Walker was stunned as he recalled his arrow seemingly cutting through space, teleporting behind the chain devil, before it struck causing massive damage.
After the chain devil's roar of pain, its chains pushed against the ground. The push forcefully threw it into the air away from the defenders.
It landed on the hillside a short distance away, hissing and spitting while glaring at him through its blood and gore. It hardly looked like the suave hellion that it had only a few moments before.
The injury would've killed a normal person, but after venting its anguish for another moment or two, its chains resumed their appearance as a cape before it backed into the thick growth near the crown of the hill.
The humans cheered as they fought the remaining forces off under less and less pressure. The process took another hour but saw the ambushers in a complete rout.
During that hour, the invisibility cast by the spell forces wore off but the ambushers were unable to take advantage of that fact by then.
The civilians were far enough down the highway by that point that the remaining ambushers couldn't disengage to go after them.
The convoy leadership were greatly relieved to find that cvilian casualties were minimal, with the few that occurred mostly involving stray slashes or fireballs hitting the slower invisible civilians as they fled further east.
The military forces were another story. The melee types all suffered injuries of varying degrees and were logically the ones with the highest casualties.
Many of the ranged defenders and spellcasters had avoided serious injury, but quite a few had sustained wounds that would leave their effectiveness hampered for some time.
Through the scouts, they confirmed that there were no other large groups nearby waiting to launch another offensive.
Wilford returned some time later, rejoining the column and confirming to the Knight Captain and others that he could find no trace of additional enemies.
Walker was studying the minimap and compass in the direction the kyton had fled when a flash of light opened into the familiar blue-rectangle light screen.
The debug menu woman's mechanical voice rang out:
{Emergency Quest Complete - Trailing Chains}
Having been imprinted with a 'Mark of Darkness' upon your arrival in this world… [see Ch. 5 for full]
Defeat the enemy squadron ( 1 / 1)
Survive the assault by the squadron commander ( 1 / 1 )
Quest Conditions: The royal family members of Rostovo, Talen and Janiah, must survive the ambush! ( 2 / 2 )
Smiling to himself, Walker affirmed the message and proceeded to the next page of the light screen.
{Emergency Quest Rewards}
{(Map) functionality unlocked!}
{Skill Fragment 'Space Arrow' x 1 acquired!}
Surprised, Walker felt a small but heavy object appear in his palm. Examining it, he saw an incredibly thick bronze coin. Imprinted upon it was an arrow, split in half with two parallel lines positioned vertically in the split.
As he held it and stared at the icon while walking, he felt his mind grow fuzzy. For a brief second, his vision shifted to everything being grey polygons with a searing orange pillar far in the distance, but only for a brief moment.
Blinking away the hot image of the pillar from his eyes, Walker could see normally once more. He became confused as the coin turned to liquid then quickly spread out in his hand. Then, it was gone, absorbing into his skin instantly.
{'Space Arrow' proficiency increased! You now have a 10% chance of successfully initiating the new skill!}
Staring blankly, Walker then frowned mightily as the low percentage chance for the attack to occur sank in. He silently cursed the debug menu's choices.
Previously, he had only chosen the (Transitions) function because he sorely needed new scenery and the name of the function highly implied at exactly that.
Although he doubted if he would be able to get a night's rest, the mere thought of even a cot and blanket made him tear up briefly.
Even if he were able to find somewhere to rest, he was sure the loud voiced-old man horror wouldn't let him. 'I'd probably just fall asleep and start having a nice dream and it would begin harassing me.' Walker thought ruefully.
The nonstop walking, for what seemed like one eternal day, had gone far beyond annoying and into the realm of psychologically damaging.
Although he had some limited interactions with others nearby, many ignored him or were surprised that he was speaking. His interactions frequently became so awkward that he considered stopping speaking to anyone but Wilford, Amberlin, and a few others.
He had considered taking the small amount of his prior memories, but there was no guarantee about the quality of memories he might receive.
What if they were only of his time as an infant? What if they were only of mundane or useless things? While a part of him still considered that option mightily, he couldn't see where it would truly benefit him here.
Walker opened the (Map) and his vision changed to an opaque view of the country of Rostovo from impossibly high in the sky, yet his body was still on the ground; he continued walking, amazed at the usefulness of the new function.
To the west, vast fields and farmlands followed the highway to the ruined Capital City. Further west beyond the Capital eventually became impassable by mountains through to the vast ocean where his vision cut off. The southwest of the country was nothing but swamps and lakes until the sparse land became ocean.
North from the Capital, the mountains continued east into the distance eventually breaking down into the vast foothills near a large fortress. The words "Mitorio, Cata Boral" were slightly transparent over the fortress.
Their current position showed that the convoy was still really far away from Walker's destination. Barely a quarter of the distance from beginning to end had been covered thus far.
Priomordia Forest was mind-numbingly vast, spreading through all of central and southern Rostovo, but the Capital Highway cut a path through to the next major destination, a massive city on the far edge of the sea of trees with the name "Keln, Rostovo" above it.
The Capital Highway continued east to Mitorio from Keln. There was another branch from Keln, that ran south a long distance before turning into bustling port with the name "Cormdell, Rostovo" over it.
As he marched along studying the (Map), Walker was nonetheless surprised that no one yet realized that he was the one who shot the arrow that cut the chain devil's rampage miraculously short. He stopped accessing the (Map) and began firing arrows repeatedly into the distance as he continued walking along.
However, as he reflected on his wounding the chain devil, he realized that it would be impossible for others to guess that he was the one responsible and Walker guessed that no had probably seen him.
This was so not only because of the arrow's illogical trajectory, but because of the sheer chaos occurring all around at the time likely made it impossible for anyone to notice.
Walker didn't realize one crucial factor in his attempt to lay low.
***
Amberlin Gallas, the Cleric of the Mind. Blessed by Mono, the God of Magic and Thoughts since adulthood. From the blessing, Amberlin could "hear" a person's thinking- as if their thoughts were spoken aloud clearly.
With enough emotion, or force, behind the thoughts, she could hear them from even further away. Her thoughthearing was powerful enough to differentiate a specific person's thoughts even with walls between them.
Having already been tasked with monitoring Walker's situation, she was already aware that he was clueless about many basic things and was improvising other things.
She was equally clueless about how he knew the ambush was coming; he guessed that it was because of the Mark of Darkness in their conversations, but she could tell he wasn't sincere.
Instead, he thought about quests, emergency quests, and a 'Quest Tracking System'. She didn't understand why he assigned such significance to these things, but she couldn't deny that he was accurate.
Amberlin found other things about Walker absurdly mystifying.
He had never heard of her deity, who was perhaps the most prominent in all human realms as the creator of magic. The god Mono was also one of only a few deities present in nearly every other race's pantheon of religious figures.
In their discussions so far, he admitted he was not religious, but his thoughts betrayed his complete ignorance of any deities whatsoever.
While she was aware that he was ignorant like a baby, she was determined to understand him better and figure out the mystery behind him and behind what happened on that last night in the Capital City where he was supposed to be sacrificed by the King of Rostovo in some strange ritual.
Amberlin left the company of the Knight Captain and royalty and headed to the section of the convoy where the scouts and other similar groups marched along.
She quickly approached the general area of the convoy could see Walker's untidy black hair fluttering in the light breeze. She could pick out the sound of his mind's voice clearly at this distance and was easily able to shutter out others' incessant thoughts.
Only a few steps away, she stopped in awe upon thoughthearing Walker and his hiding his actions of being the one to chase away the chain devil and his desire to remain anonymous about it.
She was a bit in awe because she knew it was the truth. Normally, a person would be unable to lie in their own thoughts without a large degree of emotional instability, or damage. This was because dishonest thoughts carried a different timbre and rhythm than normal thinking. Amberlin could hear the difference clearly and in a way that others, who could also read minds, would be unable to.
Understanding that he had some sort of power or skill that allowed him to catch the chain devil off guard, she resolved to ask Walker about the situation at some point soon.
She was a bit frustrated at how she could only seem to speak with him while they were on the road and she resolved herself to continue taking up residence in his tent each night, despite the shame and embarrassment she felt.
Amberlin's eyes narrowed and then widened with the realization of what she needed to do.
***
Absorbed in his own thoughts, the only warning Walker had was a brief scent of vanilla, and possibly honeysuckle, before he saw the swirl of Amberlin's bright blue attire suddenly beside him.
Walker kept marching along with the others and turned to look at Amberlin. Nodding gently as he grasped for something to say, he settled on a compliment: "I saw what you did during the fight with that immense wave of blue, restoring all our senses. That surely saved a lot of lives."
There was no way he could miss the briefest moment of confusion on Amberlin's face before it settled back to her mysterious, fervent-eyed smirk.
Walker had just given another bit of information about himself through his own cluelessness. It was the cliche of 'one doesn't know the things that one doesn't know'.
If Walker had been affected by the kyton's mass illusion, then he wouldn't have recalled seeing her casting the spell that restored everyone's senses. However, since he obviously had seen her, he must not have been affected by the chain devil's trick.
'Immunity to lower illusions? What about charms or similar enchantments? Yet another thing to think about.' Amberlin thought with no small measure of excitement and trepidation.
Walker continued shooting arrows off the side of the highway at various targets as they continued onward. His mind raced over various things as he sought to work out the mystery he found himself in.
Despite that she did not bother him further, Walker found that he was anxious about Amberlin, walking quietly nearby while absorbed in her own thoughts with a simple little smile.