ROTLE- Chapter 236- Taboo Magic (Patreon)

“You’re joking?”

Aiden wished he was as he rested his back against the wall. The realization was weighing heavily on him. He wished he was wrong, but everything made sense, from a spellcraft perspective and from the perspective of how he knew that mana worked. It was the only thing that made sense. Trying to doubt it was nothing but wishful thinking.

It was the truth. It was the closest thing to the truth—the closest thing to what made sense. The question was why he hadn’t thought about it all these years.

He looked at Ted and shook his head. He was not joking.  “Fifteen from Bandiv,” he muttered, a new and slow anger growing. “Then five kingdoms.”

Aiden ran a shaky hand through his hair.

“Fifteen times five,” Valdan muttered, thinking out loud.

“Seventy-five,” Ted whispered, doing the same.

Rometo did his best to look a little saddened, or at least understanding of their current predicament. “Times twenty.”

“Fifteen hundred,” Ted muttered. He looked at Aiden. “It could drive a person mad.”

Aiden nodded solemnly. “It could. It could make a strong enemy.”

“What are the chances I found out?”

Rometo looked at Ted, confused. Right now, Aiden couldn’t bring himself to care about what secrets should be said or not be said in front of Rometo as he thought about it.

“Going back home is already enough motivation.” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “Knowing that the people chasing you were already monsters enough. God knows I’d want to cave their smug faces in.”

Valdan folded his arms. He looked like a man still stuck in disbelief. He looked at Rometo. “So you’re saying that the sacrifices, twenty people for one person was made by…”

“My world,” Aiden confirmed, his voice almost weak. “Yes.”

Ted’s look of sadness morphed slowly, turning to anger. “They sacrifice us to save their world and couldn’t even sacrifice themselves to bring us.”

“Thousands of parents and families who’ll never know what happened to their children.” Aiden looked at Rometo. “Thousands.”

He wasn’t one for empathy, but this riled him up well enough. This begged him for vengeance.

Rometo could tell the anger in the room. Just a moment ago, they had been fighting together. Now, the very strong possibility of them no longer fighting together was probably clear in Rometo’s mind.

“If it would make you feel better, they didn’t have a choice,” he said quietly.

Ted cocked a brow at him. “Explain.”

“According to the prophecies, the [Demon King] can come from anywhere, but not the [Hero].”

Aiden raised a hand to stop him immediately. “Did your family keep records of the [Demon King]s?”

“Yes,” Rometo answered slowly. “Why?”

“Was any a denizen of Nastild?”

“The next [Demon King] after the one I told you about was a denizen. In fact, the kingdoms stayed away from the summoning even after the darkness started rising because of the last [Demon King]. Unfortunately, someone in some village to the east rose to become the [Demon King]. The summoning took effect immediately. Nastild almost fell in that era.”

So, that was a justification that the [Demon King] was a problem that had nothing to do with the summoned.

“So, why the [Hero]?” Valdan asked, looking guilty. “Why so many lives?”

“And why are we the only ones bearing the sacrifice?” Ted asked, his voice angry. “Make us feel better.”

“Because the [Hero] is supposed to be a being who triumphs over their own affinity for demonic mana,” Rometo answered. “All humans—specifically humans, not the other races—have some affinity for demonic mana.”

Valdan’s eyes narrowed. He was thinking about something.

Aiden had an idea of what it was. “Yes,” he said, “it is why the humans are the fastest growing power among the races. It is why humans level up faster than the other races, even when they kill anything at all, and faster when they kill each other.”

“Why doesn’t anyone know this?” Valdan asked.

Rometo looked at him as if he was looking at a child. “And what would’ve changed if you all knew this?”

“Something,” Valdan said. But his voice sounded defeated, helpless. “Anything.”

Rometo nodded, as if the answer had made his point for him. “As I was saying, the [Hero] needs the kind of potential that can rival the [Demon King], for that, he needs the kind of affinity that gives him the highest potential not the highest demonic mana.”

“And the sacrifices?” Ted asked.

“If every person sacrificed has the potential to be a [Hero] or a [Demon King],” Aiden answered, his mind working through an answer, “and the spell needs demonic mana to work on this side, it would explain why it is only used when the darkness has started rising. Which means that it needs demonic mana to be operated on this end and needs demonic mana to keep it active on the other end.” He looked at Rometo. “Right?”

Rometo nodded.

“Which means that some of the sacrifices,” Aiden continued to piece it together, “either the strongest or the weakest—I’d guess the weakest—served to keep the spell active on our world.” He looked at Rometo again.

Rometo nodded. “Perhaps one or two only. Just to anchor the spell.”

“And the remaining was to fuel us,” Aiden finished. “We needed at least eighteen years of mana within us to awaken to our classes as early as possible. People like Valdan and denizens of Nastild were born already with mana within them from those who gave birth to them, then lived all eighteen years, absorbing the ambient mana around them. They absorbed them while doing things and carrying potentials.” He looked at Valdan. “The possibility of classes you could get was built over years of your life, years of your thoughts and actions shaping the mana within you to work in a slew of possible ways. All you did when the time came was activate your dormant mana.”

All they did was give it life. But this was not news. Aiden already knew this. In fact, more than half of Nastild royalty on this side already knew this. And perhaps all of Nastild’s royalty on the other side knew this.

“Human growth potential was why the other races doomed humanity to this side of the world when the barrier was raised,” Rometo added. “The [Demon King]s always came from humanity, so they hoped that when the [Demon King] rose, it would be in a world poor in mana. It would slow their growth, maybe even stunt it. Make it easier to deal with the problem.”

Aiden paused. While it made sense, some things still weren’t adding up. “But there are humans on the other side.”

“Greed.” Rometo shrugged. “Humans are also slaves on the other side, slaves to some races. When the division happened, some families were unwilling to give up their slaves. There were also some powerful families that would rather go to war than be condemned to weakness.”

“This has nothing to do with us,” Ted scowled. “I want to know about the sacrifices. Why?”

“Because we needed the mana and potential,” Aiden answered, knowing it to be true. “We had mana and potential that rivaled if not surpassed the eighteen years the average person on Nastild has. Then they put us to work. Class potential built over eighteen years was built in as short a time as possible, then awakened.” He looked at Rometo. “Somewhere between my world and this one, we absorbed the sacrifices to reach the type of power the spell needed us to reach by the time we came here.” His frown deepened. “They were sacrifices for us.”

Rometo pressed his lips into a thin line. “Only the strongest of those summoned made it to Nastild.”

“So, we ate the others,” Ted said. “Fun. And nobody pays for this.”

“Did the kings know?” Valdan asked.

Rometo shrugged. “I’d guess so. If they are the kind to pay attention to history and not just do as they are told.”

Valdan hung his head. “So King Brandis knew.”

“Yes,” Rometo nodded. “There is a very high chance that he did.”

“I see.” Valdan turned away, thoughts filling his eyes.

“So that’s why the king can’t find us a way back home,” Ted muttered. “He’s not willing to make the same sacrifice.”

“No.” Rometo shook his head. “That’s not the reason. It is a spell. Most of history considers it to be a world spell far beyond the level of world enchantments. The only way for the spell to send you back is for someone on the other end to summon you guys back. And even that can’t happen.”

Beyond the fact that there was nobody on Earth capable of summoning them back, Aiden wondered why there was no way. So, he asked, “Why?”

“Because,” Rometo answered, “the spell also depends on ambient mana.”

Ted spread his hands, anger still clear on his face. “Well, Nastild has all the ambient mana we need. And if this side doesn’t have enough, then we’ll go to the other side. We paid the sacrifice to come here. They’ll pay the sacrifice to send us back.”

“The abundance of ambient mana is the problem,” Rometo corrected. “Active ambient mana, to be precise. The spell is hindered by the ambient mana. It protects the world from intrusion. Your world had only the littlest ambient mana so it could not be protected from the intrusion. That’s why we swept in and took you.”

“The littlest ambient mana or no ambient mana?” Ted asked.

“The littlest,” Aiden answered. His mind ran through the things he knew about spells. Unable to cast them, he had learnt as much as he could about them to help in whatever and any way that he could. “Without the littlest active ambient mana a spell can’t work. There’s an enchantment of madness I know of that throws the ambient mana haywire. Spells find it difficult to work there—”

“People find it difficult to think there,” Rometo frowned, carefully not a fan of the enchantment.

“If there is no active ambient mana,” Aiden continued, “spells will not take effect, neither will enchantments. Earth has to have some kind of active ambient mana for the spell to have worked. Zero mana would mean no spell activation.”

“And Earth had some active mana,” Ted mused. “Maybe those magicians and the likes might’ve had something going for them.”

“Maybe,” Aiden agreed, uninterested.

“But this is all bullshit,” Ted snapped in the end. “If we could be brought here, we can be sent back. No one is willing to do it because it probably falls under something called taboo magic.”

Valdan’s head moved over to Ted immediately. “Like what Elami uses?”

Everyone froze.

Ted took a moment before he answered. “Elami uses taboo magic?”

“For fuck sakes! Ted!” Aiden hissed. “You knew and said nothing?”

Ted raised his hands in surrender. “Who said I knew anything about it?”

“You’re a shit liar. You lie better when you choose silence.”

Rometo’s face was hard. “A member of the party uses taboo magic?” His voice was filled with righteous fury.

“Oh, put it in a dishpan, Rometo,” Aiden rolled his eyes. “The Order has a department specialized in studying taboo magic. Don’t go being all sanctimonious. Even if you guys are also in charge of stopping anyone who uses it too.”

Valdan raised a hand. “I know that I’m the one who brought up taboo magic, but I don’t really know what taboo magic is.”

“It’s magic that people shouldn’t use,” Rometo answered.

“I know that,” Valdan replied. “What I don’t know is what exactly constitutes taboo magic.”

“They are mostly spells,” Aiden answered. “Blood spells are one, spells that channel living blood to activate. Then there are spells that include sapient sacrifices.” Personally, he found them all boring. Dangerous, but boring. “The summoning spell will fall under it, but I’m guessing with how powerful it is, there’s no point in calling it taboo magic.”

Rometo looked at Valdan. “How do you know that Elami used taboo magic, and when did he use it?”

Valdan looked at Aiden, and Aiden nodded.

“He healed me,” Valdan said.

“That’s healing magic,” Rometo pointed out.

Valdan shook his head. “It was less in healing me and in how he healed me.”

“And how did he heal you?” Aiden asked.

“He took someone’s life force,” Valdan answered, “and gave it to me.”

Something clicked into place in Aiden’s mind. A lot of things were beginning to piece themselves together. Elami saved Valdan using another person’s life force. He had been hesitant to heal Fjord but had done so in the end.

He looked at Ted. “Teddy.”

“Aida.”

Aiden moved a lock of hair from his eyes and fixed his gaze on his brother. “Elami isn’t really a [Healer], is he?”

There was moment of silence, short but full.

Ted sighed in resignation.