so this is it,” the lizardman overseeing the requests to see the king said as he examined my invitation. He nodded to one of the guards. “Without a doubt, it’s genuine. Ah, we will send word to the king, Master Liberomancer, and will get back to you in a few day’s time.”

“Do I need to come back here?”

“Not at all - we would not dream of wasting the precious time of an esteemed guest such as yourself,” he said, and it struck me that he was being rather uncharacteristically polite and cooperative for a bureaucrat. I doubted he was this way with the others in line. “Just leave your address here and we will send a messenger to your place.”

“Thank you.”

“The pleasure is all ours.”

I walked away, quite surprised that I had managed to get this thing off my list in just under ten minutes - if you removed the time it took to get to the castle in the first place. It had actually taken more time for me to get to the castle than it had taken to fix a potential meeting with the king.

I decided to explore the city a bit before returning home.

While the place was cluttered and congested, there was quite a bit of history that you wouldn’t find back in Arconia. As an example, a shopkeeper I was talking to pointed to a nearby bridge and said, “Oh, you’re new to the city, are you Master Liberomancer? That over there is the bridge where a single soldier made a brave last stand and fought nearly three dozen others before being killed - unfortunately, his name is lost to history, but there used to be a statue honoring his sacrifice before it was destroyed when the Ruler of the Astral Winds took the city. So, anyway, would you prefer the red or the green robes - ah, actually, this new kind of design has been in fashion lately if you’d like to see it before making a decision…”

Between the two places though, I definitely felt that Arconia was a better place to live. History and culture were all fine, but it couldn’t beat the freshness of open spaces and clean air.

Once I got home, I started reading the grimoire I had gotten that gave [Ansoon’s Blessing]. Thankfully, I remembered a good portion of it, and I was able to shift through the first few pages far faster than I otherwise would have.

It was rather late in the night when my mana ran out and I fell asleep, leaving the rest for another day.

The next day, the Liberomancer’s Guild had followed up on a few of my requests.

For one, there was more than enough paper and ink to last a month delivered to my doorstep. They had also furnished me with a few bags of rice.

As for grimoires, they had found a Rank One mana-raising grimoire and two Rank Two grimoires that did the same as I’d asked for.

It had been hard to find grimoires like that which I didn’t already have, and it was a bit disappointing that I had only gotten three, but I supposed that was to be expected.

I had consumed nearly all the ones back in Arconia which I could find after the siege was over, and these were just the ones made in the capital that hadn’t found their way down to Arconia in significant numbers yet.

They were a bit pricey, but that was to be expected given the expected demand. And it wasn’t like they were not worth the price. Three grimoires meant my mana bar went up by three points, which meant there was an extra [Grand Fireball] or [Shark Tornado] I could cast whenever I was fully charged. And it meant it was slightly faster and easier to both read and write grimoires.

I had to get rid of some of the old grimoires I knew to make way for these three, but it was an easy enough decision regarding what to get rid of. Things like [Self Insight] were rather redundant if I could just make my mana bar as large as possible.

I was in the middle of reading more about Lady Ansoon when a messenger arrived telling me the king would be ready to meet me in one week, and had invited me to dinner hosted in the castle for the same. They left a scroll with the proper invitation as well as the time for me to show the guards on that day, and I thanked them.

One week… well, I was planning to stay in the capital for a while before heading out. I wanted to see if I could find some more grimoires, as well as read the ones I had in the safety of a building. I did not want to land up in another situation where I lost a grimoire because something happened in the wilderness like it had back in Arconia during the siege.

I was very close to finishing the grimoire which gave [Ansoon's Blessing]. I had to say, it was one of the few grimoires that I had genuinely enjoyed reading - not just for the sake of getting a new power-up. The ending, whether it was fictional or not, was quite heart-breaking. It was a story that had likely been heavily romanticized by the lizardmen after all; but I thought that it was more likely that Lady Ansoon had just been the first person to discover that waterfall that flowed in reverse than her chancing upon a river spirit. Arconia was not as well-developed during her time, and so it was not unreasonable to think that the waterfall had been lying there unknown for quite a while.

As for why it flowed in reverse, it was more likely to be a form of ‘natural magic’ like Granny Qi said rather than a spirit’s charm.

At least, after listening to both the human and lizardmen versions of stories regarding that waterfall, that was the conclusion I thought was most probably true. Much like how, personally, I doubted it was the actual Spirit of Darkness that led to the Ruler of the Astral Winds getting killed. The whole Spirit of Darkness convincing the Blood-Emperor to wipe out a village seemed far more metaphorical than anything.

As a matter of fact, I was beginning to heavily doubt whether or not spirits were an actual thing in this world. A lot of people, even those like Master Jiah Pei, thought they did - but no one could claim to have actually met or seen a spirit. Everyone seemed to know somebody who knew somebody who swore their neighbor’s stepson living across the city had seen one.

Was it weird to doubt the existence of spirits in a world where magic was real? I mean, even if magic was real - the magic of the Liberomancers followed certain strict rules unlike what the spirits were supposedly capable of. And just because magic existed, it didn’t mean that this was a world where ‘everything goes.’ Even if I didn’t fully understand why the rules worked like they did, there still clearly were a specific set of rules like being unable to write a grimoire of a higher rank than you.

As such, the thought of there being something which could completely bypass these rules, creatures most definitely existed as per everyone, but no one had concrete evidence of struck me as being something more than an exaggerated fairy tale rather than fact.

Regardless, they were said to be extremely rare anyway, which meant the chances of me ever running into one were practically zero. So real or not, I didn’t see any need to dwell on the matter.

Sun Jiao was lying in a cold cell, fast asleep. After Stefan had turned him over to the guards, they had locked him up while deciding what to do with him.

“Human…” a voice called out, startling him awake.

“Wh-what’s going on?” he mumbled. His cell was suddenly completely dark, there was no light from a nearby torch or lantern like there was earlier, and even barring that, there should be something coming from the window like either starlight or moonlight.

Somehow though, his cell was completely pitch-dark; and the source of that voice unclear.

“Human,” the voice repeated. It seemed to come from everywhere around Sun Jiao, and it carried neither warmth nor a trace of kindness. It was a voice as cold and unforgiving as the north wind, and Sun Jiao withdrew a little in his cell when he heard it again, but where could he go? There was only darkness all around. And even if there had been better lighting, he was still trapped in the prison cell. “You may consider yourself fortunate, human, for having been graced with my presence. Your heart cries out for aid. The hearts of many humans cry out each night, and yet, so few of them are blessed enough to receive my answer. I can hear your soul scream out for power - power that I can give you, human. So long as you take care of a matter of mine you may have it. There is a man who is somewhere near this city who I need to be… removed…”

***

The last page of Lady Ansoon’s epic, where it described how she was given her ability as a blessing by the river spirit, read:

“If only my brother had this, he would not have perished so!” Lady Ansoon lamented as the spirit imbued her with this power.

“And yet, with this, you will ensure that many will be saved your brother’s fate,” the spirit answered. “And each person whom this ability saves is precious to someone - someone’s brother, uncle, father, sister, mother, or friend.”

There was a short paragraph describing how the waterfall then began to flow backwards, and a few lines about Lady Ansoon’s later life before the grimoire ended, and the paper turned to dust as each and every single word in it was inscribed into my memory. Unfortunately, as it had been written in the lizardmen language, though I could memorize it, I would be unable to create a replica in my own language.

That didn’t matter to me though, because this was an invaluable skill.

Being able to be completely invulnerable for an entire minute - though that didn’t sound like much, to someone like a Liberomancer who would otherwise be extremely weak when it came to physical attacks’ to whom most battles boiled down to ‘if I don’t kill my enemy in a single hit they’ll kill me,’ the extra minute greatly expanded one’s longevity in a fight.

Knowing that you could charge with reckless abandon for a full minute opened up so many possibilities not only for attacking, but also retreating.

Of course, it had its drawbacks. You couldn’t cancel it in the middle, say fifteen seconds in, and then spend the rest of the forty-five seconds later on in the day, because it was always used up at once - due to this reason you had to be very careful when you activated it to not use it too early. On top of that it did nothing if you were already somehow taken by surprise and hit already, which compounded the first issue as there was no point in using it too late either. It also couldn’t be cast on an ally, only on yourself, though you could potentially make yourself invulnerable and stand as a wall to shield them, but you would have to be next to them to do that and it wouldn’t shield them from area-of-effect attacks like [Grand Fireball].

I had managed to finish it the evening before my meeting with the king. There were other useful grimoires I had purchased but still needed time to read. I had managed to find grimoires that gave [Twin Summons] and [Shared Souls] easily enough, but one that would give [Recall Summon] was still elusive - that was somewhat to be expected though as it was a Rank Three skill unlike the other two which were Rank Two.

No signs of a grimoire that would let me fly were found either, but I was not disappointed as I had been expecting that.

There were also no lightning elementalists in the city - I had wanted to see if I could speak to one to possibly charge my smartphone; as unlikely as a possibility that was, the rewards if it were to succeed would be enormous. But, forget this city, on further inquiry it didn’t look like there was someone like that in the entire country. It was not a popular specialty to branch into in these regions.

So that, much like a grimoire that would help me fly, would be something that would have to wait till Hitutsa.

The day had come for me to meet with the king, and wanting to make a good impression, I arrived a whole hour early.

I had left my fancy set of robes back in Arconia, but I had bought a new set for this specific occasion. I would have preferred to rent them instead because it would be a pain carrying something else around like this, but there was no such service that I could find.

Drake had tried to school me on proper etiquette back in Arconia, but he always gave up in the middle of our lessons because even he seemed to find the whole topic boring.

Now though, as I was standing before the castle gates, I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t asked him to teach me a bit more - or even went to Zeke for help!

This was a king for goodness sake, and I had heard that in ancient times, people could be executed just for saying the wrong thing to a monarch! Granted, those were stories and I didn’t know how accurate they were, but even if he didn’t kill or imprison me, ruining my reputation would be enough to make things extremely difficult for me going forward.

“Uh, the king isn’t going to guillotine me for speaking out of line, is he?” I had asked once Drake.

“Nah, you’d probably have to get up onto the table and urinate all over it in front of him to get that kind of reaction from him,” Drake had answered lazily. “Relax, you’re young and a foreigner to boot, not to mention you’re a human. Lizardmen expect less of you. And remember that His Majesty is the one who invited you in the first place, he wouldn’t want to do something that would make him seem like an ungrateful host. Also, you’re not a normal person anymore - you’re a Master Liberomancer and a hero to boot, so relax.”

I really hoped what he had said that time would hold up in reality.

“Ah, Master Liberomancer,” the guards said, upon seeing my invitation. “You are a bit early - but why don’t you come sit in the reception area while you wait? Someone will call upon you when His Majesty is ready.”

They searched me for weapons, which I could somewhat understand - but given that Liberomancers in this world had built-in weapons that could be more destructive than a sword or spear, I sort of thought it was pointless. One of the guards did detect my demonic spell, though they had known about this already and led me inside.

The inside of the castle, much like the outside, clearly had been built for business rather than pleasure. It wasn’t as flashy as Lance’s palace, though there was still the odd statue or painting here and there depicting a member of the royal family.

Overall though, it still gave off a claustrophobic and gloomy sort of feel much like the capital itself did. The number of windows was somewhat limited, likely because they would be a liability in the event of a siege, so the air also felt somewhat stale. No doubt about it, I would have preferred staying in Lance’s palace.

I was offered refreshments, but I felt too queasy to eat anything, not to mention we were going to be having dinner later on so I didn’t want to fill my stomach prematurely. It felt like only a few minutes, but the hour was up almost immediately and I was led into the banquet hall.

It was as spacious as the castle would allow for but once again there was a gloomy presence that seemed to hang over it. The lighting was not as good as it otherwise should have been - possibly because the heat from so many torches might cook the guests waiting for dinner like they were in an oven. As for windows; they had to be careful with those also as those were potential vulnerable points that could be exploited.

A long table that could’ve seated forty people was piled up with food. At one end there were two lizardmen sitting who were also wearing purple sashes like I was, and at the head of the table was the king himself.

Naturally my eyes went to him first.

What struck me the most was how thin he was - most lizardmen, particularly those like Zeke or Drake who were trained warriors, had large, prominent muscles. He, however, looked slightly shriveled up, though his golden scales still had a vibrant vitality to them. He was wearing a small golden band on top of his head - of course, an actual crown would be too cumbersome and heavy to wear all the time. His robes were a rich scarlet and had depictions of dragons prancing across them. He had a strange sort of wrinkle under his nose which almost made it seem like he had a thin mustache, but I knew the lizardmen didn’t have facial hair so that was just a trick of a light. Overall, he certainly did fit the moniker of ‘dragonman’ rather than ‘lizardman.’

Other than the three sitting at the end of the table, there were the guards in the room, who eyed me warily, but didn’t do anything as I slowly approached the head of the table.

“Your Majesty,” I said, bowing, folding my hand across my chest just like Drake had taught me.

“Please lift your head, Master Liberomancer,” came his voice. It was a lot like Jiah Pei’s, a bit old and weary, but still one that carried significant authority. “This is not an official state dinner, more of an informal one I threw around - ah, not to say that I didn’t quite look forward to meeting the Spider King of Arconia in person!”

I grit my teeth - why did they have to give me that stupid title again? That said, I guess maybe it sounded cooler in the human or lizardman language used in Chipker, because it sounded kind of lame in English.

“Ah, I didn’t know that Your Majesty had heard of that little nickname,” I said.

“He’s not the only one,” one of the other lizardmen said. “We were all wondering whether the daring feats they said you had done were true or not.”

“I see that one thing was true,” another one said. “You do in fact have a demonic spell.”

He must have had [Demonic Detection] as an ability- come to think of it, it occurred to me that I should probably get it. I was planning on heading towards areas which were less heavily populated in the future, and though the likelihood of running into a demonic Liberomancer was close to none - there could be another incident like with that Liberomancer who was also a thief where I needed to be sure of that.

I would ask the guild about that tomorrow.

“Now, now,” the king said. “I think introductions are in order, though we all know who Master Stefan Dawson is, I wonder if it is the same likewise.”

2025-10-03 10:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 8-10

The second fish didn’t seem to be enough, however.

“One more please?”

“Do I look like your personal chef?”

“Hey - you can’t keep your prisoners starving, you know, that’s cruelty of the utmost kind,” he said. “And - this is not me buttering you up or anything, but this is some of the best fish I’ve ever had! Granted - I’ve been hungry for quite a while, so that probably enhances the taste quite a bit.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been told that before,” I said. I handed him another fish. “Do you think that mana grows on trees?”

“Hmm? Don’t you regain it with time anyway?” he asked between bites.

“No - that’s just a saying I heard somewhere,” I said sighing. It meant that you couldn’t waste it on frivolous things, especially during a time like the dryad siege.

Once he was done eating, I tied his hands behind his back with some of the leftover silk that was intact.

“The way to the capital is that way,” he said, gesturing with his chin.

“And why would I believe you?”

“Hey, I want to get out of the wilderness as fast as possible, same as you,” he said. “And plus, I figure, if I help you out like this- you’ll owe me one, right?”

“Not really,” I said, as the bear hauled him on its back as we set off.

I confirmed with a village along the way, but he was right - and by afternoon, I could just barely make out the outline of the city in the distance.

By then of course, my bear had vanished, but after a few hours, I was able to bring out the Tyrant Arachnea again.

“Please not again…” the man moaned, as we took off, moving throughout the night.

I ignored his protests and dozed off as by next morning, we were there.

I had heard over and over again that the capital was the most important place in the entire country from a militaristic point of view. It was along the easiest route to travel along if one wanted to go through the country, and most of the major roads passed somewhere near it. The city crowned the crest of a large and steep hill, surrounded by a pair of sturdy walls. The most dangerous place to be was in the spot between the two walls, where you would be under fire from both sides. And with Liberomancers, it just might be actual fire.

Without a doubt, it was far easier to defend than Arconia. It was also smaller than Arconia.

No branch of the Ragini flowed near it, so it did not have easy access to water, though this had been why the dryads had completely bypassed it while marching to Arconia. Instead, a large aqueduct was visible in the distance which was used to water the nearby fields, though with the city’s elevation, it was not really feasible to construct something that might bring in fresh water directly into the city.

There was a long line to get in through the main gates of the city, and unlike Arconia which had two gates, the capital had three.

One, the main one, was for the common folk. There was a second for Rank Three Liberomancers and other minor officials like in Arconia, and there was also a third that was reserved for foreign dignitaries and the like as well as the royal family.

I had to ask someone where the gate was for Rank Three Liberomancers, and though some ordinary people flinched at the sight of the bear, one of them was kind enough to point me in the direction I needed to head in.

I couldn’t walk into the city on the Tyrant Arachnea, but bears were common enough summons that the guards wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I approached riding one.

While the sight of a bear might’ve been common enough, the guards were clearly put off by the fact that I was carrying a person with me, who had taken the chance to yell out as much as possible that I was trying to kidnap him or alternatively sell him into slavery based on whatever he thought might get him out of this situation. Both of which made no sense if I was heading right into the capital.

‘I knew I shouldn’t have felt sorry for you…’ I thought.

“Halt - ah, Master Liberomancer, what is going on?” a guard asked me, seeing my purple sash.

I handed him two documents, one was the invitation from the king, and the other the letter from the Liberomancer’s Guild explaining how I had a demonic spell. I still couldn’t read, but I did recognize the seals used to sign both of those documents which is how I told them apart.

“In case you’re wondering, this man is a thief who tried to rob me on my way here,” I said, pointing to the guy. “Disregard whatever he’s saying. I brought him in.”

“Ah, another one?” he muttered, exasperated. “Well, I am going to need a statement from you, and signed as well… you have to understand basic procedure and whatnot. I’m sorry to bother you.” The letter from the king and my purple sash were enough to earn the guard’s deference, and my prisoner quieted down upon realizing that no one was going to listen to him.

I nodded.

It was still a bit of a ‘he-said-she-said’ thing with our testimonies, but it was my good luck that they found that the guy had been convicted for several crimes before this had happened. Given that, they didn’t doubt what I had said whatsoever and let me through after taking him into custody.

“One question,” one of the guards asked. “Are you by any chance… the Spider King of Arconia?”

I sighed. That name still felt very strange to hear. “I didn’t pick that title for myself, but yes…”

The other guards, most of whom up till now were playing some kind of card game in the background, shifted their attention to me upon hearing that.

I was asked a few other questions - not part of the official questionnaire for new visitors coming into the city, but about the recent siege of Arconia. I tried to keep it succinct, but it still lasted over fifteen minutes as they kept interrupting me and piling on questions while I was narrating it.

“Is it true that you slew twenty thousand dryads with a single spell?”

“It was at most six thousand, and I used multiple spells,” I said. The number, based off rumors, had apparently jumped up from ten thousand to twenty thousand. Next they were going to say that I had wiped out the entire dryad army by myself and that too with a single wave of my hand. It did feel nice to hear some of these stories initially and I found them somewhat amusing back then; but the more they became exaggerated the more I was beginning to dislike them. But there was little I could do about that- fanciful tales like that traveled far faster than someone like me could correct them. At last I had had enough and said, “Apologies- but I have some things I need to do within the city. Will this take much longer?”

They seemed to get the hint and then waved me through inside, and they did tell me where the Liberomancer’s Guild was - which would be my first stop.

The city, at first glance, did not seem that much different from Arconia. There were a few more guards scattered around, and the humans made up a slightly larger proportion of the population than in Arconia, but were still a minority. There were familiar sites all around - shops selling fish, bookstores, people walking their axolotls.

One thing that was significantly different however was that the city felt far more crowded than Arconia - because it had been built primarily from a militaristic point of view, and had to be restricted to this hill, space was of course quite limited. I saw far more multi-story stacks of buildings than I had in Arconia, and some of the alleyways were so narrow that people living on the higher floors could reach out their windows and shake hands with their neighbors.

From my own rough estimate, I guessed that the city was about a third the size of Arconia when it came to land area, though I had been told its population was under half of Arconia’s. The air also felt more… stale, for lack of a better term, maybe just because we were far from the river and the sea. I had been to cities like Chicago and New York back on Earth, and the air sort of reminded me of the air there - and not in a good way; but in that it also smelled of that strange mixture of pollution, waste, and garbage.

I still somehow managed to nearly get lost despite being given clear directions by the guards - I was used to knowing where I was going after having been in Arconia for so long that I hadn’t been paying too much attention where I was headed until finding myself somewhere completely different from where I was supposed to be. In a way the somewhat familiar surroundings made things more awkward- as if I should’ve known where I was going but didn’t.

The attention also didn’t help with matters - for one, I hadn’t run out the timer on my bear summon yet, so I was still riding it into the city. This was not an entirely unheard of thing even back in Arconia, but it would naturally still draw quite a number of eyeballs. Secondly, people noticed the purple sash - I had half a mind to remove it, given that I was now outside of Arconia and so people wouldn’t recognize who I was if I took it off. On the other hand though, removing it would mean I was just another foreigner, and I had already experienced how that felt for a while and had no desire to repeat that.

At least people respected me when they saw the sash- and that respect meant that I could usually get help if I wanted to.

The Liberomancer’s Guild was a bit harder to find than it was in Arconia, because surprisingly enough the building wasn’t as lavish or large as its sister back in Arconia. It still radiated an air of stately elegance and history - the kind that very old buildings, those that had stood for several centuries did, but it seemed to be designed more for practicality than elegance just like everything else in the capital.

I ‘parked’ my bear outside. There was an area for summons that the Guild had, which is where I left it. There was a giant lizard in the pen as well, but neither animals so much as flinched as I put the bear there. Of course they wouldn’t - they were summons after all.

With that done, I headed inside.

I made a beeline for the nearest receptionist- a lizardman, but that didn’t bother me. I knew that upon knowing I was Rank Three, even if he had missed the sash I was wearing, I could be assured I would be treated well.

“Yes?” he asked. “How may I help you.”

“I’ve traveled recently from Arconia,” I said. “I am a Master Liberomancer - Rank Three, my name is Stefan Dawson. There were several business matters I had to take care of - but first, I think there is a grimoire that is waiting for me? And secondly, I would like to rent out one of the houses reserved for Rank Three Liberomancers.”

The lizardman was nothing if not professional. “Certainly - just give me a moment. Do you have an identification plate?”

I pulled out a plate that was engraved in iron coated with a thin coat of palladium so that it would not rust easily. It had my name on it, and was written in both the lizardman and human language, meaning I couldn’t read what was on it other than my name; but it supposedly also had my rank on it, my achievement of becoming a Master Liberomancer, and also a unique ID number.

The guild retained this kind of record for all of its members, though for Rank Two and lower members it was usually just paper records. I hadn’t needed this kind of plate before, which is why I had never even withdrawn it from the guild, but I had asked for a replica to take along with me as I traveled. The original was still there in Arconia, for reference.

He came back five minutes later. “Everything seems to be in order, Master Dawson. We do, as a matter of fact have the grimoire you were looking for - though, I was told that you knew a demonic spell and had a letter explaining such? May I see that before we go onto other matters?”

I pulled the letter out, the guards at the gates hadn’t made much of a fuss about it and let me through with little issue. So I found it weird that he wanted to place such importance on it that he wanted to see it first.

After a glance at it, he handed it back to me. “Thank you; right this way Master Stefan.”

The grimoires that the guild held were kept secure deep within the building. The Rank One and Rank Two grimoires were kept behind a locked door in the back with a few normal guards and perhaps a Liberomancer to watch over it.

In truth, it was rare for grimoires to be stolen - particularly at that level. Stealing a grimoire would no doubt stain one’s reputation, and it was not worth the trouble of cheating the system at the risk of potentially stunting your future growth. Not to mention it wasn’t just your own reputation you hurt - if you had a family, or children who would be aspiring to be Liberomancers in the future, their prospects would also be cut short.

Was that fair? I mean, I didn’t think guilt by association was something that could be justified - but it was another way of keeping people in line. Most of such things were not official punishments anyway but more of social rules. If people simply refused to buy or sell things with you, there was little you could do about it in this world.

Rank Three grimoires and templates on the other hand, had to be even more carefully guarded.

The surest way to keep a grimoire safe was to never make a copy - the only copy that would exist would be in the mind of the Liberomancer, which could not be stolen. Many countries and universities had powerful grimoires they wanted to maintain within their borders, or in the case of families, within their blood lines. This was a method that had a hundred percent success rate - the issue was what would happen if the one person who knew it died unexpectedly before they could hand it over to another? Also, practically speaking, if a grimoire was that good, you would want at least a few people whom you trusted to also have it.

Even Rank Three grimoires which were not all that exceptional, had to be guarded carefully - take something like [Grand Fireball]. Many Rank Three Liberomancers in Arconia knew it - to the point it would be easier to find someone at that rank who didn’t rather than someone who did. Despite being very common, it still needed to be heavily regulated as its destructive power was immense - no one would want for something like that to fall into the wrong hands.

Even if you could successfully pilfer a Rank Three grimoire without being caught, it would still raise issues if others thought that you had an ability you weren’t supposed to - which is why the guild kept such a close track on the sales and purchases of Rank Three grimoires. If you were Rank Three, underhanded measures were not worth the hassle and it was better to just wait for another copy to appear on the market or until you had the required funds.

If you wanted to steal it to sell to someone else - most people would not buy Rank Three grimoires on the black market either, given how much they would be risking their own reputation. At least, that was what I had been told.

Deep down I was sure that there had to be some kind of ‘black market’ for the same, even if it was infinitesimally small. Drake and Zeke had both told me there was nothing of the sort in Arconia, though how much could people like them be relied upon for that kind of information?

In this way, the theft of grimoires was extremely rare, and would probably remain that way even if they were left completely unguarded.

The incident where one of Zeke’s grimoires had been stolen had made such a ruckus precisely because it was something that so rarely happened. And who had been the culprits? Demonic Liberomancers, not people integrated into normal Liberomancer society.

Still, some amount of nominal security had to be kept for the lower-ranking grimoires, and serious ones for the Rank Three grimoires.

To get to that area, we had to pass by a guard, and led through a door, which opened up to a staircase from which we went two floors underground.

This next area was a bit of a maze - likely designed this way deliberately, though the lizardman seemed to know it by heart.

There was another door, with another guard, which led to a narrow hallway. I couldn’t help but notice the murder holes that littered the sides with my [Unobstructed Sight] even in the dim lighting. No doubt there were either a few Liberomancers who could easily attack us if it came to blows, or just regular soldiers. At this close of a range, even Liberomancers could do little against a spear thrust.

Before I could feel too claustrophobic, the hallway opened up into a room that was filled with drawers that were labelled numerically.

The lizardman opened up one of them. “Here.”

I was handed a grimoire, and indeed, it gave [Ansoon’s Blessing] like I had asked for. There was also a small note attached to it, which was not magical, so I couldn’t read it as it was in the lizardman script. “Ah, what does this say?”

He took a glance at it. “Oh… well, this is a note from the writer, he asks that you be careful with this grimoire as he was greatly saddened by what happened to the last one. He also says he will refuse to make you another if this one is destroyed in anyway, as he expects his work to be respected.”

I tried hard not to let my embarrassment show - it clearly referred to how I had ended up ruining my earlier copy in the middle of battle.

To my credit, it had not been intentional - on the other hand, I could see how many people would see this as being unforgivably careless with an item so valuable. It could even be seen as being highly disrespectful to the author. After all, each Rank Three grimoire was handmade by a Rank Three Liberomancer, someone who had dedicated a great deal of time and effort to their craft. No doubt anyone who had worked hard on such a grimoire would be quite upset to learn that their efforts had essentially been wasted - still, did he have to write something like that on a note?

“Ah, I see,” I said. The lizardman didn’t know what the note was referring to, most likely, and I saw no reason to explain it to him, my embarrassment notwithstanding.

Before we could go back to the reception, he had to call another receptionist to verify the whole transaction, I had to sign on a piece of paper and leave my thumbprint, and I had to cough up a small fee for this whole security feature.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asked.

“Yes - there were a few other grimoires I wanted to see if I could find,” I said. I made the requests for things like [Twin Summons], [Shared Souls], and [Recall Summon] of course - though I was also interested in any mana-raising grimoires just like everyone else. I put in a request to search for a grimoire that would help me fly, but I knew that I would likely come up empty-handed on that front.

Was it worth it to find another Rank Three creature to summon? I did not have [Second Summon- Rank Three] as of yet, and I doubted I would find a copy before going to Hitutsa, but it might’ve been worth a shot to get something other than the Tyrant Arachnea. Perhaps something like a Giant Earthworm Queen that could dig very well - that could be useful in some situations, not just for getting away, but also for making temporary underground shelters.

I just didn’t know if I would find one during my short stay in the city.

For now though, I kept that idea on the back burner, because there were only a set number of Rank Three grimoires that I could read in a given time period, and it made little sense to buy too many, even if I still had some of the reward that Lance had given me - because I ran the risk of them being lost or destroyed. The note from the author of the grimoire about Lady Ansoon’s tale felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket as I thought about how that might feel.

“How do you find the accommodations?” my guide asked. He was a short man wearing glasses, and had worn an unchanging poker face throughout our entire interaction.

“Wonderful, I can’t complain.”

“I see,” he said. “Would you like for a woman to be arranged for you then?”

“Eh - what? Excuse me?” I sputtered out incredulously.

“I will have to check up on that, but I will get back to you,” he said. When I didn’t add on anything for another minute, he added, “Will that be all?”

“Er, yes, thank you very much,” I said.

He left and I walked into the apartment. I had very little to unpack, and just tossed my stuff in a corner. I then washed myself before almost collapsing in the bed.

And yet, sleep came anyway.

I woke up a few hours later, feeling a bit refreshed.

Now, it was onto business.

2025-09-26 10:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post

The Siege of Arconia: Chapter Forty-Eight Rewrite

So I gave you guys early access, and while there are times that I edit some minor things before or after they go up for free on RoyalRoad, those are usually small edits. With this chapter though, I went back over it and added what I think is substantial extra right now, and so I'm sharing the rewritten (longer) version here in case you'd like to see it before it goes live on Monday:

As I held the piece of paper in my hand, I had to try not to laugh. I didn’t want Zeke thinking that I was making fun of him but… his idea seemed somewhat preposterous. Like it had come straight out of a children’s fairy tale. “So… this is like a treasure map?”

Zeke sighed. “I know, I know, it sounds unlikely, and more likely than not the map leads to something else, like a religious site or a tomb. But, I always dreamed of one day being able to go there, or to lead an expedition to see where this map lead to. Of course, I can’t do that.” He let out a weary smile. “I deluded myself into thinking I might do so once I retired, but now that I know more of what my father’s job entails and what it really means to be governor, I know that I will never get time to do something like that - not unless I abandoned my responsibilities completely. And I cannot do that. But, if you want to go towards that area anyway, and you wish to explore this world for an answer to your worries… I’ll give you this, and if you ever come back to Arconia, how about you tell me what it lead to?”

I took a look at the original map. “This isn’t in an a language I know…” That was a big hole in my ‘the Ruler of the Astral Winds was from Earth theory’: the fact that if it were so, people would recognize the language I had written my grimoires in, unless he knew a language other than English. However, I had seen some grimoires from Hansini when the Book Fair had come to town, and none of the writing systems matched anything that I could think I’d seen back on Earth.

Still, even if such wasn’t the case, Hansini was one of the biggest hubs of Liberomancy in the entire world - it could be said to be second only to Serragnia.

My first choice of destination was not Serragnia for a number of reasons, chief among them being that it was much further away than Hansini.

“Alright, I can agree to your terms,” I said, carefully taking the pieces of paper he offered me. “If I end up finding something cool, maybe I’ll send a message through the Liberomancer’s Guild to tell you what it is.”

The Liberomancer’s Guild of every country were independent of each other - but they oftentimes communicated with each other. Maybe not with other guild branches a massive distance away, but definitely to those who were situated next to each other. In that way, like a game of telephone, you could pass on a message through the various institutes, and although it would be slow, it would still be faster than walking back to Arconia unless I somehow found a way to teleport.

With that said - if I actually found a horde of Rank Four and especially Rank Five grimoires, I would do my best to keep my mouth shut about what I had found.

Liberomancers relied on cooperating with each others, yes, but they were also simultaneously competitors. The benefits of cooperation were constantly weighed against the risks that a competitor would later use what you shared with them against you - at Rank One and for a good part at Rank Two cooperation was greatly favored over competition.

It changed drastically at Rank Three given how much more powerful Rank Three grimoires were - and Rank Four grimoires were so closely guarded that you could never find one on the open market.

If a Rank Five grimoire existed, or was rumored to exist in a place, I had no doubt that multiple countries would readily declare war on each other just to seize it. Yes, people were bound by rules and regulations - but that was only until the benefits of breaking those rules and regulations outweighed the negative effects. And a Rank Five grimoire would doubtlessly be such a treasure. If it got out that I had one, there would be many people, most of them Liberomancers, who would not hesitate to kill me to get their hands on such a grimoire.

The Ruler of the Astral Winds had been forced to hide most of his misdeeds or do them secretly when he had been Rank Four - but could do whatever he wanted when he was Rank Five. Why was that? Because Rank Five was just that much stronger than Rank Four, to the point where he was said to be practically invincible! Only a demonic Rank Four grimoire had been able to defeat him, and seeing how much more powerful [Crimson Lance] was then an ordinary Rank One grimoire I could only imagine how powerful that Rank Four demonic spell might’ve been.

“I thank you for that,” Zeke said, now returning to his usual business-minded self. The excitement that initially adorned his face was now gone.

I had felt sorry for Drake, but I couldn’t help but also feel a twinge of sympathy for Zeke right now. There were clearly other things he wanted to do in life, but being the elder sibling, he must have been under a lot of pressure to perform, not only for his sake, but also to set an example for his younger brother. And he must have set aside many of his desires, like exploring this area, for that sake.

“When will you leave?” Zeke asked.

“In a few weeks,” I told him.

He shook my hand. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to meet again before you leave, but if we can’t - I wish you luck on your journey, Master Liberomancer.”

I chuckled. “Am I still entitled to call myself that?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Zeke said. “Neither me nor my father have any desire to contest that title of yours. As far as I’m concerned, you made something new - that this world hasn’t seen before, and that is good enough to get that title. I finished that grimoire you had made by the way, soon, they might call me the Spider King of Arconia.”

I couldn’t help but smile - in a way, much like seeing those Elephant Frogs being used during the siege, it was nice to see what kind of lasting legacy I was leaving in this world. Back on Earth, I had been nothing more than average. Here though I was something akin to lower nobility - I had already managed to make somewhat of a difference, even if that change was rather miniscule in the grand scheme of things. I couldn't do much to change society as a whole in the way that I would've liked, but my contributions had likely saved the lives of at least a hundred people in the city.

It felt good to feel important, but not nearly enough to deter me from finding a way home. And as it was, even if I could enact societal change on a far-reaching scale, I knew that I lacked the requisite knowledge and experience to be able to make do so and that I would more likely than not just mess things up. What worked on Earth might very well not work here in Arconia, after all.

“Were you able to make a translation?” I asked him.

Although Charlotte’s Web was written in English, it was still possible for Zeke to speak the translation he knew out loud for someone to transcribe or just to try to write it himself.

The problem was that might not necessarily work. Certain things did not translate well between languages, and the more complex the work, the higher the likelihood that the translation might fail to make a successful grimoire. There was even the possibility that it might work but give an entirely different skill or spell because the translation was that far removed from the original.

On top of which, certain things like poems which relied heavily on wordplay were practically impossible to make faithful translations of that would work as grimoires. So were things that involved technical terms from my world - how would one translate things like ‘quantum physics’ or ‘electrons’ into a language of this world accurately?

Charlotte’s Web was not exactly that complicated, but it was Rank Three, which greatly diminished the chance of that kind of thing working out.

“I haven’t tried yet - most people would not even consider it worth attempting,” he admitted. “But if I can, we could potentially make other copies for our people to use in the future. Despite the massive cost involved and the extremely low probability of success, it still might be worth it for the potential payoff.”

If there was another dryad attack, this grimoire would without a doubt form a great pillar of defense. Not to mention [Summon Tyrant Arachnea] was a useful spell in and of itself even without the combo.

We spoke of some smaller matters before wishing each other luck.

As I exited, I remembered that there was still one last thing I needed to take care of - if I didn’t, I couldn’t feel like I’d left things unfinished here in Arconia. My conscience just wouldn't rest easy if I did not do so.

“Granny Qi…” I said one day, when I felt like the time was right. Or was the timing really right? She was just having breakfast so I also thought that maybe I should put it off for now…

...when was the time right for something like this though? I was going to be leaving soon, and I also knew that if I kept kicking the can down the road I’d never get it over with - it was best just to peel off the band-aid right now.

“Yes?”

“I uh, have something I’d like to tell you before I leave…” I began.

I had already told three people the truth of where I came from: Lance, Drake, and Zeke. It didn’t feel right to not tell Granny Qi as well.

The only thing was that this felt harder than those other three - I had been living under her roof for quite a long time. How was I going to justify why I had hidden so much from her?

Secrecy had made sense initially, but I had kept things from her for a very long time. There were multiple points of time where I felt it would’ve been appropriate to come clean to her.

“…it’s about where I actually come from. I’m sorry, I wasn’t honest with you earlier, but I wanted you to know before I left,” I began. She stopped drinking her tea, put her cup down, and folded her hands on the table.

I had her full attention now.

And so I told her about Earth - how it was like and how I’d gotten here. How I was looking for a way back, and that I hadn’t found one as of yet. That the reason I was leaving Arconia was to see if I could find a possible way back to Earth. There were some things I had to omit as I wasn't even sure how to properly explain them like details from my world that she likely wouldn't understand such as computers, but I had a long time to ruminate over what to tell her and I felt that it was digestible enough even to someone like her.

Once I was done, I waited, wondering how she was going to react. She had listened while maintaining a flawless poker face throughout, though I felt like her eyes could bore holes into my head given the intensity with which she was looking at me.

“...so that’s it,” she said and finished the remaining dregs of her tea before going to go wash her cup.

...

What?!

“Um, is that is?” I asked. “I thought you’d have more of a reaction…”

“Oh, I knew you were hiding something for a very long time,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “I’m actually just glad it didn’t involve some kind of crime. I had the craziest theories before, though it looks like the truth is stranger than fiction, isn’t it?”

“Yeah…” I said. "So... you believe me?" Not even Drake had believed me at first, initially thinking that it was some kind of elaborate joke.

"Of course I do, it makes sense regarding everything that happened, and above all..." she said, "...I trust you."

And that was it - she never felt the need to bring it up again.

With that said, I don't think that she fully realized the whole implication of what I'd just told her. I was rather sure that unlike Lance, she did in fact believe me. But it seemed that she had decided long ago that whatever my reason for being here was; that it didn't matter.

She did, however, acknowledge one thing - that my parents must have been worried sick about me. "If you were my son, I would've been beside myself if you vanished without a trace. And for you, to be stranded so far away from them in a foreign land..."

Her eyes would occasionally become misty at those words. "Don't worry," I reassured her, even though I was not too sure of what I said next. "I'll find a way back somehow."

It was a bittersweet feeling - now she finally understood the gravity of my predicament, but at the same time, only when I was about to pack up and leave.

Maybe I should've told her this earlier? My heart certainly would've felt lighter if I'd had gotten it off my chest before this point, though, it was only from hindsight that I could've known that she wouldn't have reacted badly to what I'd told her.

The rest of my days were spent in trying to arrange for supplies which was harder than I'd initially assumed. How much food did I need to take with me? And what about other things like oil and the like? I'd never traveled anywhere that required anything more than a single suitcase before, and I felt like I was overpacking certain things given the fact that I was relatively sure that I could resupply somewhere down the line - and at the same time I was sure that I was definitely missing something essential but would only realize that until it was too late. Like that time I had once left a smartphone back in a hotel after a vacation with my parents and only remembered when our plane was already in the air.

The city began to be less congested as people became more willing to venture out and to see if things could be done to rebuild. Zeke had asked me to go out with a scouting party one day just to see how things were outside the city and what it would take to rebuild. Long story short, my summary was basically 'things are pretty bad and will likely cost a fortune to rebuild' and I was sure that he could already figure that out without my help. Since I was going out to specifically see how the surrounding area was rather than escorting people to Granny Qi's village, the destruction was far more noticeable even though things had to have improved since that time I went out.

Maybe he was also hoping that it might convince me to stay a while longer, but I just couldn't. The people here needed help, yes, but there was a limit to how much I could try and stop by to assist other people on my journey. There would without a doubt come a time when I would stumble upon a problem that might take forever to solve, and I would just have to move on if I wanted to get back home. As cruel as it might sound, I would likely just have to say 'not my monkeys, not my circus' at that point.

The day of reckoning soon arrived - the day when I was set to leave Arconia.

Out of one last moment of desperation, I made my way to the same place where I had spawned in this city, as if saying: “Hey - I’m leaving the city for good, so if you want to show me a path back home, you better do so right now!”

But nothing happened, and so, I could only go through with my decision to leave.

My plan was this - I would first make my way to the capital, get some things done there like buying grimoires and the like as well as meeting the king, after which I would make my way to the University of Hitutsa.

There, I would try to find more information if I could about anyone who may have come from Earth, as well as getting a grimoire that would help me fly.

Afterwards, my plan was to eventually make my way to Hansini. There were actually two large merchant caravans that passed through Hitutsa - my best bet would be to hitch a ride with one of them. I might even end up possibly coming back to Arconia then in a few months if I caught one which was moving down back south here.

At Hansini, I wanted to explore more grimoires, and I guess that now I would also try to see if I could find that treasure which Zeke had wanted to find.

There might even be some clues hinting that the Ruler of the Astral Winds was from Earth and possibly a way to go back if he had made any progress on doing so.

If Hansini turned out to be another dead end, that would then leave Serragnia as the other most likely place that might have answers.

And if even that had nothing…

I shook my head. No, I couldn’t let myself wallow in despair - I had found myself in this world somehow, hadn’t I? Logically there must be a way back as well!

Two people accompanied me right up to the gates of the city to send me off as I was leaving.

One of them was Drake and the other was Granny Qi.

“Good luck, brother,” Drake said, shaking my hand. “I would have loved to come with you actually - it sounds very exciting, what you’re doing.” I would’ve liked that - I was leaving everything and everyone I knew in this world behind, and the knowledge that Drake was watching my back during my travels would’ve been quite reassuring. “But, I have my duties here.”

“I know,” I said. “Tell your brother that I haven’t forgotten the little present he gave me - I’ll see if I can find something.”

“Oh? What present? You mean that map - ah, I didn’t know he was serious about that,” Drake said. “But yes, if you find some buried treasure, do let us know! And one day, once you come back, we’ll go and drink the night away - the three of us!”

“I look forward to it!”

I then turned to Granny Qi.

Tears were gently streaming down her face - the only other time I had seen her cry was when she had been reminiscing about her husband near that waterfall that flowed backwards. “Thank you for everything - if I, if I find a way back home, and I know it’s a reliable one and will stay open long enough, I’ll come back to visit you one last time before leaving.”

Even while I said that, I couldn’t help but feel bad as I didn't really believe that would be a possibility. I think she knew that as well, but didn't call me out on it.

If I found a way back home - it would likely be a temporary gate like the one that I brought me here, and even if it wasn’t, how could I be sure it would stay open long enough for me to make the journey back to Arconia and then go back to the portal in question? In nearly every single situation that I could think of, I’d have to take the opportunity to go back without hesitation. “And if I can’t come back - rest assured that I made my way back home,” I told her. It was better she think that than assume I'd ended up as worm chow on the side of a road if I never saw her again.

“Do you have enough for the journey?” she asked, wiping away her tears. “Food, water, medicine, anything that you’re forgetting…?”

“I think I have everything,” I said, while hugging her in a tearful embrace.

“Oh right, on that note,” Drake said, interrupting us. “You do have the paperwork explaining where you got the demonic grimoire from, right? You don’t want any other incidents in the capital…”

“Yeah, it’s all here,” I said to him. I took a deep breath. “Both of you, thank you, and hey - we all just might meet again.”

“I look forward to it!” Drake said. Granny Qi didn’t say anything, but nodded as a gentle smile blossomed on her face.

It was odd - I had a lot of bad memories of this city. I had arrived here with nothing and had been homeless for quite a while as I lived on the streets before finding Granny Qi, I had been fired from my job unjustifiably after working what would be considered abnormally long hours on Earth at said job, and to top it all off also had to fight in a siege and nearly died during the fighting.

And yet, I couldn’t help but feel something trying to keep me from leaving. As if my boots were suddenly filled with lead and that each step away from the city took a herculean effort.

There were lots of negative things about Arconia, yes, but in that moment, it was like they had all vanished as swiftly as the morning dew.

Granny Qi, getting to see her village, that unique waterfall, my coworkers back at Lauren’s shop, the Book Fair… I couldn’t say that everything that had happened to me in Arconia had been a negative experience, now then could I? And while the city had been extremely cold to me initially, it now felt so warm and inviting.

Without a doubt, I’d miss it.

But then again, it wasn’t like this was necessarily goodbye forever, was it?

And ultimately I couldn’t stay here forever - I was sure that there was an answer to how I could go back home - and if by chance someone from Earth did happen to show up in Arconia looking for me, Drake and Zeke would try to send a message to me.

Given how much time had passed though, that seemed highly unlikely. If that gate back home was going to open up again, I'd assumed it would've done so by now.

The only real thing that I felt was left as unfinished business in Arconia was the issue of that girl - that girl during the Book Fair who had looked like she recognized the language I wrote in before buying two of my grimoires before vanishing.

But, she had most likely left with the merchant caravan, and so there was practically no hope of finding her now. Maybe I’d see her if I joined the merchant caravan that would be headed back to Arconia once I got to Hitutsa?

Even if that wasn't the case, I figured that if she really did recognize what I'd written, she must've learned the language from somewhere. She looked like she came from far away, and so, so long as I traveled far enough I would eventually stumble upon where she'd learnt it from. And there, I might find what I was looking for.

I turned around to give Granny Qi and Drake one last wave before the guards closed the gates to the city, blocking the two of them from my view.

"Don't bother looking back, brother - if your destiny lies outside the city, you'll find it!" Drake said.

"Take care..." Granny Qi said softly.

And so, it was not without a heavy heart, but I did indeed take the first steps on my new journey as I turned around.

Despite what Drake said, however, I couldn't help but look back one more time.

2025-09-20 07:23:21 +0000 UTC View Post

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 5-7

Sun Jiao turned around from his ‘comrades’ in disgust.

There were other problems when it came to trying to steal from a Liberomancer, but he didn’t feel like explaining himself to people who couldn’t understand them.

Most Liberomancers, though wealthy, did not carry that wealth with them in actual coinage. Most of their money was tied up in investments: either in assets, or in grimoires which they had read and memorized, which obviously they could not steal. Some of them even used paper money in the form of treasury receipts, which they would cash out at another Liberomancer’s Guild - so taking that was useless too.

As for whether or not they had actual grimoires on hand, even if they could steal one, despite the fact that grimoires were valuable - where would they sell it? Questions would naturally arise as to where Sun Jiao had gotten something say, like a Rank Two grimoire, and so no Liberomancer would buy from them - that or, they would have them arrested whenever they tried to sell it and return it to its rightful owner. Or just hand it over to the Liberomancer’s Guild as a stolen grimoire and be richly rewarded for such. It was a point of professional courtesy that Liberomancers did not support such black markets for grimoires, which made them extremely difficult to run.

Not to mention crimes against Liberomancers, even if they were just minor crimes, were taken much more seriously. Especially so for Rank Two or Rank Three Liberomancers. Sun Jiao knew of stories of peasants who had gone ‘missing’ who turned out to have been murdered, but since they were isolated incidents involving random villagers only a cursory investigation would be launched before the authorities would just throw their hands up in the air and say ‘case closed.’ But if a Rank Three Liberomancer so much as lost a Denarius, they would turn the entire capital upside-down just to find it.

The risk to reward ratio was completely skewed - and not in their favor.

Yet, even as Sun Jiao thought this, his gaze went over their current place of residence - it could at most generously be called a shack, which was one of the few remaining standing buildings in what had formerly constituted a village. Now, the village was little more than a heap of abandoned wooden rubble. It seemed that what remained of the former residents had abandoned any intent to rebuild and had simply merged with another village further away.

Not all villages had been as lucky as that of Granny Qi’s - many of them had not been alerted of the dryad tide in time, or were not fast enough in getting to safety. Some of those villages had only a handful of survivors, most of whom had chosen to join other villages in the rebuilding effort or taken up jobs within the cities they had fled to.

Either that, or become members of groups of pickpockets and thieves like theirs.

The shack had been filled with rats at one point - but most of them had been hunted down and eaten by his gang when times had been lean. There had been a time when they might have been able to fish up something in the nearby streams but the dryads had depleted the fish during their invasion.

His stomach growled again - and he got up and walked out the door of their hideout.

“Alright, let’s scout out where you saw this man,” he said. If it was a Rank Two Liberomancer, it could still be worth the risk to possibly nab anything that lay unguarded and run away as fast as they could.

Who knew when they would find another mark? They could very well end up getting no traffic for the next few days, and they would all be ravenous then.

Yes, it was risky, but an empty stomach will drive a man to do many desperate things. Even someone like Sun Jiao who would’ve otherwise known better.

In the ballads he had heard when he was younger, bandits lived in caves surrounded by gold and wealth, feasting on their ill-gotten gains while they enjoyed the company of a dancer or two while villages quaked at the mere whisper of their names.

What were they in reality? A bunch of losers sleeping on the floor of an abandoned shack, who went more nights than not on empty stomachs barely placated with water, and with little more to their names than the tattered clothes on their backs.

Sun Jiao had a skill that was quite useful in this new occupation of his - [Night Vision]. Naturally, while walking in the middle of the night, a normal person would need a light source - but this had the twin drawbacks of alerting others to your presence, and also, it would mean that whoever was carrying it would be blind to anything outside the radius of the light.

There was no issue with [Night Vision] however, and it was to this skill that his gang owed the majority of their success too. They could sneak up on people without them even realizing they were being watched, and grab anything that seemed valuable, before slinking back into the woods, with most people none the wiser.

“Alright, is this where he was?” Sun Jiao asked. Unfortunately, he was the only one with this skill, so his comrade had to squint and wasn’t sure where they were. There was also the annoying fact of the man tripping over what seemed like every other root on their way to this place. “[Create Flame],” he intoned. “Does this place look familiar?”

“Um, maybe…”

“What do you mean maybe?”

“Well, Boss, it’s just kind of hard to tell when it’s so dark out…”

“I should’ve known this was a dumb idea the moment it came out of your mouth…”

“Wait, Boss, I think that’s it - over there!”

Sun Jiao followed the man towards a clearing.

Yes, there was a man there, sleeping in a hammock nestled between two trees.

Was there anything valuable though? He could see a small sack near the hammock, but that was it.

Again, this was the issue - would this man be carrying anything worth stealing that they could sell? He might have some coins on him, but they couldn’t shake him down like they might’ve with one of their other victims.

At the very least, there should be some provisions to tide them over for a few days.

“Wait here,” Sun Jiao said to his companion as he crept closer. He did not see any sign of a bear, and with this large of a clearing there was no place that such a creature could hide. So it must have been a summon…

Should he risk going closer and grabbing that bag?

He crouched down and began advancing slowly while keeping his guard up all the while. He managed to cover half the distance without incident when he suddenly felt something grab his leg.

Before he knew it, he was suspended by his ankle, ten feet off the ground.

Sun Jiao had a memory from his childhood - about when he had lost a toy of his under the flooring of a house. He had found a crevice from where he thought he could get it back, and as he put his hand down there, he had withdrawn it nearly instantly in pain as it felt like someone had taken a needle to it. A spider had made its nest there - and he had had a slight degree of arachnophobia ever since.

Suffice to say, he did not take being brought face-to-face with the Tyrant Arachnea, who was wrapping him up swiftly in multiple layers of silk with an efficiency that was nearly as monstrous as its form very well. It was a sight made all the worse by his [Night Vision], which ensured that he could see every grotesque corner of the creature even in the dim light.

“AIYEEEEEEH!” he screamed, no longer caring if he was caught. If he was caught, so be it - it was better than being devoured!

The sound of screaming woke me up, as well as a tug on my mind from the Tyrant Arachnea. I got out of my hammock, and nearly tripped while getting out of it because I was still wearing my helmet and it had slid over my eyes. [Unobstructed Sight] would not help me in that scenario as it couldn’t see through physical objects.

When I readjusted my helmet and could see what was happening, I saw someone who had been caught up in the Tyrant Arachnea’s web, and there was someone else in the distance who was running away as fast as they could.

This had been around the area where that lizardman I had met had said he had been robbed, so when I hadn’t been able to find a nearby village I had decided to take some precautions before setting up camp here. I was wearing my leather jerkin and helmet even as I slept, and I had decided to set up the Tyrant Arachnea, even though it was a Rank Three summon, so that it could set up a defensive perimeter around where I was sleeping. It had also been able to make me a hammock and a heavy blanket nearly as tough as my leather jerkin.

I had been slightly hesitant while doing so because it meant that my only use of a Rank Three summon would be consumed for the next twelve hours after it was gone, but I ultimately decided to go for it given what I knew about the area.

And clearly this had been the right choice.

“AIYEEEH! GET AWAY FROM ME!” came a scream from the person who the Tyrant Arachnea was currently wrapping up in silk, a task that it had almost completed within a matter of seconds after which it dropped down and deposited the man at my feet.

I felt another tug on my consciousness - it was asking if it should follow the other man who had run away. I considered it - but ultimately decided against it.

Unlike when I was back in Granny Qi’s village, I wasn’t surrounded by the safety of the village walls and the other villagers, and that was when Liberomancers were at their strongest - when they had sturdy walls to hide behind after casting spells.

With the Tyrant Arachnea out, I couldn’t summon another creature to take hits for me if I sent it far away and it turned out that there were other people waiting near the road or on the other side of the clearing to ambush me. And with the absence of a physical barrier in a clearing like this, I really needed a summon to take hits for me if something happened.

“Who are you?” I asked him. The man looked like he was from Chipker, though much of his face was marred by the tears and snot that coated it. The Tyrant Arachnea had wrapped him up tightly from the neck down, leaving just enough slack in the threads to let him breathe.

“I… I’m a Liberomancer too! Please don’t kill me!” he yelled out.

I paused. “A Liberomancer…?”

In response to this he stuck out his tongue (one of the few things he could still do given all the webbing), and created a small flame as if there was an invisible lighter attached to the tip.

Yeah, that was definitely [Create Flame]. This man was a Rank One Liberomancer at the very least, and given the fact that he couldn’t free himself was likely just that - Rank One.

“Yes, I’m a Liberomancer,” he said. “I had gotten lost in the woods and was just looking for a place to stay when I was assaulted by… this monster!”

I frowned. There was definitely something off with his story. He didn’t look like a guy who had just wandered too close to me by accident - he had to wander pretty close to set off the Tyrant Arachnea to attack him. I had asked it to only strike if it felt that someone was coming too close. “If that’s true, why is your friend running away then?”

“Probably because he saw a giant monster!” the man said.

I was considering the fact that this might be a big misunderstanding and that perhaps I should let him go when I felt something tug on my consciousness.

The Tyrant Arachnea clearly disagreed with what I was thinking at the time - and began sending me images of what had happened. Given its compound eyes, and the fact that it relied on its other senses more than sight at times, it was all a bit disjointed - but I understood what had gone on.

“If that’s true, why were you sneaking towards me like that?” I asked. I saw images of him crawling along the grass slowly towards me, deliberately making as little noise as possible. “From what my spider saw, it looks like you were trying to kill me.” Something then struck me like a bolt of lightning. I leapt back from him instinctively. “You! You’re a demonic Liberomancer, aren’t you?” It was the only reason I could think of that another Liberomancer would behave in such a way. I began charging up a spell.

“AIYEEEEE - no, no, fine, please hold your fire! I’ll come clean, but I was never going to kill or hurt you I swear, I was just seeing if I could steal something valuable!” he yelled out.

“Stealing? Why?”

“For money of course! Why else do people steal?” he sobbed.

It still didn’t add up. Why would he have to resort to such measures if he was a Rank One Liberomancer?

A strange stench permeated the air - it looked like he had wet himself.

Given the way he was struggling to get out, it did seem that my assessment of him being a demonic Liberomancer was incorrect. My mind went over the other likely possibilities.

“Did you by any chance rob a lizardman a few days ago?” I asked him.

“No, no, I didn’t,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether to trust him or not; nearly every single word he spat out was suspect. “Please, we are both Liberomancers, right? Shouldn’t we treat each other better than this? As a fellow Liberomancer, please let me go!”

I frowned. “You have some nerve - first you try to steal from me and then you pull the ‘we Liberomancers need to stick together card after that?’ You’re not very smart you know.” Then again, as he was in this state despite being a Rank One Liberomancer, that was quite apparent the more I thought about it.

What to do with him though?

There were several things I could do.

I could go and hunt down the rest of his gang - starting with that man who had run away and then finding out if there were any other people involved, but that came with its own risks. I didn’t know how many of them there were - they could have other Liberomancers with them, and although this man didn’t seem to have any demonic spells with him I couldn’t be sure about the others.

Back in Arconia, when I had bumped into that demonic Liberomancer by accident, I had not confronted him directly - and a good thing at that, as multiple people had ended up dead in the following confrontation. That very well could’ve included me if I had been more daring.

Dealing with demonic Liberomancers was different from dealing with monsters.

Demonic Liberomancers had spells and skills which were difficult to counter - I had mostly written off such a scenario though as I’d been reassured that the odds of running into a demonic Liberomancer were very low. Most Liberomancers went their whole lives without encountering even a single one. And yet, with my luck, I had run into one back in Arconia within months of getting to the city…

“Alright, we’re leaving,” I said, making my decision.

“Leaving? Where?”

“You already woke me up, and we’re close enough to the capital now that we can reach it quickly,” I said. I kept him tied up and motioned for my Tyrant Arachnea to get ready.

It did not make any attempt - unlike the red fox or the bear - to try to appear cute or whatnot before the trip, probably because it realized that I thought it looked rather hideous and wouldn’t appreciate such an endeavor.

That honestly made me feel a little bad though - it had done quite a lot to help me out, and was part of the reason why I was so famous in Arconia, after all, I wouldn’t be called the ‘Spider King of Arconia’ if I couldn’t summon it.

“Ah, you did good,” I said to it.

It was a summoned creature, which meant that it didn’t need any motivation and honestly it didn’t matter whether I praised it or not - but after all the good work it had done it seemed downright ungrateful not to give it some words of appreciation.

Even if someone else watching me do so would say that it was ultimately meaningless - to that all I could say was that, they were right, but it did make me feel better, and I thought that was what mattered.

The Tyrant Arachnea didn’t really change much of its expression - but it was much harder to read emotions and expressions with something like a spider. I wasn’t even sure how much spiders could feel emotions like gratitude or attachment. I did feel… for lack of a better word, some kind of warmth from its thoughts that hadn’t been there before, so maybe it did appreciate it.

“Wait why don’t we talk things through-” the man I had captured said as the Tyrant Arachnea tied him up to its back.

The Tyrant Arachnea could still remain active for about another nine hours, after which I could summon the bear and the Elephant Frog, which combined could move for eighteen hours. After that I could summon the Tyrant Arachnea again. Switching mounts in that fashion would allow me to travel continuously with very little breaks.

I hadn’t done so until now because traveling like this was extremely tiring and you really couldn’t do it for too long, but now that we were almost at our destination…

...I realized I didn’t have a saddle to grip onto the Tyrant Arachnea, much like I didn’t with the Elephant Frog. I had quite a bit of stuff to carry as well.

There was a quick way around that though, and without me even needing to open my mouth to ask, it had already begun tying me up in a thick web, as well as the rest of my stuff.

It then placed me, my stuff, and our new prisoner on its back.

“Don’t try escaping,” I said to him. “Otherwise I’ll have it inject you with paralyzing venom.”

He shuddered but made no attempt to escape - I wasn’t really sure if he could. The issue with rogue Liberomancers - and demonic Liberomancers in particular, was that there was no real way to stop someone from casting magic. Casting magic did not require saying the spell out loud, or the use of one’s hands - it just required you to think of what you wanted to do.

Nothing as convenient as an anti-magic field or some sort of talisman that took away someone’s magic power existed in this world.

The only real thing you could do is knock them out cold or place them under some kind of sedation.

This made imprisoning Liberomancers quite difficult as well - you would have to essentially rely on them cooperating with their jail sentencing for that to work. Those that cared for their reputations would, but if it had gotten to a point where they might’ve considered their reputations irreparably ruined already they might just decide it was best just to go rogue and escape anyway.

Most of them ended up being killed - which was the other way to stop someone from using magic, but again, that left people in the awkward position of there only being two possibilities to deal with them.

One was to just let them go, and the other was to kill them. There was a reason that the sale of high-ranking grimoires, and Rank Three grimoires in particular was monitored so closely by the Guild. It was much harder to pull a fast one when there were people who knew your trump cards.

With us on its back, the Tyrant Arachnea then launched forward. The cold wind blew through my hair, but given that it was a rather hot night this was more pleasant than anything.

It was faster than either the bear or the Elephant Frog, but I had not used it for the purpose of traveling because with it being my strongest summon I wanted to save it for a rainy day. When I had heard what had happened to that lizardman though, I had felt the benefits outweighed the risks of bringing it out early, and didn’t feel like the red fox was enough for the kind of security I wanted.

The Tyrant Arachnea could almost move as fast as a truck on flat ground, but with it carrying us as passengers and me not wanting to vomit from motion sickness, it moved slower, not to mention the brush impeded its locomotion to some extent.

Still, we charged through the night regardless of my discomfort. I really hoped that we didn’t run into anyone - not because I was afraid of someone attacking me, but because I was afraid of nearly frightening them to death with my summon. The sight of a giant monstrosity of a spider running along the road in the dead of the night would've well caused me to have a heart attack if I happened to look at it. I wanted to afford other people the same consideration, but I had very few other options at hand right now.

We were making good time on the Tyrant Arachnea, and it was comfortable enough on its back that I actually dozed off for a couple of hours before being awakened by the shining rays of dawn.

There were still around two hours left for the Tyrant Arachnea to remain in the world, and I gave it a mental command to try to stay off the main road now that it was daylight and we were far more visible. The odds of us running into someone was also much greater now just because traffic would be greater in the daytime.

When the time of its summoning was about to run out, it removed the two of us from its back, and then untied me before it vanished from this plane of existence.

“Alright, how are you?” I asked the man.

The man’s face was several shades paler than what I remembered, as if he’d exsanguinated quite an amount on the journey here. I was willing to be that unlike me, he had not slept a wink during our journey. He turned towards me weakly, as if he had undergone several decades of misfortune and torture within the short span of time we had taken to get here. Looking at his sorry state, I could safely conclude that he didn’t have a way out of those binds, even with magic, else he most certainly would’ve used them already. “C-Can I have something to eat please? I’m starving…”

“Alright,” I said. I looked out in the distance - I had never been here and had never needed to navigate things out in the wilderness before, so I couldn’t be completely sure where we were but if we were still on track, I thought that we could reach the capital by tomorrow morning.

I would have to ask a local village for directions though, as we had gone somewhat off the route I had initially planned.

I decided to use [Fish Haul] to make us a quick breakfast, because then I wouldn’t have to get the food I had stored out of my packs which was still tied up in several rolls of spider silk.

His eyes widened, and he seemed to forget about all of the horrors of our journey coming here when he saw what I had done.

“Is that… can you make food with magic?”

“Yes, didn’t you know that?” It was a bit easier to guess his age in the sunlight, and he seemed to be quite a bit older than me.

I was almost certain that he was only Rank One at this point though, which meant that there was something seriously deficient about the way he approached Liberomancy or some other family factor or the like going on which was hampering his growth. Given what he was doing - it was most likely the latter.

[Fish Haul] was not a mainstream spell but I’d expect that most people would be able to recognize it when they saw it or knew of it. Meaning his knowledge and aptitude were both bottom-of-the-barrel.

“No…” he said weakly. “If only I knew how to do that… things would be much different…” He started tearing up again. “I’ve been on an empty stomach for a while now… but if…” He then stopped crying and turned towards me. “Master Liberomancer! Please accept me as your apprentice!”

Of all the things I had expected to come out of this mouth, that was the last one.

“Apprentice!? You tried to rob me!” I retorted incredulously. The nerve on this guy!

“Yes, and I will bow to you a thousand times and apologize over and over if that is what it takes!” he said. “I will do any job that you ask of me, teacher! I only have one request - teach me that spell!”

“Which spell?”

“That one right now, that you made the fish with! If I had that, I would have never gone hungry a day in my life, and I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place,” he said. “I’m willing to change all of my earlier ways, just please accept me as your student!”

“I have no desire to take in an apprentice,” I told him. “Especially not one who is going to use what I’d teach him to rob other people.”

“Please, listen to reason,” he said. “Think about it - what will happen if you drop me off to the city guards? They’ll go ahead and imprison me for a year or two - or if you place great pressure on them, perhaps five years depending on the charges. Then once I get out, I’ll have no means to support myself, and will have to resort to stealing to support myself, and we will find ourselves in the same spot yet again. Do you not see how this cycle of negativity will only lead me nowhere? But if you teach me how to keep my stomach full at all times, I won’t have to resort to such means ever again. I might even be able to use my other powers for good.”

My brain was reeling - some of what this guy was saying made sense. And yet, knowing what all he had done up till now, I just knew that he was playing me somehow. What he had in mind was most definitely not limited to just feeding himself.

He was also surprisingly eloquent, now that he wasn’t shaking in fear I noted; given the fact that he seemed to have received very little formal education.

I found it odd that he hadn’t used these skills to more of an advantage - he would make a great salesman - or conman. At least being a conman could give him plausible deniability in certain situations, and would have less risk than wandering out in the wilderness trying to rob people.

“Alright, tell me upfront, what’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“Eh?”

“I mean, why are you in this situation in the first place? You shouldn’t be going around stealing things like this- are you just a kleptomaniac?” I asked.

“No sir,” he said. “I just fell on some bad times - as anyone in any position can. Look, perhaps someone like you can’t understand - I doubt you’ve gone hungry a single mealtime in your life - but I really would want to avoid continuing upon this path of crime-” my face darkened at his remark, and he seemed to notice and pause. “I’m serious, I truly am!” he said, once again trying to convince me of his sincerity, not understanding what part of his speech had angered me.

I looked off into the distance. At least some of what he was spouting seemed to be true.

And yet, my sympathies for him were rather limited. He had tried to rob me, and was clearly something of an experienced thief. That meant he had robbed people before me - did he have any sympathy for them such as the fact that those he stole from would remain hungry instead?

I still couldn’t trust whether he had stolen from that lizardman I had met on the road or not.

The victim and the robber - I understood both of them to some extent, but it was clear which side I supported.

Once again though… I didn’t think he was completely lying. And he did somewhat have a point.

“I… It doesn’t matter whether I want to or not, I can’t teach you this spell,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“For one, it’s a Rank Two spell,” I told him. “And two, it’s a lizardman spell.”

“Rank Two?” he asked. He looked incredulous. “Why would something that… does something so simple need Rank Two magic?”

Most ‘lifestyle’ spells were Rank One, like [Create Water] or [Create Flame].

That was one of the reasons that [Fish Haul] was not very popular - because it was one thing to fill in a Rank One spell slot with something that wasn’t too useful (most people had Rank One slots that really weren’t contributing much anyway) but to use a Rank Two slot for such a thing? When you could instead fill it with a summoning spell or something far more useful like [Fireball] or [Invisibility]? Why would you do it?

Right now, as I was planning to specialize in summoning and potentially one other thing, I could feel the pressure of having a limited set of slots to work with. And it would be so easy to decide that [Fish Haul] was no longer necessary in the future. Why keep it?

Most people wouldn’t - but I had chosen to learn it and also keep it for a reason. Much like this man, I didn’t want to be hungry at any point in the future ever again, even if it made me slightly weaker otherwise.

It also did have another slight benefit - I could reduce the amount of stuff I had to carry while traveling. And given that I hadn’t yet come upon an inventory-like spell in this world, where I could just stash my stuff in some sort of pocket dimension until I needed it, this aspect couldn’t be entirely disregarded.

“Can you read the lizardmen language?” I asked him.

“I can barely read the human one,” he said, and for once, I thought he was being completely honest.

I used [Summon Bear] and it began to approach him.

“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry if I offended you in some way - please don’t have the bear eat me!” he began to scream and squirm.

“Calm down and stop moving, the bear can’t cut open your restraints otherwise,” I said. “Or it might end up cutting you by accident.” The silk that the Tyrant Arachnea used was strong, and I had no hope of cutting it myself even if I had something like a pocketknife. The bear’s claws, on the other hand, were accompanied by its immense strength. Breaking through the silk wasn’t the issue - it was doing so without hurting the man.

Once he realized this he did his best not to twitch too much, though I could tell it was still difficult for him. Then again, any person who could be so close to a bear and not be twitchy probably had something wrong with him.

“That’s it?” he asked when he realized I had only opened him up to his arms.

“Yes, I’m not going to spoon feed you now then, am I, now eat, we need to get going,” I said, tossing him a fish after I had been done cooking it.

He polished it off quickly enough, but before I could pack up to leave, he asked: “...can I have another?”

I sighed and tossed him another one.

2025-09-19 10:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 2-4

I took some time out for the rest of the day to go around looking at some other things in the village that might need some attention.

The people that we had saved while on the way during our first journey had mostly recovered and had assimilated in with the village. Putting those people aside, there were two villagers who would’ve recovered eventually anyway but were able to benefit from a touch of healing magic. I sent out my Elephant Frog to help with plowing some of the fields given the lack of beasts of burden, but that was more of a drop of water in a well rather than making a massive change.

The villagers were doing a good enough job getting back up on their feet on their own, with anything that they really needed like food already provided for.

I got to sleep indoors that night rather than setting up a tent in the woods, which was another reason I had taken the detour.

The next day I set out, and though nothing of interest happened, it was my first time sleeping in the great outdoors that night. Sleeping on the ground was something that I had only really done back when I had come to Arconia initially, and was a bit hard to get used to as this was the wilderness and not a city street. I considered summoning the Elephant Frog for no other reason than to be able lie on its soft belly like a giant mattress, but I wanted to save it in case I needed it in an emergency.

There was a reason why I had chosen to use the bear instead of the Elephant Frog as my primary means of transport - it was much harder to grip onto the Elephant Frog than the bear, which made loading it with the stuff I was carrying harder as well unless I also wanted to lug around a cart with me. But because it was better for getting away quickly, even if we were off the road, it was an excellent backup if I chose to abandon everything to run away. On the other hand, on level ground, while carrying a passenger and some baggage, the bear was not that much slower than the frog.

The following two nights, I was able to find a village whose infrastructure was good enough that they were able to rent me a room. Most villages were far worse off than Granny Qi’s - some of them had been abandoned entirely it seemed as there was nothing left other than the outline of some houses in the dirt. Others were hardly more than just a bunch of tents with a rickety wall surrounding them to dissuade wild animals, and sometimes not even that.

Still, that was better than lying on the ground in the middle of the wilderness even if it was just sleeping in the back of a barn. I would have my red fox stand guard over me while I slept as yet another precautionary measure, whether I was in a village or out in the wilderness. That was another advantage to traveling in groups - having someone to take turns to keep watch at night. Without anyone else to rely on other than myself, I could only turn to the Rank One summon to watch out for danger as I hit the hay.

I only traveled nine hours a day with the help of the bear, and time was about to run out, I’d find a village or a comfy spot on the ground to spend the night. If I had time, I would work on a new Rank Three grimoire.

I had already made a copy of each of the two I had already made, and after failing so many times to make one that might help me fly, I had shifted to writing something else.

The Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was what I decided to work on now. It was one of the few other works which I remembered well enough to make a somewhat accurate recreation of.

I could tell though that my memory was going to be an issue going forward - it had been over a year, and that was more than long enough to forget a lot of things.

There were some grimoires I could’ve made when I first arrived which I probably couldn’t now - because I no longer remembered what I would’ve written well enough to do it now.

I had heard of a grimoire that could boost one’s memory in the capital, though I didn’t know the specifics of how it worked. I would definitely have to look into it once I got there as a potential issue to this problem. A problem that was only going to get worse with time - I really needed to find either a way to charge my phone, or the Ruler of the Astral Wind’s treasure. Either that or just a way back home.

About midway through my journey, someone actually tried to talk to me while I was on the road.

“Sir Liberomancer!” I heard someone call out, and saw a green-scaled lizardman standing near the side of the road under the shade of a tree.

He eyed the bear I was riding on with some concern and asked, “Is that bear a summon? May I approach?” To be fair, my bear was also glaring at him as it tended to do to anyone I didn’t know, so it was understandable as to why he was nervous.

“Yes, it’s fine,” I said. “He is in fact one of my summons.”

The lizardman was still slightly nervous around the creature, warily looking at it as he advanced.

He then noticed the purple sash I was wearing. “Lord, my apologies for bothering you, however, if you would be so kind as to provide some aid. I haven’t eaten in over a day, and I no longer have coin either to make the journey to Arconia before I fear that I’ll collapse from hunger. My throat has also been parched - could you please spare me a piece of your generosity?”

“Sure,” I said. Preserving mana was always a priority, but because I was mainly relying on summons while traveling, it did free up some options as summons did not consume mana. Plus, one spell wouldn’t hurt. [Fish Haul] created a large amount of fish - so many it was hard for me to hold in my hands. That was the side effect of having a high Luck stat. “I know that many lizardmen prefer live fish, but this spell can’t do so…” I said while handing the entire pile to him.

I knew it was customary among lizardmen to gift each other fish when they first met, though as far as I knew it would usually be a single fish and generally it would be some sort of rare fish as well.

These were rather plain and common fish, but that was the best that I could do - I knew the spell specifically so that I wouldn’t starve if worse came to worse after all and not because it would let me eat gourmet food while on the road.

“Are these all for me, Lord?” he asked, shocked.

“Yes. And no need to call me ‘Lord’, I’m no one’s lord,” I said to him. Many high-ranking Liberomancers were also nobles and vice-versa; Rank Three Liberomancers could usually earn enough money or distinguish themselves in ways that would lead to them either buying noble titles or being granted them. And nobles taught themselves to read and write, and had the money and the time to study Liberomancy in depth, becoming Rank Three Liberomancers far easier than ordinary people could.

Lance had tried to give me some titles and land for my efforts during the war, which I had declined. On the surface this was supposed to be a ‘reward’, but was more like cheese in a mousetrap. Land, titles - both of these things could not easily be moved, meaning I’d be tied down to the city. I doubt that Lance intended for it to seem that way - then again, he was a politician. It was possible that those were his intentions in the end.

The bear gave me a hopeful look as I was handing the fish to the lizardman. “No fish for you,” I said to it. “You don’t need to eat.”

Summons could eat and drink - they just didn’t need to. There were many theories on how or why this was - most people assumed that since summons were created with a Liberomancer’s magic, they were also sustained by the same. The fact that they didn’t consume mana at all while being summoned or used kind of clashed with this theory. Although everyone agreed that mana powered spells, what powered skills in general? No one seemed to know. Some people theorized there was something other than ‘mana’ that people had - something that they couldn’t quantify or measure, I guess it’d be called something like ‘qi’ or something else along those lines which was used up for skills.

As with a lot of things regarding Liberomancy - when you look into things too deeply the answer was basically along the lines of ‘that’s just how the world works.’ I had gotten somewhat used to hearing that as a reply to most of the questions I had, but it was still annoying nonetheless. This world really needed a tutorial village.

The bear then gave me another sad look - one I recognized, the same look that Cheddar would give me when I wouldn’t give him another treat. Unfortunately, for the bear, it couldn’t exactly pull this off very well and I had grown immune to this as Cheddar pulled it so many times.

The lizardman polished off two of the fish right away - with an efficiency that only the lizardmen seemed to have. Their mouths were far more adapted to this than that of a human’s - there were quite a few things about lizardmen biology that I had learned while staying in Arconia, such as them preferring warmer temperatures compared to humans.

Come to think of it, I had never gotten to know the answer to one question I’d had - did lizardmen lay eggs, or give birth?

I had never found myself in a scenario where I could ask that question without it seeming extremely awkward, and as such, was still ignorant as to what the answer was, despite being close friends with at least one lizardman.

I used [Create Water] to quench some of his thirst once he was done eating.

“Master Liberomancer, I do not have the words to express my gratitude,” he said. “I had called out to other travelers, though none of them stopped to help…”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” I said. “What exactly happened to you?” He didn’t seem to be a villager, his clothes were nice but dirty, and he had some passing knowledge of Liberomancy to know what a summon was and how it functioned. Why was he wandering around the road in the middle of the wilderness with not a penny to his name?

“Ah, it is a tragic tale,” the lizardman replied, almost sounding like he was going to cry. “I am a merchant you see, and I was carting rice from the capital to Arconia which is in high demand, only to be jumped by human robbers! They took my cart, the rice, and any money I had! I can only thank my stars that my clothes wouldn’t fit them, else they’d have taken them too!”

“Bandits…” I muttered under my breath. I had already run into a group that had caused quite a ruckus back in Granny Qi’s village. “Yeah, you shouldn’t have traveled like that without any guards…”

He shook his head despondently. “I only realize that now far too late - given what happened to me, but I always used to go along this route, and such things never happened to me or to anyone I know!”

“Yeah,” I mused. “Security’s kind of gone to the dogs after the siege, but I’m sure it’ll get better with time.” It wasn’t just an issue with security, it was that there were too many people left with nothing in the aftermath of the dryad invasion.

“...dogs?”

Oh right, this world didn’t have dogs in it - which to me, was reason enough to find a way back home regardless if there still was or wasn’t anyone waiting for me on the other side who I knew. “Just a figure of speech where I’m from. I’m heading towards the capital myself, if you want, you can ride with me and I’ll drop you somewhere there.”

I was actually a bit surprised that he had been the only one who had asked me for aide up till this point. I knew there were a lot of people who couldn’t go back to their villages or were otherwise suffering in one way or the other - and I had even prepared extra food and some coins to hand over to them if needed before heading out to Granny Qi’s village.

After all, even if I couldn’t help everyone, I knew what it had been like to have nothing, not even a roof over your head. I could always help someone.

And yet, no one had approached me. I somehow doubted that was because there was just no one who really needed help desperately - and I had a sinking feeling the further that I got along that the fact I was riding a bear might’ve been the culprit.

The lizardman shook his head. “Thank you for your generosity, but I live in Arconia - that’s where my house is. I was stuck, unfortunately in the capital due to the dryad invasion, and it was only now I had the courage to make the journey back. It seems I might’ve benefited from waiting a bit longer… but what can I say? I couldn’t bear the thought of being away from my family any longer…”

“Alright then,” I said to him. “Right over there in that direction - about three hours away - or I guess about six or seven for you, is a village which is rebuilding. You can stay the night there for three Denarii, meals included.” I counted out about forty Denarii, which should’ve been enough for him to get to Arconia before moving to hand it to him.

He threw his hands up in protest, however. “No, Lord-”

“Again, I am no one’s lord.”

“-Master Liberomancer, I’ve already benefited from your kindness so much, I could not dare impose on you anymore,” he said, seemingly adamant about refusing the money. “I… I’ll find a way to earn my way back - whether it’s by doing odd jobs for the farms or the like or via credit. This is… just too much.”

I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t want to judge on appearances, but the guy didn’t exactly look like he was suited for working on a farm. “Do you think you’ll be able to do so? Do you have any experience working on a farm? It’s not easy work.”

I had no firsthand experience in that regard, though after seeing how the villagers worked and listening to Granny Qi’s stories about her childhood, I knew that life in the villages was difficult.

“I used to back when I was younger, on my great-uncle’s farm,” he said. “I can work for my meals.”

I scratched my chin. “They might not have extra food in some spaces - why not take half or even a quarter then?” I asked him. It was clear that he was hesitant to take the money, and though I wasn’t sure, I think there was a bit of shame in accepting it.

He looked like he came from a relatively well-off if not outright wealthy family, and if he hadn’t been robbed he definitely wouldn’t be in this position. There was a bit more stigma to accepting coins than there was to accepting a meal. It had been the same for me back when I had first come to Arconia. “You might be able to pay for a ride to Arconia and see your family sooner.” I gave him that last push. Really though, why was I having to be the one who was trying to convince him to take the money?

“Ah… I…” he seemed to hesitate quite a bit.

“If you’re worried about paying it back… don’t… I mean, there was a time when I had to rely on the charity of strangers as well, consider this paying that forward,” I said. “I’m sure there are people back in Arconia you’ll meet who need assistance, and when you see them, you can hand them some aide thinking of them like me.”

He did tear up a bit on hearing that, and reluctantly took the money. “L-Master Liberomancer, I mean, this village you pointed me to, is it a human village?”

Oh, right.

“Yes it is…” I said. I wanted to believe that given the recent dryad invasion, humans and lizardmen had put all their differences aside and would cooperate - though I knew from even my limited experience in this world that it was quite naive to think that way. If it wasn’t that way in the city, it would be even less so out here.

This was the most time I’d spent in the countryside, I had only really been to Granny Qi’s village and back, and that one lizardmen village I’d gone too in order to deal with an Elephant Frog. The rural areas were a bit different than the city itself. Most areas in the city were segregated in the sense that they were lizardmen only or human only, but there were also places in-between such areas where it was more mixed. You might have a human house next to a lizardman house, and when it came to shops this was even more common because most of the marketplaces were shared, though buyers and sellers still had a tendency to stick to their own species when it came to choosing a shop.

As for the villages though, they were generally clustered, as in you’d have a cluster of lizardmen villages and then a cluster of human villages, with a reasonable distance in-between the two clusters that would ensure that they might never really cross paths with each other.

There was no mixing of species in the villages themselves; in a human village, there would only be humans, and in a lizardmen village, there would only be lizardmen residents. One would think that with most of them having to take up refuge in Arconia that even if they had biased feelings, they might’ve been able to get over them after sharing a common enemy for so long.

I had rested recently in a lizardmen village twice up till now, and had never been mistreated.

Then again, I was not an ordinary human- I was a Master Liberomancer, and several of them even recognized me as the Spider King of Arconia when I introduced myself. I also had several documents from Lance himself proving my identity, as well as an invitation from the king.

I could’ve used either of them at any moment to call in a few favors if need be and perhaps even demanded to be quartered in their houses for free - though I had never needed to nor would I want to. On the contrary, I had overpaid the villagers to some degree for my stay, but I was somewhat fine with that knowing their current conditions.

But could someone like him, who was a normal lizardman, feel comfortable around humans? And would the humans treat him the way the lizardmen had me?

I couldn’t be sure of either of those things.

“Yes,” I finally said. “I don’t think they’ll treat you any differently, especially if you say that you met me, you can tell them that the Spider King of Arconia sent you… but if that still bothers you greatly there is a lizardman village further down the road which is somewhat functional, but you’ll have to run if you want to get there before nightfall. Thing is, if you arrive there past dusk, there is a chance they might mistake you for a bandit.”

“I think I’ll take my chances with my own kind,” he said. “Thank you so much for the fish and this other gift!” He made to bow but I asked him to stop for what felt like the thousandth time.

“There is no need for that, it is only natural for us to help one another in these difficult times,” I said. The dryad invasion had been much like a natural disaster - only it had arguably caused more damage than a hurricane or flood would. People were supposed to get together and aide each other in situations like this. Back on Earth, the federal government would’ve no doubt voted on a massive relief package and spending bill for such an area. The issue was that Chipker was far smaller than a country like the United States, and much of Chipker had been affected at the very least, indirectly by the dryad invasion. It was like a nation-wide disaster occurring in a poorer country back home which didn’t have the resources to mount a proper national response.

“Before you leave though, can you tell me more about these bandits?” I asked him. Though I knew many of them chose that life because of recent events, they were also only making things harder for other people. “What did they look like? And how many of them were there? Where did you find them?” I wasn’t about to go out of my way to hunt them, but if they had the misfortune to run into me on the road…

“I was sleeping at the time in my wagon,” the lizardman admitted. “And then before I knew it, I woke up with a blade to my throat. There were four of them, all human, and I didn’t get a good look at their faces - and truth be told, I am not very good at differentiating human faces from one another. It was in a clearing over there, and this was two nights ago.”

That wasn’t much information to go on, but I hadn’t expected much more. “I see. I will make a note to be more careful. Thank you.”

“Oh, I doubt that they’d pick a fight with you, Master Liberomancer. They were fine robbing someone in their sleep, but cutthroats rarely want to mess with someone who can actually fight back. One look at what you’re riding is probably more than enough to get them to reconsider.”

“I don’t think so either, but it never hurts to be careful,” I said. I couldn’t help but remember bandits and robbers in certain video games who would try to rob you even if you were dozens of levels above them.

The thing was, any rational person would know not to pick a fight with a Liberomancer - but the problem also was, if criminals were smart, they probably wouldn’t be criminals. That and these desperate times could force people to desperate measures. And despite how much magic I knew now, all it would take is a stray arrow in the wrong place and wrong time… it was a good thing I had made it a habit to wear my helmet whenever I was outdoors.

“Indeed,” he said as he started to run off. I hoped he did make it to the lizardmen village in time - or maybe he’d have a change of heart and decide the human village was good enough.

“Urru?” the bear grunted at me expectantly.

“Alright, fine, you win!” I said, using [Fish Haul] again and tossing the bear a few treats as we made our way forward.

I was basically using my mana to feed something I had created myself using a skill - in other words it was completely pointless.

But I couldn’t deny that it put me in a somewhat good mood regardless as we trekked along.

After all, he was my sole companion on this journey.

Sun Jiao tapped his foot. What was taking those idiots so long?

The sun was about to set, and they had to act soon. Their supplies were running thin.

Two of his lackeys walked in - both of them shook their heads, indicating they hadn’t found anything.

Sun Jiao sighed. This wasn’t good. But as he was about to resign himself to an empty stomach tomorrow and possibly the next few days, the last member of his gang walked in.

“I think I know who our next target is,” the newcomer said. “I saw this man, who looks rich. And best part is, he’s traveling on his own.”

Sun Jiao’s heart quickened. An easy and profitable target? Just what they had been looking for!

Sun Jiao was the leader of this small team of four - a team of bandits, that is. Though to call them such would probably be a massive exaggeration. The word ‘bandits’ would make one think of massively built, muscular brigands who were armed to the teeth. It would be more accurate to call them a glorified group of pickpockets, given that they were all relatively thin and weak, and Sun Jiao was the only one with a proper weapon.

He had a sword strapped to his belt - though in all honesty it was more for show than anything else given he had never been properly trained when it came to fencing. He probably would’ve been better off using a spear given his relative inexperience with fighting with something fancier, but this was something he had managed to steal so it had cost him nothing. He also thought that it made him seem far more intimidating than any kind of makeshift spear that he could make on his own.

And that was more important to him than actual usage - he did not anticipate a scenario where he would actually have to use the sheathed blade so long as he played his cards right.

Sun Jiao was thinly built and the weakest of them physically, which is why the impression that he had a deadly weapon with him was so important. The reason he was their leader was not just because he was more knowledgeable than the rest, but because he was a Rank One Liberomancer.

Ordinarily, as a Rank One Liberomancer, he would have employment opportunities which would make joining such a gang of troublemakers quite beneath him. As a matter of fact, before turning to banditry, he was employed in a far more productive setting.

The issue was that during such work, there had been a number of ‘incidents’ involving harassing some female customers (‘harmless flirting’ in his own words) and he had then been fired from his first job. And then his second. And his third. As well as his fourth. By the time he was on his fifth job he finally stopped this behavior but then came in to work late one too many times and after he missed a serious deadline was fired from that one too.

Liberomancers thrived and fell based on their reputation - and he had tarnished his one too many times, and was unable to get any more work. It spoke quite a lot to how much he had soiled his own name - given that when Stefan had first come to Arconia, he had essentially had zero reputation of his own but was still able to get work the very same day.

There was also the issue that he had never properly finished his education - his father had abandoned his family during his early teens, and as such, he was unable to grasp some of the longer words and sentences in the more complicated Rank One grimoires. Because of this, his advancement had slowed to the point where he had no hope of reaching Rank Two in his current condition - if he could pass that threshold however, he could probably convince people to give him another chance.

However, he was unable to sell any grimoires he made without being a member of a bookstore, and without money couldn’t buy even the simpler Rank One grimoires to pad out the number of slots he needed to fill just to get to Rank Two.

Things had still not been too bad for him and he had been able to find odd jobs here and there. That was, until the recent dryad invasion and many businesses in the capital being adversely affected and even this lifeline being snatched away from him.

And so, he had ended up in this current position. Engaged in petty theft for petty cash. Even then, he had spent more nights hungry than not. Thievery does require other people to have something to steal in order for it to be viable, and there just wasn’t enough to go around no matter how you put it. Additionally, the more such acts became widespread, the more on guard people were - either hiring guards or only moving in large groups to deter bandits.

“And where is the target right now?” Sun Jiao asked.

“Probably about to go to sleep, I saw him setting up camp about half an hour from here,” the man answered. A smile almost formed on Sun Jiao’s face - attacking or extorting a village was impossible with their numbers, so anyone who chose to rest out in the open was a tantalizing mark. However, what the man said next wiped this ephemeral smile off of Sun Jiao’s face. “One thing you should know though - he was riding this huge bear which was as tame as a maid’s old gelding. But it’s gone now - I think he might be a Liberomancer.”

Sun Jiao sighed, walked up to the man, and slapped him across the face. His patience was greatly exhausted leading this band of losers. They didn’t seem to have a single brain cell between all three of them.

“You idiot! You’re trying to tell me that you saw a man riding a bear - meaning he is either a Rank Two Liberomancer, or has a tamed bear, and your first idea is ‘let’s rob this man?’ Do you wish to get all of us killed?” Sun Jiao asked.

The reason that they had been able to operate for so long without getting caught was because they chose their targets well - that was also why they had occasionally passed up on what might have otherwise been juicy opportunities, because he had judged at times that the risk was too high.

Unfortunately, the others were clearly rather bad at doing this kind of risk analysis. For that matter, they were bad at nearly everything which is why they had banded together under his banner.

“But boss - he’s just one man,” the man countered. “Once he’s asleep, we’ll just grab what he has and then make a run for it.”

Sun Jiao sighed again. He raised his arm, and the man flinched, though Sun Jiao lowered it. “I was considering striking you again - but then realized that it would be a waste of a slap. One man? Are you aware of how powerful a Liberomancer can be? Some of them can slaughter a hundred men easier than you can take a dump!”

Sun Jiao had heard the tale of a Rank Three earth elementalist from Meloukas who had destroyed an entire castle on his own by ruining the foundation upon which it stood, sending over ten thousand men to their deaths.

More recently, there was a rumor of a heroic Liberomancer from Arconia who had slain ten thousand dryads with a single spell when it had been under siege. Surprisingly, the person who was said to have done so was neither the governor nor one of his sons, nor the famed Master Jiah Pei, but some newcomer whom no one had ever heard of before. “The fact that he’s traveling alone means he’s either exceedingly confident in his own powers, or is a demonic Liberomancer. Either way, we should stay miles away from him. How have we been successful up till now? By stealing from the elderly and the weak!”

2025-09-12 10:03:01 +0000 UTC View Post

Drechenaux

Drechenaux posts

The Arkwrights: Chapters 31-33

The Arkwrights: Chapters 28-30

An Apology & Pause On Billing Cycle

An Apology & The Actual Advance Chapters For This Week (Chapters 25-27)

The Arkwrights: Chapters 22-24

The Arkwrights: Chapters 18-21

The Arkwrights: Chapters 15-17

The Arkwrights: Chapters 12-14

The Arkwrights Chapters 9-11

The Arkwrights: Chapters 6-8

The Arkwrights: Chapters 3-5

Volume 3 Epilogue & Volume 4: Chapters 1-2

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 44-46

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 41-43

I Wrote An Ebook. It's Currently For Free For a Few Days.

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 38-40

The Journey to Hitutsa Chapters 35-37

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 32-34

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 29-31

Chapter 28 & An Apology

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 25-27

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 22-24

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 19-21

The Journey To Hitutsa: Chapters 16-18

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 13-15

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 10-12

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 8-10

The Siege of Arconia: Chapter Forty-Eight Rewrite

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 5-7

The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 2-4