That Time an American was Reincarnated into Another World-Chapter 262: Long Haul

September 10th, 626

I glanced around, seeing everyone packing up their tents and supplies.

I had been within the warehouse for two full days simply studying the robot and any other small devices the others thought I might find interesting. It was only now, as dawn spread its dim light on the island, that I decided I had gotten enough out of it.

I squat next to the robot and a pile of scraps, unsheathing the SEER Knife and stabbing the robot’s torso. Moments later, its limbs started shifting and twisting on their hinges, fingers fluttering according to the commands coming from my mind.

Once I took the knife out, the blade of light dripping with both mana and codified Psyka, the robot fell limp.

I smiled. It had taken some time but I had developed interface and compatibility software that could be used to let my code interact with Mantle tech. I hadn’t slept until I managed to figure out how to make it possible and build it, and only then did I get a crisp 8 hours before waking up and deciding it was time to continue.

The robot, gutted for everything it was worth, lay dead on the warehouse floor with its chest cracked open and Core removed.

Jaya almost cried when I first ripped open its housing.

But I had gotten extremely valuable data out of that Core. Not exclusively in the way of programming either. That Core contained principles of Psyka of such an advanced level that it was beyond the cutting edge within my advancement formations. That meant I could actually learn from it, peer beyond what was right in front of me. More than that, those formations interacted and integrated with Mantle programming. I could deduce what they meant through that.

It reminded me of Maxwell, who refused to let me learn anything beyond his formations. It wasn’t a bad system. On the contrary, he just didn’t want me to make the wrong progress by filling my head with divergent information. Those principles within the Core wouldn’t necessarily help with my advancement, even if some of it could. But if I tried to take those principles and apply them haphazardly, then it would instead confuse me and ruin my progress.

If I were stupid, that was.

I appreciated Maxwell but I knew how to compartmentalize knowledge, which is why I didn’t hold back. I absorbed everything I could, tried to understand everything before me and memorize everything I couldn’t.

I managed to get a handle on some of it, a portion that allowed me to upgrade my SEER Knife as a whole. It was why I could now interface with the Mantle’s programming rather easily.

Yet there was still far more to understand. Unfortunately it could only wait for later. I wasn’t yet at the level to attempt to understand it all, at least not in a couple days.

Once everyone was packed, we left the warehouse and did one more round through the docks. Umara had taken the others on frequent hunts, giving them good experience fighting Shades. They had all found their own methods and techniques for doing the most damage and dealing with them. Umara also ran tests for me, determining how ineffective the Adaptive Camo was on them.

Turns out, it was like a beacon for them. Every Shade she got within close proximity of would be attracted to the Aura disturbance the Camo caused. I shouldn’t have been surprised by their acuity, especially since Kwon told me that the King of Despair itself had marched through the Mantle. But I didn’t think that the King would have come all the way out here. Still, it was clear that these Shades were sensitive.

My tech wasn’t up to the task. It only meant that I’d need to improve them, and this place would be a good place for experimentation once I cleared it of any other valuables. Then I could send Wonderland teams here to development.

Either way, everyone soon had to flick off their Adaptive Camo and resort to their own methods of concealment. Unfortunately, that was only slightly better than nothing. Low Authority Shades around Authority 5 and 6 could detect everyone except Kwon, Song, Aki, Tana, and I. The others had no such luck, and the only reason I did was because I was able to use my Psyka to bolster my illusions. Even then, I couldn’t hide from anything at or above my Authority, and anything lesser would be alerted if I wasn’t extremely careful.

Kwon and Song were clear since they had dealt with this before and had adapted accordingly. Aki was also clear since her Aura was obscenely powerful. As for Tana, she had yet to be spotted even after killing a Shade amidst groups, so she was perfect. Her ‘training’ seemed to be paying for itself.

But the King of Despair was called the nightmare of the mind by Maxwell. That was for a reason, and it seemed like we’d have to adapt ourselves if we wanted to be safe within a city full of Shades.

Having cleared the docks of anything valuable or interesting over a couple days, we finally got moving again in the early morning and headed to the edge, finding the road leading to the first village of the island. It was our next stop before we went to the main city.

“Do we have any idea what the village would have been there for?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe it was for ferrying resources that came in on the docks?”

Everyone pondered as we took out our Vipercraft. They were silent, all-terrain hover bikes that could do anything from scale a mountain to driving over and under water. They were as expensive as they were capable, with powerful Authority 10 White Crystals and the most cutting edge enchantments Wonderland had on file.

In fact, they were so expensive that we only had nine. For all 13 of us to ride, four people had to pair up.

I had my own, of course.

Before long we were gliding across the road, speeding to over 80 miles an hour, wind resistance eliminated with air enchantments and stealth systems ensuring not even sound escaped our vicinity.

I heard voices over comms. We were no longer paranoid about using magic after getting a feel for how everything around us reacted to it. It would attract Shades if they were nearby, but that was about it.

“If they needed a village to ferry resources, then why not build it into the docks themselves? Why build it between the docks and the city?”

“Maybe it was for the poor people?”

“Maybe if they were slaves, but I doubt there were a lot of those sent here. And if it was a village of slaves, what were they being used for?”

I thought about their words silently. With the low population of the island, it would make sense for everyone to have resided in the city. Going further, the city should have been built around the docks. There was no reason to build the city in the center of the island, nor was there a reason to build a village between it and the docks. Not to mention the second village scans had spotted beyond the city, on the opposite side of the island.

There was no reason for any of it, unless there was something in those locations.

Something valuable that I’d probably want to get my hands on.

We continued riding until we crested a hill, stopping and seeing the village a distance away. My eyes focused, immediately seeing the desiccated corpses across the village grounds, both human and Scourge, as well as the collapsed wall around the destroyed stone buildings.

There was no automaton activity, so this place had been overrun and ruined first. Everyone probably retreated to the city after this place became a lost cause.

But the question still remained. What had been there that demanded they build a village in that specific spot?

I noticed how the sky was grey after leaving the range of the coast, despite there being no overcast. It was gloomy, eerie, with fog lingering above the ground, obscuring line of sight. Even I noticed slight effects on my vision.

There was poisonous Magika in the air, coming from somewhere, and we were getting closer to the source. However, in a most peculiar fashion, it also got really warm. I could feel the heat in the air through my coat.

“Some Shades, no visible Automatons, no visible Scourge, but the atmosphere isn’t friendly. Make sure your seals are tight before we roll in and investigate. 1st Force enters from the east, 2nd Force goes west. I’m with 2nd Force, and we’ll meet in the center.”

“Roger.”

I got an affirmative from Umara and Feiden, the team leads, everyone splitting and heading to opposite sides of the village. I followed Feiden, who was tailed by Katta, Aki, Ponteck, Shadowbane, Aria, and Jaya.

I put a protective mask over my face as we sailed on our Vipercraft to the western wall. Once in front of it we jumped off and proceeded on foot.

Everyone was in formation as we advanced over piles of rubble from the destroyed walls. I was near the front with Feiden.

I saw nothing but bones and the dried hide of aged monster corpses as we walked, everyone’s weapons equipped and primed. The streets were brick and stone, yet plants and vines were growing between the cracks, overtaking the remnants of civilization.

I focused on concealment, the silenced Honey Badger in my hands and raised. I slowly glided across the ground, eyes flickering between alleys and the broken doors and windows of all the buildings lining the streets. Everyone was on a hair trigger, for good reason, but I was getting curious about why the ground felt like it was cooking us, heatwaves coming off ot it.

That’s when I suddenly felt a prickling sense of danger, like something was stinging the inside of my brain. My body spun, my adrenaline coursing through my body as I heard a faint breath right by my ear.

I saw a Shade looking at me through the window of a building. It was a ghost, with an ethereal body that resembled the maimed corpse it came from and a face that was morphed by endless, silent agony. This one had an unhinged jaw, its eye sockets and mouth containing darkness and despair.

It spurred a primal fear from the depths of my DNA, but I scowled at the ridiculous sense of danger it instilled. It was no more than Authority 6, and yet it made me think that a King Blood had a blade to my neck.

So I quickly fired, putting a bullet through its head. The shot was completely silent, courtesy of a new mute device on my left forearm with silencing enchantments from Umara, designed for this very purpose. The only sound I heard was from the impact of the bullet on the wall behind the shade.

The Shade was killed instantly, its entire visage collapsing into fog that dissipated into the atmosphere. It felt like I could smell more of the poisonous mana saturate the area.

So it came from dead Shades. Good to know, though it made me wonder how many had died thus far. It had to be tens of thousands at least.

I took in a few heavy breaths as the sense of danger alleviated. I noticed sweat beading on my back before a mutter from Aki came over comms.

“Contact left.”

I spun around again, hearing the steps and a few faint gasps of attention from nearby Shades.

The buildings were full of them, some dressed in armor and still holding their weapons, all of them with abyssal pits in their eye sockets.

“Contact all sides.”

“Fire at will.”

I muttered back while pulling the trigger, sending some rounds to the ghost of a large woman in armor, the stinging sense of danger returning with even greater paranoia.

She started screaming after eight of my bullets put holes through her body, yet didn't kill her. I adjusted my Psyka and continued firing, still silent, only killing her after my mag went dry.

The Shades didn’t start swarming, but they did start adjusting their positions to surround us. I noticed the fog start moving in, becoming denser as the others started killing a few Shades nearby, light being absorbed and the brightness of the atmosphere around us reducing.

It started getting dark, our fields of view closing in as the collective Aura of all the Shades bore down.

I remembered what Umara, Kwon, and Song all said about his phenomenon. They didn’t know why it happened but the encroaching darkness of despair was a double edged sword. If you let it smother you, you wouldn’t be able to see anything around you, and fighting Shades became that much harder as they tried to overwhelm you with feelings of desperation and fear. But if you rebuffed their influence and pushed back, you’d become a beacon for every other Shade in the area.

Umara said that their screams and cries wouldn’t attract too many Shades, as if they couldn’t hear each other. The Shades also liked to stalk their prey, drive them into a corner instead of simply flinging themselves forward like mindless monsters. It was only when there were dozens or hundreds that they would relentlessly attack.

The Shades were smart. It was uncharacteristic of something created by the Scourge and exceptionally dangerous.

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I spun around after sensing another Shade, but the one I saw dipped behind a building before I could fire. Just a second later I turned once again and the same thing happened, the Shades avoiding my ranged fire like they understood my weapons.

Or they were just fucking with me. I could feel their dreadful desire to infect my soul through the darkness around me. They wanted to chip away at me since they knew they couldn’t face me head on.

I didn’t know how many Shades were in this village but if the docks were anything to go by, it wasn’t a small number. And if the Shades were taking several bullets from me, albeit not overloaded with power, then they had to be at least Authority 6 or 7.

I kept my Aura close, my golden eyes able to pierce the veil just slightly regardless of how much the Shades were putting on pressure with their despairing Aura. Still, I started hearing screams and echoes of agony, frowning as the others started clustering together, their fields of view diminished and their anxiety skyrocketing.

“Keep moving. Let them linger all they want. We’ll link with the others and then fight back.”

I gave the command, the group continuing to stride toward the village center with renewed purpose. The Shades nearby were following, the screams turning into cries as they hurdled through ruined buildings and rubble, just barely beyond our sight and range of attack.

They knew what we could see and what we couldn’t. This was psychological warfare.

We pushed on, my gun going off occasionally when a Shade lunged toward me. I seemed to be their biggest target, likely because I was a summoner. Either they wanted the source of my Psyka, or their ghosts held lingering resentment toward the summoners that got them killed. Regardless, I seemed to be the most attractive enemy.

Thankfully we were approaching what looked like the center of the village before long. It was a massive clearing, surrounding a huge hole of darkness. I was able to reach out toward the others, eradicating the darkness of the Shades between us. I became a small beacon, but it was worth it to get us grouped together.

Umara glanced at me, her Aura nudging mine to reestablish our familiar telepathic connection. I could feel her paranoia, just as strong as mine. She looked terrified but we both knew it was a trick of the mind. She was forcing down her fear, like the others were.

We gathered, my gun snapping to another target. Psyka threatened to spill from my overloading empowerment but if I didn’t take the seldom chances to kill those Shades, they’d continue pressing down on my mind.

I spoke over comms.

“Just clear them as they come. We don’t need to get swarmed.”

“If we don’t do something about that darkness, I’m gonna go fucking insane!”

Blackblood shouted, his entire body sweating as fear permeated him. He was stamping it down, operating regardless, but he wasn’t the only one taking a mental hit from these Shades.

So in response, I let my Aura bloom. I reached into the minds of everyone around me, deployed my Mind Palace, and watched as a massive wall manifested around us.

My eyes opened within that metal command center, and I felt the burden of all the despair attacking my team shift to me. It almost made me black out, but when my fortress started unleashing attacks toward the Shades beyond the walls on sheer instinct, I was able to ground myself.

I felt blood seep down my nose, everyone pausing for a moment in surprise before suddenly surging forward with renewed strength.

In the command center I marked every Shade despite the darkness becoming so oppressive that I could barely see beyond the walls of the fortress. They were all highlighted with my Psyka, anything within the range of my Aura being tagged, tracked, and locked in our vicinity. Using the tricks I learned from Unholy Light, I could use illusions to mentally confine them to our area, keeping them from running away.

I ignored the tickling under my nose and looked around, seeing most of the team diving toward the enemies. They were dispatched with impunity, just a few strokes of the blade or a single correctly adjusted spell spelling doom for the Shades.

They weren’t that powerful. That much had already been confirmed by Kwon and Song, who said that they were generally weak for their Authority.

The issue was their influence on the mind. Their weakness didn’t matter if their enemies were debilitated and brought down to their level.

Eventually I took a knee and sat there, my breathing heavy as I rationalized the burden of despair coming from every single Shade around us. With each one that died the fog around us thickened, but the burden on me also lessened.

I heard the cries in my mind. At first they were the horrific screams of agony that each Shade let out as they were morphed into these ghostly abominations many years ago. Over time though, they shifted and took on the voices of my family and friends, their words begging for mercy as they were hacked at by the blades of my platoon.

I blocked them out, ignored them, trying anything I could to stop their influence from stabbing at the different parts of my brain with distilled fear and terror.

After killing a few hundred, the Shades finally started growing scarce. The rest were probably somewhere through the rest of the village, and so there were soon only a couple dozen around us, stalking. Without numbers they grew cowardly.

I locked those Shades in an illusion and designated them as targets for the rest of my platoon. They were soon killed, and we were left alone.

Everyone around me was breathing heavy after the last Shade died. We gathered, Umara walking up to me.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah right.”

She frowned while scrutinizing me with those purple eyes.

“John, you need to be careful with that.”

“I can take on the full brunt of an Authority 11 King Blood’s mental attack. I think I’ll be alright.”

“That was a King Blood that specialized in mana manipulation. You’re facing the minions of Despair. I know you’re a summoner, and that might make you suited for this, but it makes you equally as susceptible. We haven’t rationalized Despair yet.”

“Which is why I’m starting now.”

I responded while scanning around. She looked irritated, but decided that now wasn’t the time for an argument.

I maintained the hold on everyone’s mind before sighing, looking around.

“Can you find the source of that heat? It feels like my boots are about to melt.”

“It’s probably coming from the hole right there.”

“Oh, right.”

I frowned, turning to the giant hole no more than 50 yards from us.

We all walked up to it, feeling the heat waves billowing out of it. The poison I felt in the atmosphere seemed to bind to the heat, obscuring vision and Aura alike, but with a bit of Psyka I was able to pierce through it and get a glimpse at what was inside the hole.

My eyes widened, as did the eyes of every Warlock in the platoon.

“Holy shit…”

“That can't be right… right?”

“Never in my life…”

They leaned over the edge of the hole, my eyes scanning around and determining the hole to have a currently indeterminable depth, but a diameter of over 300 yards.

And the walls of it were completely lined with pure Fire Mana Crystals.

My fingers itched, calculating the value of the crystals just within my vision. It would be worth at least half of Sawn Industries as a whole, and this was just the surface of whatever had created this hole.

My smile widened, a laugh escaping me.

“We’re fucking rich.”

“The Crystals on the edges are around Authority 4, but I can see it getting denser the deeper it goes. I’m not sure what on this world could release so much sheer Fire Mana, but this is a natural formation the likes no legend I know of could compare.”

“Hey, I found something else.”

Aria suddenly shouted, all of us turning toward her.

Underneath the blade of her axe, which rested on the ground, there was a crack that revealed a floor underneath what we were standing on. She scraped up more, showing a metal surface with formations engraved atop it.

My brows raised.

“Umara.”

“On it.”

She created a dense lance of Air Mana, launching it toward the crack that Aria had made and prying up a massive portion of the ground around us. For dozens of yards around there was more of that metal floor with inactive formations across all of it. Some sections were so dense with inscriptions that I had to focus my eyes to pick them out, but it had all been covered by carbon and soot, forming a solid black layer.

“If these formations are all around that hole…”

“There has to be at least a thousand square yards of it. I couldn’t imagine the astronomical cost.”

“Perhaps this hole isn’t as natural as we thought…”

Umara turned toward me, her eyes gleaming with excitement. I smiled back.

We had found something big, and this was just in a village.

A question quickly surfaced though. Why hadn’t we seen this on the scanners?

I suddenly deployed a beam antenna, connecting to it before sending traffic.

“Eagle One to Silver Bird, come in.”

“Silver Bird reads, Eagle One. I have a cake for you.”

“The cake is a lie.”

“It lies inside the pit burning at four thousand degrees Kelvin. Send traffic, Eagle One.”

I smiled at the countersign before suddenly frowning as more Shades started approaching.

“I need your eyes on the center of Landmark Beta.”

“Roger. Standby.”

I turned back, marking the incoming Shades and letting the others engage, feeling the pricking sense of danger in my brain.

“We have eyes, Eagle One.”

“Tell me what you see in the center of the landmark. With and without cameras.”

There was a pause before I got a response.

“With a camera, we see some slight distortion and regularly distributed buildings. No deviations from historical photos, even through Mana and Psyka Lensing.”

“And without a camera?”

“Same thing, Eagle One. No outstanding features from up here. If you’d like us to descend for a closer look, we can.”

“Negative, Silver Bird. Stay up there. I’m sending footage and data. Standby for transmission.”

I prepared the data, uploading it into the antenna before beaming it to Silver Bird.

They confirmed reception after a minute or so and we cut communications. After that, I stowed the antenna, and Shades stopped heading toward us.

“Jaya, get the seismic scanner up.”

“Roger.”

“Let’s see where this hole leads too.”

“Hmm.”

Both Jaya and Umara shot me a coy look, Jaya dropping a device onto the floor and tapping a few buttons to make it deploy.

A screen on the scanner flashed, a dense pulse of earth mana slamming into the ground and giving a return, the scanner spitting out an image of everything underneath us.

It showed the hole, which gradually diverted into a horizontal tunnel before heading into he direction of the Citadel. Directly underneath us, however, was a large empty box room.

The others fought a few Shades as Jaya operated the scanner, my eyes on the images. There were a couple passageways to reach that room below us from the buildings in the area.

I mentally plotted our path and nodded.

“Alright, pack the scanner and let’s move.”

“More Shades coming!”

“Let’s get to the building and force them through a choke. Check the marker.”

I cast an illusion highlighting our destination, everyone moving as a unit. Shades started pressing us, a few dozen coming out of dark corners.

I took out Totenstahl, deciding that being quiet was rather unnecessary. The collective Aura of those Shades threw itself against the walls of my fortress, feeling like a knife was being driven into my skull.

I taped down the trigger, slaughtering a few unprepared Shades and destroying the walls and buildings that others tried to hide behind.

We soon reached the building, my focused fire only halting as we filed through the doorway.

Once everyone was in, I kneeled down and unloaded through the doorway. Umara’s spells followed, Shades dispersing. I marked them and Umara destroyed some walls to get to them, usually killing them outright.

I cringed when I saw that only half of the structure was present.

“Don’t bring the building down on us, babe!”

“Sorry!”

She shouted back apologetically, the Shades dwindling. Tana circled around and slaughtered the ones that lingered further away, things growing quiet.

I forced a breath out of my nose, feeling more blood drip down.

“Alright, let’s keep moving.”

We all turned, finding the pathway that led down. There was a door guarding it but it was half destroyed already and deactivated.

We climbed through the destroyed portion and found ourselves traveling down a long winding staircase. I didn’t like the confinement, nor did I like being underground.

But we eventually walked into the room, finding another group of Shades as well as the skeleton corpses they came from.

I didn’t have to lift a finger, the others all diving in and clearing the room.

I smiled as the last Shade dispersed into more poisonous fog.

“Very good. Now, find me some treasure, mateys.”

Umara looked at me weirdly, everyone separating and searching.

I grinned at her.

“See any gold doubloons?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, some plunder? Bounty?”

“...”

“Booty?”

“That I have.”

“Nay, harlot. I’m talking gold.”

“Who’re you calling harlot?”

“John!”

I chuckled and planted a hand on Umara’s armored ass before turning to Katta. She pointed at a console, which I walked over toward.

It was completely dark, but I could sense the Core of it. I drew my SEER Knife and stabbed it into the main assembly, lighting up the device and interfacing with the Mantle programming.

Starved for any power I could provide, the console lit up. I flipped through clusters of data, finding the storage assembly. There was a single Orb within it, and on it was a single file.

I brought it up, playing it. A hologram appeared over the console, a video, and it immediately started playing.

We all saw an old man in front of the console, looking tired and worn, with baggy eyes and white hair. There were shockingly few wrinkles on his face despite all the telltale signs of old age.

I frowned as he started speaking. The Mantle’s language was not the same as the Pillars nor the Kingdom. However, I had Kwon to translate, who quickly did so. I listened to both and formulated the language in my mind.

“My name is Doctor Eret Tonvelm. The Scourge is attacking the port in force and I’m leaving this report here for any that may come across it later. The Fire Stabilizer is being extracted and moved to the Citadel. All data is being extracted with the Stabilizer or wiped. This site is officially abandoned. No more controlled venting will occur. Inform all relevant personnel and evacuate as quickly as possible. Do not inform the residents or guards. All information pertaining to the consolidation must be kept on lockdown and Gravebound Secrecy protocols must be followed. We can’t let the Scourge get their hands on our plans.”

The video cut out there, Kwon turning to me.

I sighed, processing what was said quickly and making my guesses.

“A Fire Stabilizer was moved to the Citadel, this place was used for venting, likely heat venting, and the Scourge can get their hands on information even after death. That’s some shit, huh?”

“...So are we going to the Citadel?”

Umara asked, earning a nod.

“We will, later. I’m willing to bet this wasn’t the only stabilizer. Whatever they were operating, it demanded a vent dug into the island itself. The heat that was vented carried so much fire mana that it left behind an insanely large deposit of Fire Mana Crystals. I can’t imagine what the source looked like, but I’m not ready to tackle the Citadel yet. I’m going to study this console and then we’re going to make a stop at another location.”

“Which one?”

“The one by the mountains. We’ll collect as much information as we can from there before hitting the center. We can also start doing recon, preparing for what’s going to be there.”

I thought about how we hadn’t seen any combat automatons yet. They were likely all within the city, but if there were some elsewhere, then I wanted to get my hands on it. The more I could prepare, the better our chances.

Umara nodded, a few others sighing as I sat down to work.

“Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen. We’re in this for the long haul.”