The Runic Alchemist

Wasting time resting while they had no idea of what the weird situation they were in was not a good idea. Still, Damian needed to catch his breath after all the running around and the whole day’s worth of physical activities. The other two were not showing any signs of exhaustion at all.

It was a weird feeling — they did not feel a need to drink water or eat food, but Damian felt every step he took. This did not bode well.

“I don’t think my body is recovering any energy at all..” Damian said his suspicion out loud.

“It would make sense,” Sam replied. “There is no mana here, and I don’t think anyone is supposed to live here except those people, or whatever they are, in the village.”

“What happened to your body?” Maelor asked, still half confused about their weird situation.

“Unlike us, he forced himself inside this illusion world after killing Shadecaster,” Sam answered for Damian.

It had been a couple of hours since they saved Maelor. The village in the distance seemed to have calmed down by now. They had not revealed themselves while getting away from the big hut, so the guards were not as alert as before. Damian struggled to get up; his leg muscles seemed to almost give up holding his own weight — he had to constantly shift his weight between his two legs.

“Maybe it’s better if the two of us go,” Sam suggested.

Damian looked at the dark, silent village and nodded after a while.

“Just stay here. We will check all the huts once again — forcefully if necessary. They didn’t look that strong,” Sam said.

“Don’t kill them,” Damian said. “Knock them or bind them with ropes..”

Sam and Maelor nodded, then turned towards the village and started walking at a fast pace. It did not feel good at all to become weak again. It did make Damian much more grateful for the strength he had acquired after transmigrating to a new world.

Only Lucian was remaining; after he found her, they could finally get out of here and then back to the Highsword Dungeon. Damian did have a plan to destroy the Demon Lord once and for all, but only if he could leave this place in time.

Even after going back to his magical home, he would have to go back to Earth to get the others and Toph. Asher and all the Highswords that had come with him to fight the Sun God, and were busy severing their connection to their Overseer, were also transported to Earth — along with some pigmen. Damian didn’t want pigmen or his friends to carry them while going to somewhere unknown like the Highsword Dungeon.

Damian laid down on the stone boulder, closing his eyes while waiting for the two to return. If this search failed, they would have to go through these forests and find another village. Damian suspected this place to be limited, though — there was no way Shadecaster could carry such a high level of skill and execute it at a grand scale, even if he was supported by the Demon Lord. This village had to be the only one, and the chief..

Hm.. The only person that was or could be here, and was now not, had to be.. Shadecaster. Was their chief Shadecaster himself? That would make sense. He had both Sam and Maelor’s spheres — only Shadecaster would truly know what those really were. Damian’s job would have been much easier if only he had come here in the body of the chief himself.

Damian waited for a couple of hours, sleepless. Who knew what was the reason, but despite being tired as fuck, he still could not fall asleep. Only after a couple of hours did he hear a commotion near him — his eyes couldn’t see well in the darkness, but some 2–3 kilometers from him was something dark blue glowing in the dark field. The voices were of the villagers shouting and cursing while launching arrows in the dark of night.

Sam and Maelor were too fast for them, though — one by one, they left all the villagers behind, reaching Damian first. Sam tossed the glowing dark blue sphere to Maelor, and he himself grabbed Damian, tossing him on his shoulders, and then they continued running. Somewhere in the dark forest, finally, they were alone, and no voices following them could be heard.

“Ready?” Sam asked.

Damian nodded, and Maelor beside him did too.

Damian was truly feeling tired, and his head had started to hurt with the familiar pain — he knew this pain very well. It happened when he did not sleep enough and forced himself to attend lectures and finish projects.

Sam used a stone to break the dark blue sphere, which was slightly bigger than Maelor’s own — with a big enough crack, all three of them touched the flowing dark blue liquid energy in their hands. It was really cold.

Darkness. And then, slowly, black and white structures started forming all around them.

It was.. the villa. The outside garden where Damian and Lucian had spent hours fighting, learning, practicing swordsmanship. Even right now, Damian, standing beside Maelor and Sam’s black and white figures, saw little Lucian and little Damian fighting with wooden swords.

After a while, the scene changed.

It was nice, though.. Lucian was smiling; his smaller version was smiling as well. Both exhausted and breathing hard, lying on their backs, their faces close and feet on opposite sides. This was a nightmare?

Maelor and Sam looked at Damian, but he didn’t pay them any mind and continued observing the changing scenes.

It didn’t take much time for the happy memory to turn into a bad one. The next scene was of the marching army — the Empire’s army. Lucian, now a teenager, along with her whole family — her mother, father, Damian (teenager), and even Thomas and Rose — were in chains, pulling a massive monstrous-looking half-machine and half-some-biological-monster thing.

Damian remembered those. They had seen it in the Emperor’s army when they saved Lucian’s father and other Dawnstar people from them.

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