Chương 103: Chapter 91.5 - A Taste Of The Real World

++Agrian Vornholt was one of the first living creatures I encountered in my new life, and his greatest quality, one that had been present even as a boy, was not his magical talent. It was his ability to think about things, and change his mind. ++ - From the writings of Isabel Vornholt, 'The Great Lich'. 1, 891 A. E. Agrian was spending a pretty big chunk of his life being bossed around by angry women.

The realisation came to him essentially all at once, a single, big bolt of introspection lancing right through his head and down his spine. What to do with it, though, he wasn't entirely sure. Stamp his foot and assert his manly will? Somehow, he got the impression that wouldn't go over well with Isabel.

"Keep up," Huit barked, and Agrian scrambled to obey. Dear Gods, if father could see him now. Then again, if father could see him now, he'd still be a good deal weaker than Huit herself. Agrian hadn't seen her power hit its limit just yet, but he knew that they didn't promote Highmages for no reason at all. Even a third class one was above ninety nine out of every hundred graduated magicians as a baseline. Huit, Agrian suspected, was somewhat above her baseline, too.

That was just a hunch for now, but his hunches were usually accurate when it came to magic. Apparently it was one of those genius traits that other people were so jealous of. Apart from Isabel, of course. With her talent the concept of a hunch had sort of dissolved entirely, she practically just looked at things and had facts added directly into her knowledge base without the slightest mental effort. And what's she doing with that talent? Necromancy? And only the Gods know what else.

For probably the hundredth time in the last few days, Agrian's gut seemed to squirm with discontent, fear, some other sensations he couldn't even name. Isabel, a necromancer. A necromancer! If someone had even suggested the idea to him a week ago, he'd have beaten the shit out of them bare-handed, and now he'd seen it with his own eyes and… And what? Agrian knew what would happen, everyone in Winzorth, or any other Institute for that matter, did. Necromancy wasn't just death magic, it was death.

Isabel would go mad. She would go mad, then she would start to mutate. Her skin would slough off, her eyes would rot and run down her cheeks like gory tears, her body would twist and mangle itself as the unnatural energies ran through it, and by the time her transformation was complete there'd be nothing left of the girl she'd been. Agrian would watch his sister's potential and cleverness melt away, and have only a gibbering monster in its place. He suddenly felt like he would vomit, like— …

Huit struck him, not hard, but sharp enough that he was snapped right out of his mental spiral.

"Focus," she said. Agrian's anger came a moment after the shock.

"What the—" she raised her hand, as if to hit him again, and he stepped back, silenced as he flinched.

"My life is in your hands," Huit growled.

"Yours is in mine. I'm not dying because some little shit noble I got stuck with is too busy thinking about girls or some other vapid shit like that to preserve my skin." Got stuck with? You're the one who assigned pairs. Agrian got the impression, though, that pointing this out would be counter-productive to his newfound goal of not being hit.

"Right," he said instead. It sunk into him then that Huit was actually right. A total bitch, but right. They were in the middle of hostile territory and had no guarantee of safety at any given moment, what the hell was he doing thinking about Isabel? They walked for another minute in silence, with Agrian passing the time by forcing himself to focus as best he could on their surroundings.

It was damned hard, even knowing what he did, even intellectually recognising how high the consequences for a single lapse might be. He was just… worried about his little sister. Damn her. Fortunately, or not, Agrian was given something to help him focus before long. First contact. The number of enemies was big, but to his surprise Huit didn't throw up the emergency flare and instead just engaged alongside him. This was Agrian's first chance to see a properly, officially recognised Highmage in combat.

Even with all his worries and concerns, all the mental fog of recent events, the sight was awe-inspiring enough to leave his mind almost entirely empty, save for the shock he felt at the depths of Huit's power. Shocked in multiple ways. On the one hand, feeling it for himself, he had to admit she was his superior. There really wasn't any surprise there. In fact, the surprise was how small the margin was. Huit had him beat, and any idiot would have noticed as much, but the gap between them was far from exponential.

She was weaker than Isabel—a testament to his sister's ridiculous talent of course—and far from unimaginable. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work. Until now, Highmages had been some distant thing Agrian had always thought of as vaguely unreachable. But he was an adult now, not a boy. And it was, he realised, time for all those promises of potential to start turning into current facts. Just a few more years, at most. Then he'd be stronger than Huit.

Stronger, sure, that much was easy to imagine, but better in combat … well, Agrian just couldn't envision that. It wasn't that her techniques were beyond him, he could probably pull off most even now, and all with a few weeks of training, but that she used them in a way that was almost magic in and of itself. Against the warriors, this difference was notable. Against the magicians it was impossible to miss.

Her every move seemed picture perfect, and at times Agrian swore she reacted with such speed and deftness that her enemies were being hypnotized into walking straight into her counter. What was that saying his father always liked so much?

'Past a certain skill difference, the superior fighter essentially has his intelligence and precision replaced with the ability to teleport his weapon directly into his opponent's body'. It'd always felt funny to Agrian, but he was seeing what it meant now. None of Huit's enemies were even coming close to laying a finger on her, nor close to keeping her fingers off them.

Agrian did his part and dropped two men, both warriors, but his greatest contribution was just keeping her from being swarmed while she disintegrated the enemy's defensive. By the time it was done, Agrian was just staring. Gawping, really. He couldn't help it. That's just what his body did in response to what he'd seen.

"Weaker," Huit murmured.

"You were actually there during the warehouse fight, Vornholt, these enemies seemed weaker right?" Agrian snapped out of his stupor in time to give a half-useful answer, thinking about it for a moment.

"... Now that you mention it, yes, they did." Huit growled.

"I don't like that. Changes in the enemy are never good."

"You think this is a trap?" he asked, fearfully. Huit shook her head.

"I don't think so, not necessarily at least. Things like this… it usually means they're planning something, something big enough that the changes follow as a consequence." Agrian chewed on that.

"So they're moving their men around for something, leaving only the dregs to lurk in places like this."

"Right. And whatever they're concentrating their forces for, I doubt we'll enjoy it. Keep moving. We need more information." It made sense to Agrian. Actually just about everything she'd suggested made sense. Working with a professional seemed to involve far less head-scratching and awe than he'd always believed it would, far more logical but unintuitive decision-making that, though difficult to arrive at himself, made perfect sense when he saw it laid out.

Maybe that was just how magical combat was, sensible above all. It was fine by Agrian if so, he'd had more than enough nightmarishly complex work at the Institute. Huit continued onwards, taking the lead as Agrian watched her flank. More and more, he came to admire the woman as they drove apart two more pockets of resistance. She seemed to be holding back, and he realised soon that it was because she was, letting the enemy rush free at times, tracking where they moved with her eyes but not intervening.

Agrian didn't dare to ask what her plan was, but it all became clear when they stumbled onto the largest group yet. He expected a flare to go up and bring their allies running, but it didn't. Instead Huit's true power just came to bear and she began dueling half a dozen of the magicians at once, leaving the warriors to Agrian. And that was when he realised the trick.

Though this was an ambush, it had been set in preparation for enemies far weaker than he and Huit actually were, enemies as weak as Huit had let the survivors think she was. It was an ambush too weak to stop them. But it had still done the task of gathering up numerous rebels into the same space. The trap had practically set itself, and all Agrian was doing now, along with Huit, was working as the teeth. Enemies tried to flee this time, too. And this time, Huit didn't let them.

Walls of aether came down with her full strength as rubble lifted up from the fractured road and shot out like bullets, killing or maiming and leaving each target fully unable to run away in either case. It felt like the fight lasted much longer than it did, but Agrian's pocketwatch told him only a few minutes had passed. Huit looked around at the carnage, not even breathing heavily.

"Not a bad day's work," she noted.

"And we have prisoners." A shudder seemed to go through some of the men at that, and Agrian felt his guts clench. He looked at the necromancers in particular, took in the sight of them. He didn't want to. But he had to. Faces normal, skin clammy and dark but otherwise… human. No hives, no lesions, no protrusions of bone and meat, and no feral madness in their eyes. Just frightened people whose dark magics had been weaker than the powers it fought against.

Those necromancers were hogtied and gagged soon, as Huit sent up a flare signalling the mission was done for the day. Agrian trudged back with her, exhaustion now seeping into him with the thrill of battle over. Even she looked a bit deflated, though far from weak. Maybe that was what gave him the courage to ask what he did.

"Are necromancers really that…you know, dangerous?" She looked at him sharply.

"Questioning what we're doing?"

"No!" Agrian wasn't, but even if he had been, that look on her face would've been a good incentive to give the very same answer.

"No, not at all, it's just…I mean…" he looked back to the sled they were dragging, now weighted down with all the men they'd taken alive.

"The stories say they're all towering mutants, foaming at the mouth. These ones seemed kind of…normal." Huit sighed.

"The stories are exaggerated." Agrian stared at her. She hadn't just said that. She couldn't have just said that. That was against dogma, she must've said something else.

"Don't look so surprised," she added.

"Most of what we're taught about the rest of the world is exaggerated. It's not good to go around saying it, actually people have been imprisoned or hanged for doing just that, but it's true. You're going to figure it out eventually, no matter what. That doesn't mean necromancers don't need killing, because their powers are considerable, potentially even a threat to Garamon one day, and they're fuelled exclusively by defiling dead bodies. But that's all.

We're essentially hunting down sex perverts who fuck corpses, that's the degree of actual crime involved here. Again, doesn't mean it doesn't need doing." Agrian kept walking and let that sink in. She'd said everything confidently, without the slightest hint of uncertainty on her own part. But now, he wasn't so sure.