Chapter 42: A Delicate Plan (Patreon)

The thud of a body hitting a hard surface echoed through an empty set of hallways as Zed hit the ground again.

Ivan stood off to the side watching him as if he hadn’t just slammed him into the ground with a shoulder throw. Zed found himself concentrating more on catching Ivan’s movement whenever the man distanced himself from him instead of learning how to properly fall, because the truth was there was no such thing as properly falling. There was just falling. But he wasn’t going to tell the quiet mage that.

Zed got to his feet and Ivan was already in front of him.

“Again,” Ivan said, placing a hand against his chest.

Zed gave a resigned sigh before he hit the ground again. This was the routine of their training. Every day he came to an abandoned school building and had some guy throw him around until he learned to hit the ground the way the man wanted.

“Again,” Ivan said from a distance away.

Zed stumbled to his feet and stepped to the side quickly. Ivan caught him under the arm and tossed him over the side. Zed hit the ground.

· You have gained +1 Strength.

Zed stared up at the notification with a frown. That’s all I get after three days of hitting the ground, he grumbled. That’s just a rip off.

He got back to his feet, bracing for impact before hitting the floor again. Sometimes he saw his punisher for only the briefest moment, and sometimes he didn’t.

“Again.”

They went on like this, Zed sometimes trying a counter though his job was only to fall, and sometimes abandoning himself to the inevitable fate of falling until it no longer bothered him.

Each time he felt his equilibrium attribute kick in, but he’d learned the reason it failed to keep him on his feet. One reason was that Ivan moved far too quickly for the attribute to act. The other was that Ivan always hit him with just enough force to overpower the attribute but not kill him.

At first, the pain had been minimal, then it grew until it hovered at the edge of damaging. Every time it was a throw or a toss or a knock back. Every time it was successful until Zed’s confidence in his equilibrium attribute began to wane, to pitter into a state barely considered existence.

“Again.”

Zed hit the ground and his head bounced off it. It didn’t give him a headache but it blurred his vision for a moment even as he got up slowly, all joviality he’d had from the first day fleeing his mind and digging itself in anger. This time Zed bounced back to his feet but Ivan wasn’t in front of him.

Ivan simply stood off to the side, watching him.

“I really hope you’re far better at rune magic than this,” Ivan said.

“Pull up a rune and I’ll—” Zed bit down on his words. His annoyance was beginning to cloud his judgement. He only had two runes to his name and he wanted to challenge a mage who had been a mage far longer than he’d had memories. A mage Oliver had called the best at fighting in the town.

He couldn’t even beat Jason yet.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Falling a lot hasn’t been going down well for me. Pun intended.”

Ivan shrugged. “I have no doubt you’ll beat me in rune magic.”

Zed paused. “Why?” he asked.

“Because I don’t know any runes.”

“That’s—”

Zed felt the air shift slightly before Ivan appeared in front of him, snatching him beneath the arm and throwing him in a side twist. Zed’s equilibrium didn’t even bother to kick in, instead, it fell silent until he hit the ground. Then his body righted itself, threw its weight into the fall so that it didn’t just hit the ground but rolled into the fall and pushed him back on his feet.

“I guess you’re getting the hang of it,” Ivan said.

“So I fell properly this time?” Zed asked on his feet, finding it difficult to tell he’d even fallen.

“You’ve been falling properly since two days ago,” Ivan said. “I was just waiting to see if your skill would kick in and keep you on your feet.”

“So I already passed your test two days ago?” Zed asked, flabbergasted. “Which means I didn’t have to do all this?!”

Ivan said nothing.

“You could’ve said so TWO DAYS AGO!”

Zed hit the ground so hard he felt something crack. He wheezed from the impact, pain flaring in his back and he tasted the acrid taste of blood in his mouth.

“W—what was that for?” he gasped, struggling to get up.

“I am neither your friend nor your equal,” Ivan told him. “I am a far more superior mage to you than you seem to remember. You will keep your tone civil with me or you will come at me to draw blood. There is no in between. Do you understand?”

“Forty-nine,” Zed said, feeling the pain ease from him as his mana flooded towards it, healing him.

“What?” Ivan asked, confused.

“The number of words you just said,” Zed explained. “I think it’s the most you’ve said since we’ve met.”

Zed turned and spat to the side. It hit the wooden floor bloody.

“You ramble when you’re angry,” he said.

Ivan was in front of him like a plague and Zed stepped into him. Ivan didn’t hesitate, if Zed’s action had taken him by surprise, he didn’t show it. Ivan grabbed Zed and Zed threw himself to the opposite side as Ivan tossed him. It created a momentary hitch in Ivan’s plan and Ivan was forced to use brute force rather than technique to throw him.

Zed felt the difference in his fall, and though equilibrium sent him back to his feet immediately, he knew he’d broken something.

Ivan was already in front of him.

“Again.”

Ivan caught him by the neck and stopped.

At first Zed thought it was the man controlling his anger because he’d never taken him by the neck, but it was not. He saw it in the look on the man’s face, the surprise in his eyes.

It took Zed a moment to realize why.

Ivan hadn’t spoken.

He had.

…………………………………..

Abed sat chewing in what he considered his study. It was just a simple room in a cut out section of his home, nothing truly significant. But it was more than he’d ever had before the second awakening.

He shuffled through torn up and messy pieces of paper often squinting to see the disgrace of a handwriting scribbled on them with the light from a candle sitting on a stand beside him. He read each one judiciously, despite how obvious it was that whoever had written it was trying to give him a headache.

The one he stared at was an invitation from Madam Shaggy, asking that he attend a small get together she was holding in her residence to commemorate another year since all the powers had officially established themselves here in Hillview.

Abed scoffed, discarding the paper to one side of the rundown desk he sat behind. Shuffling through the scattered pile in front of him with a gentle haste so as not to destroy the already dying pieces of paper, he pulled out what he was searching for.

Reading Madam Shaggy’s invite had reminded him of why he was the most powerful in this little shabby section of a fucked up world. The new piece of paper in his hand detailed Madam Shaggy’s most recent actions and had been written by a stealth mage who had somehow come into his employ through some underhanded strokes of luck.

In truth, the stealth mage was less a stealth mage and more of a mage with a dual specialization. He held command over sound and light mana. Abed was more than certain they were the reason the mage could go around undetected but he didn’t possess the spare discipline required to really delve into the crux of how.

From what Abed was reading once more, Madam Shaggy seemed to be trying to consolidate power. She was already in talks with Big Man Desolate—a stupid name if anyone asked Abed—from the north side. His gang was in charge of the always dying men that littered the alleys and often stumbled onto the roads. Most of them he put there and in that state for having offended him. The others were there by choice and Big Man Desolate cared for them like a man cared for a dog he didn’t remember he had. Still, there was care. They were fed once a day and treated of really terrible ailments. However, if it was unlikely to kill you today, Big Man Desolate was unlikely to help.

If this was the murim, Abed thought, he’d be the leader of the beggars sect.

But it wasn’t.

Before the second awakening, Abed had lacked severely in the fame department. He was a guy of less than average standing, worsened when mana came after the first Awakening. He’d spent most of his times with his face buried in his phone reading pirated copies of any manhwa or lightnovel he could get his hands on. It had been the only place he’d ever taken solace. When the first set of earthquakes and hurricanes hit the world, their aftermath had left him with a touch of hope.

Abed had prayed for Qi after that, prayed for the omnipotent power source with which he would open his meridians and reach for new heights. Unfortunately, it turned out the world was more interested in western comic book heroes and boring magic. Worse, it had not deemed him worthy. So he’d gone on to study everything he could about those who had been gifted with mana. After hearing of the certainty of a second Awakening and having the government give the world a timeline, he knew what he had to do.

As fortune—his long standing nemesis—would have it, the government held a tight rein on all things magic. It forced Abed into the darkness of the underworld where those without magic peddled in the vast array of less than useful runes. Back then one in a hundred runes sold had a low chance of working. Still, he would’ve bought a hundred runes for the chance of getting a single one. Rumors had had it that if a person without magic used enough runes on themselves, it could trigger the activation of the mana in them. But he’d had no money and had no chance. Thinking about it even now was giving him what would’ve been a headache if he wasn’t a mage.

Abed’s mind went back to Madam Shaggy and her unsavory invitation, buttered up with all the respectful words and sycophantic pleas. He knew better than to walk into her territory. The information he had claimed that Eitri who shared the south with Lady Long Legs was already on her side was still yet to be confirmed. If his scheming mind was accurate, Abed could already smell a takeover. Lady Long Legs wouldn’t even know what hit her, which was sad considering how close she was with Eitri.

But while Abed had the information he had, he knew there was a possibility the others had pieces of information as well. He wasn’t so delusional as to think himself the only power with spies in places he shouldn’t have them.

Still, what none of them knew was that he held the highest trump card of all of them. He had a direct access to the VHF platoon that had gone through town a while ago. The commander in his gear of futuristic faceless armor that had almost made him crap his pants had offered him one of their contact links in the event that he had something useful. And Abed had something useful. An entire town that would go to their knees at the sound of the VHF.

But he had to lure them in first. And to do that, he knew exactly what he wanted. There would be a cost and he was more than happy to sacrifice Jason and his entire team, including Jason’s mother, if he had any, for the sake of it. It was the price the child would have to pay for not recognizing his betters; for tossing him around just because he was lucky enough to stand on the end of Rukh rank as a mage.

The thought of how disrespectful Jason had been to him when he’d refused to give up his own secrets to the child was still fresh in Abed’s mind. And the fact that it had happened in the very room he currently sat in did nothing to calm his anger. But it was the way with the pretty boys, the men over six feet tall with stunning blue eyes and a smile girls craved. They never respected the fat people, always picking on them as though it was their sole purpose on earth. Jason might be stronger than him but Abed was older, and this world had taught the younger generation to forget what it meant to respect those older than them.

Thus, he would use the VHF to remind Jason of what respect was. And when the VHF was done with Jason, he would swoop in for the final blow, stare the arrogant prick in the eye as he takes the life from him. Abed made sure when the time came, he would add that to his agreement with the VHF.

All he needed to do now was find out the specific location Jason and his team liked to lay their heads. Then he would inform the VHF of where exactly they could pick up the next redhead in their flying rumors of a hunt for redheads.

He smiled something vile as his mind crafted his delicate plan.

Learning of the redhead had been so very easy. In fact, he hadn’t even needed to learn of the man. The man had basically flaunted his hair through the streets as if he’d never heard of how dangerous it was to be a redhead now. The reward for every redhead wasn’t as high as that of the information of any mana surge, but that was not the reward Abed was looking for. After all, the redhead and the demise of Jason and his team was just a brief satisfaction he would get. They were simply bait destined for a grim fate.

Abed’s true aim was the conquering of Hillview. He would hand it over to the VHF on a dirty silver platter and have them designate him its official mayor. Once upon a time he had been a man who had nothing. Now he would become a man who had everything.

He turned his attention to a cupboard on one side of the room where a metallic disk was properly tucked away and smiled to himself. It was a disk with a silver shine and intricate technological workings hidden within it.

Soon, he thought.

As for Madam Shaggy’s party, as unadvised as it would be to attend, he had already been promised special attention from Shanine, which would make it a night where all the powers would get to watch him and Shanine together. And maybe, just maybe, they would come to understand—before he comes to rule them—that Shanine was his and they needed to stop wasting rune-dollars trying to purchase her services.

She was too nice a girl for the services Madam Shaggy put her to, and the price Madam Shaggy had called for the outright purchase of the girl was too steep in an economy such as the one Hillview suffered under. But Abed would keep the girl beside him for as long as he could and she would stay happily. And why not? There was no reason she would remain in her pitiable life when he was already promising her the world.

Hopefully, in the few years it would take before she comes into the power of magic, she would fall for him and be unwilling to leave.

If she didn’t, well there were more than one way to skin a cat.

Abed folded up Madam Shaggy’s invite and thought of what to wear in attendance. Most likely something that would appeal to Shanine’s taste. The party wasn’t for another week, and if he didn’t want Shanine thinking he was desperate, he needed to know what her taste was now rather than later. He just had to find a way to ask her without his intentions being too obvious.

Abed got up from his rickety chair, arranged the arrays of paper in front of him and chucked them into a secure drawer he locked with a complex combination of rune magic he’d purchased at a steep price from a rune mage who’d been passing through town, then left his study.

He wondered if Shanine was free tonight.