Reincarnated as a mana core

“Without mana every tool used to clean something has to be cleaned again by something else, which then has to be cleaned again. It is not a cycle of life and death, no it is a vicious circle of endless cleaning.”

“Who the fuck asked?!!”

 

—

 

POV Trevor

Trevor swung his hoe again, fighting the urge to swear. He hated having to work on the fields, but didn’t really have a chance to do something else.

He loved organizing and managing things and that had been exactly why he had ended up as manager of a supermarket for more than 10 years. He had been slender and unathletic, perfect for paperwork.

He swung his hoe again. It impacted the ground heavily and overturned the soil. A stone had been brought to the surface by the movement and Trevor crouched. He picked it up and stood up again. Then he threw it away with as much hate, frustration and power as he could muster.

Trevor hated exhausting activities, but no, he had to be teleported to some village on another planet. At least as far as they knew this was another planet. 

He sighed and wiped away some sweat. Trevor ran his hand through his black hair and shook away some more sweat before he continued his work.

His only real skill was doing paperwork and that sadly was not a skill needed here, which was exactly how he had ended up doing field work.

Trevor sighed again. At least he was slowly getting used to the work and wasn’t nearly dead after half an hour of work like in the beginning.

It had now been more than 4 months since the teleportation incident and Trevor still waited for the next thing to happen. Some of the people in this village believed god had sent them to another planet to give them a chance not to repeat the mistakes that had led to climate change. They were stupid in his opinion.

Trevor had been somewhat of a christian himself, but wasn’t sure about that anymore. Something had ported them all here and that meant something else was going to happen next. This was not some stupid chance event, Trevor was sure.

He completed his work in the late afternoon and went to get himself something to drink. When he walked into the village he was greeted by a weird sight at the village entrance.

Andrew, the jerk of a village governor, was standing in front of a smaller young man and looked down at him. The young man had blond hair and was looking thoroughly unimpressed by the governor.

Andrew said something to the other man in an angry voice and the blond man just sighed. He turned around, waved to someone and then whistled loudly.

Wasn’t he part of the scout team that had traveled in this direction a week ago?

And if so where was the rest of his squad and who had he signaled to.

Trevor forgot about drinking and watched what was going on. Something had clearly reacted to the signal and was now running towards them. It was white and walking on four legs and a person was running next to it.

After 5 minutes he could finally make out what was approaching them. The white animal looked a bit like a fox with three tails and a red pattern in its facial fur. It was a gigantic thing and Trevor guessed it to be around two meters tall.

Next to the fox was a young woman with silver hair. She had long cat-like ears on her head and a silver fox tail. The woman was only wearing a weird breast band and pants with a green camouflage pattern. A jacket with the same pattern was on her shoulders and held in place by what looked like a sniper rifle. She was also carrying a sports bag and for some reason was bare footed.

Trevor could tell that she was beautiful even without fully seeing her.

Once they reached the entrance he could also see a girl that was riding on the back of the fox. The girl had fiery red hair and weird animal ears at the side of her head. A large squirrel-like tail adorned her upper body and curved downwards again at her head height. She was holding two bags to make sure they wouldn’t fall off of the fox.

He slowly edged closer. Whatever was going on and whoever they were, this seemed to be important.

The blond man turned around to Andrew again. “So, is that enough for you to believe me now?”

Andrew sneered at the man. “Just because you are cosplaying and have tamed some animal that didn’t exist on earth won’t convince me that mana is slowly spreading and turning people into monsters.” Trevor had no idea how he could still be so confident in front of such a large predator.

The man raised an eyebrow and a deep growl sounded out from the position of the fox. To the surprise of not only Trevor but also Andrew it spoke with a feminine voice. “Can I show that fool how tame I am mom?”

Her eyes had an evil glint to them and she punctuated her words by slowly walking forwards.. “Perhaps an arm or two less will help him become a bit more polite and compliant.”

Andrew’s confidence faltered and he took a few steps backwards.

The silver haired woman shook her head and looked at her daughter disapprovingly. “No you can’t. I don’t want to clean the place after you are finished.”

She looked at Andrew as if she was looking at something disgusting. “Hopefully he survives so he can live with his actions. While I am willing to help, I don't need to force it.”

Then she looked at Trevor. “Let’s just talk to every person here and let them decide for themselves. We don’t need to doom them just because of one person.”

Trevor gulped. Whatever they had told Andrew was not something good.

Andrew somehow managed to compose himself, balled his fists and shouted angrily at them. “You dare to just ignore my authority!”

He pointed at them. “Nobody will be allowed to talk to you or house you and anyone who broke that law. I wish you a nice stay.”

Then he turned around and stormed away, likely about to make sure everyone knew about his new ‘law’.

After Andrew disappeared the group focused on him, but nobody made a move to initiate a conversation.

The little girl climbed down from the fox and ran to hide behind the woman. She looked with big orange eyes at him and then tugged at the arm of the woman. “Are the people here going to become monsters too?”

The woman was about to answer, but Trevor interrupted her. “What are you even talking about and what was that about mana?”

The fox smirked. “Ha! He broke the law.”

Then she playfully punched the shoulder of the man, who had to take a step forward because of the force. “Now we have two gangsters.”

The man glared at the fox. “That hurt Alyra.”

The fox, Alyra, rolled her eyes. “And? You're gonna cry about it?”

The man grumbled a response, but Trevor couldn’t understand it. Alyra focused on him. “So, you now know that my name is Alyra. The stunning girl that is trying to avoid eye contact with you, because she doesn’t want to develop feelings for an old man, is my mother Argul.”

Argul frowned heavily. Something whit shot away from her and hit Alyra in the side, who yelped in surprise and pain. The woman nodded satisfied with herself. “Punishment.”

Alyra looked betrayed at her. “That hurt!”

This time the man smirked. “And?” His voice was dripping with irony. “You’re gonna cry about it?”

Argul and the man looked at each other and then after coming to a conclusion in their silent conversation they fistbumped.

Alyra sighed. “Fiiine! You win. Anyways, the idiot there is Arthur and the little one is Mia.”

They all looked at Trevor again, who was really unsure about what the hell was happening right now. He scratched his beard stubble. “I’m Trevor. Nice to meet you?”

He came back to the point again. “So, about what you were talking with the jerk about…”

Alyra nodded sagely. “Yes the jerk. Well, a fine person such as yourself surely has a place he could share with us exalted-” 

She coughed.”I mean exhausted travelers, so we can talk in peace and not in the middle of the street.”

Trevor had been taken off guard. The fox really irritated him. “Uhm, yes?”

The fox smiled brightly. “Deal!”

And thus he now housed the weird group of travelers. They in turn told him the same things they had told Andrew and a bit of what had happened on their journey.

Trevor did not like what they told him. While it was truly a story that was hard to believe, he had also been talking with an enormous fox the whole time, so he didn’t dismiss what they told him.

After they had dinner he gave them a flat in the house that was not his, but he was currently living in and left them mostly to their own devices. They didn’t look like thieves, but Trevor still locked his own flat where they could steal something important. Better safe than sorry.

The next day he woke up early to get to work again. He tried to speak to the others of the village about the visitors, but Andrew had somehow managed to convince them all to follow his new law. Nobody even acknowledged him because of that and he had a lonely work day.

Trevor was not feeling too good in the afternoon. For one, everyone was ignoring him and secondly tonight was the night the strange group said something would happen. 

He didn’t want to believe them, but his gut told him to do so and he often listened to his gut feeling. This would be a long night.

Once at his home he went to the strangers again. Trevor knocked at the door and after a minute the little girl opened. “Ohh it’s you. I think you can come in as long as you are not too noisy. Argul is still sleeping.”

The little girl fully opened the door and happily ran back into the room Trevor knew as the living room. He entered the flat after her and closed the door again. He did not care to take off his shoes and followed her into the living room.

The fox was laying in the middle of the room and Mia was playing with a strange silver blob next to her. Arthur was sitting on a couch to the left with his eyes closed and looked like he dreaded what was to come.

Alyra opened her eyes, looked at him, nodded and closed them again. “Sit anywhere you like if you want.

Trevor took her up on that offer and sat down on a cushioned chair next to the couch. It was silent for a few moments before Trevor managed to ask the question that had burdened his mind the whole day. “You said that people mutate seemingly randomly. Please tell me you have a way to stop it.”

Arthur answered without even having to think about it. “No.”

Trevors heart fell. Fuck.

Alyra opened her eyes and looked up. “Well that might not be true. Argul theorized that it might help if someone pushed mana into another person during the initiation process. The system said mutations are because of the influence of the old universe fighting mana, so supplying more mana should help.”

Arthur sat himself upright. “Huh? That actually sounds like it might work. Though it will be hard to save all the people as we have to be surrounded by mana to regenerate and we can only do so much.”

Trevor still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the idea of being in another universe. Still there being a possible method to save him and all the others filled him with hope. 

He thought about what Arthur had said and tried to find a conclusion. “Couldn;t people come in groups to the border of the mana zone, get integrated and then learn to manipulate mana to help? That way you could circle more and more people to save them.”

Arthur looked at him and nodded. “It is possible.” He opened his mouth again to say the dreaded word of passive denial. “But we would need the help of the military. We would have to convince them first and that is already going to be hard.”

Trevor thought that depending on the amount of people telling the same thing that might actually not be that hard.

Arthur tapped his finger on his chin. “Then the border camp would have to move around the whole time and would lose all access to our technology. People would have to learn how to manipulate mana, which is in my opinion not that easy.”

He shook his head. “Don’t ask Argul about mana, she is a genius. She seemingly can’t do anything else reliable, but mana and magic really helps her out a lot.”

Arthur leaned back again and closed his eyes again. “Anyways I don’t think that there is anyone out there who would want to manage all that stuff.”

Ohh how wrong he was. At the mention of managing a spark of excitement lit up in Trevor.