Nathan

Year 2849 | Month 12 | Day 15

“What are you doing here, Adalwolf?” I ask with a frown as I look around, not finding the skeleton anywhere. “And how did you even find me?”

“If you’re referring to your interesting changes, they don’t affect my method of tracking you,” the skeleton answers before adding, “although they are a little bit interesting as a side effect of the mutagen mixing with your condition.”

But if he didn’t track me through my mana signature, then how-

“It’s simple enough,” Adalwolf says, seemingly guessing at my thoughts. “I simply tracked the death mana inside of you. Not something anyone else would be able to do, mind you, but a very simple method of finding you.”

Oh. Well, at least the doctor can’t find me through it then.

“And why are you here?” I ask while still trying to look around, only to suddenly jump slightly when the skeleton appears standing in front of me while wearing a fancy set of black and silver armor fit for a king.

“Can’t a magician check up on his past test subject?” the skeleton asks while tilting his head.

I scowl at him.

The skeleton walks past me to look at the cave before whistling somehow and saying, “You’ve set up nicely on my continent. My congratulations to you on that.” He then looks at me again and tilts his head. “How’s your progress on your spells? Do you need any more tutoring?”

That question catches me off guard.

The heck? Why is he offering to help me?

“Before you ask, you’re the only person I know from this era, and I feel like we have a connection between us seeing as you’re the one who freed me,” he says with a shrug, making me rather suspicious of him. “As a side note, I thought I should tell you that I’m blocking that asshole Leodmir from entering the continent or even searching it with his mana. So you’re completely safe from him as long as I’m here.”

My eyes widen in shock.

Huh.

I knew the skeleton likely wouldn’t allow him entry, but to go so far as to block him entirely from even searching the continent and tell me about it? Why do I feel like he’s trying to curry favor with me or something…

“You’re like me,” he suddenly says, surprisingly for a moment.

“How am I like you?” I ask, not really understanding.

Last I checked I wasn’t a skeleton.

“You’re immortal,” the skeleton says while seemingly looking up at the sun with a faint hint of sadness showing in the flames of his eyes. A look I didn’t realize was possible. “Just like me.”

Huh.

Wait, is he lonely? That can’t be possible… he treated me like a freaking test subject before!

He’s up to something.

And yet, I can’t help but feel he really does mean what he just said. Even if he doesn’t necessarily care about me personally beyond it.

I sigh.

So annoying.

“Do you have a reason for being here? Or can I go?” I ask, getting sick of his word games.

He looks at me again and answers without any emotion in his tone again, just like when he would talk to me after turning me into his test subject, “I wanted to see what you were doing to my kingdom since gaining the powers of a vampire. And it has been rather amusing so far.”

I narrow my eyes at the skeleton, only to sigh and turn around, beginning to walk towards the barrier of fire again.

“Please just leave me alone,” I tell him, too mentally tired to deal with his crap anymore.

“So you don’t want to know how the world outside of this continent is doing?” he asks, making me stop in my tracks.

Damnit.

I turn around and walk back to him again, trying really hard to ignore the smug look that I swear he’s sending me right now despite not having a face.

How is it that this skeleton always seems to show eccentric emotions at times like these despite not having a face to express them with?

He doesn’t say anything sarcastic though, instead simply waving his arm and making a hologram of the main continent appear with various lines acting as the borders between the nations, along with a few new symbols in the middle of the Barren Pass. The skeleton then points directly at the pass as he says, “The Class S magicians all have their own little bases spread throughout the Pass, but they aren’t staying there all the time.” He moves his hand to point at various important locations for each of the other nations, “They’ve all been attacking various strategic locations belonging to each of the nations, with a specific focus on the Republic.”

That makes sense. The Republic was absolutely moronic to think they could handle them.

The skeleton waves his hand again, changing the hologram to instead show a large battlefield filled with dead soldiers and two floating figures in the sky. One of which I immediately recognize as the doctor, and the other as the Chairman of the Republic. A Class S anti-magic magician.

“Leodmir is also a little bit too busy dealing with Artorius to actively search for you right now,” Adalwolf says, sounding slightly amused as we both watch the two Class S Special affinity magicians fighting each other with neither of them having the upper hand, despite Leodmir’s clear age and experience advantage over Artorius.

Wow. Anti-magic really is powerful.

Throughout the battle, anytime a spatial blade gets near Artorius, he simply negates it by spending an equal amount of his own mana. Meaning the only ways that the doctor can beat him are through either making rifts and using those as indirect attacks, since he can’t dispel them for some reason, or through using his larger amount of mana arcs to overwhelm the Chairman with sheer brute force.

“They’ve been having battles like this over and over again, both of them repeatedly trying to take advantage of the other whenever they’re weak to prematurely end their little war by killing the other side’s leader,” the skeleton continues, even more mirth in his voice than before. “And neither of them have succeeded.” He turns back to me again. “So that doctor of yours won’t have any time in the near future to search for you besides the little search spell he has going through the kingdom right now that I’m currently tricking.”

My eyes widen at that.

If the skeleton is tricking it, then won’t that mean the doctor won’t even realize that he’ll have to search for me for five to ten years at the very least?!

I can’t help the smile that stretches across my face at that thought.

Freedom. Something I haven’t had since becoming immortal.

The smile fades again though when I see the skeleton still staring at me.

Right. Still have to deal with this thing.