'Oh? I always figured I'd end up here when I died.'
Davi Hawker wasn't shocked by what he saw. One moment, he was about to engage with a Knight, who he knew was well above his league, and the next, he was filled with holes and rapidly bleeding out.
It had been over in an instant. He hadn't even been able to process the attack, aside from the words that came from the woman's lips. Light magic was… Well, it was made of light, and light was quite fast, so he had no chance of blocking or defending himself.
Not to mention the spell the woman cast didn't start with Row, which meant that it was a higher level. He was screwed from the start. Even Gray would have been impossible to beat, but that woman had been on a level hundreds of times above him. As everything faded and turned black, Davi found himself in a familiar place.
He floated in his Shadow Vault. A sea of black stretched out in all directions, and in the very center was him. He didn't breathe since there was no air in this realm, nor did he sink into the infinite abyss that was beneath him, since it also wasn't water. The vault just consisted of pure mana.
He had always wondered if he created this place or if it was something that all users who had shadow magic had access to. Either way, growing up and discovering such a thing existed was enough to convince him that this was the place he would end up at once he died. He didn't know why or how, but Davi always suspected that when he finally closed his eyes, it wouldn't be some grand afterlife or warm place waiting for him. Instead, it would be this vault. A frozen, empty sea that existed to torment him.
'So, I guess this means I'm dead?' Davi thought and looked down at his hands. They weren't made of flesh, and he no longer had blood. Instead, his entire body was outlined in black and filled in with his blue mana that almost made him appear as if he was on fire. It was as if he had tried to create his shadow armor but in the image of himself. 'I sure look like a ghost.'
With nothing left to do, Davi decided to take stock. In the battle with Gray, he had turned his vault over and allowed everything within to spill out, yet he could still feel the presence of two things that remained inside the vault.
The first object came to him when he thought of it. The vault twisted and altered, reality shifting around him to his whim, and it appeared before him.
It was long and thin, with a bit of thin wire running along the edge of it and a hook connected to the end of it. The object in question was a fishing pole. His most treasured item and the one thing he would never get rid of. It was old and worn, showing years of use, and needed to be fixed almost constantly. The only reason it even worked still was due to all the mana he had poured into it. The thing was practically a magic item and would likely have the grade of C or even B if someone else were to appraise it. To Davi, though, it was the best tool in the world.
This was because it had been a gift from his father. Orion not only passed down the Way of Self-Iron Martial Arts and the Way of the Sky-Cutting Sword Style, but also this fishing rod.
Davi reached out, and his fingers wrapped around the handle. It felt right in his hands, and he flicked his wrist out, letting the rod loose. The lure fired out and swam through the air, his mana coating the wire and rod, allowing it to flow as if it were alive. He flicked his wrist again, and the wire pulled back and coiled itself around the rod, shrinking down.
It was thanks to this fishing rod that he was still alive. It had allowed him to fish once he climbed out of the ruins of his home and kept him and his brother well fed. That was most likely how he got such a high-grade fishing trait. It had been so long since he had gotten to fish.
Now, though, it didn't really matter.
Davi sighed and let go of the rod, allowing it to sink back into the abyss where it faded away from him. He turned away and shook his head, crushing his memories and emotions back down like he always did when he felt anything. There was still one more item in his vault that hadn't gotten blasted out.
This object didn't come to him when he called upon it and, in fact, actually ignored his call and moved further away from him, the space growing. If he wanted to get to it, then he'd have to head to it himself. How did he know all of this? Maybe it had to do with the body he now had being closely connected to his vault or a gut feeling; he did not know, but Davi floated through the nothingness, heading in the direction that he vaguely guessed was down.
It felt like swimming. He was able to will his body down, and he dropped, getting deeper and deeper. At least he thought he was going down. In truth, he didn't know which way was which since there was no way to tell the directions. Eventually, though, Davi reached what he was looking for.
He could have been traveling for a few hours, a couple of days, or even hundreds of years. Everything blurred together as he glided through the darkness, and the only reason he knew he reached his destination was that he saw a faint glow in the void. Then, Davi felt his feet touch down on some sort of floor. It was black, just like everything else in the realm, but it allowed him to stand rather than float.
He had reached the very bottom of his vault—the place where it was the coldest. He shivered once again, but not because of the cold; rather, it was because of what he saw.
Scattered down at the bottom were the shadow beasts. He didn't actually know what they were called; he just dubbed them that since they were made of pure mana and darkness. Most mages could make constructs, and some could even make living constructs, using enchantment to program them, but what always confused Davi was the existence of these creatures.
He hadn't summoned them, nor did he control them. A time or two, they even tried to attack him when he was a kid and had first discovered his vault spell after his mother taught it to him. They were here long before him, which was why he thought that his vault might be something other shadow magic users had.
The shadow beasts looked like a weird mix of a human and a bird. They had a human body and human legs, but talons replaced feet, and wings replaced arms. Like him, they lacked flesh, being made entirely from shadows. They would have been pitch-black if not for the fiery blue mana that outlined them. Of course, their most notable thing, at least to Davi, was their head. It was hawk-like and stared blankly ahead.
There were hundreds of the weird beasts, all scattered at the bottom of his vault where he always kept them. Usually, they'd attack him, but this time, they didn't. They didn't even acknowledge that he was there. They all just stared blankly out into the sea, not moving. Some were seated, and others were standing, but all of them crowded around the only item left that was in his vault.
'Pardon me. Coming through.' Davi awkwardly shuffled past the creatures. He expected them to attack him or something, but none did. Eventually, he made his way to the center of the crowd of shadow beasts and saw what they were standing around.
The reason it was so cold was because of this final item. It was also the object that had once sent the Mordheim Kingdom back into the ice age and caused him and his brother to march through a blizzard. The item itself was likely why everyone said his mana was so cold. Just by having it in his vault was enough to render his mana icy and dark, masking his real mana's feel.
It was a sword, one that was stabbed into the ground, but not in the typical way that most would think of.
The sword in the stone was a common trope in fairy tales. Haru's legendary blade was a powerful weapon that she stored away by impaling it into the ground, and most stories copied what she did. Those sorts of swords were always described the same way: half the blade was impaled into a rock, tree stump, or other object, and the sword remained in place, waiting for its rightful owner to draw it.
This sword wasn't like that. It was buried all the way through the black floor that made up his vault. Not an inch of the blade poked out, and even the crossguard was beneath the floor of the vault. A small portion of the handle that poked out was the only indication that a sword even resided in the floor. It was rusted, worn down, and coated in layers of ice. Even if he did have a body, he wouldn't be able to get the sword out. The day he first opened his vault was the same day he discovered the sword.
The mana that gushed off the blade was ominous and cold. Even in his ghostly state, he was freezing just being near the thing. Despite that, Davi felt his blood boil slightly at the sight of the blade. He always hated the cold, and this sword was something that existed to simply freeze things. He didn't know how it got into his vault, but ever since Olis told him of how people could sense mana, he was convinced this sword was the reason everyone always looked at him in disgust or fear. He felt emotions, he wasn't cold, and he did care about things, but this tainted burden, which he was forced to carry, spoke for him, and most people were content to hear it instead of what he had to say.
'Perhaps that was why I lied to Olivia.' The thought had occurred to Davi. He knew the right thing to do would have been to tell her he wasn't really a Knight once he learned the truth, yet it had been nice to have a mage who didn't judge him for once. Someone who wasn't bothered by how cold he felt. She even praised him and congratulated him. It felt good.
Now, it was over. Olivia knew the truth, and he was likely dead or dying, with the number of holes that had been blasted into him by that blonde woman.
As if on cue, a cracking sound echoed through the empty vault, and Davi looked down, finding a jagged wound had opened up along his shadowy chest. It was followed by dozens of other breaks, which started to expand, and the mana that formed him started to flicker and break. If he wasn't dead before, then that meant he was dying now. His form was coming undone. He was fading away.
'Sieg's going to be pretty mad…' Davi let out a bitter chuckle. 'Hopefully, he can find the Dragon without me.' Davi closed his eyes and let out a sigh. 'Oh well. I tried my best. It wasn't the greatest life, but it wasn't that bad either toward the end. I'm content.'
Yet, this wasn't the end of his story. It would have been easy for him to simply bleed out and die. In a way, it could even be described as a fitting end for the life he lived, dying alone and fading away in his vault.
Davi Hawker wasn't alone, though.
Someone was with him.
Someone was calling his name.
"Davi!"
Davi's eyes snapped open, and he looked up. There was a light. An opening in the vault. He could hear yelling, and the cold was fading. His body was still cracking, but it was slowed now. Davi floated through the vault, going higher and higher as he reached out for the light and the voice that called his name.
And then Davi Hawker woke up.
Davi sat up and gasped, his eyes going wide as he sucked in air. His entire body ached, and for the second time, he found himself waking up in a new location with Olivia next to him.
"Olivia?"
"Finally! You're up!" The white-haired girl cried out, and she hugged him before he could process what was happening. Davi awkwardly patted her back and weakly looked around, still feeling flashes of pain go through him. "I was getting worried when you wouldn't wake up." Olivia didn't let go of him and hugged him tighter. "I—I thought you were going to die…"
Davi awkwardly winced and pulled away from her. He definitely felt like he was on death's door. The Knight hadn't been gentle with him, that was for sure. "Where are we?" He asked quietly.
"Somewhere in Daffodil," Olivia whispered. "They threw us in the dungeon."
The room they were in was small and cramped. It wasn't made for two people, and it only had a bed on one side and a bucket in the corner for using the bathroom. The floor was a dirty, cold stone, as were the walls, and instead of a door, there were large iron bars that were rusted and old-looking, with a slot near the bottom for plates of food to be slid through. A flickering torch on a wall past the bars illuminated the cell. The room smelled awful, and Olivia didn't look much better now that he eyed her up.
Olivia had been a little pretty in a sort of tomboyish way. She never wore makeup or did her hair that much, and she also didn't wear dresses; she wore practical clothes for traveling. Now, though, her hair was a tangled mess, and her skin was covered in dirt. She wore dirty brown rags that were falling apart and barely covered her, and her eyes were bloodshot and accented with heavy bags.
His own condition was the same. His clothes had been removed, leaving him in the same rags Olivia had on, and the time spent on the dirty floor hadn't done his pale skin any favors. His clothes were also sticky and stained red, his body still littered with cuts and wounds that were scabbing and bleeding.
He felt like hell.
"How long was I out?" Davi asked. He tried to stand, but his legs were asleep.
"A week," Olivia said sadly.
"A week!" Davi's eyes went wide with shock. "Seriously?"
"Yeah." Olivia nodded. "That woman riddled you with holes, and then those Knights tossed you in here. You were bleeding so badly that I thought you were going to die, so I've been healing you over and over again, three times a day." Olivia was always pale, but she was deathly so now, and Davi wondered how much blood she had used on him.
"It uses your blood for healing as well?"
"Yeah," Olivia said bitterly. "That's why I can't just heal myself to get my blood back. If I want to recover a pint of blood, it takes a pint of my blood. But my blood can transform and become a perfect match for anyone. I'm really not that good at healing, so I just kept transferring my blood to you whenever I could to make sure you didn't bleed out. Since my body heals naturally thanks to my blood magic, giving you my blood lends you a watered-down version of my healing factor. It was barely enough to keep you alive."
Each mage was born with a certain grade for each of the six schools. Most mages tended to be completely in tune with one school, which was the one they were best at, and entirely unattuned to another school, which was the school they couldn't use at all and would be ranked as E. Naturally, having a school that was an S grade was considered the best.
Like stats, a mage could improve the grade of a magic school so long as they worked hard on it and it wasn't of E rank, since anything that was listed as E was impossible for a mage to use. Theoretically, if a mage trained and worked hard enough, they could possibly have S as a grade for all magic schools. It was believed only Haru was able to reach such a level in magic.
"Don't feel too bad." Davi flexed his arm slightly and tried to stand once more, this time managing to do so, though his legs wobbled. "You saved my life. I can't even use healing magic."
"It's not okay." Olivia shook her head. "I can't believe the Knights were so harsh on you! They nearly killed you!"
Davi rubbed his neck weakly. "To be fair, I kind of forced that Gray guy's hand; he kept trying to get me to stop, but I was a stubborn bastard who thought I could win."
Olivia nodded weakly. "The Lance of Victory… Do you know her?"
The image of Tori came to Davi's mind for a moment. "Never seen her before. She seems to know me, though. Kept giving me weird 'fuck me' eyes. Creeped the hell out of me." He shuddered.
Olivia balled her hand into a fist. "I always looked up to her. She's one of the top five strongest Knights in the whole world and is considered to be the next Haru by a lot of people. I was so happy when I first got to see her in my village, but then she went and did this to you? I really don't know how to feel." Olivia sighed and curled up slightly. She glanced back at him. "Gray came by to see you while you were unconscious."
"Oh yeah?"
"He told me everything."
Davi felt a pain in his stomach. "Yeah?"
"You're not really a Knight."
"I am not."
"Why did you lie?" Olivia demanded.
Davi awkwardly looked away and shrugged. "I didn't know at first. I was called an Arcane Knight by a few random villagers I saved. Growing up, my brother told me how cool and strong the Knights were, and the two of us wanted to embody those ideals. I thought I was a Knight, the way I ran around in my armor, saving people."
Olivia let out a snort. "Davi, you have to be knighted by a king or lord to be a Knight."
"Well, I know that now." He grumbled.
Olivia laughed again and shook her head. She opened her mouth and went to say something, but a loud bang echoed into their cell. Davi's eyes narrowed, and he turned, going on guard, but his body felt weak, and his mana still hadn't fully recovered, since mana was tied to physical health, and he was still basically on death's door.
Past the cell was a stone hallway. Their cell was placed at a corner, and they couldn't see much past it, other than the dirty floor outside. The sound of a door slamming shut, though, got both of their attention, followed by the sound of footsteps bouncing off the walls.
Eventually Davi looked up and saw a familiar face staring down at him. "Hey, Mr. Davi." Gray nodded. "I hope you're feeling better, because you and I seriously need to talk."