[Book 1] Creep and Crawl

Alarmed by the bright purple light that threatened to burn his eyes in their sockets despite being covered by his eyelids, Immanuel raised a hand to further shield his eyes from the light. Then he felt his chest for anything odd that might be happening to it, believing the light to be on or at least somewhere near that part of his body. But he felt nothing out of the ordinary, even down to his abdomen.

His impatience, coupled with his unwillingness to communicate with a crow in that moment—when questions would surely arise—compelled him to see for himself what was happening. Once he had opened his eyes, he moved his hand away bit by bit until he saw what really was happening with his chest.

From under his tunic, on his chest, was a bright purple light. For a moment, Immanuel thought the light was as bright as it was when he first sensed it, then its shine faded into a dull glow just as he finally saw it for the first time.

It was out of the ordinary regardless.

Immanuel pulled his tunic off of him and, looking down his bare chest, he saw on his skin an image composed of lines and curves that altogether formed a mouse standing on its hind legs. This image, about the length of his index finger, turned out to be the source of the dull purple light all along.

"A sigil?!" Immanuel blurted out at the crow. "How did I even gain mana to make me worthy of receiving one?" He remembered waiting by the door of his family's home on the day he turned sixteen, but no priest had come to tell his family that he was born blessed with mana, which dismayed him.

The crow let out a caw and raised its right wing. For a moment, Immanuel struggled to interpret what the bird was trying to tell him, so he raised his right arm. The ring glinted under a ray of sunlight, and that was when he understood what the bird meant.

With his mind focused on how he got the mouse-shaped sigil on his bare chest, Immanuel took a closer look at the ring again. As with the previous times he looked at the ring, he saw nothing unusual about it.

Eyeing the crow with a raised eyebrow, Immanuel asked, "Are you saying that this ring on my finger is the source of my mana?" The bird with shining silver eyes let out a caw as it hopped.

"So it is, huh?" Immanuel said, nodding. Then, pointing to the prominent glowing symbol on his chest, he said, "Then you can tell me where this symbol came from. Who among the clerics applied it to me?" Upon hearing this, the bird hopped back and flew away, letting out a loud caw once it was in the air.

Immanuel sighed. He had more questions for the bird, but perhaps it was urging him to return to the lands within the walls of the Kingdom, now that he finally had something he used to envy when he was younger.

From childhood, he knew that the woods, being surrounded by the baronies and duchies of the Kingdom, were a part of the Kingdom's territory. But its governance does not extend to them. This allowed him to stay there for months without dealing with anyone.

If he were to return to the Kingdom, he could theoretically walk to any direction and find a gate of a barony or duchy to pass through. But the woods is not a safe place with all the wild animals lurking within. Furthermore, if it was true that Maddox's orders came from the higher ranked military officers, he would rather sneak through a gate than face any guardsmen.

He shut his eyes to think. With the purple light no longer perceivable, Immanuel felt he had more mental space to plan. But no matter how many times he played out every possible idea in his mind, tweaking each one as needed, he thought none of them were likely to work based on his experiences as a member of the Kingdom's military.

Feeling the mouse-shaped sigil on his chest, Immanuel whispered, "That's it, I'm figuring out how this works before I even think of returning to the Kingdom. But first…"

Recalling an idea he played out earlier, he returned to the dead bodies to take a good look at them another time. Then he felt through their pockets and pouches again and found something he first thought was part of a pocket. It turned out to be a piece of folded paper which, when unfolded, revealed a hand-drawn map.

A drawn X was labelled with the word explore, and opposite the X mark was a crude sketch of a river. Immanuel believed that, from the way the river was drawn and where the X was positioned on their hand-drawn map, they both came by way of the X on the map.

Somewhere below the X was a triangle, labelled camp. And pointing towards the edge of the sheet, left of the triangle, was an arrow labelled to Gold Leaf.

His heart skipped a beat. "Wait, does this mean I've been living within reach of home all this time?"

—

Immanuel, already seated with his legs crossed, placed a small rock on the hand-drawn map to keep the wind from blowing it away.

He took another look at the symbol on his bare chest. The light had long been gone, and its prominent black color that contrasted with his fair skin made it look like a fresh tattoo. He ran his fingertips along the symbol, and as he was feeling every curve, line, and bump, he felt it becoming warm and a bit numb. He also felt the symbol seemingly rising, as if the animal depicted had awakened from slumber, but the appearance of the ink on his skin remained the same.

The symbol lit up purple once again, and he took his fingers off of it.

In no time, Immanuel felt his body sinking into the ground. Instincts kicking in, he planted his arms—already pitch black, spindly, and longer than they had any right to be—down the ground and pushed until he felt himself floating along the ground.

"What is happening to me?!"

He felt his legs surface and, seeing them on the ground, pitch black, spindly, and about double in length, he started to crawl forward. Despite the entirety of his spindly body being so close to the ground, the surroundings blurred around him as his crawl covered the distance between a tree that was paces ahead and where he was seated in just a heartbeat.

"I could quite see why the sigil is shaped after a mouse," Immanuel said, his spindly arms raised as he examined his hands, which now looked eerily similar to long-legged spiders. "What I don't understand is how the color black and turning my body long and twig-like have to do with being a mouse?"

Still positioned by the roots, Immanuel wrapped his arms around the trunk, intending to try and climb the tree in his present state. Just as he held tighter to the tree and planted his feet on the trunk, claws manifested on the tips of his fingers and toes. And being nearly weightless in that state, Immanuel carried his stick-thin form all the way up the treetop—spooking an entire flock of birds resting as he passed—in about a couple of heartbeats. He achieved this without needing any form of help and without feeling sore.

Digging his claws deeper into the tree, Immanuel craned his neck and looked down. He froze, having realized how high he had climbed—a fall from that height in his human form would shatter his bones and spill his insides.

Remembering what he learned in his military training, Immanuel looked straight ahead of him and shifted his thoughts to something else—he moved through the leaves and branches and scanned the scene that unfolded before him. Unable to find hints of the hunter's camp through the trees in one sweep of his vision, and seeing no hint of the walls of Gold Leaf in the horizon, he tried again, taking in every detail he passed.

A tiny yellow bird flew by and landed on a branch in front of Immanuel, a sight that distracted him enough to make him pause. The bird shifted its position on the branch, and Immanuel felt that the world was suddenly tilting to one side. Along with that feeling, his footing and hold on the tree weakened, and it was only his claws, set firm upon the wood, that let him maintain his position.

Remembering the stories of higher-ranked soldiers running out of mana during missions, Immanuel climbed down the tree while still in that form. Once back on the ground, he rose upright, and this undid the effects of the sigil. But this did not remove his nauseous feeling, and the flickering light of the sigil confirmed to him the reason why.

Seems I can't use this sigil again unless I rest.

Crows have started to feast on the bodies of the hunters he had killed, so rather than hide them under the bush as he had planned, he removed their clothes, shooing the birds from time to time, and left them exposed to the scavengers and the elements. For a moment, he thought they might have left people to guard the camp they came from, and in time, they might come by and investigate. But having placed them out of immediate reach of his shelter, Immanuel believed it was not likely that they would suspect him of having done it.

That is, if they find this dwelling. Or himself for that matter.

—

On a gloomy morning two days later, Immanuel, having already packed essentials for the journey ahead as well as the weapons he had looted, touched a lit torch to his shelter, setting it on fire. I'm going home at last.

Tears fell from his eyes as he watched the fire envelop his forest dwelling. He imagined coming home to his wife, surprising her, embracing her as he tells her the good news that he had come back to life… and will never leave her side again. And as they hold hands, he will then tell her he no longer wanted to be a soldier for a Kingdom that did not deserve his talents. He was certain she would ask how they would make a living moving forward.

Going back to the woods was an option. The other was taking back his cloak from Maddox. With that cloak, I can assume anyone's identity and the Kingdom will be none the wiser. I can be a laborer for the rest of my life and they'll never know it was Immanuel Maier who was working for them. But unless I get it from Maddox…

There was a lingering fear that Maddox might have been using it a lot for fun and laughter.

Golden hour came. Seeing a triangular tent in the distance, he knew he was walking in the right direction. But as he was carrying weapons that belonged to their dead teammates, not to mention that he was also clad in the garb of one of the hunters he had killed, he went straight through the trees, moving until the tent was just a dot in the distance. Then he turned to the direction which, according to the hand-drawn map, led to Gold Leaf.

Night was looming when he started walking towards the barony.

—

The iron and stone gate of Gold Leaf was a series of flickering sparks of light from where Immanuel was walking. It seemed to him that the light of the golden full moon was not bright enough for the guardsmen that they had a massive bonfire burning alongside their torches.

The moon tonight is unusually bright, almost like the sun. I've never seen the moon this bright before, yet those guardsmen think otherwise.

With trees being sparser than in previous areas, Immanuel had to crouch while moving from one tree to the next. This way, he was less likely to be seen while moving towards the barony.

The night's journey was longer than the trip from the shelter to where he saw the hunters' camp. Many times, Immanuel thought he'd spend the entire night walking, even when the walls were just a sprint away. But with his persistence, he found himself behind a tree that fronted a distant watchtower while the unusually bright moon was still high up.

With the gate far off to one side, to his right, and the next stone watchtower to his left also just as far as the gate was, he only needed to contend with the lone guardsman at the stone watchtower ahead of him. Beyond the high stone wall, the only real problem he'd need to deal with, besides reaching his house and explaining things to his wife, was keeping his face out of sight of the authorities and those he once considered comrades.

"One problem at a time, Immanuel," he told himself as he peeked out of the tree trunk he was hiding behind. Then he pulled the bowstring and took aim.

He let go of the string, sending the arrow flying. It took time, but with the arrow staying true to its intended flight path, it hit the guardsman of the watchtower right to his head. The arrow did not pierce the man's helm, but it went from one cheek to the other. Regardless, he fell, already a lifeless man, and Immanuel mentally prepared himself to use the sigil once again, noticing, for the first time, that it felt like a muscle whose function he could command with his mind.

I wonder if everything I'm carrying comes with me when I take on that form.

The sigil lit up purple, and Immanuel found himself sunken into the ground once again. He craned his neck different ways to see where his essentials went: nowhere to be found on his person. Not even near him.

Amazing. Alright then, here we go. Then Immanuel, having taken the form of a spindly shadowy figure once again, rushed forward. No stopping. No hesitation.

In the darkness, he was like a shadow of an animal, down to how close his body was to the surface he was crawling on. That was when he understood why the sigil was shaped after the form of a mouse—his present form had a shade and dimensions that let him meld in darkness, pass through spaces only the smallest animals could fit in, and, for some reason, allowed him to cover large distances in lesser time than usual.

Beginning from the tree he fired the arrow from, he cleared the high stone wall and descended to the ground, already behind the stone wall, in four heartbeats. Yet to feel the nausea associated with having low mana, he moved behind a pile of wooden supply crates to hide. And once there, he stood up to deactivate the sigil. Feeling the weight of the essentials he carried once again, he sighed.

I'm home. At last.