American Isekai - Chapter 100 (Patreon)

Happy 100th guys! Thank you all for your support. Things are going to be picking up soon, so look forward to future chapters :).

“Disembark and move to support!”

“Hurry up! Find your armor and get out there!”

“Seriously?”

I was surprised as all us students ran through the terminal.

The cover of darkness had come and yet there was an ongoing siege. I could hear the explosions even from the opposite side of the base.

The Blooded Hold was far larger than even the last base we went to. We were really on the frontlines now.

I already had my coat on, so I slipped my gloves over my hands while running with the others.

Protocol was pretty clear. The warlocks were to go up the walls while the knights were to move low to face the beasts head on.

When we exited the terminal, I was able to pick up several powerful Auras within the base. One of them matched President Carrion, an Authority 11.

There were a few Authority 10’s below that guy and many more Authority 9’s. As for the Authority 8’s and 7’s, they were everywhere. It was almost like they were common.

Those at our level still outnumbered the others by far. There were thousands upon thousands of soldiers here. The base itself covered dozens of acres, and it was the main wall in front that held the beasts back.

The terminal was in the middle of the base not far from the headquarters. Still, it was a good distance to the wall.

That’s why there were several trucks waiting.

“All those from the Magisterium, board the trucks and we’ll take you to the wall! Hurry up!”

We were waved on, my squad sticking together as we piled in one of the transport trucks.

Once filled it was closed up, the driver speeding off to the wall.

It wasn’t long after that we were dumped out to go fight. I went up the wall with Umara, running down the wall until we found some room in one of the sections.

We didn’t ask questions. We just set up and fell into the cadence of the commanding officer nearby.

“Fire!”

He yelled, a couple hundred mages all launching their spells, brightening the darkness with fire and filling the air with humid water vapor.

Any warlock at the level to fight here had more than one affinity. Right now, there was no earth magic being used since the knights were forming offensive lines and pushing out of the gates to face the Scourge like a proper army.

But that was okay, because the warlocks with an earth affinity also had an affinity for air, water, or fire.

My guns barely stuck out with their noise since there were so many screaming beasts and fiery explosions. I also wielded my suppressed Springfield. The walls were tall and the moon was bright enough to see a decent distance, so I stuck to shooting the bigger targets, doing whatever I could to help.

That’s when I suddenly thought of a question, tapping into my telepathic connection with Umara.

(Hey, it takes a warlock three advancements to develop a perfect affinity. Can they develop two different affinities back to back? Or do they need to advance their affinity all the way before moving on to another?)

(They can technically take whatever path they want. They can advance their water affinity twice before suddenly switching to fire for a couple advancements. But no matter what, after an advancement, a decision is made that dictates the purpose of the next level.)

(I see.)

I nodded to myself while firing another shot.

It seemed warlocks didn’t need to focus entirely on one affinity at a time. But then that beckoned another question.

(Why is it normal to focus on one at a time?)

(Because then there’s more time for an enlightenment. Not only that, but since the chances of becoming an Authority 12 is so low, if you wait to develop the entire affinity for too long, you may never be able to complete it because the difficulty gets so high. Then you won’t have any good affinity, just a bunch of average ones. It’s no different from setting yourself up for failure on multiple levels.)

(That makes sense.)

I nodded in understanding.

If you were like Umara and completed your air affinity early, you would have potentially decades to work on being enlightened. But if you refused to take the last step in favor of developing other affinities, all that time would be wasted. By the time you finally took the last step, the chances of you ever being enlightened in your life would be slim.

It was better to simply develop each affinity one at a time. That way, even if you were never able to make it to Authority 12 and gain all four affinities, you would be a master in the ones you had.

It was rather simple logic. The only downside was that you wouldn’t have the versatility of spells the other affinities gave you.

Even that wasn’t really a downside though. The strength a perfect affinity gave you far outstripped the versatility of having more. Quality over quantity, as they would say.

Thinking of that, Umara and I continued fighting. We also pulled out somoe small chairs. Umara had learned her lesson and bought one, so now we could both sit down and save our legs during long battles like this.

After some time though, I felt something poking at me from beyond the darkness of the battlefield. I narrowed my eyes, holding my fire for a bit as I sat still.

There was something, someone, out there. It wasn’t hostile, only curious.

But that was alarming enough.

(We’re being watched.)

(What? By who?)

Umara lifted her head. I could tell that she was concerned about the people around us, thinking that some nobles were trying to cause trouble.

I shook my head.

(Nobody on the wall. Something is out there beyond the battlefield. I can’t see them, but there are definitely a pair of eyes on us.)

(That doesn’t sound good. Another scout?)

(I wouldn’t understand why one would be so close, but maybe.)

I scoped back in, looking around to see if I could make anything out in the distance.

But it was futile. The feeling was too faint and the visibility too low.

However, at some point, the feeling rapidly grew.

No, it was getting closer.

My eyes widened.

……

“We were a half day too early. It seems they made a stop.”

A humanoid spoke from atop a hill, attracting the attention of the one already there.

The two of them could see the waves of monsters besieging the wall, watching indifferently as the humans fought them off.

The other humanoid, the overseer of this monstrous army, waved.

“It doesn’t matter. There’s plenty of fodder left, and they're here now. Who was it that you said to keep an eye on?”

“A few, but two in particular.”

The humanoid approached the overseer, holding up an orb and projecting two images.

One was labeled Ponteck Gulliard, the strongest Elite of the Magisterium. There were some descriptors labeling his outstanding achievements and abilities, as well as his noble title.

But there was another one beside it.

It had John’s image on it.

“The son of Gulliard is powerful, but not beyond expectations considering his noble lineage. The great outlier in recent times is this John Cooper. So far, we’ve collected little to no information on him. No noble title, no family, no background. The only achievement he holds is being the Rank 3 Elite, and that wouldn’t be anything worthy of note if not for the fact that he were a Cold Summoner.”

“Hmm…”

The overseer took a look at the information below John’s portrait.

One of his notable features was his keen Aura and abnormally powerful weapons. But the even the weapons functionality was unknown.

Nontheless, he was an outlier, one that the overseer took interest in.

“Where is this John now?”

“He’s on the wall. His summons are ranged weapons, it seems like. We’re collecting information on him as we speak, but the conclusion right now is that he’s someone to keep an eye on.”

“He’s said to have a keen Aura? How about we settle this.”

The overseer suddenly equipped a bow, his eyes flashing as he knocked an arrow and scanned the walls.

At some point, he recognized an oddity. A man sitting behind the wall, wielding a weapon that occasoinally let out explosions. Through the distance and ambient noise, it couldn’t be heard well. But it was still noticeable enough.

He smiled.

“Found him.”

He raised the bow, pulling the string back before freezing in place.

Fine adjustments were made in order to perfect his aim. This process alone took over a minute as he watched John look around, his firing ceasing.

Then, once he found a lull in his movement, he let the arrow loose.

From there, he tracked the arrow as it flew, watching with anticipation.

And he saw as John’s eyes widened before his head flew out of the way.

“How interesting.”

He smiled.

……

*Fwoosh!*

*Crack!*

The arrow shot past my head, my eyes barely even able to keep up.

It was planted into the wall behind me, my head slowly turning to look at it.

The arrow had a metal body, definitely heavy. The kind of force to launch that thing such a distance was insane, so whoever shot it had to be an incredibly powerful knight.

Umara also froze, staring at the arrow with cold sweat forming on her forehead.

“T-That’s…”

“...”

John was silent. The arrow had naturally caught everyone else’s attention, including the commanding officer’s.

“What is that? An arrow?”

“Something out there fired it…”

I mumbled in response as he walked over and yanked it out of the wall.

That’s when Umara spat out the rest of her words.

“That’s a Royal… Why the fuck did a Royal try to kill you?”

(I don’t think he was trying to kill me.)

I responded to her telepathically.

(There was no hostility. Just observation until I sensed the arrow. It feels more like a test than an assassination attempt.)

(That’s even worse… Let’s get off the wall.)

She stood and stowed her items, grabbing my hand and leading me down the wall.

(We need to find the Puppet Master and tell him about this.)

(Does this mean something?)

(You do know what Royals are, right?)

Umara asked as we searched around, causing me to nod.

(Yes. They’re intelligent humanoids unlike the rest of the Scourge.)

(Then it should be obvious that catching the interest of a Royal is really bad news. I don’t think you know this part, but the intelligent part of the Scourge doesn’t just sit back and throw fodder at us all the time. They use the Scouts to collect information, and there have been many cases of students dying to Royals. They usually target those with potential in order to nip them in the bud.)

(So they want to kill me before I can get stronger.)

(Well, they certainly know about your strength now. It’s safe to say that everything you do beyond the walls of this base from now on is going to be extremely dangerous. A strong Scout is the least of our worries.)

I could feel Umara’s solemnity through our connection.

It seemed that the Scourge had its own special task force in charge of espionage and sabotage. This was a side of them that the public didn’t know about, or conveniently chose to ignore.

Regardless, if I was now on a list, then I had to be extra careful. If they really wanted to kill me, then there wasn’t much I would be able to do to protect myself.

After a bit more thought, I stopped Umara from walking before taking out my Aerial, dialing the Puppet Master.

“Yes, John?”

“I have some bad news.”

I told him about what happened, causing him to go silent for a moment.

“...I swear, you can’t go a day without pissing someone off.”

“I didn’t realize I needed to tiptoe around the Scourge’s feelings.”

“I’m talking about me! Here I am trying to keep you alive while you continue to attract the worst possible enemies to have! Now I need to second guess every little mission I send you on lest everyone gets killed just because you were with them! You know, I’m starting to think I should just kick you off the Elites so that you don’t get put on every damn hit list known to mankind!”

My face went blank as the Puppet Master ranted through the Aerial, as if it were my fault.

Well, I couldn’t completely blame him, so I let him get everything off his chest, a process that took a whopping 15 minutes.

He was usually succinct, but apparently today he decided to take exception to my plights and talk my ear off. It was quite impressive, really.

Once he was finally done, he took a few deep breaths before giving me some clear instructions.

“Just sit your ass down on the sidelines while I figure this out. And don’t go blabbing about this either if you want to keep your life.”

“Yes sir, Puppet Master, sir.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

He grumbled and hung up, causing me to chuckle.

“So?”

Umara asked, earning a shrug.

“The Puppet Master just rewarded us with unpaid vacation. We get to do whatever the hell we want until he finds a suitable mission for us. Which may take a while.”

“So he’s keeping you away from danger. Good.”

“How strong are Royals anyway?”

I asked curiously. I hadn’t learned much about them besides what was out there on the Black Spider Repository. So I wasn’t sure about the general Authoirty level of those Royals.

What I did know was that they were humanoid Scourge entities with intelligence on par with humans. That made them especially dangerous, because they could plan ahead just as well as humans could, and more importantly, they could control the masses of beasts below them.

There weren’t as many of them as there were humans, so humanity could still stay ahead. But on the battlefield, that made them no less lethal.

My main concern was their odd powers as they didn’t fall under the standard categories us Magi went by.

Umara shrugged.

“They still go by the same Authority system as us. They can be of any level, but chances are, the one that tried to shoot you wasn’t a super high level since you’re not dead. Still, they’re not things you want to mess with.”

“I get that. Let’s just relax. Lord knows when we’re going back out. I’d prefer to train until then.”

I grabbed Umara’s hand and walked off. The battle was still ongoing but we had done enough, so I decided we could go for some food and relaxation.