What the fuck just happened? Darius told the community about the system? The whole community? Now everyone knew who Max was? What the system expected him to do? What he intended to do if he couldn’t think of something better?

  “Why?” The question slipped out his mouth as he tried to process what happened.

  The stuck Elder Aris was baffled as well. His panicked gaze showed his desperation to regain control. Finally, his mouth moved. “Is he right?”

  The question caught Max off-guard. “You’ve been painting me as a villain for weeks. Now that someone agrees with you, you’re questioning it? Of course, he’s right!”

  “…Can you stop Elder Darius from getting a penalty?”

  Max didn’t like his tone. It felt like Elder Aris was trying to bargain Cy’s life for Darius’s. Lucky for him, Max wasn’t willing to let the system completely have its way. “Sometimes you can lessen it. I heard Darius first learned about us when he was a kid. He saw some poor sucker’s soul and learned about the system. Since he was so young, he has no clue who the guy was… Is what I heard true?”

  “It is.”

  “Then not much we can do from here.” Max shrugged, before he headed for the exit of the kitchen.

  “Where the fuck are you going? Come back here! Are you listening to me, fucker?”

  It was easy to ignore the curse riddled shouting. They were slowly becoming even for all the times Max shouted at him only to be met with silence.

  Stepping out of Darius’s front door, Max wasn’t surprised to see the bare and gloomy looking forest. If it weren’t for the glowing runes covering the ground, tree bark, and stones; it would’ve been creepy. The filter had broken from the pressure of the runes. All that was left was the real face of Tsujuma. Once teleports, a series of bare stone arches replaced all the cabins. They must’ve deactivated all of the teleports apart from the one to Darius’s house to slow his progress.

  Max looked around at the work he had done over the last few weeks. Colour-coded and organised, he had outdone himself without the use of internal magic. The now glowing, green runes were demonstrating some of the natural magic they had been passively harvesting from the environment over the last month. Activated by his blood being spilt, the runes had a gentle hum as they worked in unison while tapping into the pool of harnessed power.

  There were three tanks of the harvested magic power. The first is connected to the pink runes, which were tracking inhabitants within his space. It was the latest edition. Max was pleased to see the repeat in an area command was working so well.

  The second tank powered the orange and yellow runes. The orange ones gave him a moderate amount of internal magic until the supply was used up. Every time he made contact with an orange rune, it was like getting a shot of internal magic. The yellow runes were enticing the local tree nymphs, who should already understand Max was the source. Just like how the wyvern followed Edric, they were obedient to him. The dryads were a low cost option he had installed while working on the pink runes.

  The last and the biggest pool of power was for emergencies. It powered the blue lines running like a wide grid, offering slow healing with contact. Lastly, it also charged the red runes, which were the only ones not glowing. It was a good sign. A death was yet to occur.

  It had been so much effort. Using the charm Edric gave Max and a slips of spare parchment from Elder Nova, Max could have a few minutes undetected by Darius and unaffected by the filter. Most mornings, he would wake up early to draw a few runes into the land beyond his balcony. Waiting for Darius to come home or while Cy was in his room, he took the chance to doodle runes in Darius’s dusty cooking books. Stepping out to grab drinks for Cy in the labs meant drawing a few runes on the equipment while waiting for the water to boil. Taking the long way to Farmer Bell’s gave him a chance to scratch a few runes into the trees. Working part-time also meant genetically modifying the livestock to have scarring runes internally. Even going to shout at Elder Aris gave him an opportunity to vandalise various things on the way.

  All that effort for a situation he had hoped would never arrive.

  Max sensed the danger before it was made clear for him. Instinctively, he made a barrier around him before he began hearing small clicks. It was like pebbles being thrown against a window. Looking down, he could see some damage being done to the soil, but it wasn’t disrupting the runes. As long as the tanks of magic power remain, the runes will redraw themselves.

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

  The source of the damage was puzzling before Elder Obi and Elder Ji-min came into view. Behind him, a burned Elder Aris emerged from Darius’s home. The enchanted glass beads of Elder Obi may not be having much luck against the runes outside, but it was enough to help Elder Aris regain control. Thinking back, Max forgot to connect Elder Aris’s binding rune to his rebuilding network.

  Looking at the angry and confused eyes around him, Max couldn’t help muttering, “… I guess my extension is going to be rejected.”

  “Leave our-” Elder Obi began before Elder Ji-min gestured for her to stop.

  “What’s the meaning of this Max? Why are you suddenly after Cyrus? I know you don’t want to, so give up. Let us help you.”

  Max looked at them confused. “Cy? Right now, Cy’s a low priority. He can wait until sunrise. I need to get to Darius. If I get to him quickly-”

  “He can’t reverse a penalty.” Elder Aris declared. He was itching to resume fighting but was clearly waiting for a cue.

  Elder Ji-min gave a slow nod. There wasn’t time for this… “I understand your concern-”

  “Good, then stay out of-”

  “But you needn’t be concerned. Elder Charaka is with him.”

  The news was a bit of a relief to hear. Darius still had a real chance if Max got to them quickly. “Great, just point me in his direction-”

  “We can’t let you.”

  Max looked at the Elders in disbelief. While it was true that they were right about him lying the whole time, surely, how could they doubt his abilities? “I can help.”

  “We don’t want your help.” Elder Obi butted in.

  “Why aren’t the curses working?” Elder Aris barked behind him at Elder Ji-min. There was accusation in his voice. “I thought you said they transferred properly?”

  “It did…”

  Max felt a little bad staring down at the old man. Regardless, now wasn’t the time for this. He lifted the bottom left-hand side of his shirt to show one of the many runes that was tattooed into his skin. The Elder’s mouths were agape as they pieced together what happened.

  Powered by whatever outside source which made contact with the wearer, the rune was a converter. “The raw magic got absorbed. The specifics of the spells were left behind… You shouldn’t have let Darius tell me beforehand.”

  The moment their awkward breakfast was over, Max rushed back into his room and used the charm to hide from Darius while he added one more new addition to his skin. It had been a pointless rush. Cy wasn’t feeling great, so he took his sweet time getting ready to go to Haiddeck’s house.

  “How did you…?” Elder Ji-min was at a loss for words.

  Elder Aris didn’t have this problem. “Elder Darius or Elder Charaka never mentioned him having any tattoos.”

  While the men stood puzzled, Elder Obi sneered in understanding. “We have a rat amongst us.”

  “… A few,” Max admitted without giving specifics. “If you let me go to Darius, I’ll tell-”

  “Everyone who had voted for you to stay must be involved.” Elder Obi’s angry gaze turned to the bewildered elder. She gestured to Elder Ji-min to leave. “Go. Now. Redeem yourself by causing no more harm to the innocent here.”

  “I…”

  “I don’t have time for this.” Max declared as raised his hand. It was a simple gesture causing efficient consequences as a rune, glowing from Max’s new internal magic, appeared in the sky above them.

  The three Elders around him found themselves suddenly glued to the floor. In particular, Elder Ji-min had taken the fall hard. His aging, frail body clearly struggled to endure the sudden impact as he let out a sharp groan in pain. Max would’ve been concerned if it he hadn’t coincidentally landed on a blue line. Glancing behind him, he saw Elder Aris was on another line. They’ll be back to normal by morning.

  “Stay here and out of the way. You lot are good at turning a blind eye, so keep it up for a bit longer. This’ll all be over before the sunrises.”

  After teleporting away, Max took the time to draw a line of his blood onto the pink runes causing some of the runes to disperse and a crude map open before him. Each little dot on the map indicated a living human. The more Max looked at the map, the more he realised his mistakes. The map didn’t encompass as much as he had hoped. He either made a mistake or forgot to add a label indicator onto the runes, so he didn’t know which dot was who. Lastly, there were so many clusters of dots. He presumed one was the Elder Obi’s orphanage and the other was Elder Charaka’s hospital, but he had no idea what the rest were.

  “Ah, fuck… Alright, come on out. Ah, only one will do.”

  Max was too late as several tree nymphs tried to rip themselves out of the trees. They had been impatiently waiting for the opportunity to show themselves once the runes had been casted.

  “No, come on. Please stop.” Max watched the dryads begin to fight around him as they showed each other back into their trees. This was the problem with using creatures like them. Not the brightest bunch. “You.” Max pointed at a random dryad. Three tree nymphs in the same direction pointed at themselves. “Yeah, sure, whatever. You three come here. The rest go back.”

  The unlucky dryads grumbled nonsensical words to themselves as they made their way back into their home.

  Max gestured to his map and spoke slowly and clearly. “This is a map. I need to find someone. The person I want is the hairy man I was living with.” The tree nymphs gave a confused look. “Okay, I’m looking for one hairy man and one old man who are near each other.” More confusion. “One hairy man and one old man together.” Finally, the message clicked. “Can you find them for me?”

  The tree nymphs turned to the other trees to start the whisper. As dumb as they were, the tree nymphs were excellent at being eyes in a wooded area. It only took a few seconds for the whisper to return. The dryads began pointing at various positions in the map. How can there be so many people like them together?

  “Wait, wait,” Max sighed in frustration. “Let me change my request. Is there a dying hairy man and an old man together?”

  All the dryads moved in unison to point out three glowing dots on the top of one of the mountains.

  Luckily, Elder Edric was gone. Elders Ji-min, Aris, and Obi were here. And Darius and Elder Charaka was somewhere together… Was the last dot Elder Nova?

  “Thanks. You can go now.”