Chương 219: (214) 3.79. Community Service

The next morning, Vin received an unwelcome reminder as to the slow but inevitable approach of the fourth wave. He had intended to grab a quick bite to eat before retreating back to the Underside to keep working on learning his latest water spell, when Spur jumped him out of nowhere. Sitting down at his table without a word, the colonel-turned-Commander shot him a weary grin as he began sprinkling some sugar into his oatmeal.

"Glad I managed to find you before you vanished into the ether once more. I swear, you're harder to catch than a cold sometimes."

"Sorry," Vin shrugged unapologetically.

"Need something specific? I was planning on spending today working on a new spell."

"Of course you were," Spur said, his tone flat.

"I actually have two things I want to run by you in fact, so I'm going to need you to hold off on your plans for a few minutes. And I'll be upfront, you're probably not going to be a big fan of either of them."

"Just how I wanted to start my day," Vin said, rolling his eyes.

"Alright, hit me."

"The first one is about the fourth wave of Earthers," Spur started.

"It's been eighteen days since wave three surprised us with their early arrival. In theory, we should still have twelve more days before wave four is supposed to show up. But I think you and I both know that's wishful thinking."

"I know. As much as it pains me, I was planning to stick around when we had ten days left to go, just to be safe," Vin admitted.

"I know I wasn't here to help with the battle for wave three, and I am not going to be absent for the next one."

"Well thank God for that, I'm glad you have at least some sense in that head of yours," Spur grinned.

"However… I was actually going to request you put your otherworldly travels on hold, starting now. We have absolutely no way of knowing how early the fourth wave is going to be. We need more data, and until we get some, we need to assume the worst."

"Wave three only arrived four days early," Vin pointed out.

"Don't you think twelve days is stretching that a bit?"

"And are you willing to stake hundreds of lives on your confidence that the next wave won't arrive so early?" Spur asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No," Vin sighed, realizing Spur was entirely right.

"No, I'm not. Alright fine, I'll hold off on any further travel until after wave four arrives. I have some complicated spells I could devote my time toward learning anyway."

"Fantastic! Glad we were on the same page for that one! I'll admit I was a bit worried about trying to get you to see reason," Spur chuckled.

"Granted, this next ask is probably going to be a bit of a tougher sell…"

"Just tell me," Vin said, giving Spur an exasperated look.

"What, do you need something else specific for me to look for in my travels? I still haven't had any luck finding any sort of scrying magic to search for the Earthers coming over from the other countries."

"No, nothing involving your travels," Spur started, hesitating as he chose his next words carefully.

"More so it involves using skills you've gained because of your travels."

"Spur…" Vin said slowly, staring at him.

"Out with it."

"I need you to help some of our people learn magic," Spur finally said, giving him a thin smile as if understanding the magnitude of the task he was requesting Vin's help with.

"I'm not a teacher, Spur, I don't know the first thing about instructing others," Vin argued.

"I can show people the maps I've drawn and rattle on about the cool fragments I've been to and threats I've seen, but teaching magic? That's completely different. Runic backlashes can kill if the person learning the spell isn't careful. My style of learning is far too risky for the regular person. If I didn't have my divine boon, I probably would have killed myself three times over by now just from my own attempts at learning magic."

"Be that as it may, you're the only Earther we have capable of magic. Our discussions with Sakis have gone well, and their elder has agreed to lend us the very same training aid that she lent you all those weeks ago to start you on your own path toward learning magic. Even if others are able to quickly discover their first spell like you did, they'll need someone to teach them afterwards. That's where you'd come in."

Gritting his teeth, Vin stared at the pleading Spur, who all but had his hands held together in prayer as he begged Vin to take on yet another responsibility for the town. Vin did not want to be the one in charge of educating a handful of new mages as they struggled to learn tier 0 spells. He knew it was harsh of him, as it honestly hadn't been all that long ago that he'd been that person brand-new to the wonderful world of magic, but he already had so much on his plate he needed to focus on.

Tacking this on would just be too much. Not to mention even without his dangerous methods, he'd been told numerous times by his different teachers that he had a surprising knack for magic. He was far from a prodigy-Shia's master had made that quite clear-but he supposedly understood things far faster than a regular person trying to learn the same spells. Did he really want to commit to spending a week helping someone learn a single tier one spell? Or a dozen someones?

"I think we should shelve this for now, and revisit the topic after the fourth wave," Vin decided.

"It will give me a chance to actually think about how much of my time I'll be willing to devote to any potential mages, and as you just stated, preparing for the fourth wave should take priority over everything else anyway."

"Fair enough," Spur said.

"Thank you, Vin, I appreciate you actually considering my request. Would you believe Golrim suggested we construct an actual Mage's Guild? According to him, that's an essential guild found in any self-respecting city back on his own world." Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Maybe pause on that until we have more than one mage," Vin chuckled.

"And if you so much as even hint that you want me to become guild master of that one, I'm running away for good."

"Noted." The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the mess hall so early in the morning. These days, most people swung by one of the restaurants to grab breakfast, as they had actual options to pick between rather than whatever the mess hall happened to be serving at that time. Each restaurant was still serving food buffet-style, so a quick in and out for breakfast was quite feasible.

The thought of the different restaurants and how he hadn't actually been to one yet reminded Vin of something he wanted to run by Spur, and he spoke up.

"Just a heads up, I might be bringing a new person into camp in a few days. She's not a race anyone here has seen before, so I figured I should probably let you know."

"Ah, is this the elusive girlfriend the rumors speak of?" Spur asked, looking quite curious.

"Word's been spreading around camp that you're dating some sort of dark shade."

"What? I can understand you guys or my friends, but why is word spreading around camp about Lumel?"

"Vin…" Spur started, staring at him like he was an idiot.

"You are easily the most famous person we have in town. The fact that you're gone most of the time doesn't do you any favors, and whenever you are here you do such ridiculous stuff that topics involving you are everyone's favorite way to pass the time. Myers already filled me in on what she witnessed last night when she went to ask you about Alka. I mean, standing on the ceiling? Really? It's like you want everyone's attention on you."

"A man should be able to stand on the ceiling of his own home…" Vin grumbled, noting how Spur didn't mention anything about the fire-knife. Myers had warned him that Spur would probably beg him to use it if he knew about it, so it seemed she'd held that bit of information from the Commander at the very least.

"The point is, basically everyone is aware by now that you're in a relationship with something that is definitely not human. Any chance you can shed some light on why people seem to think she's a shade?"

"Someone must have heard one of my friends talking about her robes," Vin said, shaking his head.

"Her name is Lumel, and she's a flesh and blood person. But her appearance can be a bit… startling, so she wears long, heavy black robes that she can use to cover her features. We're getting ahead of ourselves because she hasn't even fully decided if she wants to move into town yet, but I thought I should give you a heads up."

"So she's not human?" Spur pried.

"No, she's a pulmon. You know the fragment of water to the northwest? She used to live there, deep underwater."

"Ahh, say no more," Spur said, leaning back in his chair with an understanding look.

"So she looks like a fish?"

"What? No!" Vin groaned, realizing this was largely pointless.

"Look, her skin is pretty much transparent. You can see her muscles flexing and blood flowing and everything like that."

"…That is far worse than some sort of freaky fish-hybrid," Spur muttered.

"Anything else I should know about her?"

"I'll introduce you to her soon enough, but she is a rather skilled Dimensional Mage," Vin admitted.

"And she was instrumental in helping us actually take down the divine warrior."

"Dimensional magic?" Spur asked, looking curious.

"What does that look like?" In answer, Vin reached forward and laid a hand on Spur's half eaten bowl of oatmeal before casting Dimensional Sheath and causing it to vanish as though it never existed. Unlike taking something in and out of the more complicated Dimensional Pocket, Dimensional Sheath didn't cause a flash of purple light or anything like that.

In exchange, because Vin had to essentially gather up and isolate a bunch of dimensional fabrics per single object he stored, he could only keep three different iterations of the spell running at a time before the grouped-up dimensions floating around him grew too strained. One of them was currently filled with his shimmerwing mattress, and now a second one held a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal. Spur simply stared at where his oatmeal had once been, his jaw literally dropping as his wide-eyed gaze went to Vin.

"Oh, come on! You can't just flat out reject the position of being the town's magic instructor and then reveal you're sitting on dimensional magic of all things!"

"I can and I did," Vin said, casting the spell again and handing Spur back his bowl of oatmeal.

"And before you ask, don't get your hopes up about other Earthers getting their hands on this kind of magic. Earth magic like Sense Stone is one thing, but dimensional magic is hard, and I mean really hard. I'll tell you right now I won't be sharing any of these runic formations. One of the runic backlashes I experienced while learning the spell would have shifted a chunk of my side into another dimension if it weren't for my divine boon."

"Point taken," Spur nodded, calming down a bit as Vin leveled with him.

"Though that just makes your new girlfriend even more interesting if she's a Dimensional Mage. You certainly have my blessing to bring her into town. However…"

"I'm not letting you put her through a truth-gem interrogation like you did the former prisoners," Vin put bluntly.

"She's been through a lot already, and she's been nothing but helpful. She even spent her own time and resources outfitting my team with artifacts that allow them to access the Underside without me being there."

"I get all that, but it's procedure for a reason," Spur tried, running his hand through his hair as he struggled to explain.

"I'm sorry, but I have to insist on this one. Obviously, we'll be more than respectful, but I can't just let people from other fragments move into the heart of our town without screening them."

"You want her screened? Fine, lend me the truth-gem and I'll do it myself," Vin demanded as he crossed his arms.

"That would work, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose that's a fair compromise," Spur sighed.

"Go check in with Myers for the gem and the list of questions we've been asking people. I can't say I like this, because the truth-gem is only one thing we focus on. The people conducting these screenings are also trained interrogators. They know what to look for in someone that's lying."

"And my focus attribute is probably three times what theirs is," Vin said flatly.

"I'll notice any minor detail far more easily than they would."

"In that case, I suppose we're done here," Spur said, no doubt realizing he shouldn't push his luck." Remember. No running off until after the fourth wave arrives."

"I know," Vin said, motioning for Spur to leave so he could finish his own oatmeal in peace.

"Don't worry, I won't let there be a repeat of the last wave. Not if I can help it."