Chương 16: You’re a Coward!

He dropped the lattice to conserve mana and pointed his left hand at the ogre's chest. The pattern for [Lightning Spear] flared across his mind, clean and familiar. The spell snapped into existence before the ogre could adjust its grip. The spear punched through its sternum and out its back in a spray of smoking blood. [Lightning Spear]! [Lightning Spear]! [Lightning Spear]! He had enough Mana to spam it now. Ivan felt proud of himself.

The ogre staggered, tried to lift the tree again, failed, and toppled backward with a ground-shaking thud. Rys appeared at his side, hands catching his elbow before he could sway.

"Fucking hells, Ivan!" she grumbled.

"Are you–""Bruised," he grunted.

"But present." Ren came running up, eyes huge.

"That was amazing!"

"That," Rys said sharply, "was reckless beyond belief. You could have been paste."

"Probably," Ivan agreed. Every breath hurt, but in a familiar way.

"But I'm not. Which means the geometry holds." He straightened slowly, cataloguing sensations. He felt no crackling from his ribs when he twisted. Hip joint protested but wasn't grinding. His legs would be several bad shades of blue tomorrow. Acceptable cost. The System chimed happily. [You have slain Ogre – Level 43] [Human (F) has reached Level 36.] [Inscriber of Principles has reached Level 34.] He'd gained less in the past weeks than he could have if he'd spent all this time hunting instead of carving.

That was fine, he didn't mind. The monsters along this route hadn't been extraordinary. Killing a few more of them faster wouldn't have changed his life. Surviving hits like that would. Rys watched him breathe for a moment longer, then thumped his unbruised shoulder.

"I take back half of what I said," she allowed.

"Maybe this wasn't entirely idiotic."

"High praise from our esteemed Guuji," Ivan said.

"Don't let it go to your head. That one doesn't have anchor nodes yet." Ivan laughed. He planned to get one there too, of course. Ren circled the dead ogre, eyes shining.

"Do you think I can get armor under my skin one day?"

"No," Rys and Ivan answered together. Ren looked shocked and betrayed.

"Why not?!"

"Because you do not put experimental lattices in children," Rys said.

"You wait until they are old enough to sign terrible contracts knowingly."

"And you don't have the [Skill] that lets me store spells in my body like this," Ivan added.

"Maybe in the future, if I get a skill to draw on other people's bodies. Although," Ivan decided to be a little bold, tired of being on the receiving end of Rys' flirting, "it'd be better to test that on an adult's body first, if I get that skill. Such as your aunt. I'd love drawing over her skin."

"Young man, you're getting bolder," Rys whistled, impressed, while the oblivious Ren huffed but seemed mollified. They stripped the ogre of anything useful – mostly its teeth and a surprisingly decent belt buckle enchanted for minor carrying capacity – and moved on before the smell got worse. That evening, as they made camp under a stand of old pines, Ivan sat with his back against a tree and looked down at his forearms.

The anchor nodes were invisible in the flickering firelight, but he could feel them if he concentrated: quiet, waiting circles tied into a network that now ran through his whole body. One at each limb break. One over his heart. One along his spine. Two guarding his future regret if he ever got careless in bed. He'd carved himself into something slightly less fragile. He wasn't unbreakable yet, but he was harder to snap now. Harder to end with one lucky hit.

Rys sat cross-legged across from him, cleaning under her claws with a small knife. She caught him looking and arched a brow.

"Happy with your new armor, darling?"

"For now," he said.

"Ask me again when something bigger hits me."

"Oh, good," she said.

"I look forward to finding out." He believed her. He'd noticed that Rys, despite all her mixed signals, was terribly happy seeing him succeed. If only for the fact that his success meant she had a stronger ally to use as a meat shield. The road to the coast was still long. The Iron Chain Consortium still existed, and Victor Hargraves was still breathing somewhere inside a floating castle. But Ivan's bones, at least, were finally on his side. Ivan would take it.

▣▣▣▣▣ Name: Ivan Marcellion Class: Inscriber of Principles - Level 36 Race: Human (F) - Level 34 Tier: 01 [HP: 810/810] [MP: 730/730] ▣▣▣ Strength: F‑ (^) Vitality: F+ Agility: F‑ (^) Endurance: F+ (^) Dexterity: C+ Intelligence: D Wisdom: D+ Perception: E (^) Willpower: D Charisma: F‑ ▣▣▣ Titles [He Who Sees The Source] ▣▣▣ Race Skills [Mana Sense] – Level 35 [Steady Hand] – Level 45 [Determined Step] (Passive) – Level 1 [Instinct of the Prey] (Passive) – Level 1 ▣▣▣ Class Skills [Principle Interference] (MAX) [Architecture of Mana] – Level 22 [Deep Etching] – Level 54 [Inscription] – Level 40 [Glyph Suspension] – Level 6 [Living Vellum] – Level 1 ▣▣▣▣▣ The smell of salt reached them before the sea did.

It rode in on a damp wind that pushed through the scraggly pines, carrying the stink of old fish, tar, and too many people pretending they weren't at the end of the world. The road narrowed and broke apart into ruts as it spilled them down toward the coast hinterland, where a scatter of shacks and low stone buildings hunched against the slope.

"Charming," Rys muttered under her hood.

"I've seen nicer plague pits." Ren walked between them with his own hood yanked low, clutching his ragged satchel. The effort he put into pretending to be a normal human boy made his tail twitch more, not less, under his cloak. Ivan raised a hand and tapped the air near the kid's ear.

"Tail," he reminded. Ren flinched and forced his shoulders to relax. The [Veil of Minor Notice] clinging over him and Rys blurred the edges of fur and ears, made people's eyes slide off anything that didn't fit the "poor travelers" expectation, but it wasn't perfect. An accidentally exposed tip of fox tail could still put them on the wrong sort of list very fast. Ivan kept the spell refreshed with a low hum of mana.

Emotionally speaking, it felt like keeping a tablecloth perfectly still while other people tugged on the corners. He split his attention. [Mana Sense] was a familiar, constant pressure at the back of his thoughts, outlining clusters of life and lingering magic in a vague fog. On top of it, he layered the new circuit he'd been wrestling with all morning. He took a breath and pushed. A weak, translucent dome of mana pulsed out from his chest and washed over the town. The world changed.

For a heartbeat, he felt every constructed mana shape within the radius as thin wireframes in his mind. The rickety alarm wards over barn doors, the crude fishing‑line enchantments on nets, the clumsy anti‑rot runes scrawled into barrels. They lit up and then faded, leaving behind a ghost‑image map locked into his memory.

"Careful," Rys said through gritted teeth.

"You're humming." Ivan grunted an apology and let the dome die. The feedback made the nerves behind his eyes throb. He blinked away the ache and replayed the map. [Survey Field]. That was the traditional name on the scrolls. Strong bastards with too much paranoia and too many enemies loved it. Cast once, get a perfect mental model of a ballroom's wards and hiding places. Then they'd made him copy it three hundred times for parties he'd never be invited to. He hadn't inscribed it often.

High‑tier mapping spells weren't economically viable for dungeon crawlers who solved 90% of their problems with fire. Those scroll commissions went to the fancy upstairs workshops, not the basement. Now, after ten years of tracing the pattern for other people, he was finally using it himself. He'd stripped it down on the way here, tossing out redundancy and unnecessary flourishes to get the cost under control.

No need for full three‑dimensional fidelity at a stadium scale; he just wanted a local dome and structural signatures. The result still hit his mana like a punch to the gut. Efficient by noble standards. Painful by "don't draw attention to yourself" standards. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Worth it.

"Anything?" Rys asked.

"Plenty." He pointed, keeping his voice low.

"Warehouses by the inlet. See those three with the fresh paint and the bored men playing dice outside? They're wrapped in coil wards. Tight ones," he said.

"And there's a nice cluster of immobilization runes cuddling their doorframes. Professionally done." Rys followed his gesture. Her lip curled under the shadow of her hood.

"And there?" she asked.

"That big stone one by the slope?" Ivan squinted, replaying the Survey image.

"No wards there. I don't see any enchantments either. It's a perfect place for someone to pretend they're not worth guarding."

"Which means…"

"Slaver overflow, I'm guessing," Ivan said.

"Or a backup pen. I can taste the residue from collars. Cheap iron." Rys went quiet. Her hand slipped into her cloak, fingers brushing the skin on her throat where the collar scar once sat. [Veil of Minor Notice] softened the movement, but it didn't reach past his memory. He let her have the silence. They passed through the first cluster of buildings without trouble. A few locals glanced at them, took in the dusty boots, road wear, and the fact that they were neither armored nor obviously rich, and lost interest.

Ivan preferred that. Closer to the center, a larger building leaned over the street, its warped wooden sign swinging on a single chain. A faded tankard had been carved into it once. Someone had added a jaunty pair of horns in charcoal later. The tavern smelled like smoke, salt, and men who didn't ask questions.

"Information," Rys murmured.

"Information," Ivan agreed.

The interior was dim even when the sky was in the middle of the sky. Boards over the windows turned daylight into thin slats. Low murmurs moved around the room. Merchants grumbling over tariffs, fishermen complaining about the last storm, a gullible card player arguing with his luck. Ivan picked a table with his back to a post and a clear view of the door. Rys and Ren sat with him, hoods low. He let the [Veil of Minor Notice] settle around them like an extra layer of shadow and went to the bar.

The barkeep was a slab of a woman with greying hair braided back tight and arms like old rope. She set a chipped mug in front of him before he opened his mouth.

"Beer or fishwater?" she asked.

"Whichever one doesn't kill me this week," he said.

"And a bowl of whatever passes for stew for the boy." Her eyes flicked past him toward Ren, curious but uninterested. She poured something amber that smelled almost drinkable.

"What brings you to Lowwater?" she asked.

"Sea." Ivan took a sip. Not good, not terrible.

"And trouble, probably. I heard the port's busy."

"Busy?" she snorted.

"It's being bled." He let her talk. People who wanted to complain tended to keep pouring information if you didn't interrupt.

"Ain't just fishermen and honest traders anymore," she continued, wiping down a patch of counter that was already clean.

"Big men from the Chain set up shop last year.

'Merchants,' they say. Paying good coin. Buying up every warehouse with a roof that doesn't leak and a dock deep enough for their fancy keels." Ivan hummed.

"Let me guess. They're fond of chains that aren't on anchors." She glanced at him again, sharper this time.

"You got a problem with that lot?" she asked.

"I've had enough of people treating others like cargo for one lifetime," Ivan said. He didn't bother to soften it much.

"I was thinking of taking my coin elsewhere." She studied him for a beat. Decided he wasn't a drunk braggart and wasn't going to stand up on a table and start a speech.

"Suit yourself. If you go to Port Vallow proper, you'll see them lined up on the quays like barnacles," she muttered.

"Walk the main road, you won't see much. Walk the lower alleys, you'll see the rest." He slid a couple of mana stones across the counter. Looting those slavers was finally paying off. They were small mana stones, but her fingers closed around them with professional speed.

"Lower alleys," he said.

"And further down the coast. I heard there's… private harbors. Quieter places to do loud business."

"Hear a lot, don't you?" the barkeep said.

"I listen." He took another sip.

"And I'd prefer not to walk blind into someone else's operation." She hesitated. Then shrugged.

"Two harbors that matter," she said.

"One east, one west. East Harbor's old; smugglers have been using it since before Integration. West one is deeper, more sheltered. That's where the Chain's big ship anchors when it comes. But they don't like witnesses when they unload."

"Big ship," Ivan repeated.

"Void‑Ship?"

"Maybe. Bit bigger than what we're used to. Dark hull, nasty figurehead. It's due in soon. Next few days." Her mouth twisted.

"Town patrol pretends they don't see it, it pisses me off. They like their bribes in coin and not being crucified on their own gate."

"Hmm. And foreigners?" he asked just in case.

"Anyone not from this continent sniffing around?"

"Funny you ask." She leaned over the counter just enough that her voice didn't carry.

"Listen, few days back, five of those uptight knight types from across the sea showed up. Clean armor, clean boots, those holy‑order faces they practice in the mirror. Didn't give a name, just started asking about missing caravans, Beastkin shipments, that sort of thing." Ivan's wrist itched at that.

"And?" he prompted.

"They went into the pines up the ridge and haven't been back." She shrugged.

"Could be they found what they wanted and moved on. Or the woods ate them. Hard to say with foreigners." He thanked her, took the beer and the stew back to the table. Ren dug in with the desperate focus of someone who remembered what going to sleep hungry felt like. Rys picked at her share and watched the room, hood shadowing her sharp eyes.

"Well?" she asked, when he sat.

"Chain has a big ship," Ivan said quietly.

"Probably not full Void‑Ship, but not a fishing boat either. They're using the West Harbor as a private harbor. Next few days."

"And the knights?" she asked. She has a good ear.

"Americans, probably. Lawful good types." He kept his tone dry.

"They went into the woods. No word since."

"Maybe the Chain found them," Ren said around a mouthful.

"That's what I'd do if a problem came from the trees." Rys snorted.

"Spoken like a true future warlord."

They argued once they had a room. As per romance movies, they couldn't find more than one empty room. It was small and low‑ceilinged, with a single narrow bed and a pallet of straw on the floor. Rys took one look and announced that Ivan was sleeping on the pallet. He didn't bother contesting it; Rys had claws, and he'd spent worse nights in worse places. Ren had claimed the corner and fallen half‑asleep before they finished laying out their gear.

"What now?" Rys asked, once they were alone and the noise from downstairs had dulled. She dropped her hood, shaking out her hair. The [Veil of Minor Notice] blurred her ears and tail around the edges, but in this cramped space he saw her properly again. Those beastly features really suited her. He realized he'd missed that.

"Now we plan," Ivan said. He unbuckled his belt and sat on the pallet with his back against the wall.

"We're a day from the port. The Chain's ship hits their harbor soon. We have a limited window to not die."

"Mm." She moved to stand in front of him, arms crossed.

"Or we hit the next caravan that trundles through and take whoever we can. I don't see why we can't start small."

"There it is," he muttered.

"Their wagons will pass close to here," she said.

"We can take one. Two. Get people out before they're marched onto that ship. Every life counts."

"True." He watched her face carefully.

"Also true: we are not high‑level heroes. Hitting their moving pieces as they go by is romantic and suicidal in equal measure." Her eyes narrowed.

"Since when are you scared of suicide? So are you saying we do nothing?" she snapped.

"Wait for the nice foreign knights to write a report and ask permission while my people are chained in a hold?"

"First of all, I didn't say that. Secondly, you don't know if your people are here. You were abducted months ago, how could your people be brought here only now when you came such a long time ago?" he asked.

"I said we don't play bandits at their own game when we don't have the numbers. They have more men. More Levels. Probably a mage in every squad. Best case, we cripple one convoy, spend all our reserves, and then the rest of their network tightens up and travels heavier." He lifted a hand before she could cut in.

"Worst case," he continued.

"They track the little group of idiots who dared to interfere, follow them to the port, and my dreams of crossing the sea die on a hook next to your shrine dreams."

"You're afraid," she said bluntly.

"Of dying pointlessly? Yes," he said.

"Of you dying pointlessly, even more. I was a coward for ten years. I'm trying not to be a stupid hero now." She stared at him. The lamplight caught the gold in her eyes; her mouth pressed thin.

"I thought you were braver than this," she said. Her words cracked against something under his ribs, but he refused to let it show.

"I wasn't brave last time," he said.

"I set that road on fire because some kid in a cage wouldn't stop crying and it got under my skin. If that disappoints you, then sure. I'm a coward with a flair for arson. You can find yourself another lunatic who uses you as a bait to Wyverns." She opened her mouth. Closed it again. The anger stayed, but it wavered. He scrubbed a hand over his face and forced himself to speak past the defensiveness.

"I understand," he said, quieter.

"You still see them every time you close your eyes. Chains, collars, wrong smells, whatever it is. I get it. I remember the basement too, Rys. Different kind of cage, same theory." He looked up at her.

"But if we want to do more than scratch an itch, we have to be deliberate," he went on.

"Slow. Such as getting a map of how this branch works, yeah? Where they store their ledgers. How they communicate. Then we pick the place that makes the most noise when it breaks. We also need to think about Ren. You and I can run, but what if he falls before someone much stronger than him?" Her posture shifted. Less coiled, more listening.

"I've got [Lattice Guard] now," he added.

"I can take more hits than before. If I'm going to spend that advantage, I'd rather use it to walk out of a burning harbor where their main ship is crippled and a few dozen people get to choose where to run." Her expression brightened, almost despite herself.

"You want to hit the branch?" she asked.

"Heroism aside," he murmured, "those bastards are a great source of EXP. How could we just walk away?" She moved close and swatted his upper arm hard enough to make him rock back against the wall.

"Ow."

"You were just messing with me," she accused.

"You should have started with that."

"Where's the fun in that?" he muttered, rubbing the sore spot.

"Besides, you insulted my courage. Had to defend my honor a little." She rolled her eyes and sat on the edge of the bed, closer than she needed to. Her tail brushed his ankle, either on purpose or because the room was tiny. He didn't ask which.

"Speaking of stupid risks," she said.

"You mentioned your lattice earlier. Have you finished covering your head by now?" He nodded.

"Yeah," he said.

"Put anchors in the skull. Around the jaw, temple, back of the neck. Saves me from dying to the first slingstone I don't see."

"And you did that alone? I didn't see you work on it," she said.

"I had a mirror when it was my turn to keep a night watch," he said.

"Very professional setup." She glared.

"I could have helped." He sighed.

"Fine. Want a demo?" That woke Ren up faster than a bucket of water.

They went out to the packed dirt behind the tavern, where the night air was cooler and smelled less like stale beer. The yard was empty except for a stack of old crates and a drunk snoring against the wall. Ivan drew in a slow breath and whispered the mental trigger. The lattice woke under his skin, a subtle tightening along the web of anchor nodes he'd etched into his body. If he concentrated, he could feel each point: wrists, elbows, shoulders, spine, hips, shins, and now the ring of circles around his skull.

"All right," he told Ren, handing him a broom handle they'd stolen from a corner.

"Aim for my head. Don't hold back too much." Ren blinked sleep out of his eyes and took the stick with reluctant enthusiasm.

"Are you sure?" the boy asked.

"Aunty will kill me if you die."

"I'll get better," Ivan said.

"That's the whole trick here." Rys crossed her arms and watched. Ren took a nervous breath, then swung. The broom handle whistled toward Ivan's temple. The impact never landed the way it should have. It hit, but the sensation was wrong: instead of a sharp, skull‑rattling crack, he felt a dull thud spread out along his jaw, down his neck, and into his shoulders as the lattice redistributed the force. Light flared across his skin in a faint web.

Ren only caught it because he was staring at the impact point, and he jerked the stick back, eyes wide. Ren stared at the stick in his hands.

"Whoa." Ivan rubbed his head. It hurt, but he could tell: no fracture. No ringing. Bruise only.

"See?" he said. Rys stepped closer, eyes scanning his face as if looking for a crack the spell missed.

"You inscribed that with Wyvern blood and you let a child swing at your skull to test it," she said.

"You really are insane."

"Calculated risk," he said.

"I tested the arm nodes first. This is just… final quality control." She reached up and flicked his forehead with a claw.

"Next time you invite someone to smash your brain, invite me," she muttered.

"At least then I'll be there when you pass out. And… I'm sorry. For what I said earlier." He smiled despite himself. The tightness under his ribs eased a notch.

"I don't remember what you said," he said.

Sleep didn't come easily. Too many moving parts in his head. Too many circuits. Too many what‑ifs. Around midnight, he gave up. He slid off the pallet, careful not to wake Ren, and moved toward the door. Rys's eyes opened in the dimness at the same time.

"Bathroom?" she asked.

"Ward check," he said. She sighed and reached for her cloak. They walked through Lowwater's sleeping streets together. Lamps guttered low, throwing islands of weak light onto the packed earth. The town looked different at night; the edges blurred, the painted signs turned into shadow mouths. Ivan let [Mana Sense] unfurl. Then, once they reached the edge of the last house, he risked a weaker [Survey Field], keeping the dome small and tight. The pulse rolled out over the outskirts and up the first rise.

This time he was looking for something specific. There. Above the hum of petty wards and old enchantments, a different texture glowed on his mental map. It was sharp lines and clean geometry, no lazy curves or patch jobs. The mana there sat in disciplined layers, like a formation drilled by a patient instructor. That wasn't Chain work or a local alarm circle. Imported, then. Practiced.

"On the hill," he murmured.

"Top of the road. Someone put a camp there recently. It's pretty neat and organized." Rys followed his gaze.

"The knights, you think?" she asked.

"Feels like it," he said.

"Or some other well‑funded paranoiacs. Either way, not Consortium." He chewed on the inside of his cheek, weighing options.

"We could have Ren stay here," he said.

"Safer for him. You and I go poke the hornet nest." Rys stared at the dark outline of the hill. Her hand drifted back toward the inn. Toward where Ren slept.

"Leave him in a town where the Chain recruits local muscle and snatches anyone who won't be missed?" she asked quietly.

"While we go ask pointed questions about slavers? No."

"Thought you might say that," he said.

"I'll keep him safe." She looked at him then and gave a small, crooked smile.

"I know you will," she said.

"Oh no, have I been manipulated into being a babysitter?" he said, and Rys laughed.

"Mhm, you need to get in practice you know?" She winked, hinting at things someone like her never truly planned.

"Come on then," he said.

"Let's go bother some paladins." Ivan just hoped they weren't slavers from some rival group.