The Lone Wanderer

“Do you think this place will recover after we leave?” Nesha asked, her voice tinged with uncertainty.

“Sure.” Percy shrugged.

Micky rarely hunted the Red or Orange beasts of the swamp. He only ever indulged in them if he failed to find something else to eat. The lower-grade animals vastly outnumbered the Yellow variants too, so the ecosystem should bounce back within a few years. At least, Percy hoped it would.

After all, the bog wasn’t just a patch of wilderness. It was a cornerstone of the town’s fragile economy. While Percy and Nesha’s exploits had brought the townsfolk peace and safety – a pair of arguably more important commodities – that did little for their bleeding pockets.

Even after uncovering the truth behind the mysterious ‘guardian spirit’, fear kept the residents away from the swamp. Nobody in their right mind would dare place themselves between two warring Houses for a couple coins. Besides, even if they were braver, there weren’t that many resources here anymore.

Soon, Percy and Nesha pushed into a part of the bog untouched by human hands. The dense undergrowth felt primal, each gnarled branch and mossy root a barrier against intruders. Even Micky avoided this area – not out of fear, but indifference. The swamp trolls that dwelled here were mostly Reds and Oranges, which didn’t make for great snacks.

Still, collectively, the creatures were more dangerous than any lone Yellow beast. This was why predators and humans alike tended to leave this place alone, even before Percy’s group came along.

“Why are we here again?” Nesha asked.

“Call it curiosity.” Percy replied, sidestepping her question.

In truth, he was here for more than idle exploration. Unlike beasts, demi-humans had the potential to develop a rare affinity for him to study. That alone was plenty reason to check this place out while they still had the chance. But that wasn’t everything.

Percy hoped to use this opportunity to explore his new ocular abilities, while searching this place for anything else of interest, thus killing three birds with one stone.

“Alright. Just be careful. From what I’ve heard, these things are a lot more dangerous than their grade implies.” the girl said, a hint of worry seeping in her voice.

Percy nodded, brushing aside a curtain of vines. The swamp seemed to breathe around them, shadows shifting as they ventured deeper. Had Micky been with them, they’d have found the trolls already. Sadly, the crow was out patrolling again.

‘Oh well… we’ll run into them sooner or later.’

Luckily for them, it turned out to be sooner.

A rustling ahead froze them both in their tracks. Moments later, their quarry emerged. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t that strange. The creatures had no need to hide, as they probably weren’t used to intruders in their territory.

“Wow. It’s bigger than I expected.” Nesha murmured.

Indeed, the creature was twice as tall as a goblin, standing a full head taller than Percy. Its bulky build exceeded that of an adult human too. Even at Red, this thing would likely cause some serious damage if it landed a hit with its oversized stone club. Its skin looked especially rough, its blueish green hide covered in warts and granules. Two long tusks jutted out of the creature’s mouth, pointing towards them.

Suffice to say, their sudden appearance startled the creature, though it didn’t seem frightened enough to run away. Standing at a distance, it stared at them warily through its bulbous eyes, likely contemplating whether to attack them or call its tribemates.

“Crap. This one can’t use magic.” Percy clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“How can you tell?”

“Its mana channels are all blocked.”

“You can see that from here?” Nesha struggled to contain her surprise.

When a creature wasn’t actively using its mana, it was much harder to spot its channels. Typically, one would need to get very close, examining it carefully to hopefully spot the faintest trickles passively flowing through. It was definitely not the kind of thing one could reliably pull off from thirty paces away.

“Neat, huh?”

Uninterested in their conversation, the troll then let out a guttural roar, its previous uncertainty seemingly evaporating as its deep voice reverberated through the swamp. Having made its mind up, it didn’t even bother waiting for its friends to arrive. It charged towards the pesky humans, its club raised high.

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Percy let go of the sack, the pieces of his magical armour clinking against one another as they hit the ground. Then, he motioned for Nesha to stay back as he strode ahead, his demeanour almost casual. He didn’t bother using his spells, figuring his two Orange cores should be plenty to cover for the gap in mass – on the off-chance he got hit.

Though he wasn’t planning to.

When the troll’s massive weapon came down, he sidestepped effortlessly. The club slammed into the swamp floor, sending up a spray of mud and water.

‘Slow.’ Percy thought, his gaze studying the troll’s soul.

His enhanced vision painted the creature in shifting light, every flicker of its silver silhouette betraying its intent. Had this been a week ago, he would have had to dial down the mana gathered in his eyes, to examine the creature from this close.

But there was no need for that anymore.

The new eyes took care of that, constantly adjusting themselves, ensuring the creature’s soul was always as clear as a glass of water.

Another flicker of the troll’s soul betrayed its boiling fury. Percy was experienced enough by now to tell that a follow-up attack was coming.

Sure enough, the creature swung again, this time with greater force. Percy evaded it with a step back, his movements unhurried. This only seemed to infuriate the troll further, however.

It persisted in its relentless assault, as Percy dodged its wild swings one after the other, not bothering to fight back. He was content with merely protecting himself, using this opportunity to adjust to his improved eyesight, relearning how to read his opponent’s intentions with far greater skill than ever before.

The blows never stopped coming, each attack a brand-new lesson, the silver silhouette revealing patterns he’d never noticed in the past.

“Percy, we’ve got company!” Nesha called out.

Allowing his Mana Sense to expand outwards, Percy soon detected five more of the creatures emerging from the undergrowth, their bestial growls piercing through the oppressive silence of the swamp. Two of them were at Orange too, their frames a little larger – more imposing.

Putting some distance from his opponent – it wasn’t hard, the poor thing was panting heavily by now – he scanned the newcomers with his eyes, making a couple more details out.

“The leaders are both mages.” he noted out loud – for Nesha’s benefit.

Evidently, it was only the more talented trolls that bothered to learn magic. Lacking the means to advance, the Red variants probably struggled to get enough value out of their cores to justify the effort.

“Can you keep them busy for a few minutes?” Percy asked. “There’s something I want to test.”

At any rate, the group didn’t pose much of a threat to them. At Yellow, Nesha might even be able to take them on unarmed, let alone if she used her magic. Though things might get a bit dicey if they allowed a few more groups to surround them.

“Should I just kill them?”

“Nah. No need. If I find an interesting one, I might make a clone out of it, but let’s not butcher the poor things unless we have to.”

It wasn’t like Percy was above harming the creatures if there was some concrete benefit to be had, but he wasn’t a fan of senseless cruelty either.

The girl nodded, summoning a handful of black butterflies. Sending them after the trolls, she forced them to back away, keeping them all at bay.

Meanwhile, Percy shifted his eyes back to his opponent, waiting for it to make a move.

Not missing its cue, the troll rushed at him again, having recovered some of its stamina already.

Allowing himself to fall into a trance, Percy resumed dodging the creature’s attacks once more, as he tried to further his understanding of the soul’s movements. He had been able to foresee his opponents’ attacks for a long time, but that skill had always been imprecise, undeveloped. A wild flicker of the silver silhouette betrayed the intention to move, but Percy was quickly coming to realize there was so much more to it than that.

Not every twitch was equal!

If the lower part of the soul flared more intensely, it typically meant the creature was about to move its legs, not its arms. And vice versa. Yet, that was just the beginning. Based on how aggressively it flickered, he could discern whether the troll was going to step towards him, closing the gap, or away from him, trying to put some distance.

When its movements were wilder, they betrayed the creature’s fury, suggesting it was about to attack him head on. But sometimes they were subtle, twisting slyly, indicating a feint or a sneak attack. The intensity of the flickers was often correlated with the interval between intent and action. The most intense flares were followed by swift attacks, whereas if the silhouette was to simmer over several seconds, it meant the creature was planning ahead.

And the way they blended together with the movements of its flesh mattered too – something Percy hadn’t been able to focus on before his mutation.

‘Fascinating… But I’m messing it up by dodging too quickly.’

Percy could tell he was on the verge of something big – a third image vaguely forming before his eyes, outside flesh and soul. Still, evading the attacks before they even formed only gave the troll a chance to adjust its course, causing the image to blur again.

Deciding to take a risk, Percy neared the creature some more, shrinking the margin of safety he’d given himself, dodging the troll’s furious blows by a hair’s breadth.

He felt the violent rush of wind brush by his ears and by his scalp, each time coming this close to shattering his skull into splinters, as he delved deeper and deeper into the faint image before his eyes, trying to pin it down.

More time passed, as Percy danced with death himself as his partner, gambling his life on the altar of magic.

‘There!’ he suddenly thought, his heart missing a beat.

As soul and flesh bled together into one, Percy saw it. A projection of the troll’s club, passing through his very face, a secondbefore the creature even began its attack!

It felt real, he could almost hear his teeth cracking and taste the iron in his mouth. Yet none of it actually happened. Never before had Percy predicted an attack with such precision.

With unprecedented ease, he ducked the real blow with time to spare, delivering a heavy punch in the creature’s stomach, his fist sinking an inch into the troll’s abs.

The creature slid back through the mud, a splash of spittle and bile raining on Percy as it stared at him in incredulity. But he wasn’t paying the troll any attention, his thoughts occupied by his breakthrough.

‘A full second ahead!’

It might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things, but, in the midst of combat? It was a lifetime. And Percy’s Status thought so too.

[Congratulations! You have mastered a new spell: Wild Art: Foresight – Crude!]

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