The Infinite Bk. 01 Ch. 02

Noah put his hand over his eye again, not rubbing it, but just covering it. He repeated the experiment, making a mess of the road. "Can you see any difference in the road?"

"No." He covered his eye once more, and she nodded her head. "Yes, now I see."

"So when I disappear, you can't see what I do to the road, but when I reappear it suddenly changes, right?"

"Yeah, sort of like flipping a page. Master... I think you're using magic!"

"Magic? No, that doesn't make sense. My parents were normal, I haven't even studied any kind of magic."

"That's the only thing it can be. But I've never heard of magic that could make people disappear like that."

"I'm not disappearing, I think I'm becoming invisible. It's... an illusion. I'm creating an illusion that makes me invisible... and when I alter something around me, it expands the illusion to conceal the change I've made until I release it." He covered his eye and felt the fatigue, then, covered it once more and it stopped. "Covering my eye is the trigger that activates it."

He then remembered his last moments with Lindsey. He had covered his left eye because the sun was blinding him, and he woke up in this world in that same position. His glitchy reincarnation, it hadn't just preserved his body at this age, it gave him some kind of magic. Maybe it was the magic itself that caused the error, the magic present in this new world.

"Tin, do they have any kind of word for the energy used for magic? I feel like something is draining out of me when I use it."

"They call it mana."

'You have got to be kidding me.' "Let's see what happens when I cover my other eye."

The moment he attempted it, he fell to his knees, almost blacking out. "Master!" Tin exclaimed. She climbed down and helped him to his feet.

"So, you can see me. That means I didn't turn invisible. But something clearly happened, or at least, tried to happen. I have a different spell in each eye, but not enough mana to use the second one. It must be like a muscle. I have to train it to increase my stamina.

Anyway, let's get out of here before the smell of those goblins attracts wolves."

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The next day, while Tin took town the tripwires set around their makeshift camp, Noah was busy experimenting with his magic. He had come across a giant spider, draining the blood from a captured rabbit. As he approached, Noah covered his eye and cast his illusion. His feet on the underbrush, it should have given him away, but the spider didn't seem to notice. He decided to make more noise, picking up a stick and snapping it, but still, the spider didn't seem to notice.

"Over here."

Finally, the spider spun around, its black eyes searching for the source of the noise. It seemed that his illusion also concealed sounds, but not his voice. Maybe because he intended for his voice to be heard? He had been casting his spell on and off since he discovered it, to try and get a better feel of his mana. He couldn't properly stress himself since he needed to save his strength for when he needed it, but he was starting to sense the flow.

He drew his sword, a new one. After the fight with the goblins, he had taken their weapons, and despite being slightly rusty due to inadequate care, they were higher quality than the cheap machete that Noah had been using until now. He now carried a Medieval-style longsword, a short sword, and his knife. He came up with arrangement with thoughts of ancient samurai, who carried a katana, a wakizashi, and a tanto dagger.

He reached out with his longsword and used it to rustle a nearby bush. The spider didn't see or hear anything. Noah could feel it, his mana flowing through his sword towards the bush, enveloping it in the illusion. He focused on the energy running through his arm and tried to slow the flow, to keep it from moving beyond his sword. It was exceedingly difficult, like trying to flex a muscle he had never used before. It reminded of him of all the years he spent as a newborn, when his muscle tissue was just slightly tougher than gelatin. He tempered his breathing, driving out all distractions from his mind, and soon, he could feel the flow of his mana, like he had grabbed a hold of it.

He pulled it back, leaving the sword enveloped, but this time, when he rustled the bush, the spider raised his front legs and bared its fangs, believing an animal to be causing the disturbance. Noah slowly approached and tapped one of the spider's raised legs with his sword. It hissed in fury and swung at something it could not see. The illusion could block sounds from reaching his enemy, but it couldn't evade the sense of touch, so he couldn't just turn invisible and stab someone without them feeling it.

There was something else he noticed. When he was invisible, he could sense the mana in others. Tin had very little, likely a sign that she had no affinity for magic, probably a reason why she ended up a slave. The monsters had even less, but not all of them. Lone wolves without packs and many spiders, they seemed to be shrouded in mana. He didn't get the impression that they could use magic, more like it clung to them, like an odor. What made them so special?

This was just another question that Noah chalked up to something he'd learn later. For now, he should just continue utilizing his magic to its full potential. The spider had its guard raised, but couldn't sense the presence of anyone or anything nearby, so it could do nothing to stop Noah from ending its life. He harvested what he needed from the body and then returned to camp.

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It was a sweet relief to Noah and Tin when they finally left the forest. After two days of repeated ambushes by predators and goblins, the sea of trees that flanked them on either side were replaced with open pastures, fields where farmers and their slaves were planting crops. The road became more uniform, receiving more maintenance due to the increase in traffic. In the distance, they saw the town, Clive, as Tin called it. It was surrounded by a heavy-duty log fence to keep the monsters out. It reminded him of the colonial village museum from his fifth-grade field trip. The creek from their waterfall camp joined into the river that flowed beside the town.

Guards in cheap leather armor with a few metal plates were manning the gate, and they stopped Noah and Tin as they approached. One of them looked over the horses and the wagon with a wary eye.

"These belong to Garrow and his men. How did you come by them?"

"Were you close with Garrow?"

"No."

Noah slipped the man a few bronze coins, while hoping that they were actually worth something that he wasn't trying to bribe someone with pocket change. "Then I suppose you're mistaken, right?"

Seeming satisfied, the guard pocketed the money and then waved them in and Noah and Tin entered the town. For Noah, it was like he had traveled back in time to Medieval Europe. Peasants walked the muddy road, street vendors tried to sell their wares, and the air stank beyond all description. The buildings were brick and wood, only a few of them more than two stories, with their windows using foggy glass.

"What do we do now?" Tin asked.

"We're going to sell this wagon, everything in it, and the horses. That guard recognized them, so others may as well. Plus, I can protect a stack of coins better than this load of pelts. We can just buy replacements if we need them." They rode past a beggar lying in the street and Noah brought the horses to a stop. "You there, where can I find a weapon dealer?"

The bearded man pointed a trembling finger to the east. Noah didn't thank him, but tossed him a copper coin. They turned down one of the eastern streets and a sign caught Noah's eye. It had an anvil with two crossed swords in front of it like a crest. They stopped the wagon outside and Noah disembarked.

"Look after the wagon. This place is probably crawling with thieves, so be wary."

She was armed with a dagger and he had faith in her competence. He stepped into the store, with a bell ringing above his head from the door opening and closing. This store was made of brick in order to lessen the fire danger due to the forge in back. Numerous weapons were put on display, from swords to halberds. Back in his previous lives, Noah could have bought a damascus sword online for $60 that would put these to shame, but these would suffice.

He also paid attention to the prices in order to figure out the rate of conversion for money. The numbers were drawn a bit differently from past worlds, but they appeared to have the same values. From what he could tell, ten copper coins equaled a bronze, ten bronze equaled a silver, and ten silver for a gold. The metric scaling made it easiest for Noah to compare them to US dollars, but from what era? There was a suit of armor selling for two gold coins, about two thousand dollars. But was that two thousand dollars back in the Old West? Or was that two thousand dollars in the 21st century, after more than a hundred years of inflation? He couldn't even tell whether the prices were good or not. This was either all great equipment at a high price or garbage sold to beginners and cheapskates, or even just junk the owner was asking the moon for to try and rip Noah off.

A man appeared from a back room and stood behind a counter. He was a great bear of a man, buff and dirty from a life spent standing over an anvil. Seeing Noah's modern clothes, unease crossed his face. "Can I help you?"

"Do you buy weapons as well as sell them?"

"Only as long as they incorporate metal. I don't buy bows or staffs."

"Perfect." Noah returned to the wagon outside and retrieved an armful of weapons looted from dead goblins. It wasn't all the weapons, though. He kept a tough-looking axe that could-prove useful. He stepped back inside and laid them out on the store counter. "What can I get for all of these?"

There were four short swords, two longswords, six daggers, three spears, and an axe. The blacksmith raised his eyebrows in mild surprise at the size of the haul, but otherwise maintained a poker face for the sake of business. He examined each weapon, making exaggerated grunts and sighs over every chip and sign of rust.

"This is mostly garbage. I can buy them for one silver."

"That's a bad joke. That's less than a bronze coin per weapon. You're selling daggers for three bronze each. Seven silver." Judging by the prices of the display pieces, that was more than the blacksmith could sell them for, and while he would have liked to go higher, the blacksmith was really low-balling him.

"That's ridiculous. My merchandise hasn't been dragged through the woods. Yours has. I'll have to spend all night polishing and sharpening these to make them worthy of being put on display. Two silver."

"Leave them as is and then chalk down the price. You can sell them to some newbie warriors as training gear. Six silver."

"I can't come anywhere near that. The best I can do is two silver and five bronze."

"You can always just forge them into something new and sell at a higher price. Four silver."

"You think you're the only one selling weapons by the arm-load? Plenty of adventurers come in here to dump what they found in some goblin tunnel. Scavenged swords are hardly rare on the market. Two silver and seven bronze. That's like final offer."

'So, 'adventurer' is a term used here. It probably applies to monster hunters and the like.' "How about this: my axe, plus two daggers, in exchange for that nicer axe up on the wall? Everything else, you buy at half for what you're selling their counterparts for. That's ten bronze for the short swords, another ten for the long swords, four and half bronze for the daggers, and another four and half for the spears. That's right around three silver."

The blacksmith gave a huff. Three silver, such a round, whole number. It was five bronze above what he could get if he sold the weapons for half price, but his inner-perfectionist didn't want to complicate it with a smaller payment. Had Noah planned that from the beginning? Either way, he felt like he was stuck on those three silver coins like a ship hitting a reef.

"Fine, three silver."

"Deal." He and Noah shook hands and Noah received the three coins and the axe. "I also have another thing outside that you might be interested in. Follow me." He led the blacksmith out into the street and showed him the tripwire roll in the back of the wagon.

"What is it?"

"A tripwire system, offering a hundred yards of protection. Any monster that touches it makes the metal alarms jingle. It's so loud that even the dead can hear it. I'll trade it for three bronze and the small shield you had in the corner. It's got to be worth that in materials alone."

"Fine, but only to get rid of you. You're exhausting."

The deal was struck and Noah and Tin set off with a much lighter wagon. The axe Noah had gotten was a large one, perfect for chopping both trees and monsters. The shield he now wore on his arm was only around the size of a dinner plate, but that worked for him. It was strong enough to block a slash from a sword and it wouldn't hamper his movements. The tripwire was a bit painful to lose, but once they sold the wagon, they would have ended up carrying it with them.

With directions from many of the townsfolk, they sold and traded their wares. The blacksmith wouldn't buy the bows, but Noah found another weapon dealer who allowed him to trade up to a much better piece and a quiver of good-quality arrows. After that, the medicinal herbs and mushrooms were bought by an herbalist, the wolf pelts went to a leatherworker in exchange for some armor and a strong backpack, and the clothes and bags were traded at the garment shop for some new outfits and a second backpack. Due to the weird looks he was getting, Noah was aware that his modern clothes made him stand out. They were too valuable to get rid of or sell, so he simply packed them away and donned the apparel of the countryside.

He ditched the severed heads of the slave traders into someone's pig pen and the hogs went to town. From asking around, it seemed that the Garrow fellow he killed wasn't the wanted criminal he had hoped for. It was a shame there was no bounty to collect, especially after three days of putting up with the smell of those heads.

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The owner of an adventurer's shop yelped in pain from the lye touching his skin. He sold traveling and survival gear, such as rope, candles, dried rations, and other curios to help travelers survive the beasts dwelling outside man's domain. Now he was buying the last of Noah's haul, including the remains of several spiders and the barrel of slimes. A test had been necessary to convince him of the lye's ability.

"So? What do you think? Seven bronze and everything's yours."

"I can do five bronze, but only because you actually have living slimes. I've never seen them captured like this!"

"No, no, I can't do five..." Noah pretended to be lost in thought. "Do you sell maps?"

"We do."

"I want two maps, one of the country and one of the area. Throw those in and I can go down to five."

"For two maps added, the best I can do is three and a half bronze."

"Four bronze and you won't have to deal with me for the rest of the day."

"Deal."

With that, Tin and Noah left, having sold everything they deemed not worth carrying. The wagon and horses had already been exchanged for some lovely gold coins, so now they lived carrying everything they owned. Tin was in a good mood, now wearing proper clothes and footwear. She looked nothing like the slave girl that Noah had met when he first came to this world. One might look at her and not even think she was a slave.

The sun had almost set, but they made their way to their final stop, an inn known as the Old Wineskin. It was busy inside, the air stinking of pipe smoke, ale, and poor hygiene, and the floor creaking under countless pairs of shifting boots. The hostess, a large woman looking like she birthed children by the litter, greeted them at the door from behind a front desk.

"Are you here to eat or to sleep?" she asked.

"Both. What are your rates?"

"Five copper coins a night for one room. For ten, you also get firewood, a hot bath, and two square meals a day for one person."

Noah counted up the coins for him and Tin and stacked them on the table. "We'll take the full package for three nights."

The woman handed him an iron key. "Take a seat in the dining room wherever you like and I'll bring you the house special."

Noah led Tin through the crowd of drunken villagers, both of them on the lookout for pickpockets. Every man in the bar looked either like a Viking or the kind of guy that Vikings typically killed, all of their clothes made of either wool, linen, or animal hide. Any women were either travelers huddled together, or courtesans sitting across the laps of their drunk clients and laughing at every bad joke as they waited for the alcohol to take its toll.

Noah and Tin found a small table near the fireplace and took their seats with Noah warning Tin to put her bag directly under the table.

"This town is just as I expected," he said.

"Is something wrong, Master?"

"No, everything is fine. I rather like the atmosphere here, the feel of it."

He had seen plenty of towns that been knocked out of the modern age in his previous lives, usually due to some kind of apocalyptic event or because it was in a third-world country, but none of them had the Medieval Europe aura like in fantasy books and movies. For all of his life experience, this was something he was glad to finally be able to cross off his list.

"So we're going to stay here for three days? Then what?"

"I'm not sure yet. I don't have enough information. I want to know more about this country, about the other countries. I want to see what I can make of myself and what will give me the best chance of survival. But for now, I want to rest up for a few days and learn what I can about the area."

He took out the maps he had bought and looked them over. Their quality was just as he expected from a Medieval society. The map of the Algata province showed the towns around Clive, as well as vague rivers and mountains, but there was no scale for referencing distance and none of the roads were labeled. The national map was no better, but it did name the bigger towns and the capital of Uther near the southern coast. It was hard to determine the size of the country, but it was probably somewhere between England and Texas.

Right now, what he needed to work on was a backstory. True, this was not a country with an educated public, but Noah was still ignorant of the culture and lifestyle, something that would require years to catch up on. If he claimed to be somewhere but failed to answer a question that any native would know, it would make him look suspicious. In his past lives, his backstory would generate itself, just like everyone else, and as an adult, when he needed an alias, he could easily craft a new one using his knowledge of the world. This was the first time he had to create a new identity with so little information.

The hostess arrived with wooden trays and beer mugs. The house special was a bowl of meat and vegetable stew and a biscuit, with a pint of the local ale to wash it down with. Noah didn't even want to imagine how a health inspector would react to seeing the kitchen and how the food was prepared, but after three days of nothing but rock-hard bread and dried meat that was little more than salted leather, he ate greedily.

Tin, however, stared at her food. "Master, is it really ok for me to eat this? I need only scraps to survive. Master doesn't need to be so generous in buying me such wonderful food."

"You've done everything I've told you to do and have yet to disappoint me. You deserve to eat proper meals. Besides, I need you strong and healthy so you can continue to assist me."