Chapter 67: It Was an Execution

Anna leads me out of the village to a little tunnel on the southside of the surrounding mountains. There’s a capstone over it that must be several tonnes. I push it aside with earth magic and close it behind us. Past the capstone is what looks like a mining tunnel, but it’s steep.

“Was this made by your people?” I ask as I send glowing orbs of light magic ahead of us.

“Monsters that came through the path dug tunnels to the surface all over the continent. We collapse any that come near the village, but we left this one intact for exploration,” Anna answers. “But did we really need to go today?” she asks, and I nod.

“I have to go back to school soon, and there are a couple more stops I need to make before then, too,” I answer, but Anna grabs my shoulder and spins me around.

“School? How old are you?” she asks through a furrowed brow.

“That’s a good question.. I guess I’m 15 for a few more months,” I reply.

“Wha- 15? As in 15 years old?” Anna asks, her expression looking more embarrassed now.

“Yep, I’ve been in this world a whole 15 years,” I say with a smirk, making Anna’s eyes fall to the ground.

“You're this strong at 15.. and if mom is right, you’ll live a few hundred years..” she mumbles.

“Lark made it seem like Terrans get pretty old, but humans are lucky to hit 70,” I explain, but Anna shakes her head.

“We live longer because we have magic cores, and from our research, the stronger the core, the longer a person lives..” Anna explains.

Huh, so if I don’t get eaten by a dragon, I could have a long life. That’s neat.

I press further down the tunnel until our surroundings change from scraped rock to chiseled stone. I lift the map provided by Orla and try to ascertain our location.

“So if that’s the entrance to the underground city.. we’re super far from the books..” I mumble while examining the hand-drawn map. There’s an X marking the entrance Anna and I are walking through, and another X on the opposite side of the map. Between the two are squiggly lines that must represent streets, but there’s a large circular space in the center of the map. Hopefully, an open city center of sorts that will be easy to pass through.

“The distance is only half the problem; once we’re closer to the path, there will be every sort of beast,” Anna says over my shoulder.

“And if I blast the whole place with magic, they’ll all come running..” I murmur, “Guess there’s no choice, we follow the map and kill whatever gets in the way.”

I roll the map up and toss it back into storage, then follow my light orbs down the tunnel. I’m keeping my magic detection thin, but I can still sense some sort of opening ahead of us. I motion for Anna to hold still while I walk up to it. I push my light orbs up into the space, and they fly high into the air. The tunnel we took must have gone down pretty far.

Ahead is the outskirts of a city. There are dozens of half-destroyed stone buildings, and numerous paths that we could take. But based on the map, they’ll wind all over the place. I walk back to Anna with a hand to my chin.

“Anna, do you think you can jump across rooftops without using much magic to support your movements?” I ask, and I see wheels turning in her head.

“Are they further apart than the houses back in the village?” she asks, but I shake my head. It's congested for the outskirts of a city; it must’ve been quite the place before it fell into the ground.

“Then I’ll be fine,” Anna says.

I nod and wave for her to follow me. I scatter all of the light orbs that led us through the tunnel except one, and push it along the path we’ll follow. It flies onto the closest roof, and we do the same. We bounce between roofs nearly an hour before I sense a strong magical presence and hold the light orb on the roof we’re standing on.

“Three buildings ahead,” I whisper to Anna and point.

The structures have been getting taller the further we’ve gone, but the scenery before us is a total change. There are metal buildings over ten stories tall, and the ground between them reflects light from my orb.

“What is it?” Anna whispers back and crouches down beside me.

“Hard to say without releasing more magic, and I don’t want to wake it up,” I answer with my gaze locked on the base of a metal building that glows with faint magic.

“Can we go around?” Anna asks, but I purse my lips.

“Probably, but I’m more concerned with how few beasts we’ve seen,” I answer, “isn’t there a portal to their homeworld down here?” I ask and turn to Anna.

“Yes, but they might push towards the surface through other tunnels as soon as they arrive,” she says with a shrug.

“Eh, maybe,” I reply and shrink my light orb smaller, then stand, “let’s keep going.”

Anna and I jump higher to the roofs of the metal buildings. There’s a surprising amount of flat space on the top of each. The layout honestly reminds me of helicopter pads from my last life. We cross them until the buildings in front of us start to stand shorter, and I stop to examine what’s ahead, then pull the map out and try to get an idea of where we are.

“Sigh, we’re not even halfway to the center..” I mumble and look up at Anna, “Do you understand the architecture here? Why does it feel like we just crossed a mini city and are looking at the outskirts of the other side?” I ask, but Anna shrugs her shoulders.

“Not much survived the continent moving, and the ancient Terrans that did didn’t leave much information on their society,” she answers.

I toss the map into storage once again and sit with my legs dangling over the side of the roof we’re on. The ground shines a bit, but my light orb is the only light source here. I’d guess we’re around 10 stories up, but even that’s just a guess with how thin I’m keeping my magic detection.

“Hey Anna,” I say while looking down, “how upset would you be if I got the attention of every monster in here?” I ask as a grin creeps across my face.

“Why would you do that?” she asks seriously.

“Jumping around is pretty slow, I think it’d be easier to fight everything, then fly the rest of the way,” I answer, making Anna cross her arms in disagreement.

“We’re almost a quarter of the way there, and we haven’t faced any danger,” Anna says, “if we keep this pace, we’ll be able to collect the books by the end of the day.”

It’s a solid argument, but this is so boring. Orla said it was dangerous and full of monsters down here. But we’re perfectly avoiding all of them.

“Fine, we’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing,” I relent, but the universe must also like a show.

We cross two more sets of stone outskirt buildings and taller metal constructions before reaching the main portion of this ancient city. The stone buildings leading up to this area were wider and taller, easily double the size of the normal house buildings we passed coming here. But the main event is the city center. Skyscrapers of metal and stone shoot from the ground to the rocks that cover the city like a dome. Some look like they’ve been cut in half, leaving pieces of old buildings leaning across others. It’s pretty apocalyptic, and the whole thing glows bright with magic.

Crunching and clicking noises come from just below. Beetles the size of cars are eating each other alive, piecers infest an entire skyscraper, and bipedal lizards are storming into another building like there’s a gang war. But the best part is what’s inside a little arena just before us. Minotaurs are having a free-for-all using giant scaly legs as clubs to beat the hell out of each other.

“I bet I could kill one discreetly, carve out a space in its body, and use condensed magic to control its limbs,” I say to myself, “I could smoke them, then rip the minotaur suit off like ‘what’s up, jerks!’ and kill them all..”

“Were you dropped on your head as a child?” Anna asks from my right, pulling me from the daydream.

“Huh? I was just thinking about joining in on the brawl they’re having,” I reply and point to the arena as a scaled leg connects flush with a minotaur’s jaw and snaps its neck around.

Anna grimaces at the sight, but this place is so cool. The northern part of the continent was fun, but this is what I was hoping to find here. Violent beasts fighting it out, using dead monster limbs as weapons. It’s hard not to smile at such a beautiful sight.

“Sigh, there’s no way through without a fight..” Anna says, and I feel a fire start in the back of my eyes. I jump up, grinning like an idiot.

“Ahem – I have a plan,” I say and turn to Anna.

“Is the plan to jump in the center of the minotaurs and release a bunch of magic?” she asks dejectedly.

“You’re a warrior, and a mind reader,” I reply with a smirk, “no kill stealing!” I shout and jump from the roof.

I fly through the air and surround my body with condensed magic. I feel the eyes of every beast in every building turn as magic rolls off my body. I land on the center-most minotaur in the arena below, and crush it flat.

“GROOOOOOOOOOOOH!” the others scream and ready their monster leg weapons. They’re huge up close, easily four meters tall and jacked. Their muscles ripple under brown-black fur, and their horns are wider than their shoulders. They even have red beady eyes.

“Ya know, fighting that dragon gave me an idea for dealing with oversized fuzz balls,” I say to the charging minotaurs while letting more of my magic condense around me. But I don’t hold it tight to my skin; instead, I layer the condensed magic to create the outline of a minotaur-sized human, like I’m inside a mecha made of magic. It takes shape, and I float up to the top of it as a scaly leg comes at my left side. Eye to eye with a minotaur, I manipulate the condensed magic and swat the leg down to the ground, then reach forward and grab the beast by its neck.

“GROH GROHHH!” It cries in panic and claws at the condensed magic arm holding it, but I squeeze and snap its neck.

“KUIH KAH,” it croaks as I pull it toward me and lift it into the air like a sword. Minotaurs swing scaled legs and clawed arms at me from every angle, but I spin and push off their attacks with my minotaur sword.

“GROHH”

“ROOOOOH”

They roar and charge again, but I charge the largest on my left by pushing condensed magic into my oversized shell. The feet of my shell rip into the ground and dig a trench, but I’m before the charging beast in an instant. I swing the minotaur sword down from overhead.

“GUH KRSHK,” its neck collapses in on itself, and its head shoots down into its chest. I grab its twitching body with the free hand of my shell and start dual-wielding minotaurs. I swing them wildly and play whack-a-mole with the remaining minotaurs. Moments later, twitching monster corpses and streams of blood are the only things left in the arena.

“Ahem-” I manipulate wind magic to amplify my voice and push a thick wave of magic out, “COME AND GET SOME YOU FUCKS!” I yell, making the ground shatter with magic and the arena surrounding me shake. I toss the minotaur swords to the ground and shoot ice spears into the nearby buildings that glow with magic.

Ten stampedes start simultaneously.

“GRAHHHHHH”

“REEEEEEE”

“KREEEEEEEH”

Bipedal lizards, piecers, harpies, oversized beetles, and more storm the arena by land and air. I look up and see Anna hasn’t moved from the roof we were on, which means my plan is a go.

The beasts claw and bite at my magic shell, but I just let them pack in more and more until the arena is shoulder to shoulder and fang to fang. I drop down inside my shell and pull my sword from storage. I condense magic over it and lengthen the blade until it shoots past my shell and impales tens of beasts. I push the condensed magic further, until the blade reaches the end of the arena I’m in, then I make a slit in my shell at about neck height.

I spin inside my shell and whip the magic sword around in a circle.

“REEEE”

“KREHHH”

“GARB GUHHH”

“GROOH KUHH”

The top halves of the monsters slide away from their bottoms, like the entire world was just cut in half. Blood sprays and guts spill onto the arena floor until there’s a layer of corpses taller than me. I scatter the larger magic shell and the extended blade, then jump into the air after the harpies. I slice through three on my ascent, but ten more surround me and open their mouths.

I shoot streams of water in every direction.

“KEGLUGBLURG,” they cry and flail.

“Sorry, ladies, that shit won’t work on me twice,” I say while flying past each with an extended sword. I stop on a little platform of condensed magic above the arena and scan the nearby area. There are stragglers, but they’re all pretty small. The dead monsters must’ve had kids, unlucky.

I fly up to Anna and prepare myself for a bit of praise. Her red hair flows from the wind I make, and her monster skin body tape shows off her shapely figure. I land with a beaming smile on my face and consider making a ceremonial bow.

“That was.. despicable..” she says with a look of anguish, “isn’t the human world mostly peaceful? Did you become so violent just from fighting in the north?” she asks with a genuine look of concern.

“Wha- not even a ‘good job’?” I protest and frown.

“It was great work.. but it was an execution..” she replies.