Chapter 6: Aura == null

“Miss Zani, can I ask you a question, if you don’t mind?”, I ask

“Sure”, replies Miss Zani

“Is Kybaar really kind of a bigshot around here, or was he just bragging?”

Zani laughs softly, covering her mouth with one hand before speaking.

“So… you really didn’t believe his words? Kybaar warned me about this, but I ignored him. But now I believe you really are a foreigner.”, she replies in playful smile.

Then she leans closer to my ears and whispers: “OR… perhaps you really came from the lands of Gusht.”

Now she has spooked me, I should do something about this or she will tell everybody about this. But wait a second, if she wanted to, she could have already informed to someone, yet I am safe here.

I squinted at her with suspicion, my expression shifting by the second. Zani notices me immediately, and after a faint smile, she straightens back into her calm, proper posture, as if the whisper have never happened.

We are now treading through a crowded bazaar. Voices rose and fell around us: merchants calling, animals bleating, metallic clinks from coin trades. A guard is tailing us and Zani is accompanying me to the imperial nation center, where I can get a proof of my identification and permit for my entry in this country, which I have not obtained yet, and a permit for my residence and to do any business while I am still here.

She speaks in a low voice while looking ahead, “I had my doubts from the start, but I wasn’t sure… Your reaction has given me enough proof to believe that my wits were right.”

At this pace, I can’t even read her expression. The way she speaks, so calm and flat, only makes it harder to tell whether she is on my side… or already setting me up.

Worrying about it won’t get me anywhere. Only thing I can hope for now is she does not backstab me at the last moment.

It would have been better if Kybaar had came along. He said that he has some urgent work to attend to; otherwise, he would have escorted me himself.

As we are walking through these crowds, I am still feeling uneasy in my stomach. I should tell her that I am hungry, but man that would be embarrassing.

“Grrrrrrrr…..”

Damn, that was what I expecting the least. Now Zani is looking, man why am I feeling so hot in my face. I knew it, I should have told her earlier.

“I see; you are hungry”, says Zani.

Her face is plain devoid of any emotions. I don’t know what caused that. She turned and is now heading towards a stall, but in this crowd, it will be easy to get lost. I should keep myself close to her.

She is heading for a food stall. A good amount of people are gathered around that stall, and this rich aroma flooding my senses, while going closer, it is too good. I wonder, if this stall is a popular food attraction here.

I don’t know why, but people are automatically making way for Zani to get the food first. Maybe it is because of the guard who is tailing us.

She purchases some food from that stall and hands it to me, without taking anything for herself. I am not sure if it is a good idea to start eating right in front of her, but I am hungry… too hungry to care about what she would feel about me.

After I finished eating, we resume our walking to the center. While I was eating, Zani stood there silently waiting for me to finish, and the people, they were looking at me and murmuring, like they were seeing a monster lunching on its prey. No one can blame them, but I think I may have gone a little overboard too.

As I look around, most people are dressed in clothes, which are mostly using same kind of fabrics as mine. I guess I didn’t notice it before, probably because I was blinded by my hunger.

Thanks to Zani, I get to eat that stew like meal, although the seasoning and spices were light, but the taste of the meat made the most of it or my hunger made the most of it.

“hehehe…”

Zani looks at me, “Did you say anything.”

“No, it was nothing”, I reply

I should keep my thoughts to myself. What am I doing? And speaking of thoughts, I am glad that I am not connected to Kybaar’s device, otherwise she would have been listening to my brain’s messy soundtrack.

Kybaar’s device… he was spouting some crazy things about me. He said I am kind of like a dead person whose presence is enforced on this world. According to him, I shouldn’t exist in the first place. This and that... blah...  blah... blah... who cares, right!

The good thing about that, is that he implanted the basic syntax of this world in my mind. I should check out what is this basic knowledge.

Okay, to begin with, I have got admin privileges for these directories of a simple incantation to check aura. According to its description, only mages and sorcerers can access them. If I can see other auras, I can get the idea of what he was talking about all this time, and why the incantation is in other language.

Ugh... never mind! I should at least try it. And keep my voice as low as possible.

“Guftar Dekho”

Suddenly, different colors start bursting out of people. It is not good. These colors are spreading everywhere, I think I used the wrong incantations. They are also enveloping me.

“Zani, please help, these colors are enveloping me, and you also.”

She stares at me with same blank expressionless face, and then waves her hand. All the colors disappear in an instant.

“Oooh… I should avoid using these kinds of things, when I am still clueless about them.”

“You are a mage, aren’t you?”, asks Zani, “And it is your first time seeing auras I assume.”

So, this is what auras look like. When my breathing finally steadies, I ask her “Are you able to see those colors at all time? And does the incantation I just used affects all the people around me in the same way?”

“I can see auras whenever I want to, I don’t need any incantations. These things are like my second nature. But to think you can use magic and you haven’t seen auras until yet…”, her pupils are getting bigger and wider. From the start, I am sensing something about her is off. But the way her expression darkens now tells me something else entirely.

“Then what did you do when my incantations didn’t affect you”, I ask her

She just stares at me, somehow that is more dreadful than I thought. I can feel my heartbeat racing.

“I simply negated your spell. I am a healer, so negating spells and curses are also in my skillsets.”

Somebody really needs to tell her to watch where she’s walking, and stop giving me those ice cold looks. I swear I am going to cry, if she doesn’t stop doing so.

Thanks GOD, she looked the other way. I nearly burst into tears right there.

And I am a mage, who can use magic, that is a new information. 

That is... great. That is... wonderful. I don’t know if I can go back to where I came from, but at least this place is finally turning out to be an interesting one. I think I might reconsider my plans of greatness for now.

“You don’t want to be left behind”, a cold voice rings in my ears.

“No… I don’t”, as now I resume my walk after standing there for a very little while, but it seems like Zani is matching my steps.

Why is it taking so long to walk? I wish I have my car from back then, back when I didn’t die? But… when did I die? I… am alive here. This is not making sense, how someone could die and then wake up with no wounds. And the craziest part, I ended up in a place where magic is real, and I am considered a dead man by a person who looks like having a shtick for horseshoe.

I mean what the hell he meant back then? My aura seems like that of a dead man who is put into action by invisible strings. 

Seriously! What does he meant by that? I know that there are things that I am unfamiliar with. But, to get through this, I think I should set my priorities. 

And well I don’t want to do this, but I am going to put all my courage into this. “Excuse me! Miss Zani, how did you guess I am a mage, and how do you use this magic?”

After I asked my question, she is giving me same indifferent look from before, then she answers. “You used an incantation, and it has shown its effects to you. And… guessing which type of magic you can use, depends on your aptitude. I have an aptitude for light, as a result I can use healing magic. But people without affinity for light cannot cast healing magic.”

She looks ahead while continuing her speech; “Anyone who wants to learn a magic aside from their aptitude takes a lot of practice and patience for it to show even minor results. Like without having an aptitude for light magic; healing even scratches using magic, that would be a monumental achievement. But to think you are asking a question like this, when you can use magic yourself… well never mind.”

I knew it, something is off about her. Now she has done it on purpose. She is definitely hiding something from me, and it doesn’t seem like it is to going end well for me.

“Well, this is the Imperial nation center.”, as she points at a towering building in front of us with a sign hanging on its forefront, “Imperialism at the core of our nation”, with a large crest beneath it marking it as the National Imperial Center. I can read it thanks to the knowledge Kybaar transferred to me.

As we approach the entrance, I catch a glimpse of a faint, mysterious smile on her face. She leans in a fraction, her voice quiet enough that only I hear: “Do not tell others what you can do, not until you understand it yourself. Curiosity is dangerous here, and… curiosity gets noticed.” Her face never hardens, but the intent is clear.

The threat is clear, she is clearly onto something, and… I am still unable to figure out. She wasn’t like that when we first met, but something changed in her while coming here. I still couldn’t get my hand on it, what could it be.

I am considering asking her directly. But that clearly seems like a bad idea. I wonder if asking her will make her bolder in her intentions. I think I should probably play the fool for now and keep up the act that I haven’t caught up to her yet.

Inside the building, she takes me to the front desk and then leaves me saying that she is going to take care of other paperwork and aspects while I am to stay here and provide them with the necessary information for my identification.

The front desk worker asks for my name, birthplace, age, occupation and whether I am a mage or not. I give her my name and age. I lie and say my birthplace is Gijikha. I admit my mage status as positive and well for the job part; according to Kybaar’s knowledge jobs are limited here.

I can choose from labor, adventurer/explorer, sorcerer, imperial forces, and most of other work fields even corporate worker, my last experience, is included in merchant job type as provider of services as a merchant. So, I chose my occupation as a merchant.

The front desk worker takes about 10 to 15 minutes, before handing me my identification. It is like a very thin sheet containing a hard material inside with my information engraved on it. It is thick like a smart phone that I had, only the difference, it is covered in sheet from all around instead of a glass on front.

But the process of getting identification is… surprisingly fast .

I am still waiting for Zani to return while sitting here in waiting place. There she comes back. She signals me to follow her. I take her lead. She takes me into a side room, a big crystal is placed there on the ground.

“Place your hands on this, and push your aura into this crystal”, Zani instructs in calm detached voice.

If by auras she means those colors I saw back then, then I get it but how do you push your aura when they are intangible. I look at Zani with eyes full of questions, hoping she would understand on her own.

“Don’t tell me you cannot do that. It is basics of the basics for mages”, she says bluntly.

Basics of the basics, so it should be in my brain somewhere, again thanks to Kybaar. There it is, I just have to get to the right executable in the right folder of archive. 

Let’s say feel the presence of the color around me like this. And then as I extend my hand to crystal and do this. I can feel something stirring in the crystal, but it is empty.

“Oh, you are a null user. Well, that is all what I wanted to know, before that.”, she says curtly. Before what, I want to ask that.

“Get him, I am done”, Zani says loud and clear.

Suddenly a noise of busting the door, and then some boots rushing in and flashing of blades. And now… I am again blacking out, probably due to being hit with something hard in the back of my head. In my last visions with my flickering consciousness, I get the glimpse of the guard who was accompanying us with some unknown figures standing behind him, ready to take action.