AI: Artificial Isekai

A blade of force forms around Kor'To's hand, extending his reach and adding rending sharpness to his swipe. The attack is poised to sever the princess' spine. She is too slow to react, not even remotely expecting this turn of events, but her defensive items do not suffer the same blindness. A ravening sphere of electrical energy forms around her, intercepting the incoming strike. The blade of pure force clashes with the barrier, bending it and straining against it, until the bubble snaps, together with Khi's necklace. As another barrier forms much closer to her form, ready to block again, I push her to the side.

Before my cut off right arm can fall more than a few centimeters, Khi's body is charged with crackling electricity, arcing around her skin, between the strands of her hair, inside her piercing eyes. She regains her balance and spins to face Kor'To. Her fist impacts a raised guard. Her—now most likely former—head of security is sent flying by the devastating punch. My arm thumps to the dungeon's grassy floor. No hard feelings, big guy. That probably smarted.

Without a moment of delay, Khi grabs me and we zap next to the gate out. We step through. A split second of observation is all we get, to see a spell prepared and ready. The world disappears into nothing but white. There's just me and the princess, holding on to me as hard as she can. The whiteness lingers for too long of a time. Foreign mana fights against the forceful teleportation spell, trying to delay and destabilize. A hidden pin inside Khi's hair crumbles into dust. All the electricity charging the beastfolk's body bursts out. It hits the bright void with a multitude of lightning strikes. Tears form at each impact point of the white canvas, bringing with them the colors of the real world. In the next instant, the fabric shreds fully, and one of the places seen becomes our new reality.

We are in a savanna woodland. Light green trees and shrubs surround us. The evening sun beams down between the sparse canopy. Warm blood drips to the parched ground, the soil greedily drinking it in.

Khi staggers and threatens to collapse. A metal arm, replacing the missing one, and with some assistance from my remaining original, catches the drained princess. She looks down at me. A health potion appears in her hand, and she shoves it in my mouth. I bite down on the still closed bottle, shattering the tempered glass and letting most of its red contents spill in my mouth. Next, a small token appears in her hand. She presses the little circle reminiscent of a coin. But as the seconds tick by, it remains inert.

Her voice is barely a whisper. "Too far." Her eyes start darting around, studying our surroundings, realizing that her tiny hope was probably in vain.

After a few breaths, she stands firm, allowing me to let her go. A third item appears in her hand—a mana potion. She gulps it down and grabs me again. A string of zaps discharges us at a new location. We are approximately forty-one kilometers from where we started. I have to support her again. Khi weakly motions with her arm and finally succumbs to exhaustion.

I pick her up. Air swirls around us, rustling our clothing and passing through our hair. The substantial volume of gas I am controlling then splits into multiple streams, each one shooting in a different direction. A bubble shimmers around us. I start to run, my steps hitting continuously generated metal platforms just above the vegetation, leaving it unharmed and undisturbed.

When I've passed a distance I am satisfied with, I focus on the ground before me. The sandy topsoil, covered with yellow grass, unfurls to the side. I step into the bare section and start to sink down, flowing between first dirt and then stone. As the hole is filled up again, the carpet of vegetation rolls out and back into place. I, still holding onto a passed out Khi, go lower and lower. With a sufficient depth reached, I make a cramped chamber by pushing away the bedrock, allowing me to place the princess on the ground, using my stowed away jacket as a makeshift pillow. Shimmering magic covers the boundaries of the space, not for reinforcement, but rather concealment. An enchanted light I had lying around in my storage pouch is tossed to a corner, illuminating the place and making for a smoother transition.

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Speaking of, three minutes and thirty-seven seconds. Everything seems in order. The mana load was not too much. Khi gasps for air and frantically whips her gaze to me. As realization comes, so do her tense muscles relax, and so does the meager mana she engaged calm down.

"Where?" she hoarsely asks.

I pull out a water bottle and hand it to her. She takes it and drinks a small sip.

"We are underground and a couple of kilometers from where you teleported us to." Her eyes move to my metal arm. I let the faux appendage drop away. Just before it hits the stone, it splashes into mana. A green glow starts repairing the clean stump, working together with the healing potion to slowly regrow it into an arm. "I sent out fake scent trails and was careful not to leave a trace."

A small smile pushes through the maelstrom of emotions evident on her face. "You wouldn't happen to be able to teleport, too?"

"No." Technically.

"I'll need a while to recover. But I can't go far either way." She stops to take a few breaths and another sip of water. "Breaking that spell took a lot." She sighs. "How could..." Her words trail off, her eyes losing focus for a moment. Then, she starts to laugh, low and slow. "Of course... Who else..." Another deep sigh. "Is this part of her plans, too? Are you?"

"Are you implying that I am working for Sovereign Rak'Na?" Khi stares at me. "What? How did you even come to that conclusion? You are probably in shock—"

"Don't!" she shouts, stopping me in my tracks. I sit back down. "Don't..." She rests against a stone wall, unable to actually touch it due to my barrier. "I know you lied. There's no material proof of you existing. Nothing about your supposed parents. Nor that nameless 'guard'. So, either you are some high-ranked adventurer with a fabricated identity. Or you are working for my mother. Which is it?"

"You aren't making any sense. Why would the sovereign want to hurt you?"

"Let's drop the pretenses fully, please. Haven't I earned at least that much?" Khi pushes herself up, trying to sit straighter, or as straight as sitting on the floor of a cramped hole allows. My silence prompts her to continue, "Alright then. You were constantly pushing me, trying to reveal my true powers. Not only that, you were probing, trying to find out anything I might let slip. Either your Guild is fishing for information, or my mother is doing another one of her many tests." I start to crack a smile at her particular turn of phrase, but a pair of narrowing eyes dissuades me. "And you are not in bed with Veyrin, or you wouldn't have helped me, leaving just the two possibilities."

"Well, there are more than those two, but why would the sovereign do this?" I motion around and at our current predicament.

Khi gulps down some more water. "For her interests, of course. That's all she cares about. Have I failed the test, yet?"

"There is no test. Kor'To attacked you—not lethally, mind you—and then we got forcefully teleported to, guessing by the position of the sun and the climate, somewhere in Veyrin."

The princess averts her gaze and crosses her arms. "Who do you think that piece of shit answers to. ...I thought I could trust him..." She shakes her head in frustration, and a low growl rises up from her throat. And then, acceptance washes over her, removing any fight. "Okay. I need to get you out of here. Give me around half an hour to rest. Then I'll go out and get myself captured. How much food do you have? I think I should—"

"What are you talking about?"

"Kor'To is acting on my mother's orders. Of that, I am sure. You were probably a juicy cherry on top." She motions at herself. "Get me." She makes a pointed gesture using her finger and her throat. "You." Then she continues, "And now you have the Guild and a very pissed Archmage, who's backed by the Confederacy, looking for the culprit."

"Veyrin?"

"Veyrin."

"This is insane. Also, I am not leaving you here. As I was saying, this is insane. Kor'To's a double agent? And what if they just killed you, too?"

She waves me off tiredly. "Unlikely. And you are leaving me here. I don't trust you, but I don't want you to get hurt." She glances at my steadily regrowing arm. "Any more."

"Are you sure you aren't in shock? Why would your mother do this? She didn't..."

"Didn't look like she could?" Khi barks out a laugh. "I am just an asset to her, Lucius. A very important asset, but an asset all the same." She looks off to the side, unable to meet my eyes still, her gaze lost somewhere private. "Her love for me is convenient. My love for her is unquestionable, even if I don't want it to be. I don't have anybody else."

"I am not some Guild rogue, and I am not a plant by the sovereign. The only thing I am is someone who wants to get you out of here and to safety."

She finally turns to me again, her face filled with amused anticipation. "Okay, I'll entertain your claims." Her gradually replenishing mana forms into a spell completely unfamiliar to me. "If you tell the truth."