Kelmir’s first move was to activate a shield for Erhard. Since his encounter with the unknown entity, he had kept a full set of protective wards on himself at all times. No guarantee they would help if it appeared again – but it was better to be prepared.

  The magical shield easily deflected the attackers’ spell.

  They clearly hadn’t expected resistance and hesitated for a moment. Though even if they had renewed their assault instantly, it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  “Binding. Submission.”

  Another favorite spell from the archmage’s repertoire.

  The attackers froze, unable to move. The invisibility charms slipped away, making them visible to everyone. Kelmir checked their levels. All four were around one hundred thirty. Powerful mages – meaning they hadn’t been the lowest ranks in the archmage’s service. He thought he might feel some spark of recognition. But no – every one of them was a stranger to him. Sometimes he regretted that, along with the archmage’s knowledge, he hadn’t inherited his memories as well. Kelmir was certain they held countless incredible secrets.

  Something else, however, struck him as odd. The mages were brimming with mana – overflowing with it – and that was wrong.

  When the archmage performed the ritual, he severed himself from all those he had empowered. Without that source, even the most gifted mages would need years to accumulate such a vast amount of mana on their own.

  There was one more possibility. Since the Archmage’s death, none of his servants had used magic at all – maybe they had survived through purely mundane means. Unlikely. Very unlikely.

  Well, that was exactly why the second half of the spell existed. “Submission.”

  Those bound by it would answer any question. Obey any command.

  Kel took a step toward the platform – just as Erhard finally snapped out of his shock. The artist grabbed his arm and tried to drag him away.

  “Have you lost your mind? I don’t know what’s wrong with them, but we need to run while we still can!”

  Kel shook his hand off with ease.

  “Don’t interfere.”

  He didn’t bother circling the platform to use the stairs – just leapt up in one smooth motion. Kel landed lightly and faced the mages.

  Behind him, Erhard muttered to the empty air, his voice barely above a whisper:

  “Yeah… he’s completely lost it.”

  Apparently, the artist had no intention of running off alone.

  The mages stood motionless, obedient and hollow. Their faces looked less like people and more like carved dolls.

  “Why did you come here?” Kel asked.

  “For the glory of the Master,” all four replied at once.

  Kel grimaced. Questioning people under this spell required extreme precision. In this state, they took every word painfully literally.

  All right. Think before you speak.

  “Who sent you here?”

  That was the question he cared about most. What the mages had been doing on the platform, he could figure out later with a thorough inspection.

  But the idea that they had come here on their own? Kel didn’t buy it for a second.

  The mages stayed silent – an unpleasant surprise. Their faces twitched in ugly spasms, as if the words were clawing at their throats, desperate to escape. Which made sense. Mages of this level would have formidable protections, and the name of their true master was the one thing they’d resist revealing with everything they had.

  “Hey, Kel… I don’t think they’re going to answer,” Erhard said from behind him.

  Kel ignored him.

  He’d wanted to handle this gently, but that clearly wasn’t going to work. Kel reinforced the spell. Tearing truth and memories out of a person’s mind was excruciating for the victim – and could leave permanent damage to the brain.

  On the other hand, this quartet hadn’t come here to hand out candy to children.

  “Who sent you here?”

  This time, the mana-laced words should have smashed through any defense like a battering ram through castle gates.

  “Our Master,” the mages hissed, the answer ripping out of them with a wheeze.

  Fuck.

  “What is his name?”

  The mage standing in front of Kel made a wet, gurgling sound. His face turned a deep, ugly purple. The same thing started happening to the others. Kel felt a violent surge of mana.

  Pity, Kel thought, stepping a few paces back.

  “What?! By the Great Gods… that’s disgusting! What’s happening to them?”

  Erhard reacted with far more emotion than the situation deserved.

  Kel sighed and took another step aside so the purple sludge wouldn’t stain his boots. A moment later, there was nothing left of the mages except that same reeking mess.

  Whoever their master was, he was an extremely powerful mage. The curse placed on his servants had been designed to kill them the moment anyone tried to pull information out of their minds. And not just kill – because with enough skill, even a corpse could be interrogated. But when nothing remained of a person at all, no spell in the world could summon answers.

  Strong magic. Dark magic.

  Very few people were capable of something like that.

  If he was being completely honest, only one name kept popping into Kel’s head. But he wasn’t suffering from split personality – he knew he hadn’t conjured it himself.

  Maybe the Archmage had trained one of his closest aides. That explanation made a lot more sense.

  Kel realized he was on edge. Nothing had gone as it should have, starting with Aigon’s injury. This world wasn’t the one he knew from the game. Maybe his arrival had shifted things, and now the story was heading down a completely different path. Maybe his old knowledge wouldn’t be of any use anymore.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “That wasn’t you, was it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming you,” Erhard’s voice pulled Kel out of his spiraling thoughts.

  “Not me,” Kel said.

  Technically, it was true. He hadn’t cast the self-destruction spell himself – he’d just triggered it by accident during the interrogation.

  “So… can I safely call the guards now?” Erhard asked.

  “Wait a bit,” Kel said.

  First, he needed to see what those mages were actually up to. If they’d set a trap, it was better to find it first and avoid unnecessary casualties.

  Under the stage, there were crates with decorations. On some of them, Kel spotted traces of curses. Someone had clearly wanted to ruin the festival for everyone.

  “Last time, everything went perfectly… how much has this new reality changed things?” The thought gnawed at him.

  Kel crouched down, letting his magical vision sweep over the crates. Faint, twisting runes glowed where curses had been laid. Not enough to explode in a flash, but enough to ruin anyone careless enough to touch them.

  “Someone wanted to make this festival a nightmare,” he muttered, brushing his fingers through the air above the carvings. A faint tingle ran along his skin.

  “You’re telling me all this was supposed to go off during the celebration?”

  Kel didn’t answer right away. He traced the flow of mana through the crates, noticing how the curses were linked – threads pulsing like veins, feeding into each other. “These aren’t simple pranks. Whoever did this knows what they’re doing. They’re professionals.”

  He took a deep breath and pushed a hand toward the closest crate. A thin barrier of magic leapt to life, brushing against his fingers. Kel’s eyes scanned the rest of the stage, every shadow and every crack in the wood. Kel began moving deliberately from crate to crate, drawing the curses into his control, isolating the magic one by one. Each thread snapped under his focus, unraveling like a spool of thread, harmlessly fading into the air.

  The guards who were supposed to watch over the props were slumped near the crates. Surprisingly alive, just under a Sweet Sleep spell. No need to make extra noise – magic traps laid by the mages, and the guards dream they’re standing at their posts.

  As he inspected the area, Kel’s mind ran over what to do with Erhard. At least he was paranoid enough to have prepared for some situations, almost like the Archmage himself. Still, every time it came up, it annoyed him more and more.

  “Think about the Tower mages and that cursed Alliance,” Kel reminded himself. “Maybe later…”

  Kel pulled out the protective artifact and held it up for the patrolman to see.

  “It can reflect any spell up to level seventy. And bounce them back at the caster. Paid a fortune for it,” he said with mock pride. “Knew it’d save my life someday.”

  The mage in the blue robe standing beside the patrolman gave the artifact a quick glance. Kel knew there was nothing to argue about. There was no way to check a mage’s level now.

  “So… the spells the attackers sent your way… it bounced them right back?”

  “Exactly!” Kel nodded enthusiastically, keeping up the act of the naive idiot.

  “But as an adventurer, I couldn’t just run off. I wanted to bind them until the guards arrived. And well… they turned into this mess.”

  “Out of nowhere?” the mage asked skeptically.

  “Almost. I asked who sent them, and instead of answering… well, that happened.”

  “Got it.” The mage jotted another note on his clipboard.

  They were released pretty quickly. The royal contractor’s pass Erhard carried helped more than a little.

  “I need a drink,” he said once everything was done.

  “Again? You could barely stand before,” Kel said.

  “Exactly. Past tense. Then fear sobered me up real fast.”

  The artist had a point.

  This time they ducked into a small tavern down a side street. The semi-basement building was almost completely wrapped in grapevines.

  “It’s late. Decent people drink wine, not ale. So… are you a decent person?”

  “Doubt it,” Kel admitted honestly.

  “I’m an artist, really. No sense of decency or morality, at least by most people’s standards. But I’ll drink wine – and I suggest you do the same.”

  A pretty girl quickly brought their order. Kel took a sip of red wine. The conversation didn’t flow. Whatever ease they’d had during the day was gone.

  He looked around the room. The tavern was different from the one they’d visited earlier. Smaller, but brightly lit. Paintings hung on the walls, and a few slightly tacky statues occupied the corners.

  “The owner has horrible taste, but he doesn’t care one bit,” the artist confided. “He’s extremely proud of his collection. He called this place the Creative Corner. Writers, poets, bards, and actors get a permanent discount. But not mages – so you’re paying your own way.”

  “I’m not a mage,” Kel objected, then added, “I failed the Tower exams anyway.”

  Irritated, he grabbed his cup and took several quick sips.

  Erhard shrugged carelessly.

  “I never spent a day at the Academy of Fine Arts. So what? I paint, I get paid… Well, most of the time. That makes me an artist. You weave spells, that makes you a mage. Life’s complicated enough – why make it worse?”

  “The Tower mages would absolutely disagree with you. And they’d be furious. Sorry, Erhard, I have to head back. Thanks for the company – I hope we meet again.”

  He dropped a few gold coins onto the table. That would cover their entire bill, even with capital-city prices.

  Kel lied again. A new encounter with the artist wasn’t part of his plans. You never knew when he might need to use magic, and any friendship would only hold him back. So, goodbye, cheerful, naive Erhard.

  Left alone, Erhard picked up the cup with the leftover wine and began swirling it in his hands. His thoughts drifted back to the purple puddles on the stage, and a wave of nausea hit his throat.

  He really had been absurdly lucky. He had planned to check the decorations anyway that evening, and if he’d faced those mages alone, it was doubtful even a puddle would have remained.

  He’d met Kelmir at just the right moment. His instincts hadn’t failed him. The new acquaintance was a mage, no matter what he said.

  Don’t interfere.

  Erhard shivered. Just hearing that voice had sent goosebumps down his spine. And during the encounter with the mages, his heart had nearly dropped into his stomach.

  The Tower mages would absolutely disagree with you.

  During his travels with his mentor, Erhard had crossed paths with many mages from the Tower. Some were weak, some strong, some kind, some outright villains. But not a single one had ever sparked in him such raw, almost primal fear as Kelmir. Even during the assault on the Archmage’s castle, he had felt calmer than he did today near the stage.

  …And they would be furious.

  If Erhard feared angering anyone, it was only Kel. And the silly chatter near the stage had been nothing but a mask to hide that fear. It was hard not to fear a man whose aura tried to pin you to the ground – even while standing yards away. He didn’t even want to imagine how the mages must have felt.

  Then, in front of him, Kelmir was just an ordinary, quiet guy, spinning tales about an adventurer.

  He couldn’t be blind to the fact that this mask sat on him as awkwardly as a clown’s wig.

  Erhard poured himself more wine from the jug beside him.

  He realized immediately: Kelmir no longer wanted to see him. Any other person would have sighed in relief. He hadn’t been considered a threat – or maybe they assumed he’d bought into the lies about the artifacts. He’d seen what he shouldn’t have, and yet he was still alive. By all rights, he should forget everything and enjoy life.

  But Erhard was used to facing his fears head-on.

  It was well past midnight, but Kel didn’t want to return to the baron’s estate. He teleported to the apple orchards a few miles away. The blossoms had already fallen, and soon summer would take spring’s place.

  He wanted to believe he’d meet that summer far from here.

  He sat on a stump and opened the system interface.

  Since arriving in this world, none of his stats had changed. He pulled a Dexterity potion from his inventory and drank it.

  +20 points.

  Another +15 points came from a Strength potion.

  Pathetic numbers compared to his overall stats. Numbers flickered at the edge of his vision. A countdown began, showing the remaining duration of the potions.

  Could he even level up anymore? Not with potions, but the way the Archmage had?

  "First, learn to handle what you already have," Kel scolded himself. He’d only been training for a few days and had seen little progress. Any strong surge of mana still battered his body.

  The thought that training might take years was unbearable. He wouldn’t feel safe until he had full control over his magic. And with the constant surprises and adventures that kept popping up, mastery wasn’t optional – it was vital.

  A sudden, excruciating pain tore through him. Worse than when he’d tried to trace the source of his mana. His core felt as if it had been squeezed into a fist, every drop of mana pressed toward the edge. Kel tried to stand, but instead fell to the ground. In an instant, his body became weightless, filled with euphoria.

  He lay on the earth and stared at the night sky, beautiful yet fractured, rusted like an ancient bronze mirror.

  His consciousness split in two. One half laughed with wild joy. The other froze, paralyzed by horror. And both halves understood the same truth.

  The First Omen.

  The Gray Calamity had entered this world.