Chapter 20

Hina and I slipped into the sewers after parting ways with Aedric. The tunnels were dim, lit only by weak, flickering lights that barely pushed back the darkness.

“These corridors are a maze,” I muttered. “How are we supposed to find him?”

“Drust can pick up his scent from here,” Hina replied.

“How can he tell anything apart with the stench down here?”

The smell was so foul it made me dizzy at first. Until you got used to it, it practically left you paralyzed.

“Don’t underestimate Drust. We’ve trained hard for this,” she said.

“You two are pretty reliable,” I admitted.

Drust lifted his nose from the ground and started moving.

“Looks like he’s found something,” Hina said, breaking into a run.

“Hey, Navnlos,” she called over her shoulder.

“What is it?”

“I wasn’t at the meeting, but I can guess: if we hand these people over, they’ll kill them instead of you… am I wrong?”

“How do you know that?” I asked, stunned.

“I know how nobles work. But listen—Aedric told you that you have everything you need to reach a solution. That doesn’t mean there’s only one solution.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t trap yourself in the path the nobles laid out for you. There are other roads.”

“What roads?”

“That’s for you to figure out. I’ll support whichever path you choose.”

Other solutions… Did she mean there was a way for everyone to live? Right now, nothing came to mind. I couldn’t do anything against the noble, and he clearly wasn’t going to change his opinion. But if Aedric and Hina both believed there was another way, then I had to find it.

“We’re getting close,” Hina said.

We sprinted through the labyrinthine tunnels at full speed. The closer we got, the clearer the sounds of heavy impacts became. I just hoped they weren’t hurting Cristal—it wouldn’t make sense to injure her if they planned to deliver her to her father.

“We’re going in. Get ready, Navnlos.”

We burst into a large chamber where several tunnels converged. Standing before me was a massive giant made of stone. Two people were fighting it—one was the man with the bat who had beaten me before, and the other still wore a robe that obscured their entire body.

“What the hell is that giant?” I gasped.

“It’s an illusion,” Hina answered. “The Aithmuir family specializes in illusion magic, and Cristal is a prodigy among them. That’s why they’re so desperate to bring her back.”

That was an illusion? It looked completely real. And the destruction it caused was real.

“I’m sick of your damn illusions!” shouted the man with the bat.

He swung, sending a ball of earth straight at the giant. The ball tore through its chest and hit Cristal, who had been hidden within, breaking the illusion apart. Chunks of rock fell away; she had been manipulating real stones to create the illusion and masking herself as a giant.

“We have to help her!” I yelled.

I activated my trance and launched myself at the man with the bat.

“Wait, Navnlos, don’t rush in!” Hina shouted—but it was already too late.

I slammed into the man with the bat, knocking him to the ground.

“Hina, I’ll leave the other one to you!” I shouted.

“You again, you damn brat!” he snarled, slamming his forehead into mine. The headbutt disoriented me and he managed to shove me off.

“Ready to lose again?” I taunted.

“This time I’m not losing,” he growled.

“Navnlos, remember: in a mage battle, the first thing you figure out is the concept they control!” Hina yelled as she ran toward Cristal.

The concept… It had to be tied to the bat, to baseball. But what kind of practical application could a sport have in a fight?

“This time I’ll make sure you don’t get up,” he said.

He drew three balls of earth from the ground and batted them at me with tremendous force. It was the same attack that had hit my arm last time, but now I could see them far more clearly. This time I wouldn’t let them bounce around. I lunged forward and shattered them with my hands, and I didn’t stop there—I followed up with a punch that sent him flying toward the wall, then a kick meant to pin him there and immobilize him. He managed to react at the last moment, dodging my leg so that it crashed into the wall instead, leaving a gaping hole.

He pressed his hand to the wall, forming four more balls and sending them at me even faster than before. To dodge them, I pushed off and ran along the wall, then threw myself straight at him, landing a punch that smashed him down into the floor.

“Damn, you’re strong…” he groaned.

“This time you seem a lot more worked up,” I said.

“This damn mission has dragged on long enough. If you’re still running around free, that means they’re thinking of cutting me loose. Those damned nobles couldn’t care less about us.”

Hina’s words echoed in my mind—there isn’t only one solution. But I had to focus on the fight for now. I could think about the rest later.

I glanced around and realized Hina, Cristal, and the hooded figure were gone.

“Looks like they left us alone,” he said. “Good. Now I can fight for real. I think your name was Navnlos. I’m Kael.”

“Took you long enough to introduce yourself, Mr. Baseball.”

“Figuring out my concept won’t do you much good,” Kael replied.

From our previous fight and this one, I was pretty sure I had figured out how his powers worked. His concept was baseball—no tricks. He could only create a bat and balls from whatever he touched. But he could turn anything he touched into that: that’s how he had created a ball infused with my own power last time. It was a strange concept. From what I’d heard about this side of the world, I never would’ve guessed they’d be fans of a sport from the world of science.

Kael crouched and pressed his hand to the ground. I expected a few more balls—but to my surprise, countless spheres began to rise from the floor, forming a line that climbed into the air.

“Pinball!” Kael shouted.

He began to strike each ball in rapid succession. The ones headed toward me were easy enough to dodge at first, but then they started to ricochet around the walls, picking up more and more speed. If I didn’t do something, I’d be torn apart. There had to be a trick to this technique; he wouldn’t use an attack that would hit him as well. But every ball that approached him, he simply batted away again, no matter where it came from.

Nerves gnawed at me. If I let the number of balls grow and their speed increase, I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

I pushed off hard and rushed toward him, but on the way two balls slammed into me—one in the back, one in the shoulder—knocking me off balance. As I fell, more and more spheres began to pummel me. There were so many I couldn’t react. I had to destroy them, but I didn’t have the time, and their trajectories were completely chaotic. If I didn’t do something, I was going to lose. My vision blurred. They had given me another chance at life—I couldn’t waste it. Damn it.

The balls kept crashing into me. I was being hit so much I could barely think. I was about to pass out.

“Give it up. No one’s ever escaped my Pinball,” Kael said.

It couldn’t end here. There was still so much left to see. I wanted to keep living alongside Hina and Aedric. I couldn’t let them down. Grandma Isobel had entrusted her insignia to me. I wanted to see more of this world—I had just arrived. For the first time, I felt like I had a purpose. I wasn’t going to let it all end here.

“I’M NOT GIVING UP!” I screamed with everything I had.

In that instant, the lightning around my body surged. The entire room filled with crackling energy. The balls shattered under the force, and strands of my hair turned even whiter as sparks burst from my eyes.

“What is this? No mage can raise a concept’s level that much in such a short time,” Kael said, stunned.

“AAAHHH!” Power flooded through me, so much that it burned. If I didn’t end this now, my own energy would consume me.

“Shit, I have to do something,” Kael muttered, visibly rattled.

He touched the ground again, and a single ball emerged—but this one was different. Its surface bristled with sharp crystals.

“Home run!” he shouted.

Wrapped in lightning, I hurled myself at the ball. It collided with my fist and stopped me cold. I pushed with everything I had, but it kept forcing me back. This was my strongest state, and even so, I was being overpowered. I refused to give in. More lightning erupted from my body, the pain searing through every nerve, but the ball finally began to crack under the strain.

“Again… you raised the level even higher…” Kael muttered, eyes wide. Then, in a shocked whisper: “You linked your concept to your soul instead of your consciousness… Are you insane? You’re a walking bomb.”

I heard his words, but I didn’t understand what he meant. This was the only way I knew how to use magic—and I was going to use it. I didn’t care if I was a bomb. My path was not ending here.

The ball shattered, and the backlash allowed me to leap forward. I drove my fist into Kael with such force that he smashed into the wall and collapsed, unconscious.

I had won. I’d actually done it. A part of me wanted to shout with joy, but I couldn’t—everything hurt. My ears were ringing, my body burned, and before I realized it, I collapsed to the floor.