Chapter 9: Chapter 9 – The Line

There are three main magic schools in this world. Material magic, governing the base elements of Fire, Water, Wind, and Earth. Material magic is the most popular school for Engineers that focus on offensive power. Material magic is also used for industrial applications, shaping, heating, and cooling metals. Then there is Immaterial Magic, governing Physical magic, Light magic, and Dark magic. Physical magic includes empowering your body or weapons with basic magic, but is unpopular because of the burden it places on the body. Then there is Frontier magic. Frontier magic is a miscellaneous school of magic that governs healing magic, spacial magic, optical magic, transformation magic, and unique magics. In addition, new uncategorized magic spells will be under the Frontier magic school. While Iris has been focusing on training our body and interacting with the real world, I have been studying the memorized magic tomes we generously received. The first thing I elected to learn was healing magic, in case we ended up in dire straits. Healing magic is simply the repair of bodily tissue and resettling and repair of broken bones. So after her encounter and victory against that crab-taur thing, and she passed out, I got to work. I used the remaining scraps of mana to sense the specific location of fatal wounds, then used magic to start repairing the lungs, then the ribs. Unfortunately I could not directly remove the liquid in the lungs, but she should survive. Then I repaired what else I could without completely exhausting our mana and sending our body into mana exhaust. If I did, she would bleed out and die before waking up. Now, to wait. A calm mind reflects a competent man.

~~×~~×~~

Iris: ...I'm alive?

This is the second time I've asked this question, and looked up at an unfamiliar sky.

Licht: I was able to patch up the fatal wounds in your body, but you're still very wounded.

I'm glad Licht was here to keep me alive. My right arm was broken and I was unable to move it. My whole body was creaking in agony as I slowly climbed to my feet. I didn't spend much time to look at the corpse of the abomination, and instead collecting my belongings and looted the thugs from earlier, who had hardly anything. Just a few bronze and marble between them. It was time to go to the warehouse and meet with the siblings to start our urchin's syndicate. I smiled a little through the pain. There was something to live for aside from myself.

I coughed up blood several times on my walk and still felt my breathing was ragged, but at least my chest wasn't hurting as much anymore.

Soon the warehouse came into view and I approached the back door for the building, opening the door and walking in. It was near pitch-black inside with only big, sparse holes in the roof letting in a small amount of light. I called out into the darkness after clearing my throat.

Iris: "Shale~? Dior~! I'm here, I'm sorry for being late!"

I waited for a few moments as I walked through the darkness. No response. Maybe they went out to look for me, or they went to sleep?

Iris: Actually, Licht, how long was I out for?

Licht: I wasn't counting the whole time because i had to maximize my concentration on healing your punctured lung. Still, more than an hour? maybe two?

Two hours. It wasn't a huge amount of time.

Iris: "Shale! Dior! If you're here, please come out! It's hard to see!"

Still no answer. The inside of the warehouse was full of many large machines and crates, and several tall objects covered with dusty cloth that I couldn't identify. I was maybe somewhere in the middle of the building now, but there wasn't a response. The heavy dust in the air and my strained throat made me cough again.

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Iris: Licht, I can't find them in the dark, can you give me a light?

Licht: It may be in my name, but- well, yes I can, but-

While Licht was making some sort of excuse, a ball of radiant blue light appeared in my hand as I walked around. The warehouse was huge and I was getting increasingly concerned, before nearing the far west end of the warehouse near the hangar door, which was cracked open. There, my blood ran cold at the sight of familiar markings. Drawn in black wax were runic symbols spread out over a wide area, getting increasingly compact towards the center that they spiraled into until hitting a magic circle, inside of which was a gangly mass of 12 human limbs emerging at strange angles from the center of a large grey arthropodic torso, and a faceless, disfigured head and beady black eyes in random places where the head should be.

It did not move. Nor breathe. Nor heave and collapse. It lay there unliving, unable to sustain it's abominable shape. I hadn't yet realized tears were running down my face and I was trembling. If "I" could retch, I could, is what I could sense Licht felt. He's lucky he doesnt-

Licht: That is extremely rude, Iris. I feel most of what you feel too. Please don't take it out on me.

...He was right, I shouldn't have thought that, that was mean. But thanks to him I composed myself a bit and took in a deep breath before looking at the mess infront of me.

Iris: There's only one body... This is the work of an underground frontier engineer. There's a lot of parts, but do you think only one sibling was transformed? The number of parts mismatch.

Licht: I... Would say you might be hoping for too much, but, it is hard to rule out that theory. The problem is, whoever it was, didn't leave a trail. And we're two hours late. They're long gone, Iris.

"...Dammit!" I shouted into the darkness, covering my face. I walked away from the corpse and looked for somewhere to relax. I cracked open a shipping container and set out a layered cloth to pad the floor, and sat against the wall to think. I thought long and hard for a long while. Me and Licht didn't talk at all.

Iris: I'm going to become a hunter.

Licht: Why this suddenly? Wasn't the plan to form a syndicate?

Iris: It was, but I'm not strong enough to protect anyone right now. I can barely protect myself, and even then I almost died. So I should act independently. I got stronger from the last fight so I should be able to register, then I can make money doing guild requests and get stronger. I can't relax any longer, and I can't be around anyone but myself.  This is the best option.

Licht remained silent but I could feel he agreed with my logic. But first I had to rest and heal my body. I was heavily injured and couldn't go picking any more fights until I was in a good enough shape. So I spent my time the rest of the day resting in the container, eating and studying. I could now use physical magic to strengthen my body and armaments, including projectiles from a steamgun. Hopefully the gun can pierce the thick hides of monsters now.

And without the sound of trains overhead every now and then, I finally got a proper, quiet night of rest for the first time in quite a while. With my body mostly healed up, I packed my things, reduced the monster corpse to ash, and prayed for the soul of a friend. Then I left, with the Hunter guild as my destination.