Insulator

1.3 City of Mages

I didn't have a destination in mind. I just slowly wandered around without a purpose, going from one city to the next. My lids were half-closed, like both my body and soul were only half-present, as I walked the world of the living. I was tired and weary, but could never tell if it was my body or soul that was feeling that way.

My eyes slowly opened up a little more, as I looked around the town I just entered. The people were hiding in fear, looking at me with fearful eyes, as if expecting me to bring some kind of disaster upon them. I saw the occasional person walk by that looked completely different to the rest. Instead of the brown and dark clothes, they were wearing red and more concentrated colours. Both the light and dark coloured looked at me with eyes of confusion or fear, as if trying to determine which side I was on. My clothes were red and brown, quite dark and faded, but still quite different to the regular townsfolk around me. It made sense for them to not understand which category I belonged to.

It felt like this town rarely had visitors, as I couldn't find an inn or place to stay anywhere, and no matter where I went, I would find eyes watching me. As I walked closer to the centre of the city, I noticed the houses began to change. Instead of the old and rough, faded dwellings, they began to look newer and brighter in colour, much like the clothes of those the townsfolk seemed to fear. As I walked further into the district the townsfolk became less common as only the feared class of people could be seen.

"Hey! You there." I heard one of them yell to me, getting my attention.

"What are you doing here?" the man asked.

"I'm just looking for a place to stay" I quietly replied, my voice lacking much like my body and soul.

"Are you a mage?" he asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"The mages control this city. If you aren't one then you have to leave this area and go live with the other peasants."

"I see..." I weakly answered. "I am a mage."

"Yeah, right. Prove it then" he sneered at me.

I cast a weak fire magic spell at the ground, which dissipated quickly. He just looked at me with a disgusted look, annoyed that I was, but still looking down at me. He walked off, ignoring me, so I went back to wandering around.

I saw one of the townsfolk walking around and stopped him. I asked him why the town was controlled by mages. It turns out that this city existed within a negative natural field, one that prevented regular fields from being cast within. Since the abilities of field-users were a major counter to magic, the mages became overconfident and took control over the city, forcing everyone here to do their bidding. They continued to grow in strength and numbers, so everyone felt that they were close to unstoppable at this point.

It was quite a curious scenario...

"Hey. Don't talk to my errand boy" a mage yelled at me, and the boy ran away.

I turned to him but didn't say anything.

"Don't give me that look. Say something! What class are you anyway?"

"Mage..."

"Oh, is that so? Well, a mage shouldn't have a problem protecting themselves from this, then" he said, beginning to snicker as he began casting a magic spell.

A part of me began to get nervous, as there were many things in this world that I wasn't aware of, so the man could have been capable of anything. But it was just a fire magic spell. It was obviously much stronger than the one I could make, but it still wasn't all that impressive, though.