Chapter 9 | Magi-Craft

They stopped in front of the inscription-covered wall. Satou raised his hand, his green aura flaring and filling the inscriptions. The wall lit in green, and they went inside. It was that same cubic room from before.

“Let’s take turns sleeping. We don’t know when a malicious straggler might show up,” Satou proposed while looking around. He walked toward the edge of the room and lit up a couple of the inscriptions. A cupboard, a bedside table, and the bed. Theo’s brows rose.

“What is a straggler?” he asked while walking up to him.

“People lost in the tower. People like you and me,” Satou explained. However, he suddenly stopped. He thought for a moment and turned toward Theo. “By the way, how did you even come here? Why do you know none of this? You seem strangely clueless for a straggler.”

“Uhh…”

It didn’t seem like Theo would be able to avoid the question now. He thought about how he would answer. He didn’t know if it would be a smart move to tell the truth. But he remembered Satou’s archetype.

[Archetype: That Time the World’s Strongest Assassin Was Sent to Another World and Wanted to Live a Slow Life: My Journey Is a Bit Troublesome]

That was a lot to take in, with an absurdly stretched system prompt. Still, it told him something. That was the title of an anime with a good-aligned character. Not to mention, his actions had confirmed that. Otherwise, why would he save him from those entities? With his speed, he could have easily circumvented them and gone on his way.

There was also the fact that he was probably from the same world as him, which could birth some sort of camaraderie between them.

Still, he would have to pick his words carefully.

“You see, I’m actually not from this world,” Theo started with the important bits. Satou raised a brow and tipped his head without answering. “I come from a world called Earth. I died and I was suddenly… here, with a mana breathing technique lodged into my head,” he lied through his teeth. He didn’t know if it was convincing, as Satou didn’t really react. “I was escaping from some of those things when I met you, and that’s about it.”

Nothing. No surprise, no excitement, no disbelief. In fact, Satou seemed pretty unimpressed by Theo’s story so far. Well, Theo spared him the details, such as him having been The Eternal Night’s student for a while and having a system, so maybe there wasn’t much to be surprised about. “Not going to comment?”

Satou took a deep breath and let out a sigh. He rubbed his glabella and then looked back at Theo.

“Not much to comment on there. It’s not like you have that unique of a story. Abnormals like us have been the talk for more than a year now, apparently,” Satou said with his hands to his sides. Theo’s brows rose.

“Apparently? And what is an abnormal?” Theo asked, just to keep up appearances. Leila had already talked about the topic after all.

“Yes, apparently. I have only been in this world for over half a year,” Satou said. He got up from the bed he was sitting on and started pacing around the room. “And an abnormal is a person of unusual powers or circumstances. This might surprise you, but I have crossed over from a different world too. From Earth.”

I already know that, Theo mentally commented. Still, on the outside, he faked surprise. At least he tried to. Whether Satou was convinced or not, that was a whole other topic of conversation.

“Really? So we are like… Comrades in some sense?”

“Yes. Abnormals are ostracized by the general populace though. Be careful. Going around announcing that you have weird powers might not be the smartest thing to do. The slavers are on the hunt these days. They’re practically salivating over people like you,” Satou said. He sighed and walked up to Theo. He patted his shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “Look, Theo. This world is dangerous. Even I can’t guarantee your safety. I will help you get out of this tower, but that’s as far as it goes. Once outside, you’re on your own.”

Only when Theo nodded in affirmation did Satou let him go and went to bed.

Huh. That turned out much better than I expected. He is pretty easy to talk to, despite his occupation.

The World’s Strongest Assassin, it had said. What did that mean? Would an assassin be friendly? The thought made Theo curious about the man.

“Say, Satou. You said that you wanted to leave this place. What are you going to do once you’re out?” Theo asked with a cursory glance. A dagger miraculously appeared in the assassin’s hand as he started wiping its already clean surface with his scarf.

“Hmm…” He hummed. His eyes unfocused for a second. He was remembering something. “A slow life, that’s what I want. I think…” he muttered. He didn’t sound that confident in what he said either. Maybe he was struggling too, with figuring out what he wanted to do in this world, that is.

“Yeah,” Theo replied with a bitter smile. He wanted to help this person. To repay his kindness somehow. Theo himself wasn’t saved, but he wished to bestow salvation upon someone else. Would doing that make me a better main character? He wondered. His eyes wandered off towards his system, to his class Supreme Main Character, but his vision was instead blocked by a notification.

[You have received a quest.]

[That time you helped the assassin.]

[Raised in a modern family clan in Japan, Satou Hiroshi has dreamt of freedom his whole life. Now that he is free, he doesn’t really know what to do with it. Help him.]

[Help the assassin find the village of his dreams and settle.]

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

[Reward: An uncommon skill based on the skillset of the assassin. +3 levels]

“Anyway. I will sleep first. You can wake me up in three hours. We will switch then,” Satou said from behind the notification panel. Theo pulled it aside and watched the assassin settle on the bed like a mummy, his arms crossed in front of his chest holding his two daggers.

Nobody is ambushing him like that.

Other than that, a new quest! The timing was a bit too good to be random, so it made Theo consider how the system worked. Was it somehow responding to his wants? There were many different implementations of such things in stories. From simple neurochips to divine rules that governed reality, Theo couldn’t guess which one would be the truth for what he had.

But one thing was certain: it knew a lot. The quest descriptions had bits of information that would be impossible to know if the system didn’t have authority over both this world and the world Satou came from.

I’m getting in way over my head. System knowledge is reserved for endgame. I have to focus on more important things. Theo pulled himself together. He had two quests, one regarding The Regressor and one regarding The Assassin. Neither could be completed if he didn’t improve. His arsenal was a candle flame and a mana-snot attack.

Sitting down cross-legged, he turned his attention toward his mind palace. After his mind palace had changed in property and became active at all times without him focusing, he had also gained a new bonus of sorts. Now, when he did focus, his mind seemed to enter an overdrive mode in there, thinking twice as fast. Or rather, the outside world seemed to visibly slow down.

Which meant more time to experiment and more mana replenishment.

It should only take me fifteen minutes of full focus meditation right now to replenish mana. That’s cool, he thought. Without further ado, he went up to his arcane shot inscription and started inspecting it. He cast the spell, dismissed it. Recast it. Juggled with it. Cast a couple in quick succession just to see how the inscription worked in real time.

What Theo realized after those experimentations was that he was inefficient. Leila had told him so, but only now could he understand what she really meant.

First of all, the inscription itself went through several different phases whenever it tried to cast a spell. Theo didn’t know how his crudely and arbitrarily made inscription could achieve such a thing. What he did know was, however, that a shit ton of mana was wasted in every phase.

So Theo started the arduous task of guessing what was actually happening. Only after an hour of several trials and errors, boring mana replenishment, and constant failures did he manage to see the tip of the iceberg that was arcane shot.

So much work for such a simple spell. Unbelievable, Theo complained mentally. Still, he could simplify all the complicated processes into three different phases in his head.