Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 12 | Day 8

After entering my barrier, I simply wait inside, not going any further to see if the groups begin talking amongst themselves or not. And they don’t do so for a little while. Long enough that I would normally consider just going back inside and believing that they aren’t going to.

But there is the fact that they are still there. I haven’t heard their footsteps leaving yet.

Several minutes pass by before they finally start speaking as if no time had passed.

“Why are you really here, Vecker,” the man I recognize as belonging to that Jackson guy asks with more than a little spite in his voice. Which honestly doesn’t surprise me in the least, since from what I’ve heard, there are very few cities that aren’t at odds in some way with each other. So them acting so friendly while all together was the weirder thing to see than this.

The woman – Amy Vecker – answers with a rather blunt, “The same thing as you, I’d assume. To sniff out this ‘Undying Magician’ and find out if he’s really what New Hope and Darkin says he is.”

Yeah, thought so. If I were to bet, then I’d place my money on the mercenary job she’ll be giving me tomorrow being a sort of test. They’ll make it very hard to see if I’m strong enough to deal with it, or to kill me if I’m not.

Either way, they’ll have succeeded.

And in all honesty, I’m perfectly happy with playing along. I spent way too fucking long hiding my abilities in the Republic, and I hated it the entire time. Absolutely hated it.

Now I can go all out and not care about the consequences, since the doctor can’t find me anymore. Not without an extensive search of the continent, and not without doing it personally and without magic now that my magic signature has changed.

I can’t help the grin that splits my face at thinking about that.

Everyone has a unique magic signature and a secondary unique magic signature. One of which being the signature that belongs directly to the mana in your mana arcs, and one let off by your body. The one let off by your body is easy to track, but it changes whenever you reach certain points in your aging. Whereas the other one cannot be picked up unless someone directly expels their mana from their body straight into a device. And that device picking it up has to be within a few feet of them.

So while he would’ve been able to pick me before I started aging myself a little bit, that’s not possible now. The bastard would have to go around and search the entire continent for me personally.

And I’m pretty sure the skeleton won’t like that, judging from how he was fighting him before. Not to mention that the doctor is in charge of the war between the nations. Meaning he won’t have the time even if he wanted to do it.

All of that’s also assuming he even knows that he would have to do it, which he likely doesn’t. Which will buy me years of time just before he even realizes this fact.

“I personally don’t like the idea of working with a monster,” the guy who first spoke to me – Arnold Vlan – says, sounding a lot more high and mighty than he did before. Which would probably explain why he didn’t initially tell me his name till prompted to. “But my city can’t risk fighting a magician of enough power to easily wipe out Victor, and I’m sure yours’ can’t either.”

The other two mutter disgruntled agreements with that.

“What job are you going to be sending him on?” Arnold asks, presumably towards Amy. And she quickly answers, “I’m going to have him deal with those bratty upstarts to the West.”

“The rogue faction that started up?” Jackson asks, vaguely surprised. But not as surprised as I am that these people are actually talking amongst each other mostly civilly.

But then again, guess they can’t always be fighting each other. Otherwise, their cities would be destroyed by now.

“Yes. We’ll see how this ‘Undying Magician’” the woman scoffs at the title this time, making me raise a brow in amusement, “does against a full dozen rogue Class D magicians.”

Oh? So that’s the job.

Not a problem.

Although I am kind of curious as to where these magicians came from. Since from my understanding, the other cities tend to like killing off the magicians or enslaving them to their own cause when they can.

So where a dozen free ones came from is beyond me.

“I’m willing to bet that he’ll be dead within the first five minutes of attacking them,” Jackson says, making my eyebrow twitch in irritation. Then Arnold joins in saying, “I’ll bet he lasts half an hour.”

Amy doesn’t say anything for a second, raising my hopes that she won’t join in, only for the woman to say, “I’ll bet on an hour before he’s dead.”

Well, damnit. Guess none of them actually think I’m as strong as New Hope does.

Which really isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially if I were still in the Republic. But I’m not there anymore.

And getting my name out there in this area of the continent should help me get the assistance I’ll need. After all, these idiots will just hound me if I don’t show them how strong I am.

Although they’ll probably hound me even after I do. All the way till I teach them a lesson, if history is anything to judge by.

“It’s a deal then. Do not renege on the bet,” Arnold says, sounding rather cross. “The winner who is closest to his survival time will get two weeks of food.”

They’re gambling food on my survival.

Wow.

I narrow my eyes on the barrier as I hear the groups beginning to walk away in opposing directions.

Just wow.

I turn around myself and begin walking further into my cave.

Now I have to wipe out those rogue magicians if for no other reason than to make them all lose the bet. Then take the reward for myself.

Although I might want to look more into the ‘rogue magicians’ before I commit to killing them. Since they may just be refugees or something.