The Developer Reborn As Archmage

The tunnel deteriorated as they went, and it ended on a narrow path protected only by a rusted railing.

Anyone coming out of the tunnel in a real hurry would fly over that like a cartoon.

The cliff was a near ninety-degree drop into a forest. Beyond the forest lay one end of Galtea, a wild shoreline of white sand.

Leiser Krath Defeated

Damage Dealt: 1,478 (70%)

EXP: +922 (View Axes)

Someone she had slashed with the dagger had been killed. She wasn’t sure if it was the hat man or not. Either way, it didn’t matter. It seemed she had left a lot of problems for their chasers to deal with. No one managed to break into the tunnel while they were inside it, and the opening behind them started glowing bright orange. It looked like flames.

Barto Higgs Defeated

Damage Dealt: 1,331 (65%)

EXP: +898 (View Axes)

A fallen lantern or a spell bouncing off had set fire to Drakva’s special room. This explained the kills in rapid succession.

Seris let go of the treasure haul once they rushed out of the tunnel. Darya dragged it a bit further. The bag's leather straps were improvised from belts she found in Drakva’s closet. They didn’t make for a good grip. Her hand was burning, and Seris’s forearm was cut and bleeding.

Toria Korman Defeated

Damage Dealt: 2,296 (80%)

EXP: +1,622 (View Axes)

A woman this time? Maybe the mage one?

Darya let Nerima slide off her. Seris carefully lowered the unconscious Seer to the ground. They needed a moment to catch their breath.

“I…the tunnel, break it, I’ll—” Seris panted, hands on her hips as she tried her best to breathe. Her fingers were trembling, and she couldn’t even locate her wand yet.

“Do—do you have a spell that can do that?” Darya asked, squeezing her chest. It didn’t matter that she was a nineteen-year-old woman in excellent physical fitness. Carrying the mermaid while pulling the treasure had taken its toll.

“I can…I can seal it off. Make it harder. Mana, I need mana.” Seris said.

Sarka’s voice came from the ring, the calmest and least tired of all. “Lady Seris, it would be inadvisable to waste your mana at the moment. We might need the shield spell, and you’re a healer if anyone gets injured…even further!”

“Agreed,” Darya panted. “We already have a head start. Shouldn’t waste your mana on this, Seris.”

Seris nodded, letting go of her wand that she had finally found.

“Princess, what…do we do about master lam?” Nerima asked, panting. She was more shaken than anything.

“We need to get somewhere before we can heal him,” Darya said, looking around for a proper escape route.

The cliff path they were on extended in both directions. Upwards to the right, and downwards to the left. It was clear which direction they needed to go, but heading to the forest below without a proper idea about escape was just getting trapped with extra steps.

Darya grabbed the rusty railing for support and looked at the shoreline. She spotted some wooden structures. It was a pier with a decrepit boathouse. Looking closely, she spotted a boat as well. It was long, shaped like an oversized kayak. It was tied to the pier with a rope and covered with a tarp.

Someone had used it recently. Probably for fishing, by the looks of it. This was their way out, unless a better escape method was found.

If I had any mana left, I could’ve blown this path up. Make things harder for the ones chasing us. Too bad.

“Ready?” Darya asked, extending her hand to Nerima. The rest stop was over. They had to get down the cliff.

Nerima nodded tiredly and grabbed onto her arm. Darya hauled her back up. Seris had been wrapping her bleeding hand with a strip torn from her tattered dress. She quickly finished it and rolled the Seer onto her back.

They headed down the cliff path, dragging the treasure bag. Going downhill provided some relief. Darya couldn’t even imagine hauling everything uphill.

The path wound around the cliff face, sometimes thick, sometimes thin. The railing was bent or missing in some sections, and with the ocean winds hammering them, this felt stupidly dangerous. They stuck to the cliff wall as much as possible.

They reached the bottom this way, after walking at least three hundred meters. Darya only slipped twice, injuring both herself and Nerima. Seris luckily managed to stay on her feet. A fall would’ve most certainly killed the Seer.

The cliff path ended in a clearing at the edge of the woods. There was a decaying wooden cabin there, set into a line of trees. Darya already saw Drakva’s escape plan as they descended the slope. There were three black horses in a sad-looking barn, and a black carriage in a small hut.

“There we go, Seris! get ready,” Darya said as they crossed the threshold marked with a decrepit wooden fence.

“Princess! Someone’s here!” Sarka said in a panicked voice as they drew nearer to the barn.

“Where?” Darya panted, grabbing the hilt of her dagger. She couldn’t see anyone.

“In the cabin, I can sense an old man. I think it’s the keeper here, possibly the driver.”

Seris already drew her wand, rolling the Seer onto the soft grass. Darya placed Nerima next to him and let go of the treasure bag.

“There’s more! I can sense more mana signatures from the direction we came from. Highly likely chasers are closing in!”

Shit. This is getting harder. Can we escape on horses instead of dealing with the carriage?

“Seris,” Darya panted. “Get ready to shield.” Darya pulled out her dagger.

There was one major problem with her plan. In thirty years of living on Earth, she had never touched a horse. She had no idea how to get on, much less ride one. The only salvation now was to rely on Darya Altazark’s muscle memory as she had so far. She didn’t know if Karossa had camels instead of horses, and now wasn’t the time to overthink it.

“Sarka, can you make the sounds for horses?” Darya asked as she hurried to the nearest one.

“Sounds for horses, princess?”

“Those horse sounds people make that make them do things. I’m not familiar with them.”

“Oh? but horses aren’t all trained the same—”

“Our other option is taking the old man in the cabin hostage. You want to waste time on that?”

“Let me try.” Sarka cleared his throat.

Darya approached the horse without making it panic, and she untied the rope. Sarka made sounds the best he could, and the horse seemed to respond to some of them. Darya pulled the rope, guiding the animal out of the barn.

“They’re coming down the cliff, princess!” Seris said as Darya quickly handed the reins to her.

“Use the shield before they get close. You take that horse with the Seer. Drop the shield and get going!”

Darya ran back to grab the second horse. The cabin door flung open behind her. “Seris! deal with that!” Darya yelled over her shoulder without even looking.

She heard Seris blast a spell off and the old man yell. It wasn’t the shield spell. Darya assumed Seris had just decided to use a little bit more mana than she should.

She grabbed the next horse, and Sarka repeated the noises. She pulled it back to where the treasure bag was.

The old man was pinned to the cabin with Seris’s mana vines. The chasers were dashing down the mountain. Seris pointed the wand at the sky and cast the shield spell.

As it grew, Darya hauled the bag onto the horse’s back and began securing it with the loose straps. There were a hundred different things that could go wrong with the weight distribution, but she wanted to take the risk. At least until they were far enough.

Seris hauled the Seer onto the horse, threw herself onto it, and began steering. “Which way?!” she asked. The first spells and attacks bounced off the shield.

Darya was carrying Nerima to the horse. “How well can you swim?” she asked over the girl’s shoulder.

“Um?” Nerima turned to her, wide-eyed.

“Can you drag heavy things on water?” Darya asked. “Look, I plan to use you as a water horse for a boat. Can you do that?”

Nerima gulped. “I can do that. I can drag everyone. You all won’t be too heavy, but—”

“Good, we’ll figure the rest out once we’re there.” Darya patted Nerima’s shoulder. She turned to Seris, who was expecting an answer. “Go to the beach! that way!”

“Huh?” Seris turned the horse around. “Why?”

“There’s a boat down there. Go!”

Looking at the cliff path, Darya saw their chasers closing in. There were at least twenty people, and she could tell the mage-to-guard ratio was off. Most of them were casting spells from various Manacers.

Seris was already at the treeline, about to dash into the forest through the shield membrane. Darya looked at the horse, which now had both the treasure bag and Nerima.

There’s no way we escape without them catching up.

She ran up and leapt onto the horse’s back, doing her best to throw one leg over it. “Sarka! Get this thing going!”

Sarka made the noises, and Darya remembered how to deal with a horse when she was finally sitting on it. She leaned forward, turning the anima’s head with the reins. She managed to get it trotting instead of walking, and she didn’t want to risk full-on running. The bag and Nerima weren’t going to survive sudden moves.

Breaking through the shield membrane, she headed into the forest, following a beaten path that Seris had already disappeared into.

“Princess! From the right! They’re close!” Sarka warned.

One of the chasers had just passed the shield bubble to flank them. Darya pulled the dagger, looking over her shoulder.

It was a gray-skinned man with red hair brimming with yellow mana. He was sprinting through the forest, barreling through vegetation like a living bulldozer.

No clean escape. I’ll have to deal with them all.

“Sarka, you’re going on the mermaid,” Darya said urgently before she pulled the soulstone ring from her finger.

“Princess?” Nerima gasped.

Darya grabbed the girl’s hand and put the ring on her thumb, the only finger big enough to hold an adult-sized ring.

“Princess! What are you doing!” Sarka asked as soon as Nerima’s mana swirled inside the soulstone.

“Get this horse and follow Seris.”

“B-but I’ll have to exchange souls with this child—”

“Yes. Do it. Do whatever it takes!” Darya said without looking at Nerima. She was condemning the poor girl to a massive dose of existential horror.

“I—”

“Sarka! There’s no time!” Darya yelled, pushing the reins into Nerima’s hand. “Catch up to Seris. Get back in the ring once you’re safe. Understand?”

“Princess, what’s going to happen to me—?” Nerima asked meekly.

“Sorry, Nerima.” Darya squeezed her hand. “It’ll be scary, but you’ll be fine.”

“Princess, what are you going to do?!” Sarka asked, his purple mana bursting from the ring.

“I’m going to deal with the chasers.”

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