Bog Standard Isekai

Book 3. Chapter 53

Brin knew exactly which Skill he was going to take and for once he didn’t need to talk to Hogg about it. The old guy never shut up about how [Split Focus] was the most important Skill for an [Illusionist], and from first glance it looked like [Multithreading] was similar. But of course the System never made his decisions easy, so he still had a choice to make.

Multithreading You can break mental processes into multiple threads in order to run them concurrently. As this is a Unique Skill, more System information is available.

Mark, I have a little bit of leeway here to describe this Skill however I wish. For regular Skills, the System doesn’t give much information because we want you to seek out someone who already has it and learn from them, but with Unique Skills you're the only one who has it so I can customize this description to your special needs. I can even maybe slip in a little note about how if I had known she was going to do this to you I never would’ve given you those [Filial Piety] missions. Mark, I’m so sorry. No one should have to go through that. You’re almost through the tunnel. Trust yourself, and trust your plan. And hey, maybe pray to Solia now and again like you promised?

Back to the Skill. At this point, the Skill will act more like a single processor and let you switch between multiple threads of thought at near infinite speeds. The switching will be at near-infinite speed, that is, not your thoughts. Phew! I’m freeballing this, so feel free to ask questions as we go along. I’ll try to be as precise as I can.

When the Skill description had first shown up, Brin had seen the text populate slowly, as if it were being typed in real time by someone not particularly good at typing. He had no doubt that a godling like Tenerer, since that’s probably who this was, would have no problem typing at the speed of light, so the slowdown was probably for his benefit.

He’d asked, “Am I doing the right thing? Will the gods be upset if I don’t kill her?”

The message had backspaced a few words, and then continued.

All I can tell you is to trust yourself. You’ve already put the right threads into place, and now all that’s left is to pull them tight and watch the knot come together.

Speaking of knots, this Skill protects you from certain causes of insanity or mental damage. There’s one or two things about this Skill I can’t tell you, because you know someone who can. Ask Hogg about how Split Focus works.

What I can say is that this Skill is built on top of Split Focus. It can do everything the base Skill does, and gives you some nice efficiency bonuses on top of that. The trade-off is that it’s more difficult to use. You won’t get as much out of it on day one.

Ok, what else? Oh, right, I can give you another bonus, but it’ll require a sacrifice. You can merge [Directed Meditation] with this Skill. That’ll allow you to designate “directed threads”. These will be logic-focused thought processes that will be very good at doing things by rote, but will struggle with taking initiative or being creative. The trade-off is that they’ll be extremely efficient. Would you like to sacrifice [Directed Meditation]? This will remove the Skill and all its levels will be lost.

You must be free to decide. I cannot tell you which answer is correct.

Brin thought about it for a second. Wouldn’t he still be able to use threads with [Directed Meditation] even if he didn’t take the Skill merge? It sounded like all merging the Skill would do would be to prevent him from using [Directed Meditation] for anything other than a [Multithreading]-induced rote logic machine. Right now, it could do plenty of things, not the least of which was make him totally focused during combat. He was struggling to see the upside here.

I cannot tell you which answer is correct, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a correct answer. Maybe ask for advice?

“Hm,” said Brin.

“I’ve never seen someone take this long to read his Skill choices. I assume you leveled up?”

“Yeah,” said Brin. He looked around, realizing that he’d sort of lost track of his surroundings while he was reading his Skill. That wouldn’t be a problem once he had [Multithreading].

Marksi was still chowing down on the barely-visible lump of Wisp flesh, but Zilly was nowhere in sight. Brin asked Davi where she was.

“She ran to catch up with the others,” said Davi. “So what’d you get?”

“Something like [Split Focus], but it’s letting me merge it with a General Skill if I want. But–”

“Do it,” said Davi.

“Really? I’ll lose all the levels. And I’ve upgraded this General Skill. I don’t think I’ll get those points back.”

Davi shrugged. “Then don’t. But Jeffrey says that if you ever get the chance, you should take it. The lower levels of General Skills are really easy to get, and for most people there are only one or two that are really perfect for your Class. I have [Performing], and if I could take it again, I would.”

“Oh!” Brin said, suddenly getting excited. “[Meditation] is an amazing Skill for a magic-user. I think Lumina was a little disappointed that I already upgraded it to [Directed Meditation], because I don’t think that’s what she did with it. I’m going to merge it.”

Davi held up his hands, suddenly panicked. “Don’t go off my say-so! Ask Hogg about it, too!”

Brin didn’t need to. The godling might not be able to tell him the correct answer, but that hadn’t stopped him from hinting at it in a rather obvious way. He was going to take the merge. But was there anything else he wanted to ask the godling before the Skill description ended?

Skill description complete.

That was a little abrupt. Had he offended Tenerer? He decided to pause and take the other piece of advice that he’d been given. He knelt on the ground, and recited the rote prayer to Solia that he’d memorized back in Hammon’s Bog. He cleared his mind, with his own willpower and not with [Directed Meditation], and focused on nothing except respect and penitence. By the end of his third recitation, he got a message.

Skill description continued. Calm down, I’m not mad. I really can’t think of anything else you might need to know.

Since Tenerer could clearly read his mind, he thought his next question. It sounds like all this does is give me the illusion of multitasking. Is there a way to achieve actual concurrency?

Ask Hogg about how Split Focus works.

Why was I granted this Unique Skill?

Loss is something only mortals can experience. In the eternal perspective, everything has a way of coming back to you.

Cryptic. After a while where Brin couldn’t think of any more questions, he received one last notification.

Skill description complete.

He selected [Multithreading] and opted to sacrifice [Directed Meditation], then braced himself for the change.

When he’d lost [Scarred One], the experience had been excruciating as all his power had drained from his body to be replaced by pain. This time, he felt like he was trying to reach out and touch something with an arm that was no longer there… because a bigger, stronger, much more powerful arm was in its place.

He created his first thread with no particular goal in mind, just to give himself a feel for it, and immediately felt a change. He gave the thread seventy-five percent of his mind, just to get a feel for what really leaning on the Skill would do.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The world sped up. He got to his feet, and the process happened in the blink of an eye. It didn’t feel unnatural, though. His body was still working in normal time, and whatever part of his brain took over the unconscious steps of movement was still working at regular speed. He walked around a little bit, and thrilled at how quickly the terrain passed under his feet.

“Does that mean we’re going?” Davi asked. “Because I don’t think Marksi is done yet.”

Davi’s speech gave him something to measure, and he figured it was about double speed. Since Brin had put three-fourths of his time into the thread, it meant that Mental Control was giving him a bit of time for free. That could be useful. He wondered if that meant there was an amount of time he could put on a thread so that it didn’t cost anything at all.

It might take some practice to get used to conversations at quicker speeds, but so far he loved it. No more would he have to suffer by forcing himself to stay engaged in a long-winded conversation in Frenarian where everyone spoke slowly and took forever to get to the point. He could listen at double-time, the way he used to for podcasts. He could literally fast-forward the boring parts of his life. He hadn’t even tried a directed thread yet, and he already loved this Skill.

The time it took to think all that was now too long, and Davi was looking at him strangely. He would need to get used to not being as quick on his feet as normal.

Brin shook his head. “Just testing out my new Skill. We should probably get going, though.”

Marksi picked his head up from his feast just long enough to hiss at him.

“We’ll pack it up to go,” said Brin. “It’s not like you have to eat all of that right now, is it?”

Marksi considered that a moment and then twitched his tail in agreement. It took a minute to figure out how to carry it, since Brin hadn’t brought his backpack and Davi didn’t want to sacrifice his. Brin ended up picking up the slimy, near-transparent mess on the end of a stick, though Marksi chirped in displeasure every time a drop of clear and greasy blood hit the ground.

He might’ve figured out a better solution, but with time going at double speed it was all he could do to keep up. It ended up working out, because Marksi soon decided to follow along and snatch any dripping monster bits out of the air with his tongue, which both Davi and Brin found fun to watch.

They didn’t have a clear idea of where the cave was, just the direction they’d seen Zilly take off in, but Brin didn’t think it would be a long walk. Even so, he found he was quickly adjusting to the new speed the world was moving at. Birds were supposed to flash by at that speed; the leaves fluttering in the gentle breeze were supposed to flicker back and forth like they were in a wind tunnel.

The one worry he had was that he had no idea what the other part of his mind was up to right now. He supposed he wouldn’t know until the thread finished whatever it was doing and rejoined the rest of him. Honestly, that fact alone made the luster of his shiny new Skill start to fade. He already didn’t think he could use this in combat, and now he wasn’t sure if he could control his threads at all.

He hoped the thread would wrap up soon. He hadn’t given that thread clear instructions, but it had to know that it wasn’t allowed to capitalize half of his mind forever. With sudden dread, he imagined the other half of his mind growing sentient and deciding that rejoining his mind would be akin to death and try to take over the whole body.

“What are you doing over there?” he whispered to himself.

Then the thread was back. It felt like when he fell asleep on his arm during the night and then grabbed his hand to make sure it was still there. It was, it was part of him, and it had never not been part of him. He’d just lost track of it for a second.

The memories of what he’d been doing with the other half of his mind slipped in naturally, kind of like the sleeping arm waking up. That strange pins and needles feeling, except in his brain. It didn’t last long, and then his entire consciousness was back.

The world slowed down again, and he knew what he’d been doing with the other thread.

Not much. He hadn’t been able to control his body, and he had decided not to try to call on his magic. It had been sort of soothing and relaxing to be so detached and he’d mostly let his mind wander, enjoying the experience. He’d only decided to stop when he felt the pang of worry and heard him talk to himself. A strange experience; it’d felt so alien to hear another mind direct his voice. But now that the threads were back together it didn’t feel like one of them had died.

Relieved that this wasn’t going to be an existential crisis, he spun off another thread. This time, he forced it to quit before it returned on its own. The thread returned and the world’s speed went back to normal, but he didn’t get the influx of memories. They were lost, just… gone. Even though it’d only been a few seconds, he felt a void, like part of him actually had died. He’d need to figure out a way to make sure that didn’t happen too often. He couldn’t imagine losing a thread that’d run for days or weeks.

Marksi squawked to get his attention, and then pointed forward with his nose.

“Oh, I see it, too now,” said Davi. “That’s the cave where the [Witch] is supposed to be.”

Brin set the stick with the Wisp down. “Ok. Let’s go check it out. I’m sure they’re already done, but we need to be ready for anything, just in case.”

Marksi jumped on the Wisp as soon as it touched the ground, making it clear he intended to stay behind and finish his lunch.

“Marksi, you really shouldn’t be alone out here,” Brin said, but Marksi ignored him.

Brin decided to try out a directed thread. He created it with the instructions to use [Memories in Glass] to copy his Invisible Eye spell and cast it to watch Marksi. If anything went wrong, it should end the thread.

This time, the change in his thought speed was insignificant; he couldn’t tell any noticeable change in the world’s time. He almost didn’t believe it’d worked until he felt the drain on his Mana telling him that he was casting a spell.

Unlike before, where it had been a real strain to keep switching back and forth between maintaining his spell and doing other things, this happened literally without a thought. The method he’d figured out earlier in the day had moved this process from mind-breakingly strenuous to merely difficult, and now it was easier than breathing.

There was a major problem, though. He had no idea what the thread was up to. He didn’t have an insight into what the Invisible Eye was seeing, either. That was a crippling limitation, and he’d need to fix that if [Multithreading] was going to be a viable tool. He wanted to be able to do what Hogg did and monitor a dozen different illusions all at the same time, but if he couldn’t get feedback on the thread until it ended then this skill was useless.

There had to be a workaround. That was fine; Tenerer had warned him that this Skill would be harder to use. He didn’t expect to have everything working perfectly the first time he tried. He would figure it out. That’s what he told himself, at least, to try to ward off the growing sense of disappointment. Hopefully the directed thread would at least be smart enough to warn him if Marksi got into trouble.

Together, he and Davi walked into the cave. It was low enough that he had to crouch a bit to get inside, and he wasn’t the tallest guy around. That was Davi, who had to crouch down quite a bit.

The stench of rot and undead blood hit them immediately, and when Brin pulled out a sphere to make light he saw the source ten feet ahead of them. A destroyed undead soldier lay on the ground, where they couldn’t avoid stepping over him to get further into the tunnel. There were already several bloody footprints heading past it.

Brin gingerly stepped over the corpse and they moved on.

The tunnel eventually opened up a bit to an area that could fit two men side-by-side, and a cluster of destroyed undead littered the floor. They were torn into so many pieces Brin couldn’t even tell how many there had been; clearly Hogg hadn’t wanted to waste the time it would take to do this delicately.

A big wooden door stood slightly ajar at the end of the tunnel, and when they opened it, Brin and Davi found the rest of the team.

There was a large underground cavern, lit with lamps that cast an even light that spoke of enchantment rather than flame. A cozy-looking log cabin was built into the far corner, and in front of them was the bloody corpse of some kind of big, hairy brown beast. It was sprawled out across twenty feet of ground, which meant that it must’ve been terrifying when it was still alive. Zilly had a touch of blood on her sword, which meant that she’d arrived in time to get a piece of it.

“Where’s the [Witch]? Have you checked the house?”

Hogg sighed in irritation. “See for yourself.”

Brin walked past the dead monster and pushed the door to the log cabin open. He found Araunya the [Camp Chef] inside, crouched over the body of a young woman. The [Witch], probably.

The rest of the cabin was sort of cozy, with a few hanging plants and a tapestry of bucolic bliss, with some rosy-cheeked shepherd children playing with lambs. There were lots of clean squares on the ground, looking like some kind of furniture or box had been sitting there for a while and recently moved.

Now that he was looking closely, the place looked too empty. It’d been cleaned out.

He noticed the woman on the ground was breathing. “She’s alive?”

“Out cold,” Araunya nodded. “My perpetual sleeping stew will make sure she stays that way until we’re ready for her to be awake.”

Brin [Inspected] her.

Margald Hought Level: 28 Age: 16 Class: Perfumist

She was much younger than he’d assumed. That was a pretty high level for someone that age. It was an incredibly high level for someone that age in Arcaena.

Back out of the cabin and into the cave, Brin found Hogg again, now sharing his irritation. “That’s not [Hide Status], is it? We missed the [Witch].”

“Your… informant probably warned her we were coming. She left this one behind to direct the defenders. A servant, maybe an apprentice, but no. Not a [Witch].”

Brin saw a similar look of disappointment on Pio’s face. Jeffrey looked to be taking it stoically, while Zilly just seemed happy to be here. She was already regaling Davi with the tale of their battle.

“So what’s the plan?”

“We’ll take whatever we can get and split it with the team. The beast core for this thing will be worth a pretty penny, and they left some gold behind. Then when we get to Blackcliff we’ll report this to the kingdom. They’ll want to send a team over to collapse the tunnels. See that there?” Hogg pointed at a shadowed corner that Brin now realized was a tunnel moving further down. “That connects to the network of caves and underground roads that Arcaena has been using to move her army.”

“Any chance that we can track down the [Witch] that lived here?” Brin asked.

“I know a pretty good tracker that could do the job, but if she’s smart then she ran down that tunnel to join the army underground. And in that case, I don’t think it’d be worth it. How’d your fight with the familiar go?”

As if he didn’t know. Brin would bet his left eye that Hogg had a Visible Eye up in the sky that showed him the entire thing. He still smiled and said, “It went amazingly! I leveled up and I got an awesome Skill.”

Hogg gave him a forced smile, trying to match his enthusiasm. “Good! Then we got what we came here for.” He lowered his voice. “But I think I’m about done playing games with your informant. She screwed us, and I have some ideas on how to make her regret it.”