“Are you ready for this?” I asked Voyd. She nodded her head. “Alright.” I slowly opened the trap door leading to the prison and took a peek inside. There was a long staircase leading down to a room where a single man stood guard. “Damn, you guys back already?” He said. “Don’t tell me you got your asses kicked.” He then looked towards the door “Wait… who the hell are you!?” I pulled out my gun and shot at him, but a glowing blue barrier appeared on his body right where the bullet landed and then the bullet vanished. “The fuck was that shit? Come here!” He yelled. I shot him again and again but the bullets kept disappearing and he ascended the stairs with no signs of slowing down. As he closed the gap, Voyd readied her staff and I started to feel a light breeze blowing against my back. The bandit got closer, but before he could get into stabbing range, a great wind came from out of nowhere and struck him directly. As the wind blew strongly into his chest he stopped moving and his body began to light up like a human lightbulb until the barrier shattered like glass. He was sent flying down the stairs and slammed into the back wall of the room. “Quick shoot him!” Said Voyd. I fired about six shots at him, the barrier didn’t activate and two shots went through his torso one struck the head. We only had to fight one guy, but that was way too close for comfort. And if not for Voyd, I would’ve died.
“What was that?” I asked her. “It was a warding spell. They absorb magic and give a small boost to physical defense.” Voyd said. “So when they get hit with enough magic they break?” I asked. She nodded. “Alright, that’s not so bad.” I responded. “Yes it is!” Voyd shouted. “I don’t have enough mana to fight an entire bandit gang.”
Damn she’s right, but didn’t that goddess tell me my gun uses less mana than normal spells? Now that I know what I’m up against I should be fine. I can’t tell Voyd about how my gun works though, what should I say? “It’ll be fine, now that I know what it is I can counter it.” I said. “Really?” She said as if she was unconvinced. “Yeah, really.” I replied.
Before continuing deeper into the prison I noticed the bandit we killed was wearing a bullet proof Kevlar vest. I have no idea where he got this from but it could be useful. My gun put a few holes in it but it’ll still keep most of my torso protected. I took the vest off him, put it on, then led the way deeper into the dungeon. We eventually entered what I assume used to be the guards barracks that the bandits “remodeled” as a common area. The room was filled wall to wall with crazy psychos that went hostile the moment I opened the door. I readied my gun, flipped the switch and started mowing them down like they were trying to storm Normandy. Their wards would break after about 7-10 shots and then they turned into swiss cheese. I cleared the room pretty effortlessly but I have no idea how much mana I’ve used. I don’t feel tired or fatigued or anything.
“Hey Voyd.” I asked, “how do you know when you’re running out of mana?” She looked shocked. “You mean you can’t tell?” I shook my head no. “Alright.” she said, “y’know when you’re running and you start to get tired, it feels like that. Eventually your spell casting will become less efficient until you’re so worn out you feel like you can’t cast another spell, then you collapse.” I think I get it now, from what I understand, mana works a lot like stamina. You can increase your mana by training and even as a person gets older, their mana will slowly decrease but they can prevent that by staying healthy. I’m not sure how much mana I got by default when I was sent here, but I feel fine for now so we continued further into the prison.
Eventually, we came across a giant tower-like room with prison cells lining the walls and a large spiral staircase that descended about 10 stories all the way down the bottom. As soon as the bandits realized I wasn’t friendly, they poured out of their cells and sprinted towards me like zombies. I gave them the same cheesy treatment everyone else got. This looked to be the end of the prison so I leaned over the top railway and shouted “Hey! Are there any hot red heads down there!?” There was no response. We descended down the stairs anyway to see if there was any good loot. We searched the cells of each floor as we went down. It looks like each bandit used one of these cells as their own personal bedroom. Inside them we found mostly weapons, armor and random trinkets. After searching one of the cells, we turned around to leave and saw a girl standing at the entrance with a bow drawn on us. “Who are you guys?” She said. We put our hands in the air. It was dark but I could tell she had red hair. She wore a leather tunic, a short and tattered skirt with knee high leather boots. My eyes adjusted and I finally got a good look at her face. She was hotter than anyone I’ve ever seen. I mumbled a short prayer under my breath, “Thank you goddess Sora for this blessing, I’ll make sure to never disappoint you.”
“Who the fuck are you guys!?” She screamed. “We came here to rescue you.” I said. “Huh? What kinda bullshit is that?” The girl said. “You’re the daughter of those nomads right?” I asked. “Um… yeah.” She replied. “Your parents sent us. You don’t have to worry we killed all the kidnappers already.” I told her.
“Kidnappers?” She said confusingly “Yeah.” I said. “I wasn’t kidnapped.” She said. “Uhhh what?” I said confusingly. “Is that what my parents told you?” She asked. “Yeah.” I replied. “They lied.” She said, “I wasn’t kidnapped, I ran away.”
“Wait, what!?” I yelled. “I told my parents I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with the tribe. I wanted to explore and go on adventures and learn more about the world.” She said to me. “Oh…” I said. “I guess my journey’s over now… thanks a lot.” She said. “Hey wait a sec,” I said, “you don’t have to give up on adventuring. You could come with us.”
“Just the two of you?” She said. “Yeah.” I replied. “Are you guys strong?” She asked. “I mean, we killed everyone in your old crew.” I said. “Hmm… fine, I guess I don’t have a choice.” She said. Score! I tried my best to hide my excitement but I don’t think it worked. It’s only day two and I already recruited a dime to the adventuring party. Soaria is the best goddess ever!
“Alright!” I said, “grab your things and let’s go!” She went to her cell, grabbed a few things and met us at the prison’s entrance. “You ready?” I asked. “Yeah.” She said. We started walking through the ruins back towards the nomads.
“What’s your name?” I asked the new girl. “It’s Robertha.” She replied. “Robertha?” I said confusingly “Yeah, what’s wrong with my name?” She said in an offended tone. Not gonna lie I expected the hottie to have a bit more of a feminine name. “Nothings wrong with it!” I said, “it’s just… a little long.”
“A little long?” She said confusingly. “Yeah! If we’re in a battle then your name could be too long to call out. What if we gave you a nickname?” I asked. “Sometimes my parents would call me Robert for short.” She said. “Uhhh, could we call you something shorter?” I asked. “What about Rob?” She suggested “Uhhh…” I was speechless. “What!?” She shouted at me.
Those nicknames aren’t gonna work! I’m playing the long game here, I can’t end up finally getting some poontang and then have to moan a dude’s name the whole time. “What if we just called you Ro instead?” I said. “Yeah whatever.” She said annoyingly.
Damn she’s not very friendly. Maybe she just needs time to adjust. “Well my name’s Jeff and this is Voyd, it’s nice to meet you!” I said in a friendly tone. “Yeah…” Ro whispered.
We continued walking for a little while. “Where are we going?” Ro asked. “Well first we’re going to talk to the nomads.” I replied. “What! Why?” Ro said concerningly. “Because we told them we’d save you, we should at least let them know you’re safe before we head out.” I said. “No we shouldn’t!” She shouted. “Why not?” I asked.
“You don’t know my parents like I do, once we go back they’ll never let me leave.” She said. “Well, even if that’s true we gotta go back. If we don’t tell them anything then they might go out looking for you and get themselves killed.” I told her. “So?” Ro said. What’s up with this chick? And I thought I was a shitty person. “Listen we agreed to help them so we aren’t gonna do something we know will get them killed.” I told her. “What’s the deal with you guys? Why do you care about some random people so much?” Ro asked. “I don’t,” Voyd said, “he’s just doing this ‘cus they gave him milk.”
“WHAT!?” Ro screamed. “Are you crazy? Why would you risk your life for that?” She asked. “I probably would’ve died anyway if they didn’t give me the milk!” I said, “Also these capital ruins aren’t as tough as they say.”
“So is that what you guys do? You help people for shit instead of just stealing it?” Ro asked. “Yep! I’m gonna show you two how to make the world a better place, starting with these guys.” I said confidently. We eventually made it back to nomads. Ro’s parents were unbelievably happy but Ro herself seemed kind of annoyed. I told her parents how we found her and pitched the idea of having her come adventure with us. “Absolutely not!” They said.
“But why?” I asked. “You may have helped us but we still don’t trust you.” They said. “What? Why don’t you trust me?” I asked. “I’m not sure what you’re up to, but you definitely have some ulterior motive.” They said. “Huh!?” I shouted. “We didn’t forget how you got all excited when we mentioned our daughter’s age.” They said. “What!?” Ro screamed. “They’re exaggerating.” I said. “Even if that’s so, we won’t let you take our daughter. She’s far safer with us.” Said the nomads.
“That’s not true at all!” I shouted, “I was able to do what you guys couldn’t do single handedly. Also your daughter wants to explore, wouldn’t you rather have her running around with me than some bandits?”
“We don’t want her running around with anyone other than us! And just because you were able to rescue her doesn’t mean you’re a skilled fighter.” The nomads said. “Fine then, what if I showed you I’m a skilled fighter?” I told them. “What do you mean?” They asked. “I’ll go back into the ruins, and I’ll recover a bunch of useful supplies like this armor I found and I’ll show you I can protect you and your daughter!” I said confidently. “You talking ‘bout the armor that’s got holes in it?” They said.
“Hey! Normal weapons don’t put holes in this armor. I’ll show you.” I called Ro over, “Hey! Are you a good shot with that bow?”
“Umm, yeah.” She said. “Do you think you could shoot my vest and avoid the holes?” I asked her. “Probably.” She said. “All right then, shoot me.” I said. The nomads started to freak out. “Wait, you don’t have to do this.” They begged. “Nah it’s fine.” I don’t care if I die, I’ll just get reincarnated into another shit world like this, I might as well act fearless and try to impress the hoes.
Ro positioned herself about fifteen to twenty yards in front of me and readied her bow. She drew the arrow back calmly, took a deep breath and released it. The arrow hit me square in the center of my stomach. She managed to avoid hitting the holes but it still felt like someone just punched me in the gut. I didn’t expect a flimsy arrow to have so much force behind it. I pulled the arrow out of the vest to reveal no damage had been done and the nomads were astonished. I took the vest off to show them how light it is and they couldn’t believe it. After the demonstration, they were more than willing to have me go and gather supplies for them, but there was a problem. “We can’t stay here.” They said. “Why not?” I asked.
“If we stay for too long, it’s only a matter of time until a group of bandits scout us out and attack. We must always stay moving, we were able to make an exception for my daughter, but a few artifacts no matter how powerful are not worth risking our lives over.”
Damn I hadn’t thought of that. It’s no wonder that there are no small villages or towns around here. It’d be difficult to set up in this environment and even harder to protect. But how am I supposed to split up with these guys then find them again? “Hey Voyd.” I said. “Do you think you could teach them a little bit of your wind magic to defend themselves?”
“Ummm…” Voyd hesitated. “What’s wrong?” I asked her. “I’d have no problem teaching them beginner wind spells but they won’t be that effective in combat and intermediate spells could take months to master.” Said Voyd. “Damn.” I said. “Beginner spells aren’t completely useless though, if they had a good enough defense they should be able to take on most bandit groups.” Voyd said. “Hey Ro, Did you learn any of the warding spells those bandits were using against us?” I asked her. “I only learned beginner wards, you guys came just a few days after I got there.” Ro replied
“That should be good.” Voyd said, “As long as you don’t fight any magic users a basic ward should be more than enough. I can teach healing magic as well just in case someone gets hurt.”
The nomads liked the idea. So we spent the next few days learning basic magic. Now I know how to set up a basic ward and heal small wounds. I skipped out on learning wind magic. I already have enough for offense and I was able to leave to go to the ruins a few days sooner. Voyd said she’d be fine alone with the nomads and I trust her. She seems to know a lot about this world for just a kid. After a couple of hours of walking I arrived at the capital ruins again. It seems quieter than last time, there aren’t as many bandits around. I wonder why that is.
Isekai: God Let Me Keep My Glock 