LXVI

When I awake, there is only darkness. [Huh? Why's it so dark? What's going on?] I try to move, but my limbs don't respond. I try to feel, but there is nothing.

[Wait wait wait wait! What is happening?! There's no way I could have died again, right?! I was… sleeping, yes, for the first time in a while, Lector was keeping watch, there's no way anything bad could have happened to me… Dreaming, yes, I must be dreaming right now! That is the only logical explanation for how I could have been returned to this hell!

[But something's off, what is it… Ah! Smell! Yes, I can smell, it smells like the rot of the nearby forest! Scents piercing into my dream perhaps? Or even a nightmare being unable to render the horrors of the emptiness of death?]

All of my assumptions are proven wrong when a lamp ignites next to me. The darkness is immediately cast away, and I find myself sitting in a chair. I still can't feel anything, nor can I move, but my eyes can see my unbound arms lying limply on my lap.

Sitting across from me is a man, one that I recognize well. [Lector… Wait, what is really going on here?]

I can't help but be suspicious of my master as I sit here limply, unable to move my mouth to talk, deprived of all sense of touch and all motor abilities.

"You are finally awake. Good, let us begin. First of all, I command you by your name, Anetor, to answer me truthfully and to not attempt to mislead me in your responses to me. Furthermore, I command you to sit there and not try to escape, nor to make any noise, nor to say anything at all other than responses to my questions. Furthermore, I command you to respond to every one of my questions, whether or not you know the answer."

[Wait, what? What is happening here? Why is Lector interrogating me? Why all this secrecy? This makes no sense! I was just asleep atop a hill, surrounded by my comrades, what is happening?!]

"Oh, don't worry, you will be allowed to speak your mind later. However, for now, something has come to my attention that adds to what I want to do here today." As he says this, Lector takes out a potion and pours it down my throat. Almost immediately, I regain control over my body. I move to ask him one of my burning questions, but an indescribable force prevents anything from coming out of my mouth. So too, does such force keep me seated when I attempt to stand.

If I were to describe such a force, it is almost as though my brain sends an extra signal to my body following the one that I do, forcing it to not partake in the action that I have commanded it to.

"Now now, please listen better, Anetor. I commanded you by your name neither to speak nor to stand, why would you so foolishly attempt such things? We have much to pursue here today, please follow along.

"So, as mentioned, first I have some questions for you. What is your name, traveler, the name which you held prior to being nameless?"

[Traveler? Wait, you don't think that he knows…] Without ever having any desire to answer, my mouth opens of its own accord, clearly speaking my name "Joseph Gree."

"I see. And what planet are you from, Anetor?"

"I am from a planet known as Earth." Again, my reply comes out without any desire on my part. [It seems as though this name-based control is even stronger than I had ever imagined! There is no chance at resisting this, none at all! How much more powerful is Lector than me, for him to control me with such ease?]

"Interesting, now tell me about this place." And so, on and on, I answer his questions. He seems deeply fascinated by Earth, particularly its advanced technologies and complete lack of magic.

"No magic? Really?" After my body affirms his question of its own accord, he says "Wow. I couldn't imagine living in such a place."

The questioning continues on for more than an hour as I struggle to take back my body, a struggle in which I am met with quite literally no success.

Finally, it seems as though he has had enough with questioning me. "Now, that is all I really wanted to know about you. So, what do you want to know about me? Feel free to ask away, after this we will move onto the main event."

Having control over my body, or at least my mouth, for the first time since waking up, I ask the completely obvious questions. "Where am I? Who are you? What is going on?"

That Lector is my enemy seems almost a given at this point, and I half expect him to not bother with my questions. However, he holds true to what he said he would do, moving to answer my questions, though slightly out of order.

"Who I am first, I suppose. I am Lectoricus, one of the thirteen governing mages of the Sorcerous Dynasty of Shi'vat. I am a disciple of Reishvart, as are my comrades, and was masquerading as a commander in the Eroen army for some time with the task of aiding the war effort against the Arenese, our mutual enemies. It is almost certain that the military knew my true identity, but, as I am at least an enemy of an enemy to them, they let me be. I was responsible for recommending Eroen's new combat strategy, that focused on sending small numbers of powerful troops, though not because I care about Eroen's death toll, but rather because it let the kingdom get troops to the field fast and took a great deal of pressure off of my own nation.

"As for your first question, the answer is really quite simple. We are in the center of the forest we just exited. In a tiny one-room, self-camouflaging hut my ally placed here some time ago, floating atop the sea of mud. It was for this hut that I left the group to briefly locate. I expected a bit more suspicion out of you, I must confess, though I certainly have no real complaint for how things turned out.

"And your last, and perhaps most important question, your inquiry into what is going on. As I have already said, I infiltrated the Eroen military to direct the army down a path that would aid my nation. However, I also had a secondary goal, that was to find an apprentice. Admittedly, this goal predates me even joining the military.

"Now this desire for an apprentice has little to do with finding someone worthy of receiving my ideas. No, the Council of Thirteen designed a rather intriguing ritual some years back, a ritual that allows for power to be transferred from a subject to a mage. By power, I am referring to level, skills, proficiencies, all that which makes someone capable in this world. Furthermore, this ritual gives a great deal of control over what the mage gets.

"Sadly, there was a significant downside to this. You need permission from the subject, the subject's name and the right to hold it as the namer, and there needs to have been, at some point or another, a rather close relationship between the subject and the mage. Now, with the name comes permission, so those first two can be acquired rather easily by finding and naming any random person on the street. However, a close relationship with the one from whom you will take everything is difficult. Thankfully, we partially found a way around this, the relationship need only have been close at one point or another, not at the time of the ritual.

"In our initial tests, of which there were a fair few, we tried the procedure with our named apprentices in Shi'vat. However, there must never have been any close bond in their hearts to us, so it didn't work.

"Another test we tried, this one just to make sure that the ritual worked at all, was done between one mage and his wife. It worked, and thus it was deemed a success, the wife returned to being skilless and levelless, and the mage obtained all of her power.

"However, when the mage tried to take the power of one of his closest children, a willing subject, the procedure failed. Even after killing his wife and trying again, it failed. After a handful of further experiments, we were forced to recognize two more downsides of the method. First of all, only one person may be bonded to at a time, for so long as that bond exists, the mage may draw from the subject at any time. Secondly, the mage may not kill or arrange for the subject to be killed, such will prevent the creation of any further bonds in the future, for the mage to take on a new subject, the first must die of their own accord. For this info, five of the thirteen ruling mages have lost the ability to make these bonds, or are otherwise bonding to rather weak subjects.

"So, as for my reason for taking on an apprentice, it was to find someone powerful and develop him to a high level before then taking everything. In that case, this was you.

"As for why you had the misfortune of being my target? Well, for a mage as powerful as I, sensing those who are not from this world is not very difficult. While extremely rare, I have met such people before, I know the signs. I knew that such people often have extremely large proficiency bonuses, I knew immediately that you would be my target. Besides, whether I took you as an apprentice or not, I still would have been sure to capture and interrogate you at some point, though I can assure you that you being named has spared you a lot of pain in the investigation department. Sources of information about other worlds are just so rare and so important to my country's development, I could hardly leave you be."

His monologue has put me into a bit of a stupor. [But… How could this be? How good of an actor must he have been to hide this from me all along? And the whole time, he knew I was from another world? I should have listened to Jorgenson's warnings, though I am not sure that they would have really been of much help considering that he could sense my otherworldliness on me… And now he intends to strip me of all my skills? And levels? The results of months of my unceasing efforts? And what about my proficiencies, if he takes those as well, I will be nothing, nothing but an ordinary man set to die. And even if I somehow build them back up, he will have a connection with me through which he can take them all any time? This is too much! All because I was foolish enough to let him name me, trading long-term safety for short term power… no, I best not think that way. He has already made it clear that he would have captured me and tortured me for information anyway, I would never have come out of this relationship okay, I was doomed from the beginning…

[Well, though it's not much of a consolation, but at least he's not able to directly kill me… But what does that really matter? He could leave me be right after taking my power, I would be left to die in this forest, there is no way that I could ever escape, or at least it wouldn't be likely. But wait, he's not supposed to cause me to die either, surely leaving me alone in this situation wouldn't be okay, right?]

I have to think for a moment, processing all that he has said, before I ask "So, our relationship was, from the very beginning all just an effort to get me to like you enough for this to work? And why would such powerful wizards design a system with such flaws, anyway?"

[In the end, the fact that Lector betrayed me only comes as a moderate surprise. I knew there was something odd in the way that he immediately moved to make me his apprentice, and also in the way that he moved to name me. Now, my only focus should be on gathering information… But mark my words, if Lector goes through with this plan and takes all of my powers from me, there will be a reckoning that will leave him wishing he had never even thought to do such a thing!]

"Yes, yes, all a fabrication. Still, there was a lot to get from you, and I admittedly quite like your work ethic. To say that you were among my favorite students, even when compared to my actual apprentices from Shi'vat, would certainly be true. However, in the end, you are merely a path to greater power. Ho ho, I can't wait to see the faces of my comrades when I tell them of my success, the first critical success yet with this dubious method!

"Though, I suppose, that leads into your next question, why this method has such flaws in the first place. Simply put, sorcery is far less straightforward than other efforts of straight magic, thus why it is considered a different form of magic. While it is based on the same principles, which is to say envisioning a result and willing it from the mana around you, perhaps with the aid of chants or incantations as a method of conduction, it tends to involves other, stranger elements, such as odd quirks or even ingredient requirements, to pull off results vastly superior to straight magic.

"Had you been lucky enough to be reborn into my kingdom's nobility, there is a good chance that you would have ended up under my tutelage, where you would have learned from me just as I learned from my master. Of course, had you been born into my kingdom, you would also have been brought up into a manner of thinking that would never have allowed you to trust me so, so I suppose things turned out well… for me at least.

"Returning to your question, the answer lies in that the cost for such a potentially mighty method is quite severe. To create a method that allows the direct taking of another's powers, such is truly an achievement that would warrant historical record on a universal scale if it were to be revealed. Even that wretched church can only strip skills away from willing victims, an art that destroys the skill entirely. Our method goes far beyond such paltry magic tricks, taking every source of power from the target and transferring them to the mage. And the best part is, the target need not be willing so long as the stringent requirements are met.

"Now, so much as I always enjoy your questions, I am afraid I only have time for one more."

Of the many questions blurring around in my mind, the first to solidify is the first to be asked. "Why now, of all times? Why not wait for me to grow in more power?" [Perhaps I should have come up with one better than that, but oh well.]

"Oh, that's rather simple. I received a message to return to Shi'vat a few days ago, and I decided it would be better to finish things up here. I lured the nearby demon over, and took you in here. As for why I don't take you with me, honestly you were still more of a practice run than anything, I decided to practice this on you after I already targeted you as an otherworlder, get a bit of extra usage out of you."

"Wait, hold up, did you just say that you lured the nearby demon over?!"

"Hmm, too many questions. I will say, there is probably only a day at most until it reaches the army and that master of yours, Reinhart. If you want to ensure that you make it back in time to warn them, we better move on to today's main attraction!"

[A demon, a day? Reinhart… the other soldiers… I don't care much for them, but at least for Reinhart, they must be warned!]

A trace of my urgency and worry must have crossed my face, because Lector laughs. "Ha ha, don't worry too much. Even if you could warn them, there isn't much that they could do to prevent the coming massacre. Especially not with you powerless! And that assumes you even manage to escape this swamp alive, which I find doubtful…

"Well, enough with such things! You have nothing you must do, everything has already been done in your mind and in the past."

Saying so, he begins the main event "Power transfer!"

Almost immediately I begin to feel weaker. I quickly open my stat menu, which is surprisingly not blocked by Lector, and stare in horror, though perhaps not shock, as my level plunges down and my skills are snatched away one by one. All my work, all my training, all my effort, not to mention what little in the way of gifts and luck this world gave me, stripped away. I try desperately to hold on, but the level of my skills continues to drop faster and faster, until in the end, I am left with nothing.

Name: Anetor

Level: 1

Race: Human

Class/Job: Unemployed

Skills: Master Madness Lvl. 9, Moderate Chaos Lvl. 9, Master Wrath Lvl. 6

[Heh. At least he left me with the curses upon me.]