Hiding

"When you first arrived, I ran seventeen different checks on you. Apart from your utter lack of aptitude for magical elements, there was nothing unusual. Only your skin and eye colors were a little rare."

"No difference?" Su Ming was surprised. Could humans from Earth and the other world share the same origins?

"I watched you cross over from the moment the planar transfer array activated. But what would the temple knights think? A successful planar transfer alone was already hard to believe."

Su Ming sat down on the floor in dejection. "I understand. Never mind how we'd get them to believe us. No one would have the patience to listen to us heretics explain ourselves, would they?"

"No. I've already thought of everything I could," White Bone said. "I've been resisting this manhunt for over a year, and in the end, I'm still being forced to accept my fate."

On Earth.

As dawn broke, the familiar steel-framed factory buildings appeared in Su Ming's field of vision.

He was starting to adjust to seeing through spiritual vision. It was a bit like looking at a photographic negative: at first, he couldn't make sense of anything, but after looking at enough of them, he could make out what was on them.

He controlled Little Spiky Head, taking him around to the machine shop's back door and climbing inside through a surveillance blind spot. Then he climbed the outer wall to the second floor and slipped through an open corridor window into the dormitory.

He had come up with the name Little Spiky Head when he was bored on the way there.

The skeleton was slender and tall, with the strength of an adult but less than a fifth of an adult's weight, making him well suited to climbing, scaling obstacles, and slipping through windows. His bones were also quite tough, so even a leap of faith wasn't out of the question.

Little Spiky Head soon reached the third floor. Su Ming pried the hidden key out of a crack in the window frame, unlocked the door, and entered his room.

Business at the factory had been slow lately, and there weren't many workers. Su Ming was a team leader of sorts, so he had a room to himself for the time being.

But he couldn't hide Little Spiky Head there. With Su Ming missing after the incident, people from the factory would certainly come to the dormitory, whether to look for clues or clear out his belongings.

Su Ming first changed Little Spiky Head into a different set of clothes, then dug out an old phone he no longer used and packed a backpack with things he thought might come in handy. He went out and headed to the storage room on the fourth floor.

The room was unused. Su Ming had Little Spiky Head open the door and go inside, then barricade it with some objects.

First objective accomplished!

Exhaustion washed over Su Ming. He had been awake for almost twenty-four hours. He had Little Spiky Head burrow into a pile of clutter, hiding him completely, then severed the connection and fell asleep.

While he was sleeping soundly, music mixed with a buzzing sound woke him. Su Ming opened his eyes and found that it was his phone alarm.

It was a workday, and he had set the alarm for seven thirty. It had only been two hours, nowhere near enough sleep for Su Ming.

"That sounds nice. What is it?" White Bone established a mental connection.

"An alarm clock."

Su Ming had been about to play her a song, but as soon as he picked up his phone, he saw a low-battery warning. Then the screen went black.

"Is that little sleep enough for you?" White Bone asked.

"Of course not." Su Ming explained that he had forgotten to change his alarm settings, which was why it had woken him.

"In that case, I won't disturb you. Go back to sleep."

"No. Once I've been woken up, it's hard for me to fall asleep again. The more I try, the more anxious I get."

"I see. Would you like to come up to the top of the tower? The view is nice," White Bone offered.

"Didn't you say it was dangerous last night?"

"At night, they're afraid I'll escape, so they toss a few spells over every now and then to say hello. It's better during the day. For the most part, we leave each other alone," White Bone explained.

"All right," Su Ming agreed.

He began looking around the hall for stairs or some way to climb up, but an opening appeared in the ceiling overhead, and a bone cage was lowered down.

"I thought I'd have to climb. Didn't expect an elevator," Su Ming remarked as he stepped inside.

Although he didn't know what powered it, and its structure was very different, it did the same job. Su Ming was soon pulled up to the top of the tower, moving fast enough that he felt a little heavier.

He stepped out of the cage into a sweeping mountain view. Not far away, military camps stretched out in an unbroken expanse. He could vaguely make out many people and horses, as well as creatures he didn't recognize. The hills behind them weren't high, but they were quite pretty.

On the other side lay the ocean. Several ships bristling with masts were anchored a few miles offshore. They appeared to be powered by sails.

He walked to the bone wall and looked down. He was standing atop a cylindrical tower that looked to be seventy or eighty meters tall, made entirely of bones as white as jade.

The sunlight was lovely, and a gentle breeze brushed past. Su Ming suddenly thought that if he brought up a recliner, he might be able to get a little more sleep after all.

"Get back!" White Bone said urgently.

Su Ming hurried back. A ring of bone shields grew out of the floor, surrounding him.

Then a rain of arrows filled the sky and clattered down, turning everything around him into a pincushion.

Several enormous fireballs came roaring in and slammed into the parapet at the top of the tower. A ring of pale blue light appeared, blocking the portion that splashed toward Su Ming, but the heat still spread, carrying a foul, scorched smell.

"I said it was mostly safe, but that doesn't mean you can be so reckless!" White Bone said angrily. "Do all you people from other worlds treat war like a game?"

Su Ming stared at the arrows and smoldering flames covering the ground, at a complete loss.

White Bone had been about to say something else, but seeing him like that, she quietly took him downstairs and brought him to a room full of books.

A little later, a skeleton came over carrying a cup of water.

"Feeling better?" White Bone asked.

Su Ming held the cup in both hands. "Sorry. This is my first time on a battlefield." He paused. "For me, it feels like I was eating popcorn and watching a bloody movie, and then the next second, someone from the movie rushed out and came at me with a knife."

"Doesn't your world have wars?" White Bone asked.

"It's not that there aren't any, but the vast majority of people never encounter one. I'm one of them."

"That's so wonderful. I'm really jealous!"

Su Ming drank half the water and looked at the skeleton. Its bones were pure white and denser than the material of the tower, with light flowing across them.

"Is this your true body, Miss White Bone?"

"No, it's just a servant I summoned to do odd jobs," White Bone replied. "Here's a riddle for you: you've actually already seen me."

"Oh?" Su Ming gave a polite response without even thinking about it, because he had something else to ask. "Can you teach me some advanced spells? I want to see if I can use them on Earth."

"I'd be delighted!" White Bone was clearly interested now. A hefty book floated off a shelf and landed with a smack in front of Su Ming.

Su Ming focused on it and saw that the title was "Undead Summoning Explained in Detail." He flipped through it. The print was small, the paper thin, and it held an enormous amount of information.

"Do you know the basic form of this spell?"

The newly minted necromancer activated the spell formula for Undead Summoning, unfolding it in the air. There were forty-two runes in total. It was a little taxing for him, but he could still manage it.