Starlight Necromancer

Chapter 122 - Repair

"Half a year ago? What do you mean?" Sam asked with a wry smile, "It's been... it's been seven years since then."

"What year was it when you got here?" Foster asked, and Sam, looking at the broken phone in front of him, slowly lifted his head, "Erm... it was... 2021, February 26th." 

"...I got here in August 5th 2021..." Foster replied. Sam wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with this information. He looked at the ground, not sure what this was supposed to mean. He closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh, "You know what? It's fine. It doesn't make a difference, at all. Whether six months or seven years, we're here now. And it's not like our situation makes any sense in the first place... right?"

Foster smiled lightly, "Yup, that's what I think as well. So, erm... how the fuck is your phone still working after seven years?" He asked, excited to see the weirdly relaxing glow of a screen again. The kind that wasn't floating right in front of your face, seemingly defying all laws of physics in the process.

"More importantly... How did yours break that badly? It's like you deliberately took it apart."

"Ah..." Foster replied, "You know, the regular. Falling off a 200 foot cliff."

Sam looked back surprised, not expecting that sort of answer, "A 200 foot cliff?"

"Maybe 250?"

"...I think I need a bit more information here. What happened since you got here? The abridged version is fine." Sam said, clearly concerned for what this man in front of him was about to say. Foster thought about it for a few moments, and then scratched the back of his head, "I mean, sure, but if I tell you, you're gonna have to tell me a little bit as well."

Sam nodded without hesitation, "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

With a shrug, Foster continued to think for a few more moments to figure out what to say, and then started his extremely abridged explanation, "Alright, so. I had just finished something related to my work, was listening to some music, and then, poof, I'm on this cliff, right? There's a huge ass monster behind me, I fall down a cliff, and basically die. The system 'initialises' inside of me, and heals me for that, and in the process makes me not give a shit about the situation I was in to make me calm down. I stand up, meet this guy that happens to be an animated skeleton speaking right into my mind. I follow him, he feeds me and gives me new clothes. Fast forward, next morning, he's killed by some random guys, I beat one of them up, the skeleton guy teaches me Argian through magic, this giant fucking monster tree dies, we run away. I told those guys I'm an otherworlder, and-"

"You did what?" Sam asked, interrupting Foster as he was speaking. The situation explained to him thus far was already crazy enough, but he couldn't believe that someone would just tell others that sort of thing, "Why did you do that?"

"Don't look at me like that, as I said, the system made me not give a shit about the situation. I didn't even 'want' to think about what I should and shouldn't do." Foster explained.

"Yeah, but isn't it common sense?"

"Why the fuck would anything related to traveling to another world with fucking magic and talking skeletons be called common sense?" He responded instantly, and although Sam wanted to somehow retaliate, he realized that Foster had a point, and simply let him continue, "Anyway... They then told me about the whole Hero-type and villain-type bullshit that's going on with otherworlders, but they seemed chill at first. They then went to bed, and I overheard them talking about killing me, so I ran away while grabbing a bunch of shit from the skelly dude's house. He had a map that led me to a nearby town, and there I was told I should come to Arcadum. I joined a caravan as an employee, met two people that are now part of my party, and we're adventurers. First time in this dungeon, and all."

Sam slowly nodded, "Honestly, that was a good choice. I haven't told anyone that I'm an otherworlder, personally. It just seems too... risky. I've read up a little bit about the history of otherworlders, if you want I can refer some books about that to you. Now that you're here, those guys shouldn't be able to find you."

"Right. So, how about-"

"No, sorry, I still have a question... Did you just use necromancy? And through that sort of spell as well... That is really, really dangerous." Sam pointed out, "You really shouldn't do something like that. You see, after using a certain amount of magic, it can happen that your body starts being affected. And especially with necromancy, it seems like your body would severely suffer."

With a grin on his face, Foster shook his head, "Actually, not at all. When I basically died back then, the system gave me a title, 'He who is one with Death'. It was specifically made for me, and all, even says my name in the description and stuff. Anyway, it makes me immune to necromancy or something."

Once more perplexed, Sam wasn't sure what it was that he just heard, "It- You have a unique title? Are you serious?"

"Yup. That's why I can use necromancy without worrying about magic feedback or whatever." Foster said with a smug expression, even though he really didn't do anything himself to get this title. He just fell down a cliff, completely coincidentally.

Sam placed his hand onto his chin, starting to think, "If you're immune to it, then that would really make it easy for you to learn necromancy without particular repercussions. But well... more importantly, I think you deserve an explanation on my side now as well." He pointed out, "On earth, I was a computer science student. I was on my way back to my apartment one evening, when I suddenly found myself... well, here, on this world. Although, I was a lot luckier than you. I happened to find myself near a small village, and managed to find shelter there for a few months while picking up a few simple phrases, and then started to move on. While I was travelling, I happened to meet an artificer, and he taught me the magic engineering skill. Using that, I was able to modify my phone, laptop, and tablet to run on mana instead of regular electricity. I gathered some data, and made a learning app for the Argian language and different magic spells to let me remember them more easily." 

Foster raised his brow, curious to hear about all of this, "Really? You don't think you can repair my phone and give me a copy of that spell-learning app?"

"Hm... I mean, I've switched out most of the important parts in my own things, like the GPU or CPU with processors that compute things through magic... so I should probably be able to repair the base board as well... I might have to improvise for the screen, though, and I guess I'll have to write a custom OS... I doubt that whatever was on there before is going to work after I repair... that." Sam replied, in thought, before looking back up from the pieces of the phone into Foster's eyes, "Just give this stuff to me for now, I'll try to repair it in time. We'll probably have a lot downtime during the dive, and we'll gather a lot of high quality magic stones and other materials that I should be able to use. So by the time I'm back, it should be useable again, at least."