Draith
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Chapter 144 - People Are Hard
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 14:00:13 +0000 UTCAfter Bevel's little speech, I found myself tearing up a little.
Wasn't the only adult to do so.
The boy wasn't as impressed. He'd snorted and stomped off, muttering to himself.
"It was a good attempt," I said while healing the bruised boy as the other children left, several of them glancing back at her.
"Stupid," Bevel said, crossing her arms. "People are hard."
"We are," I agreed, ruffling her hair. "There are some runes on the west balconies that could use a touch up. Want to come help? Lot easier than people."
"Mhmm," Bevel said, nodding as she took several floaty steps in that direction, easily leaving me in the dust. She stopped, still floating with only one foot barely touching the ground as she looked back at me.
I grinned, hustling to catch up to my apprentice. Funny how it'd never occurred to me that I might have something to teach her other than magic.
Not that I didn't still have magic to teach her. I intended to spend the next hour with Bevel doing most of the enchanting. It'd taken her a while to figure out how to direct her mana into a scribing pen, but she was starting to get consistent results.
It’d taken me just as long to enchant one that would convert wind mana into other affinities, though that had mostly been solved inside Conflict’s trial. I discovered afterwards that I could've just bought one through Xoth, for the super low price of several thousand Waves.
Even before the trial, he’d leant me one that converted to Arcane and she'd been doing her early practice with it.
I'd been planning to give the finished scribing pen to her back home, as a reward for… well, I'd been holding out for pretty much any good excuse, really.
And she'd just given me one.
Holding out the scribing pen, I kneeled down next to where she was inspecting the runes, already taking notes on the damage. Much as I'd been getting her to do on the path on our way up.
She glanced at the scribing pen but didn't seem to catch its significance, since she returned to her notes after barely looking at it.
"This is for you," I said, holding it towards her. "Finally got it finished."
Bevel stopped, scrunching up her brow as she accepted the slightly longish silver and black scribing pen. "But I've got a scribing pen?" she asked more than refuted, studying the markings along the side. There were a dozen different symbols, each of which corresponded with a different affinity.
"Push your mana into it, here," I said, pressing my hand over the Earth symbol. Bevel did as I said and the symbol lit up, emitting a bright brown light for a second before dimming to a gentle glow. "Now it's attuned to Earth."
"Wait… each of these…" Bevel trailed off as she switched rapidly between each of the elements. It wasn't instant, since that would've resulted in a much frailer pen, but it only took about three seconds to change. She patiently went through each of them, listing out which element they were, as though I was testing her.
I nodded along, not having to correct her, even for the less common affinities like Worlds or Granitas.
"You ready to start enchanting?" I asked, gesturing at the decayed ruins.
"Me?" Bevel asked, her eyes going wide.
"You. Unless you think you're not ready. Could always wait until-"
"No! I'm ready," Bevel said, squatting down. The pen was wavering so much, she just about dropped it. Then she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Pretty sure Calbern taught her that.
With her calm restored, Bevel glanced at her notes, then over to me. I gave her a nod. Only then did she start slowly tracing the shape of the enchantment.
It was much slower than if I'd done it myself, but none of these runes were critical. There was an argument to be made that I should've been growing more food or doing something else to help with the refugees.
I looked down at where my apprentice was tracing out the new parts of the enchantment, messy brown hair pinned in place with her old scribing pen, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she enchanted her first real rune.
They could wait an hour.
…Mage Lord Isekai…
The rest of the day was a hectic mess. Much as I was sure Bevel was ready to repair runes with only minimal supervision, she didn't share my confidence.
Which meant she was accompanying me as I helped organize the refugees. Nexxa had set up a token system for who was supposed to go with each flight of the Howling Defier, but since they'd been physical objects, people had started trading them. And some genius had decided to make copies.
They were poor copies, ones I could identify at a glance, but everything combined slowed down the next departure by nearly four hours. Four hours of time that the Defier could’ve been carrying people instead of waiting around.
During which time, I got to hear about all the problems our first guests had caused during the trip back to Cape Aeternia.
"Despite the clearly labeled facilities, one of our ‘guests’ decided he had the need to relieve himself in the hall," Calbern said as I helped one of the last of the refugees aboard. "He refused any reassurances that he would not be sucked out into the storm."
"That's rough," I said as I let go of the elderly woman's hand, regretting that I hadn't spent time simply building a landing ramp into the compound. It'd be done by the next time the Defier made it back.
"It is of no matter, master Percival. The guest shall simply be denied further hospitality," Calbern said, inclining his head as his lips twitched into a small smile. "And it is far from the worst mess I've endured throughout the years."
"Something about your tone implies you're talking about me," I said, chuckling.
"Dragons forbid," Calbern said, a faint twitch of his lips the only sign of his shared amusement. "That was master Perth."
"That's still…" I trailed off, about to correct him when I realized what the man had implied. That he considered me a different person than Perth. "Thanks, Calbern."
"Of course, master Percival. After all, the messes you create for me are far more interesting," Calbern said. This time, his smile was fully evident.
"You little…" I started, but he stepped onto the fully loaded airship, giving me a two fingered salute as it lifted into the air. "Well played, old man, well played."
As the howling central engine of the Defier carried it up and away, I turned back to my work, shaping the platform and attached ramp I'd been thinking of off to one side of the compound. I chose a building we hadn't renovated yet.
After politely requesting the group that had set up camp there to make room, I set to work. Once I was done with the new landing platform, I started on the building with the intent to make it into a waiting area.
Then I sealed off every entrance except the main door, which I made sure to reinforce as well. Having an actual departure facility to process people should ensure most of the refugees were ready and sorted before the Defier got back.
Looking around, I realized Nexxa was out again. Probably looking for more people to shepherd east.
When she returned a few hours later, it turned out I was right.
"This…" I sighed as she told me about the additional thousand people she'd saved. I looked around the 'temporary' mountain waystation. Was starting to suspect it wasn’t going to be so temporary. "They're gonna have to take the stairs."
"Yeah, they know. Some people are headed east on foot," Nexxa said, shaking her head. "A lot of them want to warn friends or family."
"Are the monsters reaching this far?"
"Not yet. Mostly. There've been a few attacks from the north. But apparently that's something they've had to deal with for decades," Nexxa said with a heavy sigh of her own. "This whole area's a mess. About a hundred years ago, they say there was a kingdom here, but some Hydra-soul jerk came through and killed off any ensouled she could find and…" her face scrunched up, looking in the direction of Bevel as she lowered her voice. "And apparently she ate them."
"She… ate the ensouled?" I asked, blinking at Nexxa.
"Every last one," Nexxa said, making chomping motions with her hand. "No one knows why. But she made quite the show of it. Apparently people started hiding their talents instead of developing them. They even burned their books. It's…"
"Frustrating?"
"Fronting idiotic," Nexxa cried, grabbing her hair, both hands crackling with lightning. "She ruined thousands, possibly millions, of lives… all because she… I don't even know. Loved the taste of ensouled?"
"Sounds like she was crazy," I said, looking over at the nearest refugees. Several of whom were clearly listening in. "Why don't we take this inside."
"Right. I need to eat something before I head back out," Nexxa said, scrubbing at her face before striding towards the building her team had set up in.
“Never should’ve given you Restore Form,” I mumbled.
When she glanced at me, her arms and hair crackling with electricity, I cleared my throat. "Did you get any word about what this Hydra-soul looked like? Is she still in the area?" I asked while following along.
When she didn’t respond, I considered what it might mean for us. It was a bit strange to have to worry about legends from a hundred years ago. But my own territory proved how things from what seemed like the distant past had a way of popping back up to surprise folk.
And if we had a crazy hydra-souled running around eating others. Well, I was glad Nexxa had made it to hydra herself.
As we walked, I spotted Bevel playing tag with the kids, though it seemed the rules had changed again. At least, I hoped that was why all the other kids had sticks. Bevel gave me a beaming smile, waving when she noticed me looking, so I assumed everything was under control.
After a minute, Nexxa seemed to process my question. "Oh yeah. She had a golden weapon, brilliant red hair, lots of kids," Nexxa said, waving her hand. "Apparently she had a breeding thing. Would literally mate with ensouled before killing them and eating their heads."
"Damn. Other than the red hair and the eating their heads, that sounds like Egerta," I said, glancing back in the direction of Cape Aeternia with more than a little worry.
"Her and every other Devoted of Felor," Nexxa said, scoffing. "Only thing that might distinguish her is that she had a scar down the right side of her face that wouldn't heal."
"Wait, every Devoted of Felor carries a golden weapon? I knew they were big on the whole kid thing, but I thought the weapon was optional?"
"Nah, you're thinking of mundane followers. Devoted are the ensouled who're trying to walk ‘his path’, and to do that, they've gotta run those gold affinity battle spells. As if following a Dragon-souled will help you get more powerful," Nexxa said, scoffing before accepting a bowl of mixed greens and monster meat from one of her people. "Anyway, apparently she's somewhere further east along the highroad. Not actually on the highroad, obviously, but there've been occasional stories from traders who used to venture out this way."
"Great. Another thing for the list," I said, pulling out my journal.
"The list, huh?" Nexxa said, moving closer to look down at the completely mundane book. "You don't have a spell for that yet?"
"I like the physical nature of it," I said with a shrug. "Memory Palace takes care of the hard parts."
"Hmm," Nexxa said, scooping a mix of greens and meat into her mouth as I wrote. Once she was done, she looked up at the new landing area. "What's all that?"
I told her about the new pre-flight facility, trading answers for questions as we ate, as I asked her for all the details about this cannibalistic Hydra-souled woman she'd discovered.
Which… was pretty much everything she'd already told me, though she did add that some of the refugees who'd be arriving soon might know more.
"Sides, I'm the one who's going to be fighting the slugsucker if she shows up," Nexxa said, waving off my concern. "That's the part I'm good at."
"You're good at more than fighting. You just haven't had much chance to prove it," I said, frowning at her.
"Easy to say, but crops only yield what’s sewn," Nexxa said, gesturing around us.
"Exactly," I said, pointing to the first of the new wave of refugees visible out the window, crossing into the lower courtyard. "And you're saving people. That's a lot more than just fighting."
"If you say so," Nexxa said.
She was about to step out, but I put my hand on her shoulder, stopping her. "Nexxa, I don't know what you've been going through, what it's been like for you. But you're more than just a fighter. You taught me, didn’t you? Plus, you're a prodigy, remember?"
"Sure doesn’t feel like it these days. Anyway, good talk Perry, I’ve gotta get back out there," Nexxa said, shaking my hand off her shoulder.
Before I could point out any more obvious truths, like her being the youngest Hydra-souled in the last thousand years, she disappeared in a flash of lightning.
"Family hard," Hash said, coming up beside me, offering me his bowl of meat and greens.
"Yeah," I agreed with the big blue man, taking one of the shoots and crunching down on it. “Family hard.”
