Chapter 15 Need a hand?

All of the members at the table were currently chatting away save for Etten who was just overlooking everything silently.

Riley: “I’ll bet you can’t even cook!”

John: “Alright how much?”

Riley: “Erm… the satisfaction of being right?”

John: “Ok fair enough.”

Drven: “Wow that was simple”

And with that John walked up to the chef’s and began gathering some ingredients to rub it in Riley’s face and also to enjoy some hot food. He gathered up the leftover bread dough, a watery fruit similar to a tomato, some spices, left over cheese, and meat. He began to knead the dough together into a flat circular shape put the tomato esque fruit and spices on the bread after turning them into a paste and to finish it he placed meat on it and began to cook it over a wood fire the Chefs had going. In the end he somehow managed to make something similar to Pizza.

John: “There you go Make-shift Pizza!”

He proudly stuck out his chest when placing the surprisingly good looking pizza on the table.

John: “Honestly it goes better with tomatoes but you guys don't have any of those.”

They then began eating the pizza and sadly for John by the time he sat down it was all gone without him getting to have even a single slice.

Elden: “Whoa this is pretty good!”

Princess: “F-for a commoner it’s a pretty good dish.”

Drven: “It’s just straight up good.”

Riley: “*intense eating noises*”

Sven: “This is GREAT!”

John: “*sobs* I didn’t even get a slice….”

Apparently it was a hit as the princess had the chef’s write down the ingredients for later use, as for everyone else they were just enjoying the unusual dish.

Riley: “*gulp* So, what is Pitcha?”

John: “It’s called Pizza and I don’t believe I properly explained this to you guys but it’s from where I come from it was a popular meal.”

John began to look a bit distraught over his origin being brought up.

Drven: “You don’t need to tell us where you come from if it’ll bug you y’know”

John: “Nah it’s fine I just haven’t had much time to think about it.”

Riley: “Pitzyeah?”

John: “Close enough.”

Elden: “So princess, mind telling us why we’re on this “trip”

Drven: “Yeah, I have wanted to know this too why would a member of royalty hire this many high level beings if it was just a simple escort. Sure this road is dangerous but it’s a bit excessive if we’re risking our life we’d at least like all the details and I can promise under contract to not spread news if you’re trying so hard to keep it a secret.”

Riley: “You made John reveal his identity why not reveal your own purpose for this trip?”

The princess was caught off guard by the sudden question and quickly glanced at Etten who looked just as shocked about the question being asked.

Etten: “Erm, I suppose that’s fair but it is a matter of national security.”

Princess: “We should probably just tell them.”

Etten: “Ok, basically the TigerKin royal family that the princess is from is under attack, the royal guard were instructed to escort the princess around the country with the excuse of a trip while ensuring her safety the last we heard the Queen was taken captive and the King was leading an attack to retrieve her.”

After this news was given, everyone’s mouth dropped and the princess started to tear up.

John: “Holy crap that’s one heck of a secret an entire royal family under attack, do you know who’s leading it?”

Etten: “Demons, that’s who; they are leading the attack on the royal family in order to overthrow the kingdom.”

After Etten said this Riley began to shake with anger.

Riley: “Demons of course it would be *&$%&*@ demons.”

Drven: “That’s about what I expected honestly.”

Elden: “Yikes that’s more than I bargained for but if it’s going to help out your kingdom of course I will after all I’m the best swordsman!”

Sven: “How cocky… I’ll support you guys with my ranged magic.”

John: “If things are that dire though how do you expect to pay us?”

Etten: “To be frank most of the mercenaries won’t survive the next part of this road it’s so dangerous even demons avoid it if they can, so we expected to make it through safely and we have enough funds to currently pay you all, but that’s only after already estimated losses.”

Riley: “Wow, that’s a bit crass, but it makes sense after all we lost 18 to restrained bandits.”

John: “And suddenly I’m wary of the next part of this trip.”

Sven: “Knowing you John you’ll be fine.”

John: “My lucks not as good as you might think…”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a few hours John and Riley headed back to their carriage they were the first ones to leave as the others decided to stay back and continue talking.

Riley: “So, now that the secret’s out we need to be more wary of everyone around us.”

John: “Mmh, yeah I also need to think of some kind of way to weaponized my powers without suffering from magic exhaustion, I have somewhat of an idea but it might be kind of loud so I’ll save it for tomorrow.”

Riley: “That sounds fun but I better get some medics on standby whenever I think of an idiot and weapons it’s bound to go wrong and most likely explode.”

John: “I’ll be careful… it shouldn’t explode………. Mabey”

Riley: “I’ll be sure to take cover.”

John: “Oh before I forget I might need some materials from your carriage are you ok with me using them?”

Riley: “As long as it’s not too expensive it’s fine.”

John: “Alright thanks, Goodnight and let’s hope we don’t get stabbed.”

Riley: “That’s comforting.”

As usual Riley set up a tent while John climbed into the cart and buried himself under a pile of furs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next morning; after awaking to find Sven sleeping next to him, John a bit weirded out walked began to wander around in search of a spot to attempt his ideas the area he finally settled on was a clear spot on the edge of the clearing he had made when subduing the bandits.

John, who expected to be practicing his magic in secret, was now being watched by a crowd of people apparently word had quickly spread that he was the one who trapped all of the bandits and cleared the area which allowed the caravan to set up camp. Someone most likely saw him walking to the edge of the clearing and out of curiosity people followed him but along with the random crowd, there were a few royal healers on standby along with Riley and the other members of the group, Sven seemed to be the most enthusiastic out of all of them.

John listened carefully and heard people try to guess what kind of being he was. He heard amusing things like: Giant, Half Elf, Golem, some even called him a specter or wraith due to the fact that he was covered in a cloak, apparently his height was a bit unusual even among the BearKin who were considered to be one of the largest races of BeastKin.

John: “Y’know I never liked being the center of attention this is nerve wracking.”

John looked at the collection of metal pieces he had taken from Riley’s supplies.

John: “I’m so glad they can’t see my face, well here goes nothing.”

His plan was to essentially make a projectile weapon using minimal amounts of magic to prevent his mana exhaustion from taking over, which made him a liability in combat, and although in his case doing so drastically increased his maximum mana capacity, it also disabled him for an indefinite amount of time making it a trump card, rather than a constant use magic.

John readied a chunk of iron in his left hand, due to the fact that iron has magnetic properties; he figured it would be easier to manipulate. So with that in mind John began focusing on the electrons running through his fingers and after reversing the direction of his electrons and focusing on the piece of iron, in a flash of orange light the iron had disappeared followed by an incredibly loud *POP*, the smashing sound of a tree toppling over, and a splatter of red around John all at the same time.

After he had finished focusing his magic, John felt his left hand get ripped down to the wrist in between his pointer and middle finger, followed by it bending in a weird direction. He then watched in shock as blood sprayed everywhere followed by the projectile carving a gigantic hole in the tree in front of him, subsequently causing its collapse.

The crowd around John dropped their jaws in awe as a tree had been felled in an instant. However when they noticed the blood around John some of them paled and walked off not wanting to imagine what had happened to him as magic that backfired never had pretty results, while others began to eliminate options for what kind of species he was some even began thinking he might be a Demon.

John: “Um… Well on the plus side nothing exploded right?”

As John said that out loud the healers quickly ran up to him lead by Riley who rolled up his sleeve and began applying a tourniquet to his arm, meanwhile the rest of the medics began to stitch his hand back together while applying healing magic to prevent excessive blood loss.

Riley: “HEY, ARE YOU OK?”

John: “Yeah the magic output was very small…”

Riley: “NO YOU [email protected]#$$ YOUR HAND!”

John: “I’m still in shock so the pain although it should be intense can barely be felt. Also screaming and thrashing around would reveal my identity to everyone.”

Riley: “What an idiot…”

As she said that she began applying her own healing magic to his hand, due to the fact that it was boosted by the other healer’s magic, the healing magic managed to get his hand almost completely back to its original form.

Riley: “*sigh* Alright John same with your chest don’t strain your hand and it should heal just fine.”

John: “Noted however I think I’m getting closer to a way to weaponized my power, I’m going to attempt something similar but not using my bare hands and also probably from a distance.”

Riley: “You just went through all of that and yet you STILL want to try more!”

John: “I will try one more experiment and stop for the day as obviously I’m pushing myself too hard, but if I don’t do this now on the next leg of the trip if I pass out from

mana exhaustion again I might die.”

Riley: “I’m not going to stop you, but just so you know, I do intend on protecting you. You are my partner after all.”

John: “Mmh… thanks Riley y’know I’m glad I met you, you’re the only person I can truly trust. If you are the one protecting me I can relax a little during the next leg of this trip.”

After saying that John realized how their conversation sounded and felt his ears grow hot. He quickly coughed, stood up, and walked back towards the spot he was before.

John placed his hands on the ground and formed stone walls in front of him in an “O” shape with a small opening that allowed him to see inside but blocked the others view.

After realizing his previous error in applying one of the most basic physics rules: “Every action as an equal and opposite reaction” he began to try to use something that defied physics “Magic” what exactly is it? This question had pestered John for a while so he decided to attempt to discover its true identity, if it had one.

He knew it was something like fuel: powerful, and it can be used instantaneously, so the question remains if magic is like fuel: “Can it be put into a physical form?”

With this in mind John remembered the orange glow that surrounded him every time he used magic with that, he imagined solid bright glowing orange disk of compressed magic and began focusing his magic into the center of the circular stone walls.

As he opened his eyes while still focusing on compression he witnessed the object in his mind take shape a solid disk of glowing orange magic about the size of a penny solidified in the center of the stone circle.

John: “Well now that it’s here and I proved to myself that magic can be drawn and compressed from my own MP I should probably reabsorb it… I should have thought this part through more I have no clue where exactly it came from so reabsorbing it isn’t an option.”

After saying that his concentration broke, and as the magic had nothing to bind itself to or to remain contained in, it exposed its volatile nature by binding to the molecules around it and expanding causing intense molecular acceleration. In other words as expected, a gigantic explosion occurred thankfully John assuming this would happen contained most of it by enveloping it underground. However even after that effort the explosion still managed to displace a large chunk of earth inside the circle, followed by a shockwave that knocked all of the bystanders down.

John: “Whew that was a close one… man doing fast manipulation on that scale is as expected exhausting, but I’m ALMOST there now I just need to find a strong material and scale down that disk and I can essentially have a magic powered projectile weapon! Or due to the time that would take I could probably just create two really strong and powerful swords…. yeah now that I think about it that might be the better option right now projectiles should be reserved for last resort due to their instability maybe crystals might be a good holding tool.”

As John leveled out the area that was displaced by his magic using…. his magic due to the fact that he was now deep in though, he failed to notice the figure quickly approaching from behind. That figure happened to be Riley, who was ticked off about the fact that John had almost killed himself once again.

Riley, after chewing John out about things like how much of an idiot he was and what was the point of her protecting him if he was just going to blow himself up, began to question him about what had just occurred but John who was more than spent at this point fell face forward and collapsed into deep sleep, after letting out a deep sigh Riley hefted John’s arm over her shoulder and began to walk back to her cart.

Later that night John and Riley were once again summoned to the princess’s tent however this time unlike the last, the rest of their group had to stay behind, to the displeasure of Elden and Sven and the indifference of Drven.

Etten: “Wow…. That was a spectacle, huh as expected of a human; mind blowing feats performed casually. As someone who can sense magic, what you just did was something that breaks everything previously thought about magic you concentrated it to

a point where it achieved a physical form.”

John: “I suppose it’s for the best that normal people can’t do that, if I hadn’t contained that explosion we wouldn’t be here right now pure magic is incredibly volatile.”

Etten: “So how’s the hand? That first experiment really back-fired it seems.”

John: “As of right now it should heal but I should still be careful, also the first experiment was a success as the output of magic was incredibly minimal however I had forgotten about physics and foolishly used my bare hand to turn a piece of metal into a projectile with enough force to carve apart a tree and who knows what else.”

Riley: “Don’t tell me you intend on doing more dangerous things.”

John: “Not currently no I’m just going to make myself a sword for the next leg of this trip as I don’t have enough time to refine the experiments I did today.”

Riley: “It’s better than blowing your hand apart again I suppose.”

Princess: “I suppose I should thank you John, even commoners do deserve some praise, as your feats of magic gave our troops huge moral boost. They gained a lot of confidence after seeing your power in action. Ignoring what happened to your hand,

after learning that you were merely doing those things as an experiment they got fired up over having someone like you on our side.”

John: “I’m glad it worked out to your benefit here’s hoping they have enough confidence to survive this next leg of the trip.”

Riley: “I take it we’re departing tomorrow?”

Etten: “That’s correct we leave at dawn to face the next leg of this trip, be sure to get a good night’s sleep there’s no telling if we’ll get any for the next couple of days.”

And with that John and Riley went back to the cart, Riley climbed into her tent while John explained what he had talked to the princess and Etten about to the group. After he finished explaining things to them John excused himself and after borrowing various metals and gems from Riley’s cart John began to work on a sword for himself.