The Undying Magician - Book 2 - Chapter 53 - An Unexpected Visitor Part I (Patreon)

                                                               Nathan
                                       Year 2849 | Month 12 | Day 15

Of course, the first thing the children do after getting over the shock of losing their fellow children and the other two adults leading their little refugee group is to head towards the back of the cave in the direction of the lab. The lab with a large deadly monster in it. So I quickly put a rule in place to absolutely avoid that area unless they want to be eaten by a monster. Which quickly does the trick of scaring them away.

After that I return to my home, which I’d already told them which of the buildings it was before going back to my work on making a Tier III fire spell. One that – when it works – should inject fire mana directly into the target’s body that will then quickly spread throughout it before activating on my command, burning their blood at a rapid pace.

Overall, a rather dangerous spell. And not one that has any of my test subjects surviving, unfortunately.

The spell itself is also proving to be rather uncooperative, since fire mana doesn’t like going inert in a body. At all. Especially – as it turns out – in bodies whose mana is that of an opposing element, like water.

Very annoying.

I let out a sigh at that thought before making it to the mini lab inside of my house and returning to my experiments.

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Almost an entire month passes by in relative peace, with me taking jobs only once every two or three days again starting after two weeks had passed from me stopping them in the first place. And during this time, the kids, outside of being loud, don’t bother me much, just living in peace in my caves while the one adult amongst them and some of the older children take care of cooking and cleaning for them, along with assigning homes and stuff.

For some reason the woman – who I’ve since learned the name of to be Caroline Wright – keeps giving me daily reports on how everything is going. I honestly don’t care much, but I listen anyways and keep track of it just to make sure they aren’t doing anything to my cave or messing with my spells.

Since coming to live here, the kids and Caroline have cleaned up all of the cave system with the exception of the lab, disposed of the monster corpses I just kind of left to rot a while back even if the kids weren’t very happy about it – not that Carol cared though – and have set up their own little areas in each building, making them their homes. They’ve only asked me to be let out or in twice a day, once to go out gathering and once to come back in. And they haven’t run into any issues with Falkner during that time either.

Which is rather suspicious in and of itself, but who knows? Maybe the guy finally gave up after hearing that his replacement captain was killed.

I kind of doubt that though. I’ve only met with him once before myself, and he doesn’t seem to be that smart. Not to mention how much of an asshole he is, which I can tell simply by looking at the refuges.

I yawn as I look out the small window of the house I’m in at the kids busying about doing chores. Or at least, most of them are doing chores. There are a few that appear to be on break and are playing around.

That or they’re just skipping their own chores.

I don’t have much experience with children, to be honest. There aren’t any at the academy, and I’ve never really had to deal with them anywhere else either. But at the same time, it does make me a little happy that I can care about them even a little. Since I was starting to wonder if I’d lost my ability to feel empathy for others or something.

Good thing that’s not the case. Wouldn’t want to actually become the monster that I look like after all.

I yawn again, briefly wondering if I actually need to do that or not considering my body’s condition before giving a mental shrug and turning back around to focus on the dead bear lying on my experiment table. A dead bear who’s left side is completely burnt to a crisp.

Something I realized during this latest experiment is that I also need to take into consideration if the target of the spell is actively moving or not. Because the way I had the spell scripted, all it took was the bear waking up and moving slightly to activate the inert fire mana before it could even finish spreading through the creature’s body.

A rather problematic issue, but not an unfixable by any means. Just have to change it to rely on a different-

My thoughts are interrupted when I hear the bell ringing, signaling someone at the barrier.

I sigh before leaving my mini lab and walking through the small little paths of the village inside the cave, simply nodding my head at the kids I pass by who all wave at me until I make it to the entrance and open the barrier, just to find Carol on the other side with a dozen kids – including all four of the boys that are still alive – each holding a basket of fruit.

“Good evening, mister Fox,” one of the kids says with a bright smile as she walks by me, and several of the others do the same until they’re all inside. Then Carol bows slightly to me and follows after them. But I decide to stay outside, closing the barrier behind me in the hopes of getting some fresh air.

Something I’m very much lacking considering how stuffy that cave can sometimes get, and how I’m almost always working on the spell or training my mana arcs.

And I quickly find that – at least for a day here where there is a small amount of miasma on the ground – it’s a rather beautiful day.

But that sentiment vanishes a moment later when I hear a voice I was very much hoping never to hear again.

“I see you’ve made yourself at home,” the skeletal king’s voice echoes in my ear.

Well, shit. At least he promised before he wouldn’t do anything else to me.

But does a skeleton keep their promises? Or rather, a king?

I hope so.

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