Chapter 17: Heart of Darkness

---D-Day+10, Nizhen 13th---

"My tenth day."

Maybe its my [Super Senses] cheat but the smell of a forest after a spring rain is, amazing. Again, this part of the country is mostly needle trees like pines. That scent is so distinct to my nose.

While the odor is relaxing the terrain is anything but. I wanted to take horses but there is no usable trail. Very rough rocky country full of cliffs, ridges, gullies, and other watch your step geography.

Instead of a couple miles per hour? It would take a couple hours per mile, thru these hills. Normally. Of course normally isn't considering buffs. Spells that enhance a target's abilities. Temporarily. Body magic but for others.

Each school has some buff spells but Light has the most. And thanks to Avi and Chyal, I've learned some decent buffs over the last few days.

Whoops. Time to recast.

"[Muscle Increase]" "[Enhanced Flexibility]" "[Endurance Improvement]"

Now, buff spells have upsides and downsides. Like during my training montage, they push mana into a particular part or system of the body. Duration and amount can be a short spike or a long lift. However, at the end, your body has to come back down again. Crashing after their high.

This can cause anything from fatigue, to pulled muscles, to broken bones, even internal bleeding. Naturally the payback depends on the buff's power and how tough you are. These have been low enough that they shouldn't leave more than fatigue and sore muscles.

Buffs are also costly to cast. You not only give the target the mana to use? You also need to wrap it up and send it with even more mana. It's much cheaper for someone to use body magic on themselves instead. If they know any and can afford it, mana wise, of course.

Turns out? The girls gave me a very inaccurate impression on how common magic is, since four of the six can cast.

People who have enough mana to 'cast' magic are actually very rare. Even among the human upper classes, where magic ability is actively bred for and cultivated, you only get around one in ten with any potential. As in, can handle basic level magic. And out of those? Only two or three in ten of them will have an 'affinity' for one of the six schools.

As in their brain is wired in a way that makes learning a particular school easier.

Of course those are consolidated in the more powerful noble families. Only one of the local lords we've met so far, pervert princess's dad, could cast. And that was only basic fire school spells.

For the middle and lower classes? According to Chyal, it's more like one in a thousand for them, at best. At least for humans and beastkin. The longer lived races like demons, elves, and dwarves, can get as many as one in a hundred. The shorter lived monster races like goblins have it really bad. Maybe one in ten thousand.

A child who can cast is incredibly valuable to a village. Imagine a peasant who can pull a tree stump out of the ground with one hand. Or who can instantly create fire no matter the weather or temperature.

That child would be among the most important people in the community. And so would the mother who gave birth to them. Almost guaranteed to be hired by the local lord and having a prosperous future.

Since mana pool size and magic school affinity may be inherited?

Well, male nobles who can cast very rarely lack a welcoming bed. Whether the girl in it is single, married, or even willing.

Female nobles who can cast, on the other hand, don't have anywhere near that freedom. They not only need to find a suitable noble husband? Who's house leaders' frown on the hymen already being torn. They should also find one who has more mana than them.

Apparently the more total mana the parents have? The greater the chance their offspring will have lots of juice too. Though I have no idea whether that's really true or no.

Oh, and magic ability is valued so highly that its not unusual for a mana gifted younger child to usurp an older heir. If they lack it.

Any who. Thanks to my trove of mana I can easily handle the expense of keeping everyone buffed. So just two hours after leaving, we are over four miles north of the camp and approaching the end of the shadow knight's trail.

The girls, Edelys, six knights, and the six adventurers, are with me. The adventurers are bronze or iron ranked. Two of the girls are silver ranked.

By the by, adventurer ranks from best to worst are Mithril(S), Gold(A), Silver(B), Steel(C), Bronze(D), Iron(E), and Copper(F). Another isekai trope I guess.

We finally come out of the hills into a valley and the smell immediately changes. No pine anymore. Only decay. Sickly sweet rot. Everything in this dale is dead. A haze hangs in the air and everyone but me starts coughing.

"Miasma. Here, wear these."

Says one of the adventurers as he hands out bandannas. We look like wild medieval train robbers. Miasma is a common danger in dungeons so any adventurer with experience will have some on hand. Soaked in a certain herbal oil, they filter out the bad air quite well.

As we move deeper into the mist, I can sense movement around us. Once we are surrounded? The attack begins.

*Uuaaahhh*

What comes out of the fog is, disappointing.

Zombies and skeletons. Not all human either. A variety of humanoids are shuffling towards us. Some armed. Some not. Animals too. Wolves, boars, and others, in various states of decay. The smell even gets though the masks. What a stink. Chyal, Avi, Dara, and one of the adventurers, cover the four directions.

"[Focused Purification]"

The effect is impressive, all of the undead collapse. The mana powering them? Dispersed. Very anticlimactic.

The adventurers immediately start checking the corpses. Never know when you could find something valuable. A couple retch at the smell.

I want to puke my guts out.

Nothing of value is found. Even the weapons are nearly useless and beyond repair. We continue following the trail. A couple more 'ambushes' happen but they are all just as disappointing. Pitiful, compared to the powerful shadow I faced last night.

My hopes for a good fight are fading fast.

Finally we reach the end of the trail and its, a cave? No foreboding fortress? Terrible tower? Just, a cave? Sigh. The miasma is so thick here that the bandanas are not working very well. Everyone but me is looking green around the gills. Even with my buffs.

*cough* *hack* *cough*

"[Wind Barrier]"

Avi casts an air school spell to keep the foul fumes at bay.

*pop*

Resistance only lasts seconds before the gas breaks thru and crashes back into us. Unfortunately, she is the strongest among us in the air school. There is way to much here to try [Purify] on and no on knows a better spell to use. This puts us in a bit of a bind. They are having enough trouble breathing now. Going further could kill them.

The girls really don't want to but, they don't put up much of a struggle as I guide them back to where the haze is thinner.

"Please master, no." "Dammit, I can make it!"

Red seems particularly upset with our destination so close but out of reach. I'm not having much trouble breathing the miasma though I'm not sure why. Maybe it also has to do with my [Recovery Magic]?

I return to the cave's entrance alone this time. Have to stoop down to enter since the ceiling is a low. My footing is a little slick on the damp dirt as I walk up a low incline.

Its only a few dozen paces before the ceiling lifts higher and I can stand straight again. Though now I have a forest of, stalactites? Stalagmites? The pointy things from the floor and ceiling. In my way. The miasma is so thick here that even [Super Senses] has trouble seeing very far ahead of me.

*huh-heh* *huh-heh*

Hear labored breathing ahead of me. Pass a small cooking fire with a pot suspended above it, on what could only barely be called a bed, lies a...

"Crone."

Really, she looks like a withered old woman. Feeble and haggard. Skin and bones. A breeze would blow her away. Though she is covered in the poorest rags? She is also, magnificent.

"Wow." I can't help but say it.

In this world, people have two 'bodies.' A physical one, body, and a spiritual one, spirit. Like how the physical body is covered by skin. The spiritual body is covered by its aura.

With [Super Senses] I can see through the skin and aura.

The ability to see the spiritual is even more rare than having magical ability. And for those who can? The can only see the aura. Its very rare to be able to see the spirit within. Even though they know its there.

And within that astral body? Is their mana reservoir.

With most, the spirit and body are very similar. I kind of thought that was automatic. Even gotten used to ignoring them.

Well, I'm wrong again.

This old lady's spirit is strong. Mana is boiling out of it. Aura is seething. Her body may be crumbling but her aura is like an iron wall. Plus she's…

"Cursed."

After seeing so much mana pollution while cleaning the girls, I can recognize it. Unlike the girls? This old broad has been cursed for a long time. Her spirit is dyed with it. Even her aura is tainted. But?

"How is she using magic?"

Demon seed is like a poison pill. It spreads and pollutes your reservoir so you can't use it anymore. With [Super Senses] I reexamine her and get my second surprise.

"Clean mana?"

She's fighting the corruption. Her mana pool is polluted. However, she is somehow filtering enough of it to use. The price she is paying though? Brutal. Her spirit is powerful. But also damaged. I can see cracks and tears all over her aura. How is she even still alive? The pain must be enormous.

While I've been checking her out, she must have been doing the same. Guess she's done as a gnarled finger points my way.

"You sent my hero away." Her voice sounds even older than she looks. Dry and dusty. "So you will be my new champion."

"[Greater Curse of Rot]"

It feels like a hammer hits my heart. Not a moment of warning. No circle. No writing. No stirring mana. Nothing. Chantless casting? Magic circle trap? The difference between demonette's and mustache and friends' spells and this? Night and day. I can feel my organs and flesh dying. Necrosis? Oh, I'm on my knees. Jesus this hurts.

I open up the floodgates to my private sea and pour nitro in while casting.

"[Meeting Aja]"

How you like these apples, bitch.

Her turn to be surprised as I can feel I'm making progress against the curse. Of course she's not going to patiently wait for me.

*CHOHKCH*

My instincts scream and I roll left, narrowly avoiding an axe head that buries itself in the ground where I was just kneeling. Tormentor and Sanctity leap into my hands as I spin to catch a huge blade slicing in from my left.

*clong*

Behind me are three undead but these are not shadows. As big as me or bigger and armored from head to toe. I don't know what they are called but, if my rpg memory is right, they certainly look like…

"Death Knights."

The third has a spear and is driving it towards my face.

*rishlch*

I can feel it tear open the scalp above my left ear as my dodge falls a bit short. They may be dead but they are every bit as fast as the shadows were. Shouldn't they be slower? I sense the same trickles connecting the crone with the knights that connected the succubus to the girls. Is she buffing the undead? A maintained buff?

If I hold back, I'm dead. I spread my mana throughout my body and even into my swords as I enter war machine mode.

*skracle* *fruzh*

I spin as axe knight comes at me again. Smelling this corpse from up close is almost overwhelming. Again sword knight is overhanding his two hander. I leap by him. The momentum helping Sanctity cut him in two at the waste. The lightning from her bursting its halves into holy fire.

*shwizh* *chirng*

Dropping, I manage to slide under spear knight as he's aimed for my head again. My inertia brings me close enough to sweep spear knights legs with my nitro powered left leg. Tormentor stabs thru his helmet and hell fire quickly spreads across him as Sanctity barely deflects another two handed chop from axe knight.

“No!” Crone isn’t happy. Bitch shouldn’t have picked a fight with me then. I can tell she's casting this time.

“[Eclipse Scythe]”

Fuck! That hurts! Whatever it is cuts inches into my right side. If I wasn’t burning thru horrendous amounts of mana turning me into iron man? I might have been cut in two. Can’t let this slow me down though.

“[Touch of Menerva]” I send off a thanks to angel bitch for [Recovery Magic] once again.

With two down I get the breathing room to throw a now owner-less spear and just like with mustache? It finds its mark.

*zhohk*

"Aaahh!"

Crone is now impaled and pinned to the cave wall behind her. One left. Who am I kidding. I’m a fucking machine right now with two magic swords. Unless you’ve got a tank in your pocket mister axe knight? You’re done.

As holy and hell fire consumes the last death knight I walk up to the punctured necromancer. Her arms weakly tug on the spear like she's trying to pull it out.

“Son of a bitch.”

How the fuck is she still alive? I can feel her spirit weakening and the corrupted mana drowning her.

I should kill her. Right? The fatigue as I turn off the gas about knocks me out. But I muscle thru. I may be dead if she has any other surprises in here. Just leave her to die? That would be the smart thing to do. But. She knows dark magic. I feel that school has a lot of potential for me.

Is this that affinity thing?

“[Embrace of Hygieia]” Before I change my mind.

"[Vision of Isis]" "[Focused Purification]" "[Airmed's Hands]" "[Gift of Hepius]" "[Chiron's Fingers]" "[Caress of Dharti]"

As I heal her I can sense the trauma and torment she's gone thru etched into her soul. By the by, this one’s a crier instead of a moaner or a screamer. Once its finally done, an adult dark elf beauty lays passed out before me. Her body has filled back out. Wrinkles gone. Damn my cheat is amazing.

Unfortunately I am also unable to save her ovaries. Breaking the curse sterilizes her too.

Seeing the miasma thin, Red and the girls join me. Healing spells flying in the moment they see my injuries. Witnessing and identifying with another victim of the curse, the girls dress her and she's tied to my back. Searching the cave finds nothing of value besides some spirit anchors. We collect them and other personal items. Shocked looks are waiting for us outside but conversation is hushed.

The necromancer sleeps throughout the uneventful trip back to camp.

Its after lunch by the time we get back so I decide to wait for the next day before getting back on the road. We have another feast, I get poisoned again, by the priest again, much stronger dose this time, and get a surprisingly restful night. The girls are mother henning the elderly elf so I wasn't touched even once.

Sigh.

Alls well that ends well?

Ushalen (female, elf, drasritorn)