NOVEL NEXT Chapter 15: The Hunt Begins
August 31st, 2088
Summer vacation has ended and the first day of high school starts tomorrow. The carefree vacation that I was enjoying after the Alfenox bounty changed into an intense investigation into the origin of the shotgun after the slaver raid. Attempts of psychometry on the shotgun to find the supplier failed. The person who gave it to the slaver had high level magical interference set-up, so I saw nothing but static where the supplier was supposed to be during the playback. Only a talented wizard could conjure this interference, so it looks like my opponent this time is on another level.
From what I could tell during the playback, the slaver was given this gun as a sample and that the actual shipment was coming later. Hmm, I guess I should just ask the slaver for the details. When I first started using necromancy I never expected that I would mainly use it for interrogation and tracking. It is far easier to wrench out information from a soul than from a living person.
The slaver was freshly slain, so calling back the soul should be pretty easy. I dipped my fingers in the slaver’s blood and drew a simple pentagram with the body in the center. I stood at the edge of the pentagram and poured in my mana. The pentagram glowed lightly as it started to work, but then it went dark unexpectedly. The body was still unmoving. This is strange. The soul should have been sucked back into the flesh it once inhabited. I decided to try once again, only to have the ritual fail for a second time.
There’s only one explanation for this. That damn wizard must have place an anti-magic seal on the slaver to prevent meddling. It must have been applied directly to the soul for it to linger even after death. Although the undead do exist in this world, the idea of necromancy doesn’t. This further supports the idea that this wizard has visited my world or is from it. But I must say I am surprised that he even took precautions against magic that doesn’t exist in this world. His cautiousness is truly remarkable.
He also covered his non-magical tracks. I looked for the gun’s serial number and saw that it had been magical erased. There were also no fingerprints on the gun other than those belonging to the slaver. So this person seems familiar with my world to the point of knowing about gun registration and forensics. Is it really someone who crossed over like me? Or are they a wizard from the other world who managed to cross the dimensions?
It seemed like the gun was a dead end, but my years as a bounty hunter aren’t just for show. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about magic it’s that it is far harder to account for all the possibilities of magic than it is to create new possibilities through magic. He had set up magic interference on himself and an anti-magic seal on the slaver, but there were no magic guards on the gun. So I used psychometry to trace the gun back to the store it was bought from. To go that far into an object’s past required me to use a magic circle in order to ease the mana cost. But it managed to lead me to a gun shop in Georgia. I saw the wizard, still in static due to magical interference, purchasing it from the owner.
At this point, I grinned. Magical interference is extremely useful since it blocks all forms of direct magical observation. Clairvoyance, divination, psychometry, etc. are useless against magical interference. However, it requires a constant supply of mana to keep active and it is only useful against direct magical observation. In addition, if the person using it is not experienced it’ll make them stand out to other wizards in their proximity.
To circumvent this wizard’s efforts, I am standing in front of the gun store owner in question. I put him to sleep before beginning my search through his memories. The wizard was truly careful by having a constant magical interference present, so I have been forced to use indirect magical observation instead. The magic interference wouldn’t have affected the owner’s memory of the wizard’s appearance, so by simply looking at the memory I can finally get a start on figuring out this guy’s identity. Yes! I found the memory at last and immediately took a look.
Gun Store Owner’s POV
“It’s hot.” That thought was repeating over and over in my head due to the Georgia summer heat. The store’s AC had broken 2 days ago and the damn repairmen was late in fixin’ it. Thankfully, a customer walked in through the door, distracting me from my discomfort as I greeted him. He was a smaller fella’, wearing a hooded sweatshirt over some jeans and didn’t seem to be bothered by the heat at all. I casually slid my hand under the counter to grip my trusty shotgun. Being hooded in this heat is damn suspicious and in a gun shop to boot. To distract the guy from that action, I struck up a conversation “That’s an interesting button. What’s it say? I ain’t real’ familiar with Chinese.” The bright pink button in question was pinned on his back pack. “It’s Japanese, actually. I’m a producer of the show in question.” The man responded. I could tell he was rather proud of that fact and he started to take off his hood while he was speaking “Anyways, I’m here to purchase some weapons. Do you have these in stock?”….. BSKD(*&)^*)SPEI!*)$*T#$ NHUWE *@#R )HT!
Terra’s POV
Damn, he used telepathy to wipe the man’s memory of his face and characteristics. As disappointing as this is, it’s not an unexpected result. However, an evil grin broke out on my face. The guy screwed up. I now know his gender and build along with his occupation. That pink button on the backpack had an emblem of a microphone with the words “Japan’s Rising Idol” written on it in Japanese. Japan’s Rising Idol is a TV show where female idol hopefuls perform in order to win a recording contract with a large Japanese talent agency. Now I’ll just have to confirm the identity of the wizard in question. It shouldn’t be too difficult with the information I have gathered. I drew the teleportation circle in high spirits and disappeared into the night.