CH 7 - Preparations

Henry

"My Lord, there are three men up ahead."

Lord Henry Hera looked up from his meditation, his pre-work ritual. There shouldn't be anyone out here, not this late, this far into the Nubian Plains. It was a grassland that ended in cliffs, and it stretched for miles, connecting the city of Vatica to the town of Asylum, and Asylum to Kyudo.

There wasn't anything out there, and it was far too late for someone incapable of handling the dangers abound to not have found an inn or shelter already. Henry knew there were only two things that could have been happening at that moment.

First: it was an adventuring party with an injured companion or two, seeking help. A likely choice, there have been rumors of a troll in the area, but it should have been farther past Asylum.

Second, and most likely: it was an ambush, and they already knew who Henry truly was.

The problem with that, was Henry was in disguise, dressed as a travelling merchant and his chauffeur, Alfred. The cart showed no signs of his status as a Hera, and in fact should have deterred random bandits due to the sign on the side saying they carried nothing but herbs, nothing fancy or robbery worthy.

And yet, they must know who he was. That meant they had eyes and ears everywhere, meaning he could only be dealing with them.

"Alfred, please, keep her steady. I will deal with this." Henry stood, summoning his mana and shaping light into a bow, a quiver of gleaming gold appearing on his back. He notched an arrow, drew, and fired into the darkness ahead.

The light revealed three men in black leather and hoods standing out in the road, blocking their way. The middle man raises a kopesh and slashes his magic arrow.

Henry caught two details at that moment. Firstly, he could see beneath the hood for a brief moment, and saw confirmation of his identity. He had a black bandana covering his nose and mouth, and a skeletal hand grabbing his face. Death's Hand assassins.

More than that, he caught the shadows on the kopesh blade, and the subtle flare of mana. Silver magic.

Henry saw all this in less than a single second, and immediately notched another arrow and sent it flying directly at the left man, who was drawing kunai. He wasn't fast enough to react, and took the arrow right to his neck.

The other two assassins stopped hesitating before their comrade even hit the ground. They rushed forwards, so Henry scoffed at their incompetence. "Fools. Never turn your back on an opponent's magic, especially when he is Henry the Golden Arrow, Chosen Gold Bow Paladin!"

The carriage picked up speed as Alfred urged the horses faster and faster. It was less than ten yards from his foes. Henry snapped his fingers, activating his spell's second effect. The assassins barely had time to turn before his shot exploded into eight smaller projectiles of golden splendor.

The middle assailant was clearly the more experienced one, because as soon as he saw how many missiles he'd have to deal with, he simply cast a travel void spell and fell back into darkness, sealing it off behind him. He was also smart enough not to immediately reemerge, but it left his friend unattended and easy prey.

Henry felt a small pang of regret when he saw just how valiantly the last assassin tried to avoid the inevitable. He slashed and parried five of the eight arrows, but three still found purchase in his right eye, jugular, and heart. The golden light turned crimson before fading away.

"Eyes open, Alfred. There's still one active." Henry notched a third arrow, knowing it would be the last. He went ahead and dispelled the quiver, to taunt his foe. "I'm sure you are confident and proud of your skills at mana concealment," he called out to the leader, "but believe me when I say that my light reveals all."

He drew the bow string, aimed, and closed his eyes. The cart passed the two corpses littering the road. There is a bump as a wheel rolled over a limb.

There is a tingle on the back of Henry's head, then in his lower spine. "You panicked, tried to change the angle of your attack. You're scared, aren't you?" Henry opens his eyes and gives a wicked smile to the last assassin as he leaps from the void, right in front of Henry.

The first tingle was him trying to go for a backstab, but Henry twitched slightly as he went for it, so he changed course. The second tingle was him going for the throat.

"To kill me, you need to do better!" He lets out a rowdy roar-laugh combo, firing the arrow right through his heart at point blank range.

The killer falls, and Henry looks on in disgust at the unsightly scene. He then timidly kicked the corpse off the cart and into the road behind them. As he watched the final corpse become a shadow in the distance, he dispelled his bow and spared a thought to his sweet Serenity.

With a sigh, he sat back down and corrected his hair. He could feel danger on the horizon. Something bad was on the horizon. "Alfred, make due haste. We need to get the job done quickly and return home. I've got a bad feeling."

Dainn

That night, I had trouble getting to sleep, even more staying that way. It was Yanxa, the man in black. I couldn't take him off my mind.

He was a monster, a killer, a fiend. Others didn't see it, from what I saw today. Not the dripping malice he emitted, or the souls clinging to him, trying to drag him into Death's embrace. I knew the reason I could sense the first thing, a predator was simply identifying one of his own. The question was, why did I see the spectres of the dead?

I didn't want to resort to doing something like this, not in this life, but it was the only thing that could put my black little heart at ease.

That night, I decided to combine the stalking skills of my old life with the magic of this one. The first step was to decide which magic type to handle this.

I was essentially creating an alarm spell, but since magic seemingly needed to be one of eight types to manifest and cast, I couldn't exactly use stuff like divination or enchantments from DnD.

In the end, I decided to use three different schools, depending on the location. Sneaking out of the manor was easy enough, since I wasn't being held prisoner. I guess it really couldn't be called that, since I just walked downstairs and out the front door.

I strolled through the city, placing an alarm at every road that led directly to the manor. A Green spell on a flower, a Blue spell on a fountain, an Orange spell on the cobblestones.

The idea was simple. By placing my mana onto these things, and maintaining it subconsciously, he should be alerted if that man makes any movements towards the manor. His aura should trigger the alarm, since my mana was an extension of myself.

The biggest issue was that I could tell my mana would be drained if I kept this up for longer than ten hours, since it ate away constantly at my reserves, so I would only be able to do this at night. That was fine, though, since I wanted to use this for peace of mind to sleep. The alarms would tell me when I should be worried.

I sighed in relief as I finished, and decided to take a seat at the fountain. It depicted a hero of Nubia's past, the first Demon Bowman, Victor Hera. I thought it was funny, in a screwed up way, that after looking into the Hera family history, I found out the Hera family used to love bows.

In fact, their family alone has birthed six Demons in the last three hundred years. For reference, a family lineage in this world could hope and wish, but might never produce a Demon. They were the one percent of martial fighters, and that meant they had to survive and beat the ninety nine.

"Lord Hera, why did you ban the bow?" That was the question, for it was him that broke the tradition, it seemed. His father was an Executioner, grandfather a Paladin mage, but still he used the bow. "What happened that changed everything for House Hera?"

It was odd, because I knew Henry was a killer, when he needed to be. It was in his eyes. But he didn't have any magic, as far as I could tell, so if he wasn't using a bow, then what did he use?

I sighed, stood up, and brushed my pants off. Tomorrow would mean twelve more days until Emilia's birthday. I needed to practice for my upcoming duel, especially since I got the feeling Henry wanted me to show off a bit.

I began the walk home, passing by more than a few drunk individuals. My first real opponent in this world would be a Royal mage of the Red school. I doubt he has any Blessings, but I was curious to see one after learning the concept from Gauss, who had a Blessing called Healing Light, which gives his Gold magic the additional properties of White.

I had an idea I wanted to test, to see just how prodigious I was.

***

"Oh wow!" Emilia squealed as she watched me practice after the lessons for the day were all done. She clapped and laughed at what I did, and I smiled. I really enjoyed her praise more than anyone else's. I couldn't wait to give her my gift.

"Oh, Hannah!" She was calling to her sister, who was standing by the training grounds entrance, sticking close to the manor. Was she spying on us? She looked sad, though I've been wrong before. I wasn't the best at reading people, I was learning. "Come and see this spell trick thingy Dainn thought up!"

She hesitated for just a moment, then rubbed her right arm and walked over. She smiled meekly at me and Emilia, and it occurred to me that I haven't really spoken to her in a while, not since I set boundaries. I wondered if she'd been avoiding me.

"Do it, Dainn! Do it!" Emilia squeaked, grabbing her sister's arm and pointing for her to watch.

I did, and began what I had dubbed a Combo spell. It involved combining two schools at once into a singular attack.

For this demonstration, I chose to combine Silver and Orange. It was a little something I thought of when thinking back to all the manga and anime I've digested. I chose to pull from peak fiction, specifically my favorite sweets-based villain.

I started by forming the earth into sixteen spheres, not because it was my limit casting-wise, but rather it became too mentally taxing to go past that at my current ability. The earth became like sand, twisted into the air, and formed into sixteen basketball sized boulders. I fired them at the practice dummy set a hundred yards away from me, and as they flew I swallowed them with shadows, sending them to a void.

Finally, I spat them out like a hailstorm directly above the dummy, obliterating it into splinters. I called it Void Boulder Gatling.

Emilia started applauding, and my body felt lighter even as my face went hot. I smiled shyly and gave a laugh. It was foreign to me, but it seemed to happen more with Emilia around.

"That was pretty amazing, Dainn." I looked at Hannah, and suddenly I saw what all the other boys did. She could give a shy smile, she could bat her eyes, she could be cute when she wanted. She looked down and away, and I could see that she had in fact been avoiding me. I felt I needed to apologize.

"Hey Emilia, do you mind if I talk to Hannah in private? It'll be just a minute or two."

She looked from me to her and narrowed her eyes. Then she frowned, as if she thought of something. "Is it about my birthday? No fair! She gets to know what you got me first?"

I gave her a head pat, and she calmed down a bit. "It's for quality assurance. She's known you longer than me, so I want her opinion."

"Fine," she huffed, and then began walking away with her head held high like a proper lady, her lavender dress bouncing softly with each step.

I walked over to Hannah where she stood by the rope and post fence. I looked at her, and waited until she looked at me. I gasped when I saw her shaking, and tears in her eyes.

I bowed deeply, head almost to the ground. I was feeling so genuinely bad. "Miss Hannah, allow me to apologize for my brash behavior. I am sorry to have upset you so much."

I stayed in the bow until, after about a minute had passed, I heard her cry. I looked up, and indeed, she was crying. But, she was also smiling. She was taller than me, no surprise since she was three years older, so when she hugged me, it felt like I was being tackled.

"Oh, Dainn! I thought you hated me! I came to apologize to you!"

What? Why did she need to apologize? "What do you mean? I hit and yelled at you, and not just once, but twice. Why would you be sorry?"

She pulled away, sniffling and wiping the tears. She gave another soft giggle. "You were right to hit me, and yell. I deserved it. I endangered my own sister and…" she trailed off as her voice began to quiver. "And now she barely talks to me. Then I tried to use you and I've been so afraid to try and apologize…"

"Oh, I see. Well " I said, realizing what had happened. She had misread the situation and had been drowning in despair. It was a feeling I could relate to. "But you should know, Emilia isn't mad at you. She thinks the world of you, even envies you sometimes. I'll try to make sure she spends more time with her big sis."

She looked at me with surprise. "You know, you always sound so adult, Dainn. It's weird, but you know, you're kinda cool. So, if it's alright…" She petered out again, and I could see her collect herself. Then, with big, pleading hazel eyes, she asked, "Can we be friends?"

I smiled as I wondered why it had been so difficult to connect with people in my old life, and I held out my fist to her. "Of course, Hannah. I'd love to be your friend."

She smiled, and then looked at my fist confused. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

I grabbed her hand and formed a fist. "You just bump it, like this! It's a sign of comradery." She laughed as we fist bumped.

"Well then, there was another reason I needed to talk to you, Mister Dainn, and it concerns my sister's birthday!" She crossed her arms and gave me a look that said "listen and listen well, pleb".

"Uh, yeah, ok. What's up?"

"You see, while I know Emilia will have a great time learning the bow for a day, it isn't what she's convinced herself she's getting. I'm afraid you need to give her a second gift, or her day…" she paused, looked around to see if Emilia was listening, then leaned in as if to whisper. I leaned in as well, of course. Then, she yelled, "WILL BE RUINED!"

I jumped back, my ear ringing. She smirked at me, saying "That's for the slap. Still, if you want to really make Emmy happy, there is something you need to learn to do. Luckily for you, I have the perfect instructor."

I could feel a pit form in my stomach. I could tell she was using a genuine issue to punish me further, and the looks of sadistic glee on her face told me this was going to be do or die.