The Crimson Warlock

by Paulo Meireles Junior

  “Take the most dangerous quest they have” said the voice of the omega. Was he serious? “Trust me, these monsters and these quests are nothing to us, you should climb the guild’s ranks as fast as possible”.

  “I’ll take a look at the board and bring one of the posts here. What does the “title” in the guild card mean?”.

  “A title is given to someone that completes a specific task, we cannot tell you how to acquire them, but some titles also have perks such as entry to adventurers only establishments or discounts from specific stores” neat.

  “I have another question, where can I find books on magic?” I asked the clerk.

  “We have a library with books on magic, fighting and the such. Take a quest post from the board and I’ll show you our library after we decide when you’re going to complete your quest”.

  I went in the direction of the guild board “help me look for a quest, there are a ton of posts here” I said to the omega.

  I spend a few moments looking from post to post, “here!” the omega said near the doors of the guild indicating one of the posts on the board. I went in his direction to inspect it “this is the most dangerous quest they have, it’s a shame that it’s a gold rank but it pays quite well, take it”.

  “Am I going to die because of you?” I just got revived in the body of a younger version of myself, the last thing I needed was to die so soon after arriving in this world.

  “One of my missions is to keep you alive, just trust me, I can sense your magical reserve and your endurance. I can tell you this: your magical reserve is higher than everyone present in this village, even if they combined their magic powers they wouldn’t reach the level of your mana reserve. Five minutes into a room with spell books and I will have every spell cataloged for you in my data bank. From there, it’s just a matter of learning the spell which will not take long for you to do. May I remind you that you are a hero, not only that, but a hero that was in the presence of a god in the realm of the gods? Trust me” Well, if you put it like that. Here we go…

  I approached the clerk with the post in my hand and handed it to him, after a quick look, his eyes widened before he looked back at me “are you sure about this one? Firefoxes are very dangerous and quick, there is a reason this is a gold ranked monster. I need to remind you that our scouts will watch from a distance, but will not come to your aid if you need help”.

  “It’s fine. I’m picking this one” I shrugged at him, clearly choosing to trust the omega.

  We then talked and managed to settle on a time for the quest to take conclusion, he informed me of the general area where this fox was located and mentioned that the pay was somewhat good because this was a critical quest, but since the town was small there weren’t many adventurers around. They were almost to the point of contacting other guilds in an attempt to send stronger adventurers to take care of the beast, so he reminded me to be careful once more.

  We were guided to a library that was located in the second floor of the building and as soon as we got there, the omega went from side to side performing strange motions, sometimes vanishing before reappearing. The clerk then pointed to the magical section of the library and told me to make myself comfortable. He left and since omega and I were alone in the library, I got some books from the beginner section to read. There was one named “Beginner art of magic” apparently it had everything you needed to know when starting to study magic.

  While omega did its thing I read the book and found useful information. Every person alive had a magical reserve that determined the amount of magic spells they could use before getting tired and there were also aptitudes for specific types of magic, which could be tested very easily just by reciting a spell with your palm up, if something happened that meant you had aptitude for that kind of magic, if nothing happened it meant you wouldn’t be able to use that type of magic. It was also possible to reduce a little of the amount of magic power necessary for a spell’s usage if the user is familiar enough with it, that and you could use more magic power to make some spells stronger.

  In the case that the person did not have aptitude for magic, he or she could still use magic spells that were enchanted into weapons because everyone in this world was born with a magical reserve, often called mana.

  So with that said I found out that there were eight elements of magic in this world, they were: Light, Dark, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Arcane and Summoning. First I tested the incantation for light magic and a ball of light appeared a few inches above my hand before vanishing. Next was the dark magic and a cloud of dark mist appeared in the same place the ball of light was before. I repeated the process for every type of magic and learned that I could use every kind of magic from this world, which according to the book that I was just reading, it meant that I was an anomaly since someone being able to use all types of magic was something really rare. Generally most people only had one or two magical affinities, five or six max. Having affinity with the eight types of magic was never recorded if what was written in the book was to be believed. Not bad, I guess. I mean… It was god that gave me the power to use all manner of magic.

  “I have scanned all of this library and I have useful information on Firefoxes, as well as spells that could easily kill it” I would have to be careful though, since the guild wanted one of the creature’s front paws as proof of killing it.

  “Nice, by the way, do you have a name? I didn’t even ask”.

  “I do not have a name, would you like to give me one?”

  “I’m not good with names, how about Mega? Obviously derived from omega”.

  “Alright then, from now on I’ll be known as Mega. Would you like me to tell you about the Firefox, or would you like to know about the spells first?” having Mega was going to make my life easier, that’s for sure.

  “Tell me about the fox”.

  Mega proceeded to show me a hologram with the information about the creature and then told me that Firefoxes had more than one tail, the amount of tails indicated their type, in this case a Firefox had three tails. Water spells worked wonders against it as the fox was quick and it could shoot fire at me, Firefoxes often liked to charge at their opponents before using fire and they were generally the size of a car. They are big… Mega also told me that an arcane spell called 『Arcane Shield』 was recently discovered and the spell put a shield around its user protecting them from both physical and magical damage, he informed that shield alone could negate any damage that the fox could do to me, so he urged me to try and use the magic. He mentioned the parameters of the magic and I tried invoking it, a purple barrier was erected around my body before fading, I felt the spell active but the barrier was now invisible. He then told me it was possible to invoke the magic in a certain way so that the purple aura wasn’t visible, that would give me an advantage should I battle against other people. I was then urged to focus my mana to reinforce the shield and I did as he asked. I felt the strength of the barrier around me and noted that a minuscule amount of my mana was required to maintain it, my regenerative rate completely negated the consumption of the mana required to maintain the spell. Meaning that I could use the spell indefinitely. Interesting…

  He also mentioned to me the parameters of two very powerful spells that worked against the fox, 『Water Storm』 which conjured a torrent of water and concentrated in the location of your target before exploding, this spell apparently was a very powerful spell and consumed a lot of mana, but Mega informed me that by the time I fully used the spell, my mana would be at full again, which was the reason for me picking up the most dangerous quest that the guild had.

  『Water Spiral』 created a spiral of water that could be controlled in the battlefield by the user and the water was enough to kill any high rank monster after one use or two if the user used more mana to make the spell deadlier.

  Mega told me about another spell that I should use regularly. 『Improve』 was a spell that let me improve all of my physical abilities. Highlighting most importantly my
strength, speed and senses. This spell slowly depletes mana from the user when active. I tried the spell with the 『Arcane Shield』 and the two of them combined were not enough to negate my high mana healing which raised my mood. I might actually be able to do this…

  “I think we should find that inn for now, I can show you any information that is in this room if you require it” Mega interrupted my reading. Apparently he stored the information of all of the books from the guild library in his data bank and he could show me using his holograms while also explaining about the information.

  “Alright and I don’t think we should stay in this town for long” I said.

  “Yes, our best course of action is to go in the direction of the capital, we should make contacts in the guild there, that way we can venture and keep a lookout for anything suspicious, and by the way, I know of your past profession but try to not act like a detective here, there’s no need for that, not with your powers. A direct approach is just as effective” Mega commented while I waived at the clerk that attended me, we then proceeded to exit the building.

  I would try as he said, after I certified that I was indeed powerful. For now my power level worried me, I simply dropped out of nowhere in this world… Maybe he was right, if I was to understand this world I would need to be more direct since I literally had no idea of how this place worked. Well, I would still put my investigative skills in use while looking for our targets.

  While we were on our way to the inn, Mega decided to tell me about the monetary system of this world and about this kingdom. This world had a simple monetary system where ten copper coins made one silver coin, ten silver coins made one gold coin and fifty gold coins made a platinum coin. Adventurers could easily live in this world by acquiring two or three silvers a week and the economy was quite interesting because of that.

  We were brought to this kingdom purposefully, as god mentioned to Mega and I that one of the artifacts was between Heryan and Largos. We were currently somewhere in Heryan, and according to Mega, the Largos Empire was really far, way beyond the Sunnara, the capital of Heryan. I don’t know if the gods sent us to the correct location but that didn’t matter because of 『Improve』, with the spell we would be able to travel way faster than normal.

  I booked a room at the inn, the innkeeper gave me a key and told me there was also a bathroom in the second floor where my room was located, I only paid for two days as I didn’t know what I was going to do after tomorrow. I hoped to buy supplies and get directions for the capital as soon as possible, there wasn’t a reason for staying here too long. The stay cost only two copper coins per day, that reaffirmed me that a capable adventurer would be able to make quite some money, they would pay me ten gold to take care of the Firefox, so someone doing critical quests was able to procure quite some cash, that was a really different contrast for the domesticated life that was lived on Earth, here anyone strong enough could be an adventurer and complete quests whenever they wanted, although this life wasn’t for everybody, it seemed like a really good high risk, high reward job.

  I ate something that I didn’t recognized for dinner and it was quite tasty, after Mega told me that he couldn’t eat and didn’t required any kind of maintenance or rest to operate I felt bad for him. When I went to the bathroom there was a mirror inside and for the first time I saw my face, the god actually made me younger, the reflection of a nineteen year old James Hunter looked back at me… I had no idea if this was a dream at this point but he told me that this was a second chance at life, so I wouldn’t take anything for granted. But I was glad that he at least didn’t made me a fifteen year old teenager, that would have been awkward.

  After a bath I went to sleep and Mega informed me that he would be in standby mode should anything happen, with that he disappeared from the bedroom so I went to bed and mulled over some more at what happened.

  I didn’t know why that god decided to give me a chance to live but I wasn’t going to complain, I spent my life as a detective trying to make the world safe for civilians to live in, ultimately I didn’t know if I succeeded but I was going to make sure Sapphire survived these dark times. And with that thought in mind, sleep claimed me.

  I woke up early but I didn’t knew at what time, there wasn’t anyone downstairs at the inn so I assumed that no one was yet awake. Working as a detective for years of my life taught me to sleep everywhere and not for long since something bad could always happen. Countless times the phone woke me in the middle of the night because someone had been murdered, my job was stressing but I was accustomed to it, and since not everyone could or had the stomach to do it, I took pride in doing it.

  “Ah, you’re up, good morning James” Mega’s voice ringed in my ears as I was lost in thoughts.

  “Yeah, morning. Hey Mega, I have a question… Do you know what time it is?” I asked and stopped, was the time in this world the same as on Earth? “hmm, I have no concept of how time and days work here”.

  “Okay, your map should display the current time. This world is a little smaller than Earth. Here fifty seconds equals one minute, fifty minutes equals one hour, twenty-three hours equals one day, seven days equals one week, there are twenty-eight days in a month and eleven months in a year. Try and conjure your map” That info was very useful.

  “Alright. 『Display Map』” a map appeared in front of me detailing a birds-eye view of the village, on the top left there was a time displaying 6:44 AM and on the bottom left of the screen it showed the name of the town and active population at 1.437 residents. I tried to use the search function like the god said, thinking about the capital of the kingdom and the map zoomed out and traced a line between my location and the capital that was a few hundred kilometers away. There was a function that calculated the time I would take to arrive there on foot showing that it would take more than forty days walking there. I tried to think about going there on horses and the time switched to fifteen days, so that meant that using 『Improve』 it would take five or six days to get there.

  This map function worked really well and I could even search specific places such as the guild building in the capital or inns and the search returned the correct results. I also tried to search the Firefox that I needed to kill and the search returned an estimated time of arrival of twenty-five minutes. The fox was on a rocky terrain and the reason for the urgency of the quest was that if the creature decided to re-locate to one of the forests surrounding the village it could be very dangerous if it used a fire skill and it ended up burning down the whole forest as a result, not only the villagers would be affected because of the smoke but there are plants, animals and food inside the forests which are used as a source of sustenance for the people of this town.

  I decided to wait for at least an hour before leaving the inn, I told the guild clerk that I would leave the village at eight, the scout would be somewhere far from the beast, watching from a distance. Since I had time to kill I asked Mega to tell me more about regenerative spells in case I needed to use them. The first ones he told me were 『Light Healing』 and 『Grand Heal』 which healed the target which was either the user or other person/creature appointed by the user, 『Grand Heal』 was a more powerful version of 『Heal』 and could fully cure someone that lost blood. These spells could not heal status ailments like poison, paralyze or toxic wounds, for that there was a spell called 『Nullify』 which returned the appointed target to a normal state, which meant that it could cure anyone from diseases. A spell like this one would be very helpful on Earth…

  He also told me about a spell called 『Aqua Saber』 which conjured a saber made of water and according to him there was a version of that spell for every kind of magic that existed, although the spell conjured the saber that was made of water, this spell was categorized as summoning magic because it summoned a magical weapon; summoning magic was mostly used to summon familiars or beasts to make contracts but occasionally a warlock would used it to conjure various types of elemental weapons. And so I started to summon the seven type
s of conjured sabers that existed, the 『Arcane Saber』 was my favorite one because it worked like a normal non-elemental saber and it pulsed colors changing from a variety of different colors. In general, the more magic I concentrated into the conjured weapon, the better the quality of the weapon would be.

  By combining these types of magic and conjuring weapons, it meant that I wouldn’t really need to buy a weapon. Mega then told me that some places could have a magic barrier that negated the effects of magic and although he could feel the magic barriers before we crossed them, he would not be able to tell me which type of barrier it was unless it was somehow advertised. Barriers apparently were quite common in some places, particularly around royal castles and the such. A magic barrier that negated the use of transportation magic would be erected because it could be very dangerous if someone infiltrated the castle and opened up a portal to transport an enemy army inside it.

  He also told me that weapons were important and he listed their efficiencies, first was an iron weapon, then there was a mithriill, then mithriillium and the last was orichalcum. Iron weapons were common and inexpensive in this world, mithriill was the most used by adventurers because some monsters were really resistant to an iron sword. Orichalcum was really expensive but cut monsters like butter. There were other materials for weapon making such as dragon bones but killing a dragon was a task nigh impossible according to the books he scanned.

  I was optimistic in regards to my current abilities because during my tests with various types of conjured weapons before I left the inn I noticed that even conjuring weapons and concentrating my mana to make the weapons more powerful my mana hardly drained at all, and even so it was almost instantly completely restored.

  Mega suggested that we went in the direction of the creature walking, and since it would take twenty minutes I could admire the scenery around me and that would give the scout the necessary time to arrive at the location of the beast if he or she wasn’t still there.