The Isekai Police [Books 1 + 2 Complete!]

Artyom lost track by the thirty minute mark. At one point the weight of the sheer monotony grew too heavy, prompting him to begin a game of hokey pokey with the deadly turrets.

He put his left foot in, and they fired at him.

He put his left foot out, and they stopped.

He put his left foot in, and shook it all about.

That was a bit of a mistake, as one of the shots ended up hitting Artyom right above the shin, making him yelp in pain and pull it back out.

"What did you do that for?" asked Cane, glaring towards the entrance. "Are you really so bored you'd risk your life like that?"

"I wasn't risking anything," he replied back. "I still have all my defensive spells up so the worst it can do is bruise me."

"And was it worth a bruise?" she asked.

No response. Just a right foot being stuck in and out.

"You think he's going to shake it again?" asked Broc.

"A cherry tart says yes," replied Gula.

Artyom stuck his foot in again and began to shake it, but for much shorter than last time.

"I never said I was going to take the bet," said Broc, angling their hair to block the view of a very smug Gula.

"You were about to, so pay up during dinner."

"Hey, look," said Cane, breaking the others out of their conversation.

This time when Artyom had stuck his left arm in, the distinctive screech of turret fire was nowhere to be heard. Even when he stuck it back in and gave it a shake, slightly longer for good measure.

"About time!" said Artyom as he walked back into the room while stretching out his back. Despite the exaggerated motion, his eyes never left the turrets, which still turned to face him as he warily made his way to the students.

"Finally finished?" asked Cane. Her eyes were on the book in front of her. She touched a finger to her tongue and used it to turn the page, putting her to about a quarter of the way through.

The other two placed down a bookmark and shut their book closed before standing up with sheepish grins.

"Sorry Artyom," said Broc. "We kinda got bored waiting."

"And seeing as how the turrets weren't targeting us…" added Gula.

"Don't worry, I don't blame you," replied Artyom. "But the least you can do is give me a summary. Seriously, I know it took me a while to deal with the turrets, but it couldn't have been that long."

"The stuff in here is pretty complicated, so we kinda just…" began Broc.

"Skipped past," replied Gula with a loud gulp.

"We'll slow down once we get to something actually interesting," added Cane as she flipped to the next page.

Artyom walked up to her and looked over her shoulder. The contents of the page was nothing new to him, detailing basic magical theory, and what he could read before Cane turned to the next page was very dense.

Before Cane could flip the page once again, Artyom put his hand in the way. "Hold on, let me take a good look at this first."

Just like the last page, he recognized what the passage was describing: the fundamentals of magical foci. It jumped straight into the most common ones and how to internalize them. Like how Fire could be represented through different emotions, and the kinds of life experiences that could be linked to each one. Warmth of the first hot meal in a refugee camp, the inner fire that keeps you going when all is lost, the wrathful flames of revenge…

"Holy shit, what is wrong with these people?" mumbled Artyom to himself as he began to skim the rest of the page.

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But what he took in from the tome felt familiar to him. The density, desperation, and depression in those words brought him back to a long-gone time, back to the War of the Seven Worlds. Back to when he was first summoned as a chosen hero destined to save the day.

When he was thrown into a terrible war and forced to learn quickly or die.

This was a book to teach war.

Artyom made to pick up the textbook, but his hand was swatted away by Cane.

"Get your own! There's an entire bookshelf full of them over there," she said, pointing to a nearby wall lined with copies of the same book.

Artyom did just that, walking over and grabbing himself a copy. He opened it up and quickly found the table of contents. "Wait a minute, why didn't any of you-"

"We did, but quickly found out we don't actually know as much about all of those topics as we thought we did," replied Cane in a low grumble.

"You can help teach us this stuff, right Artyom?" asked Gula.

"Well, it is my job, so sure," replied Artyom. "And with the whole war against the Dark Lord going on right now, maybe these particular books would be especially fitting?"

Artyom's thoughts went silent as he began to skim through the table of contents. After a quick three pages dedicated to magical theory, the page listed contents such as general exercises for increasing your capabilities, a catalogue of magical specialties and their role both in and outside a battlefield, and a variety of spells for each of these roles categorized by element; every topic being something Artyom was painfully aware of.

Until…

"Rune magic," he said in a low whisper as he dragged his finger across the words about two thirds down the page.

Artyom noted the page number and began to flip to it, throwing up a cloud of dust as hundreds of pages from the centuries old tome were flipped through in an instant.

"Here we go, Rune Magic," said Artyom as he began to read aloud. "Rune magic is a novel form of arcane casting that doesn't follow previously documented properties of standard spellcasting. In it, arcane glyphs, called runes, are transcribed upon objects to enact their magic."

So far so good.

"Different variations of runes produce different effects, yadda yadda, take rare metals and gems as fuel, yup yup, and offer a wide variety of combat applications."

Artyom began to skim through the chapter; not out of a lack of understanding like the others, but to find out where his knowledge and the book's diverged. Most of the basics properties of runes were the same between the two, but things took a very different turn when it came to use cases.

The textbook detailed what to it were "common" applications, such as "Runic Shielding" and "Runic Piercing". According to the book, rune magic took precedence over standard magic, and could outright block it out with sufficient power. Same with the roles switched, this so-called "Runic Piercing" was capable of bypassing a portion or more of magical protection.

It explained the turrets perfectly; runic shielding protected their bodies while their attacks were laced with "Runic Piercing" which bypassed his enchanted armor, but not his body strengthening spells.

But the big question was, how did this all work, and why did TOAL never discover it? Artyom wasn't exactly an expert in the application of rune magic despite his knowledge of the theory behind it. All he knew was that different rune configurations in portals would connect them to different worlds, so maybe there was some kind of configuration beyond even that which would make the magic behave differently than a portal altogether?

Skimming through the rest of the chapter, Artyom couldn't find anything that highlighted such a difference between portals and runic combat. In fact, the book didn't even mention runic portals at all. It did however contain several diagrams on very low leveled Runic Shielding and Piercing. He took pictures of them with his phone and sent them over to Gus. Maybe the R&D and research teams could make more sense of this?

If this discovery paid off, it alone would make all the time he'd spent here instead of on a battlefield worthwhile. Who knew how many more kids could be saved if TOAL could make use of this type of runic magic?

"Speaking of time, it's almost dinner," said Artyom, looking at his phone's clock. "I don't know about you, but I have to get to something important after, so let's head out and come back tomorrow to search for more clues. In the meantime, feel free to take a copy of this book with you."

All four of them placed down a bookmark and headed out with smiles on their faces. Artyom, in front, couldn't help but feel excited. He'd happened upon the discovery of a lifetime, even for him! And with the full intellectual might of TOAL behind cracking it, who knew what heights they would soon achieve?

Artyom's grin quickly evaporated as he stepped over the threshold, and his book turned to ash.

The other three stopped in place and looked at him like a deer staring into headlights. It took a long moment for them to regain their composure, but the first thing they did after was look at their own books, then at the bookshelf towards the back of the room.

Thankfully, all of the other copies were still intact, but Artyom was still staring at the pile of ash barely cradled in his arm.

"Maybe it was a one-time thing?" asked Broc.

"Hand me your book and we'll find out," replied Artyom.

Broc hesitated, but after a stare-down with the other two, they let out a sigh and slowly shuffled to the exit. As soon as the book passed the threshold, it too turned to ash almost immediately.

Artyom let out a sigh. "Why are they even made to do that?" he asked out loud. "It's an introductory textbook filled with common information any half-decent mage should already know, there shouldn't be anything worth hiding in there, right?"

Right?

"Or maybe the application of rune magic isn't so common after all."