B2 Chapter 47: Lost and Found

Gaius swore loudly. “We’re not out of the woods yet. Ready yourselves!”

The Legionnaires once more tensed as Marcus felt his grip tighten on his spellbook. Given the lack of other horses among their ranks, there seemed to be no other obvious target for the dragon to come back for. None except for them, that is.

Yet as he watched the dragon approach once more, he noticed something strange. It had something gripped in its massive ivory talons. Squinting, Marcus was just able to make out the shape.

“Is that… a tree?” Gaius muttered.

Sure enough, it was. The massive trunk must have been at least fifteen feet thick and twice as long. Marcus wasn’t even sure where it would have gotten something like that from. There were certainly no forests that could produce such a thing near here.

The dragon swooped down toward their position again. A brief image flashed through Marcus’s mind of their group being flattened as though by a baker’s rolling pin. But instead of dropping the tree on top of their heads, the dragon dropped it a few dozen yards in front of the Legionnaires’ formation.

The impact shook the ground itself, followed shortly after by a secondary earthquake when the dragon slammed into the ground right behind it. Its talons dug deep into the earth and carved great furrows across it. The dragon lowered its head, staring down the Legion with a predatory glare as it puffed smoke from its nostrils.

The two parties stared each other down for a long moment. The Legionnaires were understandably hesitant to engage, but no escape would be impossible. Not with it so close.

Except… something was off.

Frowning, Marcus activated [Critical Reception]. Sensations of fear, trepidation, resolve, and more washed over him from the Legionnaires. Yet from the dragon, he sensed no malice or bloodlust or even hunger. He sensed… excitement?

The dragon let out a deafening roar that rattled the Legionnaires’ shields. It sank down low and coiled back as though preparing to spring and tear through their ranks. Its tail lashed about, snapping through the air like a bullwhip the size of a battering ram.

It stayed like that for a long moment, as though it were waiting for something. And as unbelievable as it seemed, Marcus thought he might have an idea what it wanted.

“Gaius. Do we have any way to launch that tree?” He muttered.

The officer looked at him like he was insane. “No. Maybe the trebuchet could do it, but I doubt we have anything large enough yet. Why?”

Marcus grimaced. “I have an idea.”

He hurried over to the Legionnaires bearing mobile ballistae, moving as discreetly as he could manage. The nearest man flicked his gaze toward Marcus for just an instant before returning his focus to the threat before them.

“I need you to fire the largest bolt you have that way.” Marcus pointed off to the side of the dragon and high into the air.

The Legionnaire just gave him a flat, skeptical look. That was until Gaius appeared behind them.

“Do as the bard asks.”

Marcus shot him a grateful look, but Gaius simply pressed his lips together into a hard line. “You’d better know what you’re doing, Marcus.”

The dragon let loose another short roar followed by a gout of fire sent skyward. The flame felt as though it would singe his eyebrows right off even from this distance. Yet it remained where it sat, its reptilian eyes expectant.

“I hope so, too.” He muttered under his breath.

The ballista wielder nodded and turned to do as he was ordered. A thick shaft of wood launched into the air, its passage marked by a loud crack that made Marcus flinch.

The dragon’s head whipped toward the projectile. It shot after the bolt with a powerful wingbeat that knocked over half of the Legion’s line. It overtook its quarry easily despite the incredible speeds it traveled at.

Despite the ease with which it had snapped through the horses’ bones, the dragon managed to not only catch but hold the spear-sized bolt in its jaws without snapping it like a toothpick.

The pink dragon wheeled about in the sky before diving back toward the Legion once again. It skidded along the ground as it landed, rolling over its wings a couple of times before finally halting. Its tail lashed the ground with renewed fervor, causing plumes of dirt to fly in every direction as those emerald eyes glared down at them.

Dipping its head, the dragon dropped the bolt in front of the line of Legionnaires and snorted. Its jaw hung slightly open where it sat.

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No one moved for a long moment. Some of that was due to the residual intimidation of the great beast before them. But most of it was just confusion.

Marcus elbowed a gaping Gaius in the side. “I think it wants us to do it again.”

Gaius nodded dumbly and turned to the similarly gaping ballista unit. The man who had fired the last bolt was hurrying to reload.

“You heard him. Someone send another one up!”

***

Grand Mage Claude checked the crystal he’d taken to wearing about his wrist, as had become his habit as of late. Nothing. He had expected as much. But after they’d picked up two more disturbances in such quick succession, he honestly felt as though another might appear at any moment.

He bit back a giddy chuckle at the thought. Two more of those ambient mana fluctuations, each larger than the last. The time between events seemed to be getting generally smaller, but didn’t seem to follow an obvious pattern or trend enough to make them predictable. At least, not off of the few data points they had.

His gaze lifted once more to the front of the room. There, one of his students was presenting his hypothesis on the source of this bewildering phenomenon.

“…Theoretically, if we were able to condense down one of our called lightning storms over a ten square foot radius for one second, then the amount of mana in use might generate a similar effect…”

“Impossible.” Another student interrupted. “There are no other groups able to even call a lightning storm consistently, much less control its area of effect like that. Even we aren’t able to accomplish such a feat. Er, not yet.”

“I don’t mean that it’s exactly that spell being used.” The presenter snipped testily. “It’s just to illustrate the sheer magnitude of the energy we’re talking about, Marv.”

“Yeah, Marv.”

“Stop being such a contrarian Marv.”

Marv muttered darkly and hunched his shoulders as the presenter cleared his throat. “As I was saying…”

Claude’s student continued on with his explanation. It was one of many theories that had been put forth, yet seemed just as implausible as the others. The casting of some great spell was rather unlikely. To generate fluctuations on the level of a single one of these events would require quantities of mana that even he couldn’t fathom collecting in any reasonable time frame. And to accomplish repeated castings? It would be ludicrous.

The fact that the pulses seemed to be growing stronger made Claude initially assume they were due to some sort of natural phenomenon. Maybe the oscillations in local mana produced by some mystic sources had begun overlapping in amplitude, crashing into each other and massively increasing the variability that they observed. But that didn’t explain the irregularity that had quickly become a cause for concern.

Plenty of alternative explanations had been proposed ever since Claude had begun to focus on the puzzle. One even suggested that this was all a result of a level up, which was frankly absurd. Doing the math showed that the energy released by something like that wouldn’t reach such heights until a level well into the thousands. Breaking level 100 was practically unheard of to anyone outside of a literal god. Even Claude himself had plateaued for the last few decades at level 78.

Besides, even if there was an entity happily grinding away at such an absurd level, what would it even be killing to level like that? What kind of class would allow that kind of progression? And why would they just now be detecting something like this?

If it was a battle between the gods or something else happening in the wider cosmos, that was one thing. But it was here. In the eastern part of Novara, based on their calculations. There was nothing of value there for a sufficiently powerful individual, much less anywhere else on a backwater planet like this.

Claude sighed and leaned back in his chair once more. He probably had the most mana of any single individual on this planet. Outside of the gods, of course, but they cheated. It was one of the reasons why the Grand Mage had stayed here for so long. Without anyone else to challenge him, he could go about his work in peace.

That, and he never had any problems getting funding or dealing with the local rulers. No one wanted to be on his bad side.

Of course, finding capable students was rather difficult. That part still annoyed him. The reminder made him glare at the comparatively young men kneeling around the room and stroking their long beards.

“Does no one have any better ideas?” All of the students in the room immediately swung their attention to the Grand Mage at the interruption. “Because I’ll tell you right now, this one’s not going to be it.”

“Well, it could have to do with some planetary alignment.” One of the other students chimed in.

“Or some sort of resonance between a specific spell and the environment it was cast in?” Another one suggested—one of the more foolish ones.

Claude pinched the bridge of his nose. “Now you’re just repeating my ideas back to me. Only they’re even less likely. What kind of planetary alignment happens in such irregular intervals?”

No one bothered to answer. Claude knew that the idea wasn’t entirely without merit. In fact, he could intellectually construct a case for it himself, given enough time. But that didn’t change the infinitesimal odds of it actually happening. Nor would it help their absolute dearth of explanations.

Claude sighed. It seemed that the best way to find out would be to investigate himself. It would mean tearing himself away from his other experiments and areas of study, but it couldn’t be helped. The mystery would drive him mad otherwise.

“All right, everyone. Pack your things.” He ordered. “Tomorrow we’re going on a field trip to Novara.”

The proclamation elicited mutters from around the room. Claude stood and turned toward the door to make his own preparations. But just then, another rather disheveled looking apprentice burst into the room. His hat was singed at the edges and left a thin trail of smoke in his wake as he moved. Claude raised one bushy white eyebrow, waiting for an explanation.

“Grand Mage Claude,” the apprentice said, nervously removing his hat and attempting to brush it off. “I, er… I’m afraid Rufus slipped his chain again.”

Claude groaned. “Again?”

The apprentice just nodded. The Grand Mage rubbed at his temples. This had been happening far too often as of late.

After a moment, he waved the apprentice off. “I don’t have time to deal with it now. Just leave him be. He’ll find his way home eventually. He always does.”

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