Isekai Magus 5: A LitRPG Progression Saga, page 1
Isekai Magus 5
A LITRPG PROGRESSION SAGA
THE FANTASY WORLD OF NORDON
BOOK FIVE
HAN YANG
Copyright © 2023 by Royal Guard Publishing LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Intermission 1
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Intermission 2
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
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About the Author
Chapter
One
JOINT BALLROOM, NEW MOONGUARD CITY & LEDA CASTLE
“See, boss? I made sure the carpets matched the drapes, just like Lady Tarla insisted.”
Nee gave a grand and lingering hand wave at the carpets outside the ballroom and the drapes which hung from the windows. Her face had a wide, proud smile that I nonetheless deduced had nothing to do with the joke she’d just made. From the look on her face, she had no idea that she’d even made a joke.
I snorted so loudly that my morning tea shot out my nose and sprayed all over both the thick red carpet and the satiny red drapes in a big arc that ruined both before heading towards Tarla.
Tarla saw it coming before it hit her. My wife gasped and jumped quickly out of the way. Then she tripped and landed on her butt. She smacked her head against the floor for good measure and I worried for a minute that I’d have another broken neck revival situation on my hands.
Revival magic swirled in my fingertips before I noticed that my wife wasn’t dead. She was giggling with her red hair disappearing into the thick red carpet.
Tarla gave me an eyebrow raise as she clambered back to her feet.
“Saved by the carpet!” she proudly announced, pointing to her unbroken neck.
I tried to rub Earl Gray from my new beard while shaking my head and smiling at her. “Sounds like we should get more carpets around the place. The thicker the better. Speaking of which -“I turned to Nee and gave up on rubbing the Earl Grey out. The most I’d done was get my hand wet. “- I never knew you were a comic genius, Nee. Warn me the next time you make a joke like that, especially when Tarla’s around. a good thing I’m not in my tux yet, either. Otherwise, I’d put you on the hook for dry cleaning.”
Since setting up the first direct portal between the two planets, I was happy to have regained contact with my Nordan cities and their inhabitants.
Nee especially was a welcome sight. The goblin ogre had leapt at the opportunity to help design the ballroom, and quickly proved capable. I might not have been gifted in the interior design department, but I wanted everything to be perfect for the celebration of Tarla’s and my marriage.
Unfortunately, my comment seemed to have derailed the show and tell that Nee was currently giving us.
“Dry cleaning? How would you clean something without getting it wet first?” Nee asked, giving the drapes and the carpet a long, confused stare while she gave her lip a finger tap.
“Good question, Nee. But I want to know what the joke was! I didn’t get it.” Tarla added with a pout.
I pinched the bridge of my nose while a wide smile spread across my face.
The deep red velvets and satins of drapes, carpet, and chair cloth brought a certain dimness to the room. But Nee had seen to that, and placed glittering, golden framed mirrors strategically about the room to increase the lighting.
At the edges of the room, and beneath the thick carpet, the pristine marble floor had cost a pretty penny. It cost an even prettier sum of kilozorta.
And it had barely been installed properly. Once dad heard I wanted marble floor, he couldn’t be stopped.
Since dad was a stonemelder, he demanded that he should install it. Before I knew it, I was neck deep in managing my own father as he tried and failed to manufacture marble up to my standards.
Frankly, he did not manufacture it up to even a blind man’s standards.
Was dad an exuberant mage?
Absolutely.
Was dad a skilled mage?
Let’s just say I bought the good marble dance floor from a quarry in King Bastille’s kingdom. Let’s also say that I had it installed between one and six in the morning, so dad would never know about the bait and switch.
I gave Tarla’s beautiful red hair a meaningful look, then allowed my eyes to travel south towards the wide belt cinched at her waist. “It’s a joke that people make about redheads, mostly. The joke is wanting to know whether the color of the drapes, or your hair, matches the color of the carpet, which is your…”
I let the sentence hang there for a few moments and my beautiful wife got the picture. She blushed so deeply that her cheeks matched the carpets and the drapes, too.
Nee frowned, obviously missing the implication. “I don’t get it. But oh well, work continues as always. Now, where were we?”
The goblin ogre tapped her lower lip with a green finger, and then jumped when someone called her name from the other side of the glowing portal.
“Nee! I need your thoughts on this leaded glass!”
Nee spun around to glare at the new portal between New Moonguard City and Leda Castle. So far as I knew, it was the first permanent portal between the two planets Ostriva Prime and Nordan Prime, and it definitely had the look of a first-generation product.
The portal was set into a blank space of Leda’s stone wall. Its fuzzy circular outline made it stand out like a sore thumb, and its purple edges made it look extra magical. There was only one real problem with it.
The real problem was it took up just enough space that two people could squeeze through it at a time. And even then, they’d have to be extremely comfortable with each other if they didn’t want things to get awkward. I’d walked through it at least a thousand times already, and the only person I ever allowed through at the same time was Tarla.
Needing to turn so close to someone I wasn’t married to just felt weird. And as for getting anything like an army through there? Forget about it. The one saving grace was that it was too small for Charlie to fit through. That horse would be a menace if he ever made it to Ostriva. I had no doubt that he’d go to town on the lush grasses of the Nordan Plains and kick some unexpecting shepherd or merchant square between the legs before whinnying happily and storming off.
Although, it would be interesting to see if we could train any of his offspring better than we could train him.
“Nee!” the voice came again.
One of the weirdest things about the portal was the way that it distorted speech patterns. Whatever you said, and whoever spoke, it sounded like they were both far away and submerged under three feet of ocean water.
At first, I’d been sure that Tarla had instructed a silence mage to set up a distortion field near it. It wouldn’t be too far from normal for my lovely wife to play jokes like that on me.
Nee threw her hands up in exasperation before placing them on her hips and glaring into the sliver of Nordan that we could see through the portal. Then she blew a raspberry at it and cupped her hands in front of her mouth to increase her volume.
“It will have to wait! I’m with the boss right now!” she hollered.
“You want me to summon a volume mage?” I asked when her loud yells were finished reverberating off the stone walls.
Tarla chuckled.
Nee shot me a look then shrugged.
“I needed to vent anyway. This whole planning your wedding celebration thing weighs on a goblin ogre, you know? Plus, I think I’m pregnant again. That would explain why I’ve been eating so much, and yet have still maintained my svelte figure!” Nee did a little spin to prove it to us.
Truth be told, I couldn’t see the barest hint of a bulge anywhere on Nee. Then again, the goblins did breed like… well, goblins, as it was. And Nee was known for keeping her lovers on retainer.
Tarla squealed excitedly and bounced on the balls of her feet, red hair flopping like a drape in the breeze. “Congratulations, Nee! I would never have guessed you had another bun in the oven. You hide it so well, unlike me.” Tarla raised a pretty hand to her lips and laughed lightly. “I looked like someone had strapped a children’s ball to my stomach, if I remember correctly.”
Nee chuckled agreeably, then both women turned towards me. Whoever was on the other side of the portal had been completely forgotten.
“I always think you look lovely, Tarla,” I hedged. “And, Nee, congratulations. But look, the first thing a guy learns is not to comment on a woman’s pregnancy. Especially if he didn’t know that she was pregnant. a best-case, worst-case kind of thing. Best case, you’re right and she’s pregnant. Worst case, she’s been hitting the cinnamon buns a bit too hard, and now you just
Nee and Tarla both tittered, and my wife rubbed my arm appreciatively. “Such a smart man. Keep it up, darling. I’d hate to see the first man to build portals between planets killed by a pissed off tubby chick.”
“Nee!” the voice came again. “Obey your goddess when she’s speaking to you! Don’t make me come over there!”
Nee’s eyes went wide, and she said a simple, “Whoops! Sorry Damien, but you can’t turn me into a toadstool when you get pissed at me.”
Before I could respond, she’d already run off through the portal. Tarla chuckled and glanced at the deep red curtain to our right.
“Caitlyn never told me she could do things like that. Can she really turn people into toadstools?” I asked.
My wife shrugged. “She’s been growing in power, ever since you arrived on Nordan. She was already a pretty high-ranking god when you made the jump to Ostriva, right? Now that she’s got two champions again, maybe she can do more than before?”
I nodded, thinking that that made a certain amount of sense. None of us had seen Caitlyn’s newest Nordan champion yet, and it was the talk of both my Nordan towns as well as my new Ostrivan castle.
Caitlyn was being extremely hush hush about her details. The most anyone really knew was her name, and Jenny seemed such a common name that nobody had any clue who she was.
“Maybe,” I hedged. Caitlyn was definitely the sort of goddess who would mess with you like that, even though I couldn’t help but think she’d probably go for something a little more creative than just turning you into a toadstool.
I mean, a toadstool was classic. But Caitlyn was far from ordinary.
“Damien! Glad I caught you. Nen said you might a while, if his marriage preparations were any indication. Quori looked like she wanted to smack him.”
Asha strode through the stone and wood timbered doorway, looking even more alive now than he had the last time he’d left the soul pits. He practically bounced with every stride, and the sword he demanded he be allowed to carry smacked the wood frame with a clang.
The old Asha would never have been so careless as to smack his weapon like that. The new one barely noticed.
From the wrinkles on what should have been a crisp white shirt, not to mention the sweat stains around the armpits, he’d been training in the upper bailey.
“I hope you plan on changing before the ball tonight, mister. I won’t have you being the center of attention at our wedding ceremony,” Tarla sassed. “Don’t you smell yourself? I’m amazed you aren’t being followed by a swarm of horse flies!”
Asha quirked an eyebrow at my wife’s wide, playful smile, and then ducked his head to smell himself.
He gasped and made a big show of yanking his nose away from his armpit. “Well you’ve got a point there. But yes, I’ll make sure to bathe and change before the celebration begins. Meantime, may I borrow your husband? Jax wants a word. And I’d like to talk transportation logistics.”
Tarla gave the pair us a pout. “Whatever will I do without my handsome, caring husband? I’ll be so lost without him.”
I shook my head with a smile, and Asha blinked. Tarla’s face kept that cute little pout the whole time.
“She’s joking, Asha. I know you were dead for a while. But you can’t have gotten that dense in the meantime,” I said, watching a look of understanding dawn on my friend’s face.
Asha blinked in recognition of his error, and Tarla stuck her tongue out at him.
“You’re too easy,” she teased.
Asha frowned. “Hopefully I won’t be that easy for much longer. But yes. The more subtle aspects of communication still feel a bit alien to me. Especially the nonverbal ones -“ Asha shuddered “- talking to those ghouls has been a nightmare. I can’t get their mannerisms right for the life of me… or the death of me, for that matter.”
“You’ll get the hang of it,” I said, not really knowing whether I believed myself or not. Cecil had been odd enough to get used to. But my two ghouls were another thing entirely. “And can you manage while I’m gone, Tarla?”
My wife blew a raspberry at me, smiled, and bounced off to follow Nee through the portal. I turned back to Asha.
“So, what’s up with this transportation?” I asked, following him out the door and into the chilly hallway beyond.
I knew from reading about medieval living how difficult it was to keep a castle warm, and none of those castles had rolled along on stone spheres from place to place. Keeping Leda Castle warm just required too many fire mages to spare. Although walking through the halls, I had second thoughts about my decision.
“You think we should allocate more fire mages to Leda for the ceremony?” I asked.
Asha gave me an eyebrow raise. “You weren’t listening just now, were you?”
“Huh?”
My friend shook his head, getting some of his hair stuck behind a pointed ear. “I was explaining exactly what I meant about our transportation arrangements. You just had that blank look on your face, and then started asking about fire mages.”
“Oh. Sorry about that. just so damned cold in this castle. It gets into my bones.”
“I think you just answered your own question about allocating more fire mages then, don’t you?” Asha gave me an eyebrow raise.
I shrugged. “Thanks for that, Asha. Your input is invaluable. Anyway, I’m listening now. What’s your problem with logistics?”
Far above us, a high-pitched screech careened down the stairway. Asha clapped hands to his ears, and I stumbled with how intense the eagle’s call was in the confined stairway.
The screech bounced around us as it sped down the stairwell, and as the ringing in my ears faded, I heard one of the goblins from Nordan grumbling on the ground floor.
“I thought Gerty’d just be wasting mana on me! ‘Hey, don’t get winded too fast, Gerty! What’s a little volume increase when New Moonguard City’s been rebuilt?’ I asked. No one told me there’d be giant eagles in Leda,” the disappointed goblin grumbled grumpily.
“You shouldn’t have told her she looked like a faun then,” another goblin retorted.
“Hey! That was supposed to be a compliment! Everyone knows I’m into fauns after all. And besides, she sure drinks like one anyway,” the disappointed goblin retorted.
“You’re an odd one, Noach. And keep that stuff about liking fauns to yourself, at least when you’re around me. I don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
Asha chucked a balled fist to his mouth, to stifle a laugh. I shook my head. One of the things that I’d tried hardest to accomplish was to put an end to the animosity between the various races on Nordan. New Moonguard City was a testament to how far I’d come in that task.
Unfortunately, Leda Castle seemed to be a testament to how far I still had to go. It seemed it was one thing to get the different races accustomed to those of the same planet but getting them used to another planet’s races was a whole other task.
Still, it was progressing. A month ago, none of the Nordans would have wanted anything to do with the Ostrivans. I could barely get a goblin to muster a simple hello to a Ostrivan dwarf. And the fauns? Forget about it.
Now, though, well…
Okay, maybe learning that a goblin could be attracted to a faun wasn’t the craziest idea in the world.
“Shall we? Or are you still daydreaming?” Asha asked from the stair above mine.
I blinked in surprise as I realized I must have been zoning out.
“You caught me. There’s so much to keep track of that it gets difficult sometimes,” I said.
Ash shrugged then gave me a warm smile. “Sounds like you’ve still got room to make progress on the personal level then. I remember even back before I died, you were still all about the micromanaging.”
I grumbled, knowing Asha was right. We turned on the stairs leading to the wide landing, and I said, “I’d prefer to call it supervising. But maybe you’re onto something. I’m honestly dreading doing a full tour of New Moonguard City, and Tametha. There’s just been so much time that I haven’t been in charge. I know on a logical level that Nee, Fernando, Cecil, and all the rest can probably handle them as well as I can. But on a gut level?” I shook my head as we entered onto the last landing before the flat tower roof. “Well, being forced to delegate is definitely good for me.”
