The Journey to Hitutsa: Chapters 5-7

Sun Jiao turned around from his ‘comrades’ in disgust.

There were other problems when it came to trying to steal from a Liberomancer, but he didn’t feel like explaining himself to people who couldn’t understand them.

Most Liberomancers, though wealthy, did not carry that wealth with them in actual coinage. Most of their money was tied up in investments: either in assets, or in grimoires which they had read and memorized, which obviously they could not steal. Some of them even used paper money in the form of treasury receipts, which they would cash out at another Liberomancer’s Guild - so taking that was useless too.

As for whether or not they had actual grimoires on hand, even if they could steal one, despite the fact that grimoires were valuable - where would they sell it? Questions would naturally arise as to where Sun Jiao had gotten something say, like a Rank Two grimoire, and so no Liberomancer would buy from them - that or, they would have them arrested whenever they tried to sell it and return it to its rightful owner. Or just hand it over to the Liberomancer’s Guild as a stolen grimoire and be richly rewarded for such. It was a point of professional courtesy that Liberomancers did not support such black markets for grimoires, which made them extremely difficult to run.

Not to mention crimes against Liberomancers, even if they were just minor crimes, were taken much more seriously. Especially so for Rank Two or Rank Three Liberomancers. Sun Jiao knew of stories of peasants who had gone ‘missing’ who turned out to have been murdered, but since they were isolated incidents involving random villagers only a cursory investigation would be launched before the authorities would just throw their hands up in the air and say ‘case closed.’ But if a Rank Three Liberomancer so much as lost a Denarius, they would turn the entire capital upside-down just to find it.

The risk to reward ratio was completely skewed - and not in their favor.

Yet, even as Sun Jiao thought this, his gaze went over their current place of residence - it could at most generously be called a shack, which was one of the few remaining standing buildings in what had formerly constituted a village. Now, the village was little more than a heap of abandoned wooden rubble. It seemed that what remained of the former residents had abandoned any intent to rebuild and had simply merged with another village further away.

Not all villages had been as lucky as that of Granny Qi’s - many of them had not been alerted of the dryad tide in time, or were not fast enough in getting to safety. Some of those villages had only a handful of survivors, most of whom had chosen to join other villages in the rebuilding effort or taken up jobs within the cities they had fled to.

Either that, or become members of groups of pickpockets and thieves like theirs.

The shack had been filled with rats at one point - but most of them had been hunted down and eaten by his gang when times had been lean. There had been a time when they might have been able to fish up something in the nearby streams but the dryads had depleted the fish during their invasion.

His stomach growled again - and he got up and walked out the door of their hideout.

“Alright, let’s scout out where you saw this man,” he said. If it was a Rank Two Liberomancer, it could still be worth the risk to possibly nab anything that lay unguarded and run away as fast as they could.

Who knew when they would find another mark? They could very well end up getting no traffic for the next few days, and they would all be ravenous then.

Yes, it was risky, but an empty stomach will drive a man to do many desperate things. Even someone like Sun Jiao who would’ve otherwise known better.

In the ballads he had heard when he was younger, bandits lived in caves surrounded by gold and wealth, feasting on their ill-gotten gains while they enjoyed the company of a dancer or two while villages quaked at the mere whisper of their names.

What were they in reality? A bunch of losers sleeping on the floor of an abandoned shack, who went more nights than not on empty stomachs barely placated with water, and with little more to their names than the tattered clothes on their backs.

Sun Jiao had a skill that was quite useful in this new occupation of his - [Night Vision]. Naturally, while walking in the middle of the night, a normal person would need a light source - but this had the twin drawbacks of alerting others to your presence, and also, it would mean that whoever was carrying it would be blind to anything outside the radius of the light.

There was no issue with [Night Vision] however, and it was to this skill that his gang owed the majority of their success too. They could sneak up on people without them even realizing they were being watched, and grab anything that seemed valuable, before slinking back into the woods, with most people none the wiser.

“Alright, is this where he was?” Sun Jiao asked. Unfortunately, he was the only one with this skill, so his comrade had to squint and wasn’t sure where they were. There was also the annoying fact of the man tripping over what seemed like every other root on their way to this place. “[Create Flame],” he intoned. “Does this place look familiar?”

“Um, maybe…”

“What do you mean maybe?”

“Well, Boss, it’s just kind of hard to tell when it’s so dark out…”

“I should’ve known this was a dumb idea the moment it came out of your mouth…”

“Wait, Boss, I think that’s it - over there!”

Sun Jiao followed the man towards a clearing.

Yes, there was a man there, sleeping in a hammock nestled between two trees.

Was there anything valuable though? He could see a small sack near the hammock, but that was it.

Again, this was the issue - would this man be carrying anything worth stealing that they could sell? He might have some coins on him, but they couldn’t shake him down like they might’ve with one of their other victims.

At the very least, there should be some provisions to tide them over for a few days.

“Wait here,” Sun Jiao said to his companion as he crept closer. He did not see any sign of a bear, and with this large of a clearing there was no place that such a creature could hide. So it must have been a summon…

Should he risk going closer and grabbing that bag?

He crouched down and began advancing slowly while keeping his guard up all the while. He managed to cover half the distance without incident when he suddenly felt something grab his leg.

Before he knew it, he was suspended by his ankle, ten feet off the ground.

Sun Jiao had a memory from his childhood - about when he had lost a toy of his under the flooring of a house. He had found a crevice from where he thought he could get it back, and as he put his hand down there, he had withdrawn it nearly instantly in pain as it felt like someone had taken a needle to it. A spider had made its nest there - and he had had a slight degree of arachnophobia ever since.

Suffice to say, he did not take being brought face-to-face with the Tyrant Arachnea, who was wrapping him up swiftly in multiple layers of silk with an efficiency that was nearly as monstrous as its form very well. It was a sight made all the worse by his [Night Vision], which ensured that he could see every grotesque corner of the creature even in the dim light.

“AIYEEEEEEH!” he screamed, no longer caring if he was caught. If he was caught, so be it - it was better than being devoured!

The sound of screaming woke me up, as well as a tug on my mind from the Tyrant Arachnea. I got out of my hammock, and nearly tripped while getting out of it because I was still wearing my helmet and it had slid over my eyes. [Unobstructed Sight] would not help me in that scenario as it couldn’t see through physical objects.

When I readjusted my helmet and could see what was happening, I saw someone who had been caught up in the Tyrant Arachnea’s web, and there was someone else in the distance who was running away as fast as they could.

This had been around the area where that lizardman I had met had said he had been robbed, so when I hadn’t been able to find a nearby village I had decided to take some precautions before setting up camp here. I was wearing my leather jerkin and helmet even as I slept, and I had decided to set up the Tyrant Arachnea, even though it was a Rank Three summon, so that it could set up a defensive perimeter around where I was sleeping. It had also been able to make me a hammock and a heavy blanket nearly as tough as my leather jerkin.

I had been slightly hesitant while doing so because it meant that my only use of a Rank Three summon would be consumed for the next twelve hours after it was gone, but I ultimately decided to go for it given what I knew about the area.

And clearly this had been the right choice.

“AIYEEEH! GET AWAY FROM ME!” came a scream from the person who the Tyrant Arachnea was currently wrapping up in silk, a task that it had almost completed within a matter of seconds after which it dropped down and deposited the man at my feet.

I felt another tug on my consciousness - it was asking if it should follow the other man who had run away. I considered it - but ultimately decided against it.

Unlike when I was back in Granny Qi’s village, I wasn’t surrounded by the safety of the village walls and the other villagers, and that was when Liberomancers were at their strongest - when they had sturdy walls to hide behind after casting spells.

With the Tyrant Arachnea out, I couldn’t summon another creature to take hits for me if I sent it far away and it turned out that there were other people waiting near the road or on the other side of the clearing to ambush me. And with the absence of a physical barrier in a clearing like this, I really needed a summon to take hits for me if something happened.

“Who are you?” I asked him. The man looked like he was from Chipker, though much of his face was marred by the tears and snot that coated it. The Tyrant Arachnea had wrapped him up tightly from the neck down, leaving just enough slack in the threads to let him breathe.

“I… I’m a Liberomancer too! Please don’t kill me!” he yelled out.

I paused. “A Liberomancer…?”

In response to this he stuck out his tongue (one of the few things he could still do given all the webbing), and created a small flame as if there was an invisible lighter attached to the tip.

Yeah, that was definitely [Create Flame]. This man was a Rank One Liberomancer at the very least, and given the fact that he couldn’t free himself was likely just that - Rank One.

“Yes, I’m a Liberomancer,” he said. “I had gotten lost in the woods and was just looking for a place to stay when I was assaulted by… this monster!”

I frowned. There was definitely something off with his story. He didn’t look like a guy who had just wandered too close to me by accident - he had to wander pretty close to set off the Tyrant Arachnea to attack him. I had asked it to only strike if it felt that someone was coming too close. “If that’s true, why is your friend running away then?”

“Probably because he saw a giant monster!” the man said.

I was considering the fact that this might be a big misunderstanding and that perhaps I should let him go when I felt something tug on my consciousness.

The Tyrant Arachnea clearly disagreed with what I was thinking at the time - and began sending me images of what had happened. Given its compound eyes, and the fact that it relied on its other senses more than sight at times, it was all a bit disjointed - but I understood what had gone on.

“If that’s true, why were you sneaking towards me like that?” I asked. I saw images of him crawling along the grass slowly towards me, deliberately making as little noise as possible. “From what my spider saw, it looks like you were trying to kill me.” Something then struck me like a bolt of lightning. I leapt back from him instinctively. “You! You’re a demonic Liberomancer, aren’t you?” It was the only reason I could think of that another Liberomancer would behave in such a way. I began charging up a spell.

“AIYEEEEE - no, no, fine, please hold your fire! I’ll come clean, but I was never going to kill or hurt you I swear, I was just seeing if I could steal something valuable!” he yelled out.

“Stealing? Why?”

“For money of course! Why else do people steal?” he sobbed.

It still didn’t add up. Why would he have to resort to such measures if he was a Rank One Liberomancer?

A strange stench permeated the air - it looked like he had wet himself.

Given the way he was struggling to get out, it did seem that my assessment of him being a demonic Liberomancer was incorrect. My mind went over the other likely possibilities.

“Did you by any chance rob a lizardman a few days ago?” I asked him.

“No, no, I didn’t,” he said. I wasn’t sure whether to trust him or not; nearly every single word he spat out was suspect. “Please, we are both Liberomancers, right? Shouldn’t we treat each other better than this? As a fellow Liberomancer, please let me go!”

I frowned. “You have some nerve - first you try to steal from me and then you pull the ‘we Liberomancers need to stick together card after that?’ You’re not very smart you know.” Then again, as he was in this state despite being a Rank One Liberomancer, that was quite apparent the more I thought about it.

What to do with him though?

There were several things I could do.

I could go and hunt down the rest of his gang - starting with that man who had run away and then finding out if there were any other people involved, but that came with its own risks. I didn’t know how many of them there were - they could have other Liberomancers with them, and although this man didn’t seem to have any demonic spells with him I couldn’t be sure about the others.

Back in Arconia, when I had bumped into that demonic Liberomancer by accident, I had not confronted him directly - and a good thing at that, as multiple people had ended up dead in the following confrontation. That very well could’ve included me if I had been more daring.

Dealing with demonic Liberomancers was different from dealing with monsters.

Demonic Liberomancers had spells and skills which were difficult to counter - I had mostly written off such a scenario though as I’d been reassured that the odds of running into a demonic Liberomancer were very low. Most Liberomancers went their whole lives without encountering even a single one. And yet, with my luck, I had run into one back in Arconia within months of getting to the city…

“Alright, we’re leaving,” I said, making my decision.

“Leaving? Where?”

“You already woke me up, and we’re close enough to the capital now that we can reach it quickly,” I said. I kept him tied up and motioned for my Tyrant Arachnea to get ready.

It did not make any attempt - unlike the red fox or the bear - to try to appear cute or whatnot before the trip, probably because it realized that I thought it looked rather hideous and wouldn’t appreciate such an endeavor.

That honestly made me feel a little bad though - it had done quite a lot to help me out, and was part of the reason why I was so famous in Arconia, after all, I wouldn’t be called the ‘Spider King of Arconia’ if I couldn’t summon it.

“Ah, you did good,” I said to it.

It was a summoned creature, which meant that it didn’t need any motivation and honestly it didn’t matter whether I praised it or not - but after all the good work it had done it seemed downright ungrateful not to give it some words of appreciation.

Even if someone else watching me do so would say that it was ultimately meaningless - to that all I could say was that, they were right, but it did make me feel better, and I thought that was what mattered.

The Tyrant Arachnea didn’t really change much of its expression - but it was much harder to read emotions and expressions with something like a spider. I wasn’t even sure how much spiders could feel emotions like gratitude or attachment. I did feel… for lack of a better word, some kind of warmth from its thoughts that hadn’t been there before, so maybe it did appreciate it.

“Wait why don’t we talk things through-” the man I had captured said as the Tyrant Arachnea tied him up to its back.

The Tyrant Arachnea could still remain active for about another nine hours, after which I could summon the bear and the Elephant Frog, which combined could move for eighteen hours. After that I could summon the Tyrant Arachnea again. Switching mounts in that fashion would allow me to travel continuously with very little breaks.

I hadn’t done so until now because traveling like this was extremely tiring and you really couldn’t do it for too long, but now that we were almost at our destination…

...I realized I didn’t have a saddle to grip onto the Tyrant Arachnea, much like I didn’t with the Elephant Frog. I had quite a bit of stuff to carry as well.

There was a quick way around that though, and without me even needing to open my mouth to ask, it had already begun tying me up in a thick web, as well as the rest of my stuff.

It then placed me, my stuff, and our new prisoner on its back.

“Don’t try escaping,” I said to him. “Otherwise I’ll have it inject you with paralyzing venom.”

He shuddered but made no attempt to escape - I wasn’t really sure if he could. The issue with rogue Liberomancers - and demonic Liberomancers in particular, was that there was no real way to stop someone from casting magic. Casting magic did not require saying the spell out loud, or the use of one’s hands - it just required you to think of what you wanted to do.

Nothing as convenient as an anti-magic field or some sort of talisman that took away someone’s magic power existed in this world.

The only real thing you could do is knock them out cold or place them under some kind of sedation.

This made imprisoning Liberomancers quite difficult as well - you would have to essentially rely on them cooperating with their jail sentencing for that to work. Those that cared for their reputations would, but if it had gotten to a point where they might’ve considered their reputations irreparably ruined already they might just decide it was best just to go rogue and escape anyway.

Most of them ended up being killed - which was the other way to stop someone from using magic, but again, that left people in the awkward position of there only being two possibilities to deal with them.

One was to just let them go, and the other was to kill them. There was a reason that the sale of high-ranking grimoires, and Rank Three grimoires in particular was monitored so closely by the Guild. It was much harder to pull a fast one when there were people who knew your trump cards.

With us on its back, the Tyrant Arachnea then launched forward. The cold wind blew through my hair, but given that it was a rather hot night this was more pleasant than anything.

It was faster than either the bear or the Elephant Frog, but I had not used it for the purpose of traveling because with it being my strongest summon I wanted to save it for a rainy day. When I had heard what had happened to that lizardman though, I had felt the benefits outweighed the risks of bringing it out early, and didn’t feel like the red fox was enough for the kind of security I wanted.

The Tyrant Arachnea could almost move as fast as a truck on flat ground, but with it carrying us as passengers and me not wanting to vomit from motion sickness, it moved slower, not to mention the brush impeded its locomotion to some extent.

Still, we charged through the night regardless of my discomfort. I really hoped that we didn’t run into anyone - not because I was afraid of someone attacking me, but because I was afraid of nearly frightening them to death with my summon. The sight of a giant monstrosity of a spider running along the road in the dead of the night would've well caused me to have a heart attack if I happened to look at it. I wanted to afford other people the same consideration, but I had very few other options at hand right now.

We were making good time on the Tyrant Arachnea, and it was comfortable enough on its back that I actually dozed off for a couple of hours before being awakened by the shining rays of dawn.

There were still around two hours left for the Tyrant Arachnea to remain in the world, and I gave it a mental command to try to stay off the main road now that it was daylight and we were far more visible. The odds of us running into someone was also much greater now just because traffic would be greater in the daytime.

When the time of its summoning was about to run out, it removed the two of us from its back, and then untied me before it vanished from this plane of existence.

“Alright, how are you?” I asked the man.

The man’s face was several shades paler than what I remembered, as if he’d exsanguinated quite an amount on the journey here. I was willing to be that unlike me, he had not slept a wink during our journey. He turned towards me weakly, as if he had undergone several decades of misfortune and torture within the short span of time we had taken to get here. Looking at his sorry state, I could safely conclude that he didn’t have a way out of those binds, even with magic, else he most certainly would’ve used them already. “C-Can I have something to eat please? I’m starving…”

“Alright,” I said. I looked out in the distance - I had never been here and had never needed to navigate things out in the wilderness before, so I couldn’t be completely sure where we were but if we were still on track, I thought that we could reach the capital by tomorrow morning.

I would have to ask a local village for directions though, as we had gone somewhat off the route I had initially planned.

I decided to use [Fish Haul] to make us a quick breakfast, because then I wouldn’t have to get the food I had stored out of my packs which was still tied up in several rolls of spider silk.

His eyes widened, and he seemed to forget about all of the horrors of our journey coming here when he saw what I had done.

“Is that… can you make food with magic?”

“Yes, didn’t you know that?” It was a bit easier to guess his age in the sunlight, and he seemed to be quite a bit older than me.

I was almost certain that he was only Rank One at this point though, which meant that there was something seriously deficient about the way he approached Liberomancy or some other family factor or the like going on which was hampering his growth. Given what he was doing - it was most likely the latter.

[Fish Haul] was not a mainstream spell but I’d expect that most people would be able to recognize it when they saw it or knew of it. Meaning his knowledge and aptitude were both bottom-of-the-barrel.

“No…” he said weakly. “If only I knew how to do that… things would be much different…” He started tearing up again. “I’ve been on an empty stomach for a while now… but if…” He then stopped crying and turned towards me. “Master Liberomancer! Please accept me as your apprentice!”

Of all the things I had expected to come out of this mouth, that was the last one.

“Apprentice!? You tried to rob me!” I retorted incredulously. The nerve on this guy!

“Yes, and I will bow to you a thousand times and apologize over and over if that is what it takes!” he said. “I will do any job that you ask of me, teacher! I only have one request - teach me that spell!”

“Which spell?”

“That one right now, that you made the fish with! If I had that, I would have never gone hungry a day in my life, and I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place,” he said. “I’m willing to change all of my earlier ways, just please accept me as your student!”

“I have no desire to take in an apprentice,” I told him. “Especially not one who is going to use what I’d teach him to rob other people.”

“Please, listen to reason,” he said. “Think about it - what will happen if you drop me off to the city guards? They’ll go ahead and imprison me for a year or two - or if you place great pressure on them, perhaps five years depending on the charges. Then once I get out, I’ll have no means to support myself, and will have to resort to stealing to support myself, and we will find ourselves in the same spot yet again. Do you not see how this cycle of negativity will only lead me nowhere? But if you teach me how to keep my stomach full at all times, I won’t have to resort to such means ever again. I might even be able to use my other powers for good.”

My brain was reeling - some of what this guy was saying made sense. And yet, knowing what all he had done up till now, I just knew that he was playing me somehow. What he had in mind was most definitely not limited to just feeding himself.

He was also surprisingly eloquent, now that he wasn’t shaking in fear I noted; given the fact that he seemed to have received very little formal education.

I found it odd that he hadn’t used these skills to more of an advantage - he would make a great salesman - or conman. At least being a conman could give him plausible deniability in certain situations, and would have less risk than wandering out in the wilderness trying to rob people.

“Alright, tell me upfront, what’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“Eh?”

“I mean, why are you in this situation in the first place? You shouldn’t be going around stealing things like this- are you just a kleptomaniac?” I asked.

“No sir,” he said. “I just fell on some bad times - as anyone in any position can. Look, perhaps someone like you can’t understand - I doubt you’ve gone hungry a single mealtime in your life - but I really would want to avoid continuing upon this path of crime-” my face darkened at his remark, and he seemed to notice and pause. “I’m serious, I truly am!” he said, once again trying to convince me of his sincerity, not understanding what part of his speech had angered me.

I looked off into the distance. At least some of what he was spouting seemed to be true.

And yet, my sympathies for him were rather limited. He had tried to rob me, and was clearly something of an experienced thief. That meant he had robbed people before me - did he have any sympathy for them such as the fact that those he stole from would remain hungry instead?

I still couldn’t trust whether he had stolen from that lizardman I had met on the road or not.

The victim and the robber - I understood both of them to some extent, but it was clear which side I supported.

Once again though… I didn’t think he was completely lying. And he did somewhat have a point.

“I… It doesn’t matter whether I want to or not, I can’t teach you this spell,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“For one, it’s a Rank Two spell,” I told him. “And two, it’s a lizardman spell.”

“Rank Two?” he asked. He looked incredulous. “Why would something that… does something so simple need Rank Two magic?”

Most ‘lifestyle’ spells were Rank One, like [Create Water] or [Create Flame].

That was one of the reasons that [Fish Haul] was not very popular - because it was one thing to fill in a Rank One spell slot with something that wasn’t too useful (most people had Rank One slots that really weren’t contributing much anyway) but to use a Rank Two slot for such a thing? When you could instead fill it with a summoning spell or something far more useful like [Fireball] or [Invisibility]? Why would you do it?

Right now, as I was planning to specialize in summoning and potentially one other thing, I could feel the pressure of having a limited set of slots to work with. And it would be so easy to decide that [Fish Haul] was no longer necessary in the future. Why keep it?

Most people wouldn’t - but I had chosen to learn it and also keep it for a reason. Much like this man, I didn’t want to be hungry at any point in the future ever again, even if it made me slightly weaker otherwise.

It also did have another slight benefit - I could reduce the amount of stuff I had to carry while traveling. And given that I hadn’t yet come upon an inventory-like spell in this world, where I could just stash my stuff in some sort of pocket dimension until I needed it, this aspect couldn’t be entirely disregarded.

“Can you read the lizardmen language?” I asked him.

“I can barely read the human one,” he said, and for once, I thought he was being completely honest.

I used [Summon Bear] and it began to approach him.

“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry if I offended you in some way - please don’t have the bear eat me!” he began to scream and squirm.

“Calm down and stop moving, the bear can’t cut open your restraints otherwise,” I said. “Or it might end up cutting you by accident.” The silk that the Tyrant Arachnea used was strong, and I had no hope of cutting it myself even if I had something like a pocketknife. The bear’s claws, on the other hand, were accompanied by its immense strength. Breaking through the silk wasn’t the issue - it was doing so without hurting the man.

Once he realized this he did his best not to twitch too much, though I could tell it was still difficult for him. Then again, any person who could be so close to a bear and not be twitchy probably had something wrong with him.

“That’s it?” he asked when he realized I had only opened him up to his arms.

“Yes, I’m not going to spoon feed you now then, am I, now eat, we need to get going,” I said, tossing him a fish after I had been done cooking it.

He polished it off quickly enough, but before I could pack up to leave, he asked: “...can I have another?”

I sighed and tossed him another one.