Chapter 22: Transference Magic

 

 

 

Chapter 22: Transference Magic

 

THE inn room filled with animated conversation while everyone sat crowding around tea and sweets.

“By the way, how did you get to this city from the Dark Lord’s castle, Nako?” Aki asked.

She didn’t know where the castle was situated in relation to the Port City, but seeing as it was supposed to be their last destination, it had to be at a distance normal travel methods couldn’t reach in short span of time.

Nako pulled a small cloth pouch out of her back pocket. She unraveled the string fastening the top of the bag shut and took out a black hand-mirror the size of her palm and laid it in the center of the table. Aki was the first of the group to lean in to get a better look at the mirror. Did this mirror have something to do with her question?

Nako waved her right hand over the mirror to introduce it. “Actually, I used this mirror to travel from the Dark Lord’s castle to this city. It seems like the castle is on a solitary island cut off from the mainland by the ocean—you can’t go anywhere without magic…”

Leo tossed a handful of cookies in to his mouth and nodded. “I’ve heard that’s the case too. To start, this world’s geography is made up of a crescent-shaped continent and another round continent resembling the sun surrounded on all sides by ocean. And the Dark Lord’s Castle is said to be at the center of the round continent—known as the Sun Continent.”

He munched away on his cookies as he ran the tip of his magic illuminated finger across the top of the table. The table acted like a canvas as the light followed the trajectory of his fingers to fill in a map displaying the Crescent Continent and the Sun Continent. He finished drawing the map and tapped the Sun Continent.

“Put simply, the Dark Lord’s castle is situated on a solitary island located in the distant seas. The only way to travel from the crescent-shaped continent—which we call the Crescent Continent—to the Sun Continent is by Transference Magic or ship. But the sea route takes months, so the popular choice of travel is Transference Magic.”

“He says it is the popular choice, but only a select few Mages are capable of using Transference Magic. And even if you were somehow able to successfully penetrate the Sun Continent, the monsters you will encounter there are triple the highest levels found on the Crescent Continent. Few are reckless enough to try and sate their curiosity by traveling to the Sun Continent,” Johann clarified.

“I see,” Aki said, taking in all the information.

Nako leaned forward in her chair and put her hands on the table in agreement. “That’s exactly how it is! Which is why I needed access to Transference Magic to come to this city, but I can’t use magic for squat… And then it suddenly hit me,” Nako said, dropping her eyes to the mirror sitting on the table. “The day Kerdy brought me to the Dark Lord’s Castle, he told me I can go anywhere with this hand-mirror.”

“The Dark Lord told you…in advance?” Elias asked to make sure.

“Yes! I secretly borrowed the mirror when Kerdy wasn’t around. I returned to my room and strongly wished to see my big sister again while gripping the mirror. A bright light erupted from the glass and before I knew it, I found myself in the alleyway where Johann rescued me...” Nako answered, smiling innocently over borrowing the Dark Lord’s mirror without permission.

“And that’s how you got here without a hitch on the most part,” Leo muttered. The Hero Party members exchanged looks.

Dark Lord told her all about the mirror in advance. Doesn’t that mean everything is playing in to his hands? There’s a high chance reuniting with Nako and her leading us on a direct course for the Dark Lord’s castle is his way of indirectly guiding us to him. Whether Nako realizes it or not is another matter.

Aki carefully studied the hand-mirror on top of the table. Detailed engravings of a plant similar to ivy coiled itself around the handle. Several doves flapped their wings as they weaved their way through the ivy. The design was exquisite. Although, the engravings looked old-fashioned and more antiquated compared to the items Aki checked out in the street stalls with Elias earlier.

Johann’s eyes narrowed as he examined the hand-mirror from above. “…This appears to be an old magic item. The carvings are a design we do not see much of these days. Are ivy and doves the motif for Transference Magic? Magic words have been finely engraved into the surface of the handle, but the words have been written in the ancient tongue.”

It took until Johann mentioned it for Aki to realize ridiculously tiny letters were etched tightly together in the space between the ivy and doves. The words were so small and packed together they gave the illusion they were just another part of the design.

“Magic words, eh? Can you let me see it for a sec?”

Transference Magic was Leo’s specialty—he picked up the hand-mirror and read the spell engraved in the handle. He nodded and mumbled to himself like he understood what it said.

“I know what it is—the magic words are an enchantment for Transference Magic. We still use the ancient writing system for the most difficult spells. But…” Leo flipped the mirror over, comparing the front and back. He sighed deeply and continued, “Isn’t this thing outta magic?”

“It is?”

Leo ignored everyone else’s reaction to look at Nako. “Oi, Nako, you used this mirror to activate the Transference spell, right?”

“I-I did.”

“Then this mirror only had enough magic in it for a one-way trip. You drained it of all its magic—there’s none left for us to get to the Dark Lord’s castle.”

“No way! Seriously?!” Aki shouted at the shocking truth.

Leo lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. “Doubt I’m wrong on this one. I guess our only option now is to refill the hand-mirror with magic to activate the Transference spell.”

“Do we have to use the mirror?” Elias asked, pointing to the mirror in Leo’s hand.

“Yup,” he answered, flashing a toothy grin at them. “Transference Magic is a heinously difficult spell for Mages. Even a renowned genius Mage such as myself can’t activate the spell without the assistance of a magic item.”

“Really? Setting aside your self-alleged status as a genius Mage, someone with your level of skill can’t jump-start the magic item into working?”

“Oi, Aki, your leading statement was unnecessary,” Leo protested, displeasure written all over his face before he reclined in his chair. “Well, it’s less that I can’t activate the item and more a high chance it’ll fail when I do get it working. Do you know what happens when Transference Magic fails? You’ll all get left behind in the threshold between dimensions for eternity.”

“For eternity?!” The color drained from Aki’s face.

He nodded gravely. “That’s right. It gets better too—you guys won’t be able to return to this world and no one from this world will be able to find you either. What it all comes down to is that you’ll be lost forever and eternally wander a blank space lacking both time and location,” he casually explained.

Leo sounded so casual about it, but if we screw up, won’t we end up living a more painful existence than death? I mean, we’ll have to live a never-ending existence without being able to choose whether we want to live or die. Who knew Transference Magic could be so dangerous…

Aki recalled the way she traveled between worlds. She had passed through space-time by jumping through the hole caused by Dark Lord’s World Transference Magic. The only reason she successfully crossed worlds was because of how powerful Dark Lord’s magic was and because Leo detected her presence and used his equally powerful magic to summon her.

Johann elegantly brought his cup to his lips and said, “Transference Magic is an exceedingly difficult magic, usually invoked by several master Mages. Dark Lord is merely an exception to the rule for being able to cast it at will. With that said, Leo can singlehandedly invoke the magic with the assistance of a magic item, making him an overpowered Mage in his own right.”

“What the heck? Did you just compliment me? I think I’m gonna be sick.” Leo deliberately shuddered and ran his hands up-and-down his arms.

“How could you call my compliment sickening?! Please learn to modestly accept another’s praise,” Johann indignantly countered.

Aki, Elias, and Nako exchanged funny looks and burst out laughing.

“Anyway,” Johann motioned to the hand-mirror, “we will not get anywhere unless we start by infusing the mirror with our magic. Refilling it with enough magic to invoke the Transference spell is going to be a Herculean task, but we have little alternative.”

“Yeah. It’ll take until tomorrow morning at the soonest. And that’d be us killing ourselves to fill it.”

Leo and Johann exchanged looks and nodded. Although they were both exceptional magic users with large reserves, it wasn’t enough to compensate for the magic needed for the spell.

“But, y’know, that Dark Lord is a stingy prick. He coulda at least infused the mirror with enough magic for a roundtrip. Not like he’d lose anythin’ for it,” Leo complained, resting his cheek on his hand.

“I completely agree. What did he intend to do if Nako couldn’t come back to him?” Johann asserted.

“Now, now,” Elias said, spreading out his hands and offering an optimistic point of view. “Maybe the Dark Lord is provoking us to show him we have enough power to get to his castle with Transference Magic. Isn’t it an honor he entrusted his beloved Nako to us?”

Nako’s head drooped in a dispirited bow. “I’m sorry… I used it to come here without thinking things through…”

Leo lightly whacked Nako on the head with the back of his hand. “Don’t be stupid, Nako. No one’s said a word about you being at fault here. We just need to resupply it with enough magic to activate the Transference spell and we’re good to go. What matters is that you worked up the courage to come see Aki. Thank you for that.” He flashed a spunky smile at her.

Tears misted her eyes before she playfully puffed out her cheeks at him. “Calling me stupid is mean, Leo!”

“There ya go. That’s the spirit!” Leo hopped to his feet and stripped off his jacket and tossed it over the back of his chair. He spun his right arm around to loosen the muscles. “For the time being, we’ll hammer our magic into this item with the force of a tidal wave. Johann, isn’t it time for us magic-users to show off?”

“It would appear so. Let’s show the Dark Lord we have not breached the max level for show. As such, Elias, we should discuss our current plans.” Johann turned his attention to Elias.

“Would you and Aki be willing to go somewhere to burn time? As we already explained, I anticipate it will take at least a night to resupply the hand-mirror with enough magic. The job can be done with just Leo, Nako, and myself staying here. I want to ask you two to tackle other important jobs such as information gathering, so we can get multiple things done at once.”

“Good point. We should keep Nako here just in case since she brought us the hand-mirror. The magicless Hero Elias and novice Adventurer Aki will only get in our way. Go on a date somewhere or somethin’.” Leo shooed them away.

Aki and Elias glanced at each other and bashfully turned away at the same time.

“Th-Then let’s go on a date—er, I mean, why don’t we double-check the stores for anything we forgot to buy, Elias?”

“G-Good idea. They say you can never be too careful. Shall we go to the market one more time to make sure there was no oversight on our part? I also wanted to drop by the Adventurers’ Guild—” Elias started to say, when Johann interrupted him.

“Oh, that is a fine idea. The Adventures’ Guild may have new information on the Dark Lord’s movements. Please get whatever information you can.”

“Is the Adventurers’ Guild the place where Adventurers can accept quests from normal people?” Aki asked Elias, recalling his earlier explanation.

They had originally planned to stop by the Adventurers’ Guild after checking out the shops, but that was out of the picture once they reunited with Nako. Going now would be the perfect use of their spare time.

“Yup. There’s always at least one Adventurers’ Guild in every large city. Adventurers from all over the world gather in them in search of new and interesting Quests. Going to the Guild is the quickest way to catch up on what’s going on in the world,” Elias explained.

“It’s just the right place for information gathering then. Elias and I will do our best to gather intelligence while you guys work hard at infusing your magic into the mirror!” Aki exclaimed.

“…I’m worried it’ll be a fruitless endeavor with you and Elias at the helm,” Leo remarked with narrowed eyes.

Johann keenly nodded. “I sadly agree.”

“And what are you two trying to imply with that?!” Aki shot back. Nako laughed.

Elias pushed out of his chair and lightly nodded to the guys. “Leo, Johann, sorry for always putting you to work. I’m counting on you to handle the Transference Magic.”

“Stop making me repeat myself. I told you not to apologize to us so much. You can leave anythin’ magic related to us. What are Party members for? Right, Johann?” Leo grinned.

“Indeed. We are the right people for the job. In return, we are counting on you to collect helpful information,” Johann replied, smiling sweetly.

“Thank you,” Their words of encouragement brought a smile to Elias’ face.

Leo gave him a satisfied nod in return and waved at them. “All right, kiddos, leave the rest to us. You two better go and enjoy your time together!”