The Quantum Wanderer

The first thing I do is create a small plaque of neutron crystal, this time mixed with the sand in the beach. This allows me to manipulate it. Otherwise, it can be completely slippery. I hold it half a feet from my other hand, and I try to cast a fire spell through it.

Just like I imagined, it doesn’t go through. But I am covered in neutron crystal scales, and they don’t hinder my spelling. I extend the neutron crystal, so that one piece of it doesn’t have sand. It is almost invisible. I touch it, and once I am touching it, I cast the fire spell. It goes through.

I take a look at what is going on. I can see that the neutron crystal is actually within the outer electron layers. It went right through. Instead of having two electron clouds pushing against each other, in this case the neutron crystal pushes against the nucleus of the molecules themselves. Apparently, the definition of projecting the mana outside myself is quite literal. This is very convenient. I was already thinking of creating mana connections in the crystal, to allow me to cast something to the outside through them.

I still have somethings to figure out. The first one is the breathing. I can use air magic and mana to freshen the air in my lungs, but that is going to be a constant mana usage. I create neutron crystal sphere around me. Given the amount of time that I have trained it, this is now an easy operation. I take out the dwarven charm, and put it on.

The effects are amazing. I don’t even spend the oxygen inside the sphere. I take a look at the pendant. I wonder if it is getting spent with this much usage. I haven’t really paid attention to this, so I can’t tell right now, but I take a look at the current amount of mana contained. It is a lot. I am going to check it again after I spend some time using it in the future.

I have already thought my strategy, right now I am ready. I solved all the issues, I think. I turn my attention to the girls, and come closer.

“Hi, my villain, did you decide to pay us attention?” Cecilia stabs at me.

“A person is working hard, figuring out the details to be able to hunt down the tastiest meat on Andrea, and gets treated like this… Sniff sniff…”

“Was that what you were testing?”

“Yes. Particularly, I have to be able to dive great depths to find the kraken. That is a little more complicated than expected.”

The dragonesses turn to me, excited.

“My lord, are you really going to hunt one?”

“I am going to try. I can’t promise yet, I don’t know how hard it is to kill that thing. Let’s see what happens.”

The dragonesses turn to Cecilia, smiling, and Cecilia nods. Apparently they have had some talk about this. I giggle a little.

“I am going to need one of you to keep an eye on any murder attempt on Julian while I go for the hunt. I don’t know how long it is going to take to find one.” I turn to Opal. “Unless you know where it is.”

“Sorry, my lord, I don’t know. It is stuff of legends among us.”

I look at Cecilia. She shrugs.

“We don’t even have a name for something of those proportions. If I had to guess, something like this would create a wave or something, but people would not even be able to know about it. I mean, even they –“ she points at the dragonesses “- don’t attack it because it would be a cursed quest.”

I stretch myself. I have been sitting researching the stuff for a way longer time than I thought.

“Well, nothing that can be done right now, it is kind of late already. But back to the Julian problem, who can keep an eye? Muninn and Huginn are keeping an eye on the area.”

“I can do that, my lord!” Ruby says.

“Awesome. If they attack, please restrain the boss. We can capture the liaison to Julian’s brother as well, and then they can do whatever they want with those guys.”

“What about the small fry, my lord?”

I shrug. She nods. I get myself thinking how much less I am valuing life right now. This world really managed to change me in that aspect.

I sit down a little bit with them. Shandon turns to me, out of nowhere.

“My lord, what is your opinion on painted nails?”

“I enjoy that. It really was a thing in the place I came from. I didn’t know they had this kind of thing around, though.”

“We heard it is a new fad in Shoria, actually. There are some places that do that.”

I nod at them. The dragonesses start talking about the colors that they are going to paint their nails. It is interesting to see them talking some girly subjects. Cecilia raises her head, and looks at me.

“What color are you going to paint yours, Marcelo?”

“Errr… See, in the land I come from, men painting their nails feel weird. There were some cases, but it is something that I was not raised to see normally.”

Cecilia shrugs, and gets down to the talk about the colors. After a little time, we get the stuff back in my holding back and head back to the inn to get back for the night. I proceed with bringing the meat from my safe, and we are already starting dinner, when Muninn caws, and both he and Huginn land on my shoulders. They show me a lot of people circling the inn, slowly. I stand up.

“They are here. They came earlier than I expected. They are probably waiting for complete dark.”

Ruby raises her hand, excited. I look at her.

“Yes, Ruby?”

“May I? May I?”

“Sure, go. Be careful to not destroy houses or innocents on the way, ok?”

“Sure, my lord. Thanks.”

And she disappears, too fast for most humans to see. Only the wind of the air displacement is left. Hikari and Julian still hadn’t seen her in action.

“Are all adventurers this fast?” Julian asks. I can feel some worry about his own lack of power in his voice. Cecilia tries to comfort him.

“No, these girls are a case apart. I don’t know of another adventurer or group of that could stand to any of them.”

“Except for my lord.” Opal adds.

“Except for Marcelo.”

I giggle and shrug. We hear some cries coming from outside. Good, Ruby is learning to hold back. Most cases the people she fights do not get time to scream. I hear some shouting. I turn to Muninn.

“Buddy, can you please keep an eye on the runners? I want to clear then all.” Muninn opens his third eye, and caws towards the ceiling. Then he reverts to his normal state. I can feel that Julian is a little uncomfortable. I don’t know which part he is nervous about, though. It might be Muninn’s third eye, or the fact that I am not letting anyone alive.

I sit back on my chair. Ruby is already taking care of it. There is some silence around the table. Cecilia is the one to break it.

“My villain, what color do you want me to paint my nails?”

“I don’t know… It really depends on your tastes. I think I will let you pick it. That way, each of you are going to select a different one, and I actually prefer that way. Oh, I just realized something. Do we report the attack to someone? There are going to appear something like 50 bodies around the block.”

Cecilia is the one to answer.

“They don’t have guards around yet, so I would guess that you can report the attack to the guild. It is the closest to an authority around.”

“Ok, I am going to go there. You can eat, I will be back after I make the report.”

I go outside, and in front of the inn’s door, on the other side of the street, there are three people in black. Their legs and arms are broken in several places. Ruby was meticulous. I drag them by their shirts to the dining room in the inn, and drop them on the floor.

“Keep an eye on these, I am going to the guild. These are probably the bosses, Ruby left them alive.”

I go to the guild, and there are a couple of people in front of it already. They are talking to the attendant on the guild. The guild has a some people inside, having dinner.

“… Screams, and there are dead people. I came running.”

She looks back at the guild.

“Any soldiers here?”

Some people look at her. There are some people dressed as soldiers, but they do not rise. They are probably escorting the nobles.

“Excuse me, I think I am aware of the problem. I came here to actually report an attack and self defense.”

She looks at me.

“You. Spit it out.”

“Do you remember the noble that suffered an attempted robbery a couple of days ago?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently their pals tried to finish the service. My girls and I stopped the attempt. He is in Hikari’s.”

She turns to the inside of the inn, without an idea on how to proceed. There were a lot of people dining there. She went to the back, and after a couple of minutes she comes accompanied by a younger girl, that stays at the counter watching everybody having dinner.

“Let’s go.”

We get to the block around the inn, and things are quite obvious. The guys are all dressed in black, armed to their teeth. They are all dead, with internal injuries. I would guess that Ruby punched them in the chest. The attendant searched the first one. He even had poison on his weapons. That was a giveaway, because everyone only applied poison to the weapons immediately before a fight, for several reasons. You don’t want to accidentally get hurt with your own poison, and poison outside the vial will start loosing efficiency because of contact with air. The poison was fresh.

She inspected some more, there were several of them to be inspected, but the template applied to a lot of them. She looks around, and she can see that the bodies are circling the inn.

“Well, I can see that you are not lying here. The inn was bound to be attacked. The poison on some weapons would be enough to charge them with murder, so you are in the clear, mister Marcelo. I am bound to do a report to the upper echelon, though.”

“Report away.”

“I will be sending someone to take these bodies to the guild later.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Is there anyone alive?”

“There is, but those ones are prisoners to Julian. The son of the baron. He is inside the inn, he was probably their target. He is going to have this mess solved with his father in the morning.”

“That is actually good news for me. Now, if you would excuse me.”

She turned around and headed back. I go inside the inn. Ruby is there, sitting on a chair. My girls are all staring at the meat. I sit down as well.

“Go ahead.”

The girls go ahead and start eating. They eat the first piece of meat normally, but from the second one on, they cast a very small fire breath, and heat it up a little, while it hangs from the fork. I do the same, but using some fire magic. Cecilia does the same as I do. Julian and Hikari are playing with the food, but they don’t really eat it.

After I finish eating, I get a couple of nails from my bag, and I heat and stretch them into a wire. I do that for six pieces of wire, that I use to tie those three people’s hands behind their backs and feet. Ruby broke their legs at the thighs. It must be painful already.

I turn to Julian and Hikari.

“Both of you, please come here. Julian, I need you to realize how things are. We may have to torture these people. You are going to be a baron, responsible for lives. I can understand if you don’t have the stomach for that, but then your people are going to pay for it. Remember, when you protect the wolf, you sacrifice the sheep.”

I get close to the unconscious trio and start unmasking them. The first one is the liaison from the bandits’ boss and Julien’s brother. The second one is the bandits’ boss. The third one was a surprise. I didn’t think that he would be here in person. But I guess that he wanted to make sure. Julian whispers.

“Brother…”

I can see tears coming from his eyes. Hikari hugs him from behind. She brings him to a chair and he sits down. He is in shock. He looks me, I shrug. It is not my place telling him what to do. As long as I don’t get involved, I don’t really care what he decides to do. Hikari gets him a glass of water, that he drinks. I touch her on the shoulder.

“I think he is going to need something stronger.”

She realizes what I mean, and go in the kitchen, coming back shortly after with a bottle of liquor. She pour on a glass, and puts it close to his nose. He makes an ugly face because the smell of alcohol goes up his nose, but the picks the glass up and downs it.

He sighs, and then he stops zoning out. He turns to me.

“I think I am going to go to the guild, and see if I can get some adventurers to escort me to Shoria. What do you think?”

“That’s a very good choice of plan, assuming that your parents are not in on this. If they are…”

“I am sure they are not.”

He said that, but I wish that certainty was stamped on his face. He had a couple of doubts deep down. He turned to Hikari.

“Please stay here, my love. I will send word to you once this is resolved. Your presence would only turn embers to fire.”

“Ok. I will stay here, keep the inn open for Marcelo and his wives.”

Julian turns to me.

“Thank you, sir Marcelo. Can I ask you to keep Hikari safe?”

“First, you should thank Muninn here that gave the warning, and Ruby that did the fighting. I did mostly nothing. And on the matter of Hikari’s safety, we can ask Muninn to keep an eye around.”

Muninn cawed. I can tell that Julian still did not get used to Muninn smarts. Next morning, we wake up normally, and we go down for breakfast. Julian is not around, Hikari told me that he went to the guild first thing in the morning to try to find help to go back to Shoria.

The guys in the dining room are waking up as the girls and I are going through the dining room to the kitchen. Julian’s brother starts screaming.

“I AM A NOBLE! I WILL HAVE YOUR LIFE FOR THIS! YOU FUCKING PEASANTS! I WILL HAVE YOU IN CHAINS BEFORE THE SUN GOES DOWN!”

He moves just a little bit, and the pain hits him. The guys around him are very still. I sigh. We decide to have breakfast in the kitchen, so that we don’t have to look at them. I cast a silence spell, so that we can eat in peace. When we are about to finish eating, Julian arrives back.

“Hello all. I went to the guild, and there is a count from another area that is spending some time around, he is going to Shoria. He offered me a ride.”

I really shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but my curiosity got the best of me.

“What did he want in return?”

“He said that I can repay the favor later. Can you help me load them in the carriage?”

I sigh, and Hikari freezes for a minute. She is aware how expensive these favors can get. Not my problem, though.

“Sure, when are you going to leave?”

“In another hour. We should be getting to Shoria by nightfall.”

Hikari steps close to him.

“Have some breakfast, you are going to need the energy for the day.”

I go up the stairs, and dress up my armor and my adventurer stuff. Although I might not use it, I prefer to be prepared. I go to the door. Everyone is in front of it, waiting for the ride to Shoria to arrive.

Hikari is talking to Julian, trying to show him how expensive the favor can cost in the future. I can see some realization in his eyes, she is way smarter than he is right now. I hope he gets the chance to improve on that.

After some time, the carriage arrives, with 4 flanking guards on horseback. I go inside, and I drag the three people by their clothes. I can see the guards faces twist when they see me handling Julian’s brother in an uncaring way. These guys apparently worry about the person’s noble status. I don’t care, I put them sitting down on the back of the carriage. I give them some endorphin and adrenaline, so that they feel less pain. At least while been dragged and put there.

Julian’s brother just won’t shut up. I am kind of happy getting away from this problem. It cost me some morning time, though. I go to the forest, so that it doesn’t feel weird to Hikari, and open a portal to the middle of the ocean between Andrea and Drakonia. I have my dwarven pendant, I go to almost orbital heights.

I take a look at the area with my sense of mana. The ley lines are discernable from here. There are some huge ones, it looks like several arches of energy, that leave the planet and go back to it. It reminds me of pictures of the sun when you have an explosion generating an arch that goes from one point in it to another. The distance between the starting point and ending point of these arches vary a lot, but it may be linked to their strength and width. Smaller ones are weaker.

In my mind, dragons are always residing within ley lines. There are some of them in Drakonia, and the nursery resides within one. It is just too much to be coincidental. The griffons’ nest, in Andrea, is also on the ley line. By that logic, if I want something that is bigger than a dragon…

I turn my mana senses on, and get close to the first ley line. The sea is a deep blue. There is a pod of a monster, with only their necks and their heads outside the water. They remind of me the Loch Ness Monster. I am some distance away from them. There are some youngs in the middle of their circle. The big ones close to the outer circle bare their teeth to me, in spite of the distance. One of them even try shooting a water breath, but the distance is too big.

There are still some other points to investigate. Just by looking at natural behaviour, I am looking for something where the big boss will be the only thing around. At least stuff the size of food is not going to be loitering around.

There is a bigger leyline, and investigate. There is no life closer to the surface, apparently. I enhance myself, to exert some caution and get close to the surface. I see something underneath the water, coming my way, and I move to the side. It jumps out of the water with it’s mouth open, but it misses me. It is a very large shark. By the size of it, probably what they are calling a megalodon.

Some other ones come close to the surface, and start circling around, the fins and the tip of the tail are outside the water. I fly up, this is not what I am going after. I fly very high, and then I take a look at where this ley line goes back into Andrea. I get there to investigate as well. This is taking a lot longer than I expected, even with my speed.

I get close to the surface, but I don’t see anything big close to it. There are some smaller fish, around 6 feet or less, but nothing big like the other two places I have visited already. I put my hand in the water, and I inspect it.

This place is very deep. Around 6 miles deep. There is a large crevice on the bottom, that goes another mile, and a huge mana signature in it. It shines bright against the other small fry around. I get ready, it is time to hunt.