'Ah...' Layn moaned in his mind as soon as his consciousness started to return. Even though the state of his body could be summed up with a word - pain - he didn't dare to voice this problem out.
It was one of the things he learned during his early days of adventuring, something that allowed him to escape from captivity more times than he could count.
'I'm being carried?' he asked in his thoughts, trying to figure out his situation without announcing to whoever was carrying him that he was awake.
The rocky ride that someone was giving to him made it easy to figure out what was happening. 'I'm not bound. I'm lying flat on some kind of... cloth?' Layn continued to assess his situation.
"**** **, * **** *** *** *****," a female voice said, although Layn was unable to understand a single word.
'What the hell,' this was a startling discovery. His translation spell couldn't be turned off by something as simple as a near-death experience. As long as there was a sufficient amount of energy in Layn's system, it would continue to operate.
'I can feel it running, so why I can't understand shit?' Layn asked himself, experiencing the fear of the unknown.
'I can still remember that bastard claiming there was no other tribe of humans, even in the ancient times,' Layn recalled the teachings of the harshest teacher he ever had in the academy. But although his methods and expectations were on another level, Layn could still remember most of his lectures because of them.
'Was I blasted to an entirely new world by that spell?' Layn asked himself, vaguely recalling what happened when he poured all the energy he had into that monstrosity.
The amount of mana he used back then was comparable to what he used for the gran arcana that twisted the fabric of the time itself. While a lot more straightforward, it should still be enough to blast that massive monster into smithereens.
'Could it be that I feel into a fissure of space that my magic created?' Layn continued to pose questions in his mind, trying his hardest to figure out the situation.
'**** ******* **********!' The voice appeared again, this time followed by a crip slap to his cheek. Layn allowed his head to roll to the side, set on pretending to be unconscious.
'This whore,' he had to use the utmost of his willpower to stop his hands from tightening into fists. 'How dare she slap my face?!' Layn's fury channeled through his veins, stirring up his mana a bit.
Swish!
The sound of a weapon leaving its sheath reached Layn's ears. Then, a similar sound of metal cutting through the air at a fast speed appeared, forcing Layn to stop his act.
He opened his eyes. A sword was already flying towards his chest.
'I don't have enough mana to fight,' Layn thought, scanning the situation. He was carried on some kind of stretcher, yet someone was currently aiming to take his life.
Or was he?
Layn's body twitched, allowing him to slightly adjust his position. Then, as counterintuitive as it was, he jerked his left fist upwards, aiming almost straight for the approaching blade... But not really.
Rather than trying to contest the cut of the sword with his bare fist, Layn forced his mind and muscles to work in perfect unison. And with a minuscule delay, his fist missed the cutting edge of the blade... Only to strike in its dull side!
'I fucked up,' Layn thought when his self-defense managed to reflect the attack with ease. But, given how weak he currently was, there was only one way for his counterattack to work so well.
The attack on his chest was nothing but a feint!
'I guess my mind is still not up to par,' Layn thought, noticing just how weird the entire situation was.
Because why would someone bother to put him on a stretcher and carry his unconscious body somewhere if they were to instantly aim to kill him once he would wake up?
"*** *** *** are ***?" This time, the voice was astounded. And from how Layn was starting to recognize some words, it appeared that his translation spell was working as it should... Just that it was never exposed to such language before!
"Layn," the archmage could only produce his name. If he attempted to create even a single additional word in this language, the people that apparently saved him would learn he wasn't from their tribe or whatever!
"So, ****** Layn, **** were you ***** ** *** border?" Layn rejoiced when more and more words turned comprehensible for him. At the current state of the translation spell, he could start making some sense out of the questions this damned female was asking him.
"Leave *** *****," A new voice entered the fray, this time belonging to a male. Given how Layn had no power whatsoever to move his head to the side, he was left in the dark about the other party's identity.
"But!" the female voice protested. "We **** **** who he ** ** ***!" Although the translation spell was working better and better, it was still far from being as perfect as it was with the language of the ancients.
"Is this * ****** ** ******* him like that? Can't you *** he is ** *** verge of *****?" The man responded, clearly taking Layn's side in the conflict that arose.
'I can't just lay idly,' Layn broke through the restraints of pain and exhaustion, using the little magic he had to heal his wounds. 'Huh?' he nearly jumped in surprise when he realized that his healing spell... Didn't have any effect on his injuries whatsoever!
'Could it be overburned? Right, I burned all those particles,' Layn felt an urge to slap his head. 'I'm fucking stupid,' he scolded himself before changing the formula of the healing spell.
Rather than allowing the magic coursing through his veins and aura alike to mend what wasn't orderly about his body, he infused the little man he had into the natural regenerative powers of his flesh.
'Without a single magic particle in my body, there is no way any proper healing spell could work on me. How the hell could I forget it?' Layn scolded himself again.
But there was nothing wrong with making mistakes like that. Layn was battered after his fight with the monster. His survival was already something to be amazed at. It was given that his mental state wouldn't be up to par as soon as he would regain his consciousness.
"But ***! He is clearly ****** to be unconscious!" The female rebuked, not willing to back down from her enmity towards Layn.
"Leave him, I said. It wasn't a *******, but a fucking *****!" The man's voice turned heavy, indicating the meaning behind those two words Layn still couldn't understand.
'So it's not like everyone here is as brutal as this girl, huh?' Layn thought. With his basic spell slowly turning the leftover mana into physical energy, Layn finally managed to turn his head to the side.
Just this move alone was enough to sap his strenght again.
"Excuse me," Layn whispered, once again reaching the limits of what he could do. But in the heart of their own discussion, neither the young female dressed in leather armor nor the man not bothering to wear any armor whatsoever heard him.
Layn turned his eyeballs towards the rest of his body. His head was too heavy to move it again, limiting his vision to how far he could push his eyes.
'I'm covered in bandages?' Layn noticed, only for this realization to turn into ridicule. 'Don't they know that magical wounds like mine are destructive at a cellular level? Bandages won't do much outside...' Layn's thoughts froze when he noticed one thing.
A single thing that was hard to see due to his entire body being covered in bandages. The stretcher on which he laid was in a similar color, making it hard to notice a lack of particular thing.
'So I lost a leg, huh?' Layn quickly came back to his senses. For someone who faced death on more occasions than most people, something as silly as losing a limb didn't seem to be too high of a price for what he did.
"Hey, are you awake now?" The man in plain clothes asked. Layn understood the entirety of that sentence, proving that his translation spell reached a level of efficiency necessary for Layn to have a proper discussion with those people.
"Where am I?" Layn whispered, moving his eyeballs on the man's surprisingly youthful face. 'From how he put that girl back in her place with just a few words, I thought he would be some kind of officer or something...'
"That's the first thing you ask about?" The man smiled in response before spreading his arms and announcing with a smile. "Don't worry, brother. I don't know how you made it past the endless border, but now you are safe."
The man lowered his hands and cast a quick glance at the sulking girl beside him. "While there might be some untrusty brutes here like this child," his hand pointed at the girl, who in turn shook and turned her head away, "the shrinking lands of Slavians will always welcome fresh blood!"
Layn froze. Not only his body but also his thoughts refused to as much as flinch.
'I don't fucking believe it,' Layn thought, staring wide-eyed at the cheerful face of the man. 'So it wasn't just a legend after all?'
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