Still Alive

Zheng Yichen had once tried making a few small changes to a Magic Array Pattern inscribed in his mind. The pattern had collapsed instead, and he had been unable to stop it with his mental power. The result was a headache that lasted most of the day. He had failed partly because he did not understand array magic well enough, and partly because he lacked the mental power...

Lolise had said she could help him meet the mental power requirement in a short time. What he needed to do was build up his knowledge of array magic. If he met both conditions, he could basically advance to the next rank.

If he could not easily improve the Magic Array Patterns inscribed in his mind, why not work on them outside it? Compared with a ranked Mage, he was a little short on mental power, but it recovered extremely fast!

More importantly, the ideas in this otherworlder's head were bursting to get out!

Now that he had come to this world, he ought to leave something distinctive behind, right? To put his ideas into practice, what Zheng Yichen most wanted to say right now was... I love learning!

"Looks like... I can't develop Battle Qi." Holding up a barbell he had made himself with one claw, Zheng Yichen glanced at the bands around his arms and spoke with some frustration.

Battle Qi was tied to physical strength. By that measure, Zheng Yichen had long surpassed the threshold for a human warrior to develop it. Yet he had kept at it for ages, trying all sorts of ways to push his body during training, without success.

"If you can't develop it, then train your body. That will strengthen your mental power."

"...Fine." Zheng Yichen nodded and said no more. Grueling training really did help improve mental power; after all, it tested his will. He checked the time, tossed the barbell aside, and headed out of town.

During his training and studies, Lolise had taken him through the forest to challenge its powerful wild creatures one by one. The giant python's appearance there seemed to have been a fluke, and they had not encountered another creature like it since.

Lolise had said that if Zheng Yichen fought the python now, the odds would be forty to sixty... He was not convinced. After all, he trained under enhanced gravity every day without fail, and his physique was developing rapidly, even if he still had not grown any taller.

He hooked a stone off the ground with a claw and flicked it away. It struck a rabbit squarely on the head in the distance. After enjoying the novelty of magic, Zheng Yichen had returned to his usual way of hunting.

"Hmm... what's this?" After picking up the rabbit, Zheng Yichen caught sight of something on the forest floor farther off. He narrowed his eyes. The forest had plenty of different creatures, but very few that flew!

Yet there was a peculiar feather on the ground, far larger than those of the ordinary birds that lived in the forest. Had some large bird flown over and shed it? Or had it passed through and been killed by accident?

He picked up the feather and gave it a gentle sniff. Its lingering warmth was fresh; it could not have been there for more than half a day. He also sensed a faint trace of magic on it.

A bird-type Magic Beast?

With the feather in hand and his catch slung over his shoulder, Zheng Yichen headed back to town. But Lolise, who waited for him every day, was nowhere to be seen. He set down the rabbit and waited a while, then, with nothing else to do, started peering through the houses' windows one by one.

He rubbed his claws together and looked around like a thief. When Lolise still did not return, his gaze turned toward parts of town he had never explored.

Just as he took a few small steps toward an unexplored area, Lolise's voice suddenly came from behind him.

"We have to leave."

"Huh? Where to?"

"Anywhere. We can't stay here."

"What happened?" Zheng Yichen watched Lolise turn a piece of tableware to ash with a touch of her finger, and his dragon jaws twitched. She had cast Disintegration without a sound!

Zheng Yichen recognized the spell only because its effect interested him. It could reduce an object to powder—which, to his mind, was disassembly.

"People from the Church have arrived."

"The Church...?" He scratched his head. Did other worlds have churches too?

"What are you thinking?"

"Uh, is this Church the sort that acts righteous and dignified in public, but is treacherous and vile in secret, using every dirty trick it can?"

"You're overthinking it again."

Lolise hopped lightly onto Zheng Yichen's back and spoke calmly.

"Then... are there gods in this world?" Zheng Yichen asked. If there was a Church, and this world had supernatural powers, gods did not seem impossible. Lolise shook her head.

"So there aren't any?"

"It's not that there aren't any. They just haven't appeared in this world." She explained, "Gods descended in the past, but there's no trace of that now. They still have a connection to this world, though."

Zheng Yichen clicked his tongue, suddenly feeling the pressure mount. The Dragon Race was one thing; now gods had entered the picture too.

"Just ignore them. It's hard for them to interfere with this world," Lolise said, still calm. "As you would put it, treat them as mascots."

Easy for you to say. With your strength, maybe I could do that too. Muttering to himself, Zheng Yichen followed the direction Lolise indicated.

As he passed over a rise, he spotted a fully armed group approaching in the distance. "They're here to investigate the town, aren't they?"

No matter how remote the town was, or how backward communication was in this world, enough time had passed for someone to notice something was wrong.

It would have been one thing if everyone there had left because of some accident. But the disappearance of every resident was clearly no accident. It was more as though they had vanished into thin air. He had long suspected that Lolise, riding on his back, had a great deal to do with it.

"Those missing townspeople are still alive, right?" After hesitating for a while, Zheng Yichen finally asked the question he had wanted to ask all along.

"They're still alive."

Phew. Zheng Yichen let out a long breath of relief. If Lolise had somehow made everyone in town vanish, he truly would not have known how to face her afterward.

She might be indifferent to life; she had lived for so long, after all. But Zheng Yichen still found that hard to accept. Much of his outlook and values remained as they had been before he crossed into this world. Twenty years of living one way could not be overturned overnight.

Call him softhearted if you liked. For now, at least, he could not change that part of himself.