A Silver Savior in the Grove
10th of Midsummer, 12533 D.E.
Silver Wilds of Anciart
Tanya's Retreat
Tanya is a strange woman.
Sure, Urie knew that would be the case as soon as he figured out she was an Ancient, but there was something odd about how she acted. Over the last four years, he had seen Tanya go from various obsessions, from studying his books on Magicka and the Ancients, to expanding his little home and her own (much larger) home, to creating a number of fields full of crops and flowers, and that's not to mention the ideas she admits are not her own.
Truthfully, he didn't know what she would do next. Build an army out of dirt and conquer Ondaberia entirely?
Entirely possible, now that I think about it.
Even though she's still clearly hiding something about her past, considering that she supposedly "woke up on a beach" and frequently evades questions about anything more on instinct, he didn't mind that part too much. In all honesty, she doesn't fit a lot of the tales about the Ancients.
The more fantastical aspects of the Ancients, like teleportation, are obviously not there. But she does have greater abilities of Manipulation than any he's ever seen. And yet, there's the unknown source of "mana", as she was calling Magicka and similar energies before he asked about that and she changed her vocabulary soon after. And she even claims there's another magic that she has access to! Something about arithmetic?
And finally, there is her relationship with death. Or rather, her inability to die.
A few times over the past four years, the usually passive Creeper plants (which are decidedly not passive to her) have been sneaking past the barriers or surprising her in the mine that she dug, and promptly exploding.
Every time, her corpse disappears and then reappears fully-healed at her bed. Discoveries about the walking green mystery aside, the fact that she can't seem to die compounds to her mystery. Though, he does remember hearing about his father complaining that stories known to come from the Ancient Era do have some continuity issues with characters dying…
Whatever the case is, Urie did know one thing. He liked to help her. It wasn't out of a place of attraction, he knew that for sure. Infact, despite her evident beauty, he didn't feel any desire for her at all. Not like Istarte.
Lack of desire aside, something about her (or perhaps him?) made him want to aid her as much as possible. Even she noticed this, though made no real mention of it.
Or has she noticed? She does sometimes mi-
For a brief moment, Urie looked up from his work and out of the window, then snapped his head back up when he saw what was coming down the trail Tanya made.
Some fifty-ish men and women- mostly villagers and a handful of Illager guards- were coming down the trail, led by Tanya, who was drenched in blood (did she forget her armor again?) and had a slight limp.
He rapidly exited his (now expanded) house, meeting the caravan of faces that he started to recognize as villagers from Kikava, as well as a few of Mistal and Prican's men.
What are they doing here?
He approached Tanya to ask questions about the newcomers, but then he was ambushed by a mess of black and gold fabric. He and his ambusher fell to the ground, and then the barrage began.
Oh, right. Istarte.
"How long have you been here? How have you been living? Why haven't you tried to come back? What has she done to you while-"
Why is she here?!
Earlier…
What is with all these monsters?
In the past few years, the monsters around my land have only increased in number. While only the undead actively hunt Urie, with those plant suicide bombers that reminded me a lot of the Albish berzerker who killed me at the end of my second life only hunting me and the spiders being nothing more than nuisances to Urie and, during the day atleast, me.
I wouldn't say that I had anything to do with it. If anything, it's likely Being X messing with the Magicka around me, as these things 'spawn' from how much Magicka is in an area. Usually, it isn't this bad.
Except for rain and thunder. Apparently the weather is often controlled not by predictable meteorological phenomena but instead by how much Magicka exists in an area. When the first storm hit, I had to raise the fence afterwards with how many monsters spawned outside of it. The number never went down, but it didn't go up with each storm like I had momentarily thought.
He would do something like that, after all
Urie thought there was something unsual occurring too. In other places of the world, monsters aren't as thick as they are here. The whole nature of this world's 'monsters' confused me. What defines a monster? Apparently, nothing, really. Most agree that the undead are monsters, while some debate whether the farm animals that seem to appear naturally are monsters or not.
Some part of me wishes that Being X sent to me a world that actually made sense, one that didn't have the undead emerge from literally nothing and wasn't stuck in the same age for actual millennia. Twelve thousand years, and not a single soul thought to make a knife?
I shook my head to get out of my thoughts and back into patrolling the grove. Idle thought was both a good way to occupy the seemingly endless time I have on my hands, and a good way to drive myself insane. And I'd rather not drive myself to the breaking point in such a beautiful place.
My efforts in extending the sakura grove to my home had been… far too easy. I even planted a few along the trail to my home, and they were fully grown before the year ended. And didn't grow further.
Agriculture is far too easy in this world. So is mining for resources. And hunting, excluding the surprise monsters. As usual, nothing makes sense in this world.
Atleast my old worlds made sense.
I miss my old worlds.
I miss-
My thoughts were interrupted by a cacophony of noise coming from the edge of the forest, followed by a distant scream.
That's new.
With nothing better to do, I began running through the pink forest, hoping to find the source of the noise. A short run later, I found my quarry, dashing behind a tree when I saw the arrows flying around.
I knew what I was seeing, but it was still a surprise. Gray-skinned people, just as bald as the Urie- and the villagers that some of them seemed to be trying to protect- wearing… rather poor quality gear. Atleast, compared to what I had. Some of it didn't even look like steel!
Illagers. Pillagers, I could call some of them, though that can be considered both an occupation and a slur, fighting each other. One group seemed to be made up of villagers that were refusing to fight, even though a crossbow duel was happening right next to them, and they would die if their Illager defenders failed. I recognized the banner the mixed group was carrying as well. The Mistal-Prican Confederation, I guessed.
If I had to guess, the larger group of attackers were likely from Embelor or Borst then. I would have to hope for Embelor, as I would rather take a shot at negotiating with Borst. Embelor wasn't likely to take interest in me outside of a passing interest or… that.
I'm definitely going to regret this in the future.
As the Confederates began to lose, I took my chance and launched my spear out from the tree I hid behind and drew my sword. The projectile lodged itself in the chest of one Pillager who had drawn an axe, knocking him to the ground in a bloody mess.
His compatriots could hardly react in time before I reached another Illager wearing the hostile banner, driving my sword through and carrying my magically enhanced momentum into him. With a push, I was able to move him out of my way and continue on at about the same speed. If I had my orb, I wouldn't have needed to even bother moving, but I was limited in my options so it would have to do.
By now the Illagers were catching on to my arrival, as a lazily fired arrow flew past my body and impacted the ground. I had to move fast, so I tore my blade out from the fresh casualty and tossed a spare knife at a random crossbowman before I started to my next target.
Arrows from the Confederate crossbowmen began to make their mark in the surprised Illagers, but I paid it no mind as I raced to a pair who were drawing axes.
I slashed at the one who was now on my left, forcing him back while I focused on his companion, who began to swing wildly at me with an axe.
My arm caught the Illager's axehand, and with a strength enhancement I twisted his arm. It easily bent and snapped the bones within, making him scream in pain.
It was easy enough to remove his head after that.
Around me, the battle had shifted firmly in the Confederate's favor. From what I could tell, the larger group was shaken by my attack, and several had gotten unlucky and fell to Confederate crossbows. Some were mangled as if something ate part of the illagers, but that wouldn't make any sense. A few were also fighting in melee with axes, but it was clear they were wavering.
Now to-
Pain flashed in my leg and I had to grit my teeth to keep myself from showing weakness right when I could not let any of it show at all. I looked down and saw, of all things, an arrow lodged into my knee.
Resisting the urge to pull it out like some movie hero, I instead turned to my left and barely dodged a swipe with an axe. I retaliated by striking the offending Illager with a knife I summoned from my inventory, covering my left hand in blood and making the Illager crumple.
With my nearest combatants out of action, I took a moment to look around, only to see the enemy retreating or already dead. For a moment I could swear that I saw some kind of sword-wielding fairy chasing some of them down, but I knew better.
Have I used mental enhancements without realizing?
Regardless, it was clear the battle was over. I limped to my last combatant and knocked him out with my sword's pommel, before getting rid of the blood on the blade.
As I went to recollect my thrown weapons, one of the villagers- a woman who managed to make the bald features of Villagers look nice enough to my eyes- walked up to me, at first staring at me and then finally looked down- slowly, for some reason- at the arrow still embedded and disabling my leg.
"How- shouldn't that hurt?" She asked, and I realized then that I had been running on magic painkillers for at least a little bit, which numbed what should've been a horrendous pain. "Usually that takes even the most adventurous," she paused to look up at my hair again, "...person out for the rest of their lives."
"It does. It isn't the worst injury I've had though." I replied as I reached my spear, grabbing it to lean on so then I could remove the arrow. Normally, that would be inadvisable and actually dangerous, but the bleeding had already stopped and the wound was slowly regenerating.
Her hands went to stop me, but I had already removed the arrow like I had done multiple times before when the undead came through. Some blood came out, but it wasn't enough to re-open the wound for long and cause any damage. Although maybe I should've done it while she wasn't looking, but the stranger's reaction was amusing.
"Wha-" She began to speak, but was interrupted by another of the villagers, an older woman who seemed to be related to the young woman fussing over me at the moment. Why was she doing that anyways?
Why am I letting it happen?
"Ishta, dear, there are others who are wounded. Take care of them, I can help our savior here. The others need more attention than her," the woman said, casting a strange look at 'Ishta'. That seemed to send her away with a strangled confirmation and a look of embarrassment, for some reason.
The older woman, who I assumed was in her forties, turned back to me.
"Now, I'd like to thank you for your help, stranger, though I do have some questions," she bent down to look at the wound. "...firstly, how is your wound already healing?"
That… I didn't have a good answer for. My regeneration was but one of many mysteries due to my lack of trustworthy information, if at all. Without a better answer…
"Magic."
She gives me an unamused look, before shaking her head.
"Regardless, I must thank you. I'm not sure we would've won without your help, miss..?"
"Tanya is fine."
"Tanya. What a nice name. My name is Olysha, and you've already met my daughter, Ishta. We were coming here to try and escape the war," Wait, a war? "but we can discuss that later. We've come a long ways, and we haven't been able to find a village nearby yet. We presumed there was one hidden somewhere, since we were searching for whatever magic caused the Glow to appear."
Ah. Urie did mention that I was somehow being a giant beacon, right? That… I still wasn't sure how I felt about that. If it was just passerbys like Urie, it may not have been an issue, aside from a security risk that I would have to solve… somehow.
But this? An entire group of refugees (presumably), coming here? There's no village for kilometers around, the woods here are infested with monsters, and I am absolutely not prepared for… what, fifty people? How would I even host that many people?
And yet…
I can't exactly turn them away, as that would make me an untrustworthy individual stuck in the woods (not that I am already), a hermit who provides nothing for society. In both my previous lives, I made sure to be productive and proactive, and that meant I had to make connections.
Here, in this insane backwater world? That means I need a community.
And one just came to my doorstep.
I met with the other leaders of this group shortly after Olysha met with me while my leg fully healed. The Illagers, despite being the minority and a known danger, were the only ones with any kind of weapons, led mainly by one man by the name of Brenn and a woman by the name of Istarte. For some reason, she was very interested in knowing what has happened to Urie, and I don't know why she seemed so suspicious of me.
As for the fifty or so villagers, they were led by Olysha, who was a "Cleric", a type of magic caster. Even though there wasn't a total lack of adult men for a refugee group, a grand total of zero men actually were armed.
A minor sense of horror began to creep over me that only led me to be confused. I should've guessed earlier, but the fact that Urie's sword supposedly never left his bags when he traveled made a lot more sense to me now.
They're all pacifists. Now, I'm a fundamentally peaceful person, who is only driven to violence by necessity, and as such I know how fucking idiotic such an ideology is. Pacifism never works. It may be the ideal, but in my experience, it only leads to betrayal.
Something I know all too well…
The thought that passed through my head made me blink in surprise while the refugees were discussing amongst themselves. That thought felt like mine, and yet it feels… mournful? Why?
The 203rd never betrayed me, Weiss falling back in Dacia and Grantz's pleas in Arene aside. My connections in the General Staff didn't either, as Colonel- General Lergen was always supportive of me, despite whatever disagreements he had about me. Zettour was… well, aside from Rudersdorf, a good superior to work with. And though Ugar definitely took pity on me (which I definitely exploited from time to time, including getting the expensive coffee beans on the fronts), so who could it be?
The man who killed me the first time? No, I gave him plenty of chances and offered several different counseling services and addiction help, and yet he still pushed me onto the tracks when the company gave me no other choice than to offer his resignation. No, there is no one who betrayed me that would make me mourn it now.
So who-
…
The younger villager woman who first tended my wound, Ishta, seemed to have been staring at me for some time. She approached me with a slightly concerned look on her face.
"Are… are you doing alright?"
…What? What kind of trap is this? Was I not controlling my-
"Your eyes changed color earlier and you seemed to be thinking of something." Ishta continued, seeing my confusion.
"My eyes what?" I said back with a slight bit of surprise. What nonsensical aspect of my body is appearing now?
"They are blue now, but earlier they turned… silver?"
You have got to be kidding me. What is with my lives and the color silver?!
When the entourage arrived at Tanya's section of land, they were shocked to find a veritable utopia. Carefully grown Sakura trees over most paths, fields of crops that, unknown to Tanya, could feed a community much larger than Kikava was.
And of course, there was plenty of space to rest for the time being. And as for Urie?
Things could be worse.
"You could've come back!"
He should have known that day would've come back to haunt him.
"I couldn't have! I barely made it here before the monsters got even worse!"
She seemed to calm down slightly, as even she knew it was reasonable. And even with that…
"Well!-"
Tanya cleared her throat, interrupting the awkward reunion that had been going on for a while. Also, Urie was starting to look a little out of breath.
"If you're finished, you can take it elsewhere. I'll brief you about what happened later, though judging by your current situation you might need some rest before then."
With that statement, she turned around and started to guide the entourage of refugees to some empty space to set up for the time being, leaving the two to… talk things out.
Uh oh.