Scum 2 (Patreon)

A/N: heavy exposition in the middle of the chapter.

-VB-

Scum
Chapter 2

-VB-

“It’s a miracle that you are unharmed,” the doctor spoke up. “There’s not a single sign of bruise or strain even though you fired a shotgun as long as you are and as thick as your arm is.”

I nodded absently while the doctor continued to talk. I knew why I didn’t have bruises; Aegis, the copied power of the child hero of the same name, provided me with regeneration. For some reason, I couldn’t fly, though.

For a cheap power, it was also a very useful power, though one that would be kind of hard to hide if I ever got too injured.

“... Where am I supposed to go now, doctor?” I asked him, and the doctor, who’d been gushing previously about my “minor miracle” hesitated.

“With… your parents’ death,” he spoke softly, obviously realizing where the conversation needed to go. Neither was he holding back on me, however. This was something that needed to happen whether or not I was emotionally prepared for it. “You would normally be given to your relatives. Unfortunately, you don’t have any relatives here in Maryland, but we managed to get in contact with your relatives on your mother’s side.”

“Mother’s … side?” I repeated. I didn’t even know my parents’ names until the doctor showed their files to me - along with copied pictures. Charles Hatcheter and Emma Hatcheter nee Parkinson.

I blinked. My mother’s maiden name and the fact that I was in the Harry Potter universe met inside my head and clicked into place. As the creeping horror settled in me and sent a shiver down my back, I suddenly felt that my situation could be worse than now.

“And…?” I asked cautiously.

“They agreed to take you in.”

Oh, fuck.

“I believe a Theodore Parkinson will be here to pick you up within the week?”

FUUUUCCCKKK, why couldn’t I be sent to Worm where I actually knew shit?

The only things I knew about Harry Potter-verse were all from the movies!

The doctor left the room when he saw my bad mood. In reality, I found myself just upset.

I wasn’t afraid of meeting Parkinson. I didn’t know who he was, but the worst he could do was less than what I could do to him. After all, no one should know about my magic, right? I made sure to only whisper the spells back at the church.

If … he was here to “rid himself of a squib line,” then I was going to kill him. He would be a threat to me, after all. Unfortunately, none of the Azerothian magics that I had could predict or detect hostile intent.

… But Toaru-verse Magician could.

I paused.

‘Maybe I should go over everything I have.’

-VB-

Okay!

So!

My stuff.

The single most useless power I had on me right now was “Don’t Mess with the White Mage.” Technically speaking, this was one of the best powers one could select from the Worm CYOA I had my friend fill out. You could do everything from prestidigitation and smiting to healing and power stealing. Unfortunately, there also seemed to be some sort of restriction that prevented me from using it, and I had no idea what that restriction was. So until I could use it again, this power was literally useless.

Next was Aegis. It couldn’t fly for some reason, even though its namesake could with the same power. Instead, when I meditated on it and mentally imagined myself poking at it, I got gurgling feedback that somehow translated inside my mind as a “higher regeneration rate.”

Then, my middling powers were all of the Azerothian magics: Arcane, Death, Light, Fel, Death, and Shadow. They sat at the bottom of the totem pole because of their levels and arbitrary restrictions. For example, Light Magic seemed to be completely incapable of offensive means. I could not use Holy Fire, Smite, or any of the useful racial spells like Chastise. Still, that wasn’t bad considering that I could heal, resurrect, dispel magic, burn mana, curse someone, and more with just the Light Magic. These magics were also all classified as “low level” until I could complete “missions” and “quests” or go and become a murderhobo adventurer killing and burning everything for that sweet, sweet experience points.

(Seeing as the year was 1988, I had a bevy of wars and regional conflicts to choose from. Armed soldiers fought all over Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and all of Africa, and they had to be worth something when I kill them.)

Until the “level” issue was taken care of, most of the power levels of the Azerothian magic spells were stuck at around what I would estimate to be around level forty. This also meant that I could use Light Magic like Paladins did to summon myself a warhorse. I wanted to see what my warhorse would be like. Still, this kept me from stronger spells and the like.

Then came my stronger powers: Wand Magic and Raildex Magic.

The former was technically weaker than any of my Azerothian magic but those magics had no insta-death spell either. Wand Magic was also much more flexible and spell creation could see me do things that none of the Azerothian magics could do.

Raildex Magic lacked the flexibility of the Wand Magic because, unlike the latter, the former required some sort of ideological anchor to work; I could not use that particular magic to call upon a demon and then try to heal someone using God’s name. This magic could also climb higher than perhaps any other, because if I climbed high enough, then I could become a Magic God. However, that particular bit required me to become something far more extraordinary than what I already was and with so many other magics at my disposal, I was unlikely to reach for that title, not when I had even greater powers. Even if I didn’t go for the highest level of power with Raildex Magic, I could anchor my magic around a natural or ideological pillar to perform some cool acts. For example, enacting the Ten Plagues of Egypt was very feasible.

Finally, my last two magics and the strongest powers of them all: Old Magic and Spin the Gacha. Both were of Nasuverse origin. Old Magic was very much like Raildex Magic but started at a higher level of power and efficiency on top of giving me a large mana reserve to let me use all of the cool and horrible spells. Spin the Gacha, on the other hand, was basically the mobile game Fate Grand/Order. I could spin a wheel each day, gain points for each conflict I found myself in, and then summon and upgrade the Servant I liked the best.

Technically speaking, Spin the Gacha could substitute itself from Nasuverse to other gacha games like Arknight, Azur Lane, Girls Frontline, and more, but why would I substitute the potential to summon gods and goddesses for rifles and outdated warships? Fate Grand/Order’s catalog carried a far more varied and flexible level of power, character, and personality.

And that’s all of the powers I had! There was a lot of it, but most of them weren’t useful in day-to-day activities unless I either lived as a hermit in the Rockies or lived in a magical society where my magic spells would not be outright miraculous, merely unusual.

Actually, I might want to keep my ability to resurrect recently deceased people to myself. Voldemort’s little dick-suckers would very much like to use that to get me to resurrect their noseless master.

-VB-

In the evening of the next day, I reached into myself and pulled upon the Light.

The Light wasn’t a power that I “cast” like Raildex, Wand Magic, or half of the other Azerothian magics. It required either faith or willpower.

Faith was a no-go. Sure, I went to church, prayed, and believed in this life and my past, but the truth of the matter was that I was a sick sinner. I knew exactly where I stood in relation to God. Though God and Light were not the same because God had strict rules about what was sinful while the Light did not, I found rather quickly that faith in one does affect the other. I knew that I was a sinner, so the Light did not respond to someone with wavering convictions.

This left me with only willpower.

So I demanded the Light respond. It was mine.

And it did.

[Power Word: Fortitude] washed over me, and I felt better.

Cracking my neck, I got out of the bed and undid the locks on the room’s window.

I wasn’t going to wait for Parkinson to come. They were one of the dark families in Harry Potter-verse. The Slytherin ones. As much as I tried to be an objective person, I couldn’t trust the families of a whole Hogwarts house that betrayed their own community like that. They may not see it that way, but when you put your trust in a warlord, you were betraying your community.

So no, I wasn’t staying to meet someone who would do that. I didn’t give a shit about the fact that their family hasn’t done it yet. I was more concerned about the fact that I would be closer to Baldymold simply due to being in Britain, and I had no desire to get involved in that particular domestic mess.

I slipped out and disappeared from my hometown.