The Crimson Warlock

by Paulo Meireles Junior

  Walking along the road I decided to pin the location of the beast on the map and there was a cool function that faded out the map and put a direction line showing where to go, I could actually see the lines in front of me guiding us to the correct location. That map was a literal godsend.

  The scenery around me was really beautiful, the most important thing for me was the greenery around the roads leading to other villages and cities, it really reminded me on an unexplored Earth, particularly a medieval Earth that had a lot of unaltered terrain. Looking at trees, flowers, animals and weird monsters in the distance was quite rejuvenating. And there was a really important factor and that was the air, it was really clean, the smell of the flowers and plants invaded my nostrils as the wind blew it our way. We walked for close to twenty minutes before arriving at the rocky terrain that I first saw on the map.

  We exited the road and in contrast to the greenish patch near the roads, the rocky biome in the direction of the monster was wide and very leveled which made fighting easier, the problem was the amount of pebbles and rocks on the ground, that made slipping easy if not careful.

  The fox was lying on the ground curled up and resting, and even curled up in the shape of a circle, the beast looked really big. Like the picture that Mega projected, the creature was basically a fox but giant and on fire, and when I say on fire, I meant it. The beast’s entire body was on fire.

  “No time like the present, I can feel the scout’s presence in the distance. I think you should just blow their mind away by unleashing a one hit kill on this fox”.

  “I can’t read you… I was under the impression that we shouldn’t attract too much attention...”

  “Nah, sooner or later they will find out the extent of your power and possibly that you were sent by a god, if the god of all gods decides to publicly mark you as a hero. That usually happens when you’re in the presence of someone important. That way people know that you are on an important mission and they generally won’t waste your time”.

  “We will cross that bridge when we get to it, 『Arcane Shield』, 『Improve』, 『Aqua Saber』” I conjured the spells and approached the Firefox.

  As if sensing my approach, the beast looked up and locked eyes with me for a moment before instantly howling… That wasn’t a fox howl, it looked more like a wolf howl. The creature rapidly shot a fireball at me while standing on its feet. I actually could predict both the fox’s movements and the fireball that came in my direction, so I just got out of the way. The beast then leaped at me and I jumped up and back, I got somewhat surprised at the height that I could jump and my velocity. The creature then tried another ability which was sending a wall of fire at me, this fire lingered on the ground that it touched, reducing the combat field and that surely was going to be a problem later so I decided to use 『Water Storm』 and pointed at the fox while concentrating. As soon as I mentioned the spell, the space around the creature warped creating water, in a moment, a large quantity of water surrounded the creature and the area around it. The water moved, violently enveloping the creature as chaotic waves were created. As the creature tried to desperately get out, the water just accompanied it trying to damage the Firefox as fast as possible. I tried to gain control of the water and create an orb around the fox to suffocate it and I could easily do so. After a few moments of struggle, the beast stopped moving, just to be sure I held the magic for a few more moments before calling it off and as soon as I did all the water evaporated leaving only a defeated creature on the ground. One creature that looked dead and wasn’t on fire anymore.

  “Is it dead?” I asked. Well, that was anticlimactic...

  “Yes, there’s no life in this creature anymore, the beast is dead” Mega responded.

  I shrugged and moved in the direction of the creature to cut one of its front paws, the Firefox’s paws were big and I didn’t anticipated that so I cut one of them using the conjured saber. After that I waited for a bit for the blood to stop dripping out of the paw before getting up.

  “The scout that was near has already left” Mega informed.

  “Okay, let’s go back then and get this over with, I need to buy clothes, provisions and a backpack” I was still using the clothes I arrived yesterday with, although they were comfortable, I would like something other than this, perhaps a robe to go with the amount of magic I seem to be using? Heheh. Things really are interesting here, that’s for sure.

  I deactivated the saber and the 『Improve』 but left the 『Arcane Shield』 active for the journey back to the village that didn’t take long and the guards that saw me leaving the village greeted me but didn’t asked for anything. I moved to the guild with the paw in hand and deactivated the 『Arcane Shield』 before entering the building. The clerk was in the same place that he was when I left the guild yesterday, so I just moved to talk with him and as soon as I got near he looked at me and greeted me.

  “Good morning James, it seems that you are a very capable adventurer, at least according to our scout. He mentioned that you killed the Firefox very quickly and efficiently.” He chuckled.

  “Here” I put the monster’s paw on top of the table “yeah, that wasn’t much of a fight, as I mentioned, I appear to be very good with magic...” I rubbed the back of my head in discomfort.

  “Haha! Okay, from our scout’s reports it seems that the creature didn’t even tire you, but the problem is: I can’t give you a higher rank than gold, so I’ll change your rank to gold and give the guild a recommendation to change your rank after you complete a few gold rank quests, that way you can complete more critical quests in case your skills rank higher than gold. A moment please” he then took the creature’s paw and positioned in a specific place on top of the table before using some kind of magic. The paw then floated for a moment before slowly descending back to its place “alright, this is a Firefox's paw, quest completion confirmed, wait for a moment while we get your payment”.

  He then moved to one of the other clerks before motioning me over to explain how the guild bank worked, apparently the guild had a bank that adventurers registered with them could use, you would be able to retrieve the money that you deposit at any guild throughout the world and that was something that could help me, as powerful as I appeared to be, I still trusted the guild to keep my money more than I trusted myself to not lose it or spend it.

  After talking with the clerks, I decided to keep two gold and deposited the rest in the guild’s bank before leaving the building. I then looked for a backpack and bought one that could hold provisions for a few days and a few clothes. It was then time to look for a few clothes and buy provisions, my plan was to leave for the capital on the dawn of the next day.

  I think that my introduction to the world of magic really paid off, especially since I had the mana necessary for continuously casting spells. I believe I will continue to learn more about magic and try to use it as much as I can, I could make use of melee because I trained in the academy but even using 『Improve』 to move, I found the magical approach better than the physical one when it came to fighting.

  So I promised myself to learn much more magic and use the knowledge to make my life easier, help people and complete my mission here in this world.

  James Hunter, the Warlock, it kinda has a nice ring to it...

  CHAPTER II

  A GUILD REQUEST

  We left early in the direction of the capital. I only stopped at the guild to ask the clerk in which guild I would find more work. He informed me that a city near the capital had two or three gold ranked quests. He also mentioned to be careful if I was going in the direction of Sunnara because they were experiencing a series of high level monsters spawning in a few places a few kilometers from the capital and neither the guild nor the government knew why these monsters were spawning so close to the city.

  I then asked Mega if he knew about monsters, how they were created, how long it took, etc. He told me that there was a book at the guild library that had information about how it was believed
that monsters were created. It seems that locations that gather mana are prime spots for creation of monsters. The general census was that an animal could absorb so much mana that it would be transformed into a monster and that would trigger a spawn sequence in the area, the monster would inadvertently give off scent and magical energy, the mana around it would respond by either converting more animals into monsters or creating more monsters out of the excess mana in the air.

  Although monsters wouldn’t spawn in cities, they could be attracted to the mana generated from there, so cities and villages were often surrounded by walls to prevent monsters entering and reigning chaos. To create a village or a city, people need to purify a location if the place is prone to monsters spawning, the process can take days or weeks depending on the size of the location that they want to purify.

  Reports were filed long ago that it wasn’t a good idea to create a metropolis because it could push monster spawns so far into the borders of the city that as soon as monsters started spawning, they would all gather and rush in the direction of the city to try and absorb the mana that concentrated above the city. There was a fix for that but it could also destroy the city, too much mana concentrated in one place could cause natural disasters such as earthquakes, cyclones and in a particular case, an ancient city was wiped out by a torrent of continuous rain followed by a tsunami.

  And so people decided to make cities far and spread on the land. Monsters were part of the ecosystem and always had their uses, some materials could be gathered from them to make other useful items. In particular cases, parts of monsters were even edible if properly harvested and prepared, in this world they were like animals but generally considered more dangerous.

  My map was guiding me to a city called Elistera, which was located nine days from the capital, from there we would find work and head to Sunnara straight after. It would take six days to arrive to Elistera using horses, but I was traveling on foot under the effects of 『Improve』 which would reduce my journey to two days instead of six. Moving up to three times faster than horses was a big advantage, however only people like me would be able to continuously use 『Improve』 since the spell drained mana while active. I was concerned about Mega at first but he told me that while he was in standby mode he wouldn’t interfere with my traveling, and since we were linked together he could never stray too far from me.

  I was equipped with supplies for a few days and although I could always stray north in the direction of another village which was nearer, I decided to keep going east in the direction of Elistera because I wasn’t about to run out of supplies anytime soon and if I did I could always hunt a rabbit or another animal to eat.

  The roads between Saurian town and Elistera had too much greenery, I could see patches of grass with flowers everywhere, I sometimes saw a few dense forests too, which was always a good place to hunt. Animals and monsters moved far from the dirt roads that were neatly maintained. I was impressed by how leveled the road was and I mentioned that to Mega when I stopped for a few minutes on the first day of travel to eat and drink something. He mentioned that the roads were probably leveled with magic from time to time, so it didn’t take to much effort to do it.

  I wondered how life was different for people that lived in the capital in contrast to someone from Earth. Since magic played a huge part in the creation and the maintenance of towns and cities, or even to everyday life. I was actually interested in seeing what people did in mundane days around the larger cities.

  I wasn’t keen on the idea of making too many contacts and socializing with too many people before knowing what I had to do in my mission to destroy those artifacts. Partly because I didn’t know my enemy and also because of what happened to Samantha back on Earth.

  We were showing the ropes to the rookie when we got an information of a possible location of our missing kids, we responded to the call and when we got close to check out and they got us by surprise. We were surrounded by the time we got inside the compound and found the teenagers, I copied files from their computers while Samantha was on the lookout and found that the bastards had been keeping surveillance on us, they had numerous photos of Samantha and I. Needless to say that we didn’t survived a trip to their compound, hell, it was supposed to be a reconnaissance mission, but they caught us by surprise and forced our hands. I am the first to admit that she was shot protecting us and at the moment that I realized that she was going to die my world also ended, she was not only my partner in the force but she was like a sister to me, the only person that ever fully understood me. I just hope that the rookie and the kids survived that crap, that our sacrifice wasn’t for nothing…

  I was summoned to this world as a hero and I was supposed to act like one. I wanted to make friends, I wanted to laugh and talk, I wanted to complete quests and make a life worth living in this world, but I didn’t want to show my enemies all of my weaknesses so they could exploit them.

  Dusk came and I found a nice forest to sleep in for the night. I made a safe fire and talked a little bit with Mega about the events of the day, I also asked for his opinion on the stuff I was thinking about earlier. He informed me that a hero could carry the weight of the world on his shoulders but that didn’t mean he should. If I made friends, I would need to take the necessary steps to protect them until my mission was done.

  That gave me some things to think about it, nevertheless I decided to cross that bridge when it came. I ate some grilled beef and drank tea to relax while I sat resting my back against a tree trunk, after twenty minutes of light conversation and eating I said a good night to Mega and proceeded to make myself comfortable on the ground while he entered standby mode to protect me from the unknown. Although I had a lot of things to think about, clearing my mind wasn’t difficult, so sleep claimed me really soon.

  Life of adventuring wasn’t always easy. I woke up sore from sleeping on the ground and I wondered if they sold sleeping bags in this world for future exploration, with any luck I would sleep in an inn today if I made progress like I did yesterday.

  I prepared some coffee and ate some bread before resting for a few minutes against the trunk of the tree near the place I slept. Mega wasn’t in a talkative mood today but he mentioned the possibility of raining and with that I decided to make my way to Elistera before the rain fell, I didn’t have a spell to make my stuff impervious or at least water resistant. I wanted to continue my journey now because I would need to slow down on the run if it started raining and I didn’t want that to slow my progress, I smothered the fire with water and waited a bit just to be safe before I started running in the direction of the city.

  I didn’t pay attention to the scenery around me, I only looked up to the angry sky from time to time to see if rain was coming and I think that after a few hours of running I left the rain clouds behind, the problem was that the wind was coming my way so I couldn’t afford to stop now. I even asked Mega before we left the camp about a spell to protect my stuff from water and he informed me that he couldn’t find one, my hope was that we would be able to find one in the library of Elistera’s guild or at the capital.

  At dusk we approached Elistera in all of its magnificence, I could see the high walls from the distance and knew this city had to be really big. Its ramparts were impressive from the distance and under 『Improve』 I could even see some soldiers walking from post to post along the city’s rampart.

  As we got near the soldiers, I kept the effects of 『Improve』 on but slowed down to a walk so I could greet the guards. As usual they asked me what I was doing but when they saw my 『Guild Information』 they welcomed me to the city without much difficulty. My map was pointing to the guild, as I walked inside the city I could see similarities to the designs of the houses from Saurian, except that the buildings from Elistera were made with more care and they looked new, which was an indication of how well maintained most of them were; people roamed the streets talking with friends and trying to sell stuff to bystanders. I could see different races and since I sti
ll knew nothing about them, I made a mental note to ask Mega about them later. After a few minutes we arrived at the familiar build building, its design was the same as the one from Saurian with the exception that this one was bigger. I then searched for a near inn on the map and found one two buildings down from the guild, stopping to think about it… If adventurers seek quests, then having an inn near the guild would guarantee them good business, that was smart. I wholeheartedly approved because I didn’t have to look far for a place to rest my head.

  I entered the guild first to search for quests to do, Mega helped me with that and we found three gold quests and a platinum one, too bad I couldn’t take that quest because of my rank, but I approached the clerk with one of the posts from a gold quest and informed her that I would take that one. She was glad when she looked at my 『Guild Information』 and told me that because of a recent surge in high level monsters appearing in the direction of the capital, adventurers were coming here to take quests but she only saw one gold ranked adventurer in the last month and there wasn’t a platinum ranked adventurer currently in the country. I asked her about a diamond one since you could take quests below your rank and she informed me that the guild hasn’t handed the diamond rank to an adventurer for one hundred years or so, apparently most of the platinum adventurers died to monsters from the same rank that were too tough for them, others retired. It was difficult to gather points for platinum rank because you had to complete a diversity of extremely difficult quests.

  I just shrugged at that and got an okay on the quest that I took, the monster, this time a Cerberus was located in the plains in the direction of the capital, far from the roads at least, since the beast was last located a few hours from the roads, this wasn’t a critical quest so I would receive only three gold coins to slay the creature and again they wanted the creature’s paw to confirm the kill.