The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

A gentle breeze drifted over from the sea. The sky was cloudless and the weather perfect; nature completely unaware and uncaring of the predicament we were in.

What was I thinking at that moment - knowing that death could very well be coming for me that afternoon?

Initially it was thoughts of what would happen to people in the city who would no doubt die gruesome deaths. It was incredibly hard for them to flee by the ocean, though they'd try if push came to shove. More likely than not though, death would await them at the hands of the murky depths of the sea if they tried.

My thoughts then shifted to my family back home.

To Cheddar, and to my parents.

If I died here - would I be transported back home? I had thought of that at times while thinking of how to return, but had not resorted to trying to kill myself yet. I was too afraid of what the alternative would be. That I would just be dead, and my parents would never find out what had happened to me as my corpse lay in a different dimension or reality, or whatever this place was.

I still had absolutely no answers, even now, on what this world even was, how I had gotten here, or why I was even here. These questions were far from the forefront of my mind though as I thought of what my family would go through if I'd never return.

I had heard several stories of missing people where their families were left distraught as to where they had suddenly vanished off to. It had been over a year - unless there was some weird time dilation thing going on between worlds, what would my family be thinking about right now?

After a year, it wouldn't surprise me if they thought I was already dead.

Did Cheddar still look outside the window expectantly, as I had been told he so often did after I moved to college, hoping that he would see my car pull up or another sign signaling my return? Would he continue doing so until the end of his natural life, waiting for someone who would never come home?

I could imagine him eagerly running towards the door anytime it opened, hoping that the person who walked through was me.

He was a dog and I knew that he was already getting on in years, if I didn't return back home quickly enough, I would end up going back only to learn that he had passed away while I was stuck in this world…

I could imagine my parents calling my number on their phones over and over again, hoping that one day I would pick up only to get a message saying that my number was out of reach - and how distraught they must have been while wondering what was happening to me.

The police would have been called, though after months of no progress and no leads, I'd imagine that the case would eventually get dropped.

My folks wouldn't understand what happened - but how long would they pursue trying to find me? Not even understanding why I had vanished like that must have been torturous. Did they think I had thrown myself off a cliff or something? Or that it had something to do with drugs or human trafficking? Perhaps something even more outlandish - like I had been abducted by a UFO. But they would have never been able to guess the truth.

If I died here, they would never get an answer to any of their questions. At every holiday or family function, they would be constantly reminded of my absence as they saw the other happy families around them.

Did they blame themselves, thinking that they had done something to drive me away? I really hoped that wasn't the case, but I could see that happening. If only I could reach out to them for even a second to let them know that I was alright…

They might even start trying to drown out their misery in alcohol. And as they might sink deeper into despair, what if they thought it was no longer worth livin- NO!

I refused to let my mind wander there, or else I think I would genuinely go insane.

Eventually though, even if they lived long and healthy lives, they would go to their graves not knowing what had happened to their son - their only child.

I could not imagine that being a happy ending for them.

"Are you alright?" Drake asked me, pulling me out of my reverie. "I've been calling your name for the last minute but you weren't responding…"

"Uh, yes," I said, trying to collect my thoughts. Yes, I could very well end up six foot under today - but the likelihood of that would be much higher if I didn't get my act together right now and focus during the upcoming battle.

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"Listen," Drake said, keeping a scaly hand on my shoulder. "I know the fighting's going to get intense, but we'll get through this - we have the advantage here." It sounded like he was convincing himself more than me, but I nodded. "Hey - here." He handed me an extra helping of fish.

This was quite common in lizardmen culture - rather than gifting something like flowers or a bottle of wine, they would usually gift a rare or exotic fish. It was also a way of apologizing or trying to cheer someone up - for the lizardmen, fish were perfect gifts for all occasions. It was a bit unfortunate that the haul one could get near the city had diminished with overfishing being rampant because of the siege, but fish was still the most common food item to be found in the city.

"Eat up," Drake said. "I know it's hard, but once the fighting starts, who knows when our next meal is?" I definitely felt nauseous, but knew that the fighting would likely go on for hours, possibly until daybreak tomorrow or longer, so he had a point. But Drake seemed to realize there was something else going on beyond just the stress of the siege. "Um… is there something else? You look kind of… different…"

"Do you have five or ten minutes to spare?" I asked him.

"Hmm? Um, sure, there are some things I have to go over and I can do that while we talk - why what happened?" Drake asked.

I took him aside where I was sure we wouldn't be overheard - with the general chaos that had occupied the wall, I didn't think anyone was listening in on us anyway.

Turns out the 'things he had to go over' included taking out a flask and taking a big sip. Dutch courage? Couldn't blame him really considering this might be the last drink he had.

"I've not been entirely truthful about where I come from…" I began. That seemed to draw his attention immediately - it was kind of surprising to me how attentively he seemed to be listening to every single word I said as I told him about Earth, that I had come from another world and had been dropped here in this other world I called Libraria in my head without any explanation and how I had been hoping to get back home.

It was extremely abridged and I couldn't even get half of what I wanted to get across in such a short time, but I think that Drake got the gist of it. Or at least, enough so that it would suit my purpose.

"Stefan…" Drake began, forgetting the 'Master' for once. "Is this some kind of joke that you're hoping to cheer me up with before the fighting begins? Because if so-"

I shook my head. "It's true. The reason I wanted to tell you is because… in case I don't make it out of this fight alive, and by some miracle my family or someone else from my world comes looking for me… I just wanted someone to know and be able to tell them what happened to me."

Drake still looked unconvinced until I hadn't broken into laughter for a full minute, after which he said, "Fine then…"

I didn't think he had fully believed what I was saying, but he likely had other things to do and quickly disappeared.

Had I made a mistake by telling him? It felt like we had just started to become friends, and I couldn't think of anyone else to tell, aside from Granny Qi, but I couldn't very well run back to her house right now could I?

My main worry was that he would think I was a lunatic, which, was something that I would have to worry about only if we survived - so I'd reflect on it more if we got through this battle. And if someone from my world did, as a matter of fact, appear after I'd died, he'd know then that I was telling the truth.

It had taken until the afternoon for the dryads to get organized, after which they finally launched themselves at the walls.

Our first line of defense, and also the strongest, were the Rank Three Liberomancers. Most of us knew [Grand Fireball] and cast it out in waves at the incoming forces.

Master Jiah Pei, interestingly enough, was an ice elementalist. Maybe I had been told that at some point and forgotten - but it did shock me a bit to see him use [Grand Iceball] which caused a huge number of dryads to turn into treesicles. They were weak to fire, but that didn't make them immune to ice thankfully. It just meant that ice was not as useful as fire when dealing with them.

Then again, that was to be expected. One of the advantages of Liberomancers working like this in large groups, was that we could have different people specializing in different things - one person focused on healing, another on defense, etc. Certain specialties were better than others at dealing with the dryads, but nearly everyone had one or two offensive spells they could unleash to try and tip the scales.

I, of course, had another trick up my sleeve.

It was getting kind of old at this point - but if it wasn't broke, why fix it?

"[Summon Tyrant Arachnea]!" I yelled out as Drake did the honors and lit it on fire.

Fear was still deeply ingrained into the minds of the dryads, who hesitated greatly upon seeing the creature. This hesitation cost them as they were very close together for this assault, and they quickly fell prey to the spreading flames.

It was here that something like oil or kerosene would've been very useful to pour over them, though I supposed even if we did have something like that, how would it reach them at this distance? It was thanks to my summon that our side joined the battle far later than other areas of the wall, as eventually, even after it had taken down over a thousand of the enemy directly or indirectly, my summon fell to their attacks.

After that, my only strategy was firing [Grand Fireball] over and over until my mana ran out. I had even expended my use of [Wizard's Blessing] to cast an extra [Grand Fireball] - there was no holding back given the size of the attack.

The dryads seemed to be committed to make this their final attack, and were employing human wave tactics - also known as 'we have more soldiers than our enemy has bullets' strategy.

Drake was the last of the Rank Three Liberomancers on our side to run out of mana - he likely had several grimoires that allowed him to cast a number of fire-based spells for free a few times, and some which reduced their mana cost.

But, the gaps we had made in the enemy formation with our spells quickly closed. I knew it couldn't have been instantaneous; we had definitely been able to hold them off for at least an hour, but it sure felt like it had been over nearly instantly.

It was the first time that this line of defense had been breached up till now, and the dryads rushed in at us with renewed vigor when they saw that we were no longer casting Rank Three spells at them.