The Crimson Warlock

by Paulo Meireles Junior

  “James, what will you do?” Lorelai asked me.

  “I was in the middle of creating a spell to track the source of the enemy’s magic, but I’m not finished with it yet, for the moment I’ll just need to keep my eye opened and follow any and all clues I can”.

  “I suspect you felt the malign aura that was around the priest” the royal magician asked me.

  “Yes, it was what lured me in the direction of the noble district in the first place, that kind of magic is difficult to completely conceal so I’m trying to track it. This is proving to be a problem for me”.

  “I don’t know how the priest concealed that energy but when I first felt it… The Prince and the Princess were already too close to him” she then looked down.

  “Don’t look so sad, that was a close call but we are alright” the princess commented for the first time.

  “Yes, that barrier of yours protected us while we tried to reason with the traitor” the king mentioned and sighed “we should all be grateful to the hero for saving us” all eyes focused on me again.

  “Can you please call me by my name? That hero thing is embarrassing, I might have been sent here by a god but I’m still a normal person like many of this world and I also would appreciate if people avoid commenting about my status as a hero, that might alert the enemy”.

  “Not wanting the glory?” Lorelai smiled “but then again, you were always the most reliable at the department” I rolled my eyes at that and she laughed.

  “Yeah. About the dark magic. Just the fact that you were able to feel it makes you a great magic user” I directed my comment at the royal magician “you shouldn’t feel bad because it took you too long to detect it, the fact that you were able to detect it at all makes you an obstacle to our common enemy, that kind of magic is very hard to notice, even for me”.

  “Thank you for saying that. It pleases me to be praised by an accomplished wizard. If I may ask, how many magic attributes can you use?” wizard, meh...

  “All of them” and again all eyes were on me. What is the deal with it anyway? It was a god that gave me that power, it’s like playing a video-game with the cheat menu opened.

  “Oh my...” was all that Emilia said.

  “To answer your question, I guess we can call you by your name if that makes you more comfortable, we will speak with the people present at the wedding and ask of them to not leak your status as a hero to the public” the king laughed, changing the earlier subject and ruffling his hair.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty”.

  “That brings us to the point I wished to discuss with you. We want to thank you for saving us, do you have anything you wish? name your price” I just stared at him blankly, after a few seconds Lorelai burst laughing out loud.

  “I’m sorry” she said while her father scolded her “it’s just...” she then laughed again.

  “Your Majesty, with all due respect… I don’t need a reward for saving you” I commented and Lorelai nodded probably knowing what I was going to say next given that we were in situations like these before “in our old job we were paid to investigate crimes and make sure the perpetrators were brought to justice, our motto was ‘to serve and protect’, and by doing our jobs, we hopefully gave citizens a better future. I’m here in this world on a mission that includes stopping the person behind the attack on the wedding and I’m glad no one was seriously injured but the fact is: I was doing my job. I don’t need a reward for that, I helped because I wanted”.

  To that the king looked at me for a moment before looking back at his family members and turning his gaze in our direction again.

  “Still… You are an adventurer, you probably need money or something else?”

  “I’m one of the only Platinum ranked adventurers around. And since I’m not royalty, I don’t need much money to live a comfortable life. If you feel like rewarding me for something though, I might have a proposition”.

  “I’m all ears” His Majesty said.

  “If you happen to find the source of the dark aura or something that can help lead me to it, please inform me so I can take care of it”.

  “Just that?”

  “Yes, as I said before, I don’t need a reward for saving people, I’m here first and foremost to stop whoever is behind the malign aura” not really, but I’m not telling him about the artifacts.

  “Let’s just leave this topic for now then” the queen suggested to the king with a smile, she then smiled at me and I sighed in relief when his majesty nodded.

  “I do want to say something” Lorelai informed “after James completes his mission here, I will travel with him completing quests for the guild for a least a year”.

  That raised a few eyebrows and they started talking. Her father seemed worried about her and she pointed that I was powerful enough to protect her in case something happened. She basically used me as a shield against her family. Just kill me now... I wasn’t sure that by the time I ended my mission I would be in good graces with the royal family. I suggested them to leave that conversation for now and focus on the immediate threat, that also prompted me to tell them that they could find me through Yuna if I wasn’t in the capital.

  Although the meeting with the royal family was kind of strange, I made a good contact with them since in the end the king wanted to help resolve the problem behind the dark aura, the royal magician was authorized by him to help me create the spell I needed in order to track the aura. That was probably one of the best things that came out of that impromptu meeting, since the whole process of spell creation still gave me nightmares. That and the fact that Lorelai was another one of my allies led me to believe that slowly I would feel more at home here in this world, if the drama didn’t kill me first.

  CHAPTER IV

  A STRANGE MEETING

  “The day could have gone better” was Mega’s observation.

  “Today has been a really bad day... Well, at least I found another good restaurant” was one way to put it.

  “Yeah… But you didn’t really found it. Yuna recommended it to you”.

  “Come on, work with me Mega...”

  “Okay, sorry, let me rephrase that. Oh, look, we almost burned down a forest today while training with a magic spell that turned out to be quite potent, thank the heavens we found a good restaurant to eat some delicious food after such a productive day”.

  “You are a piece of work… I give up” I said chuckling.

  “Let’s go to the inn, it’s not like we can do much now. At least you filled the crater you created in the forest with earth, give it a few years and trees might grow back...” I think I liked him better when he was all formal…

  The day after the training fiasco, I ate a good lunch and took a bath before heading to the castle to talk with Emilia about the spell. As soon as I arrived a guard went to find Alphonse, the butler of the royal family. I might have some kind of tie to the royal family, but that didn’t mean that they would let me freely wander around their castle. I’ve been visiting for a few minutes at a time these past few days to consult with Emilia about the spell, she also has been teaching me how to make proper spells and having a teacher makes an immeasurable amount of difference.

  Like always, the visit took less than fifteen minutes, we straightened out some details about the construction of the spell and what we would attempt next in practice.

  After leaving the castle I took the long route back to the inn. Winter was almost here and the temperature was slowly descending, but people still flocked the streets to buy their essentials and I could see the happy faces of various merchants as they sold their wares. Business seemed good in Sunnara, the capital city prospered and that was refreshing to see.

  Even though guard patrols increased by the order of the king, people still trusted their majesty to keep them safe, also, the knights and guards were correctly trained solve most problems. It was kind of funny seeing as I did patrols for the department for a few years before taking the detective exam, so I sympathized
with the guards and was very pleased when I got to see a situation quickly defused by them without the use of force.

  With a few more days of training, visiting with the court’s magician and avoiding Lorelai’s relentless questioning about the progress of my mission, I got a message from Yuna in the form of Luke visiting the inn. So naturally I went there to see the guildmaster that was becoming a good friend of mine, a very busy friend. I found her nose deep in some papers when I entered her office.

  “Hey, you’re here. Nice, this paperwork is going to give me nightmares, it just doesn’t end” she motioned at a stack of parchments on top of the table.

  “Yeah, I can’t say I envy you” I made a disgusted expression looking at the unsigned papers for a moment before looking at her “so, what’s up?”

  “Have you ever heard of sentient dungeons?” she asked.

  “No, I can’t say I have”.

  “Well, normally they aren’t that difficult to beat. No one knows how they fully work, only that the dungeon is a living entity. When you enter it, the exit can disappear, walls and halls can appear and disappear and some parts of the dungeon have some powerful monsters. Some dungeons can even nullify the use of transportation spells like that teleport of yours, so in order to beat them you need to explore all of its levels and defeat the boss at the lowest point of the dungeon just to get out of it” that was an interesting explanation.

  “Okay, please continue” I said processing what she said after she paused.

  “Normally dungeons like these are not that hard to beat and after they are cleared, the dungeon then disappears and another one is formed somewhere in the world with a high concentration of mana. The guild cataloged twenty-seven of these dungeons and we know what to expect inside them, so that information can be passed to adventurers, but there is something wrong with one of them. It appears that the dungeon has changed, mutated somehow, a group of nine adventurers entered it a few days ago and only five of them came back, it was reported that they found really powerful monsters inside the dungeon and there were also traps and a safe room in it. There’s no such things as safe rooms inside these dungeons, they might be sentient but they are also trying to kill you. I don’t know how many people have entered this dungeon since the adventurers reported back to us, but the number of losses are rising fast. It seems your reputation with the Hydra’s incident has reached all the local guilds around Heryan and Largos so they are specifically asking for your help, to either clear the dungeon or to catalog it, that way we will know what to expect in a future exploration”.

  “Hmm, I guess I can go look at it, how many levels do these dungeons have and how did the adventurers escaped the dungeon?”

  “It depends on the dungeon, normally they would have from two to four levels, the maximum found was six. The adventurers escaped through the use of a return scroll, are you familiar with that spell?”.

  “No, I’m not, I can guess that it somehow teleports the person to a location, right?”

  “Yes, the return scroll works as such: you pour mana into it so the scroll saves your location, then you enter the dungeon. When you want to use the scroll you just open it, the scroll will be consumed and the spell will teleport you to that exact location or somewhere resembling the location that was registered. I say that because these scrolls are highly limited in range, so while they can teleport you out of a dungeon, they don’t always work exactly as intended”.

  “Alright, good to know. I’ll have a look at this dungeon then. Where is it?”

  “North of Bloom City, near the border between Heryan and Largos, you can get there by working backwards from Oetto since you can teleport. I suspect it will only take you a couple of hours to get there”.

  “Okay then, I’ll head there tomorrow morning, see you later” I said getting up, she waived a goodbye and when I was about to leave I turned around “do me a favor and keep a lookout for anything suspicious at the capital”.

  “You got it, I’ve been on high alert after everything you told me” she responded with a serious face.

  “Okay, thanks” I then got out.

  I got to the inn and bought some food before heading upstairs to have a conversation with Mega about the sentient dungeons. He mentioned that there was an artifact inside the vault located in the realm of the gods that could create dungeons like the ones Yuna mentioned.

  “Although I say that there is an artifact that can create such dungeons, I can’t determine if said artifact was used to create dungeons here. The dungeons here might have been created by exposure to a high concentration of mana over a period of time. Almost anything is possible when it comes to concentrated magic. I can at least tell you if the dungeon was ‘mutated’ as she put it, or if the changes were made naturally, but for that we’ll have to explore that dungeon, I’m actually interested in it too” was Mega’s ultimate conclusion.

  So I set destination for the duke’s estate to inform Lorelai that I would be missing from the capital for the next few days and asked her not to mention it to anyone other than the royal family. I liked to think that my presence here was an interference to whoever planned the attack on the wedding, and the last thing I wanted now was another attack in the city while I was far away from it.

  Morning came sooner than I thought, I stocked up on food and left it in my room so I could pop in and out via 『Teleport』 when I needed. Not packing anything for travel was normally dangerous, but since I could use my transportation magic I wasn’t worried about dying of starvation in the wild. My 『Improve』 would be better if I wasn’t carrying anything with me because that meant that I could run a little faster.

  I left the backpack neatly arranged in the bedroom because I would get it before entering the dungeon. While my priorities in the wild would be to run fast and 『Teleport』 back to the inn when necessary, I couldn’t use the same approach in the dungeon since I didn’t know which or how many rooms were safe to use a transportation spell. Not only that, but the layout of the dungeon constantly changed, that meant that I probably wouldn’t be able to use my 『Teleport』 to go back to the places I explored inside the sentient dungeon. My plan was to try and clear the place as fast as I could.

  Teleporting to Oetto with the intention of working my way back was easy since I had my trusty map, the estimated time of arrival using 『Improve』 was one hour and seventeen minutes, so I ran. The scenery around me changed quite drastically when I crossed the border. When before I was seeing trees that were reminiscent of Japanese sakura trees, I also saw the trees of the same type with different colors such as yellow, blue or even black. After I crossed the border to Heryan the biome changed, I could see mountains in the background and plains full of flowers, mostly yellow. Far from the road I could see monsters running from one side to the other between a few trees here and there and some birds either near the road or flying high.

  By now my favorite thing about Sapphire was its nature; the wild and beautiful trees would make beautiful paintings and professional photos, you could find inspiration anywhere in this world. While I was worried about my mission and the possibility of failing it, I wanted to do my best, not only to protect the people that I’ve met or the ones I’ve never seen, but also to find the time to explore the rest of this world. To travel far and wide, to not only meet people but to make memories.

  On Earth there was a time that I wouldn’t open up to anyone and avoid almost everyone, Samantha thankfully changed that with her easy-going nature, she made me realize that life had a whole lot to offer if I was open to the possibilities, so I had a good last few years learning how to trust and treating every day as a possibility to find or discover something new. I owe her a lot, because in trying to work better with me she taught me how I could expand my horizons and when I did, I wasn’t disappointed.

  I had no words to describe Bloom City. It was amazing, from the vines that covered the city walls to the beautiful trees and house designs, and while I understood nothing of architecture, I was thankf
ul to see all of the different houses and shops with unique designs, some people had an eye for this type of construction and I suddenly had the sensation that I was walking around in an expo displaying architectural works, that was exactly what it felt like. By far my favorite design was a flower shop that had a floating garden with a waterfall flowing water from its floating platform to the roof of the building, I couldn’t see where the water was going, but the idea of displaying some flowers in the floating garden was genius as the customer would be impressed with how well maintained the flowers were.

  My destination was the guild that had the same design as the ones I’ve already seen. As usual, there was a clerk waiting for me with instructions on how to proceed with my quest. He handed me a parchment and a piece of paper, he then asked me to make observations if possible after looking at the dungeon. He also informed me that its entrance was being guarded by guild scouts because they were worried about adventurers going in and not coming out after the amount of losses piled up these past few days.

  After assuring me that the scouts were waiting, I got the general location of the dungeon from the clerk and set destination on my map, which found the dungeon easily with no problem at all. Running there was my choice, but I stopped at a cafe first to eat since this charming city was too beautiful to only spend fifteen minutes in at a time.

  Running to the entrance of the dungeon didn’t take long since it was located about ten minutes far from the city using 『Improve』, which equated to about thirty minutes or so going there on horses. I found a camp just outside of a cave which I presumed was the current entrance to the dungeon, two scouts were eating fish by a campfire that they lit.

  They introduced themselves obviously knowing who I was, the first thing they mentioned was the number of adventurers trying to enter the dungeon these past few days, even after the guild advertised the danger of it. After talking to them for a few moments I teleported to the inn to get my backpack and back to entrance of the cave.