《Tale of the Modern Magus》Chapter 8: Lost
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When Roland woke up the sun was already high up in the sky. The first thing he felt was intense dizziness, he rolled to his side and puked. His arms and legs were hurting extremely bad, when he looked at them he saw numerous cuts. His pants had a bunch of holes in them and looking at all of the dirt and tear on his clothes one would think he’s been in the wilderness for a multitude of weeks.
With some trouble Roland managed to get up, there was puke on his chest from when he fell asleep but luckily he was just next to a lake. He felt extremely exhausted mentally, so much so he simply couldn’t muster up the energy to try and recall what had happened the previous day.
He simply took off his clothes and took a few steps into the lake. Even though the lake was cold, it still felt rather good. He felt as if his strained mind could relax a tiny bit. He then grabbed his clothes and washed off the puke and dirt before getting out.
He felt a bit better now and remembered what had happened the previous night. He couldn’t forget the eyes of the lady, they seemed to be piercing his every memory.
Roland stopped himself from puking again and managed to divert his attention by trying to figure out what to do next. He was hungry, lost, and alone. He had no idea how far he had gone but he could vaguely remember the sun coming up when he fainted, this meant he must’ve moved for nearly the entire night.
He lost his wig and his supplies. All he had on him right now were his wallet that held money, a lighter, and a candy bar.
His stomach started rumbling loudly and so Roland took out the candy bar and ate it. It tasted absolutely horrible. He still had the taste of vomit in his mouth which would surely overwhelm anything he ate but he forced himself to keep it in. This wasn’t the first time he had gotten lost in the wilderness but the other times the situation had been a lot better.
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He had at least some supplies and a friend to talk to, now he was just here on his own sitting near a lake.
Even though his legs protested Roland got up again and decided to head in a random direction. But before doing so he made sure to lay some fake trails, even though he wasn’t in a perfect state of mind, he still knew he had to take some precautions now that he knew for certain he was being hunted.
Even though Roland would’ve loved it if he was able to just keep moving to try and make it out of this forest, he needed food. He had no idea how long it would take for him to get out of the forest but chances were it would take over a day. Ane even if he got out after just a few hours, he didn’t quite feel like eating in a restaurant after his recent incident.
So Roland slowed his pace, decreasing the sound he made. It didn’t take long for this to pay off as he soon came across a bunny. Roland managed to sneak up until he was thirty meters away from the bunny before he deemed it to close to go any further. He crouched and pointed at the bunny in the distance. Then he cast ‘Cortar’ and soon a purply line sped toward the bunny. When the bunny saw the line it tried to jump away but it was just too late. Mid jump the line hit its legs causing it to fall to the ground in a panic. Roland quickly went toward the bunny and snapped its neck before looking down at it.
He couldn’t stop himself from looking at the bunny’s legs a couple of times, and every time he did he got reminded of the asian woman’s neck. He managed to get over himself but then he realized another problem.
He didn’t have a knife on him meaning he couldn’t skin the rabbit.
Roland cursed at himself as he hadn’t thought of that before. Nonetheless, he took the rabbit in one hand as he kept moving, perhaps he would find a sharp rock along the road and even though he had never tried skinning using a rock, he figured that at most there’d be a bit more blood in the meat.
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“What the hell am I doing?”
He questioned himself as he put down a few more fake tracks. He killed someone and even though the thought of it made him sick, he didn’t feel bad about the act itself. He didn’t feel sorry for the woman at all.
He had no idea what to do now. Since they found him last time they probably would again, how far was he supposed to run before being able to settle down again? He truly had not the slightest clue. After walking for another hundred meters he had made a decision.
Whenever his magic power was full he would train until it was depleted by half, then he would keep going.
He started right off the bat by sending out a few purple lines, he only shot them out when he noticed a free line of over two-hundred meters. He shot the spell through all of the trees until it landed two-hundred meters further. Hopefully, that could also be a diversion, if they walked along his footsteps and noticed the scratches in a faraway tree they might see it as a track and go to check it out.
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At the same time in a faraway place.
Alicia was walking around her mansion. She felt good, she had gotten a promotion as she got transferred over to the main branch. Just as she was putting the last things of her old work into a box to store away, she saw something within it flash. She checked it out and noticed her old earpiece had a small flashing red light.
Alicia decided to give them an earful, he no longer worked with them and didn’t have to be as polite anymore. She worked at the main branch now after all. She put on the earpiece and decided to hear what they had to say first. About a second after she put on the earpiece and tapped it once, a voice came out of it.
“Dolphin, you have been requested to come back for a final mission. Your replacement has been suspected to be either dead or deserted after eight hours of being non-responsive.
Your pay will be thrice the usual amount and after the execution of this order, the company will never contact you again.”
When the voice finished speaking Alicia had already completely forgotten about her earlier plans of giving them an earful. It only happened very rarely that one of them died, this meant there were only very few replacements as well. Alicia knew the main branch had requested the cooperation of everyone in order to do the biggest bust in the century, hell, it would take place in less than three weeks from now so everyone was extremely busy.
She chose this job because she felt a moral obligation, and since more people might die if she didn’t take care of this mark she decided to agree. She quickly grabbed her bulletproof vest and prepared for the job as she got all of the required information from her earpiece.
They told her to go to the location where they last contacted her successor, they had lost track of the mark as he started moving but she had confidence in her tracking skills. She also opted for a silenced pistol. She actually took two of those and a stun gun in changed the mission changed from a removal one to a retrieval one.
Half an hour later, she set out for Bolivia.
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