A Bored Lich

"And how will you do that?" His Lich-self floated next to him. "Will you use your indomitable will? Will you use a spell to permanently seal your mana away? How will you deal with the G.o.ddess then? How will you break out of the reincarnation cycle if you don"t have magic?"

"Get lost, I"m trying to think," Doevm thought as he waved the Lich out of his face. Despite his best efforts, the Lich materialized next to him.

"Oh, did you think I was here just to talk?" The Lich laughed as it pat Doevm"s head. "I know exactly what you"re trying to do. I also know it won"t work. You should go back to base and get healed up. You can put off this until later."

"That"s a trap and we both know it," Doevm thought. "If I go back there and get healed, even if I only have some bruises, I won"t be able to look away from the magic circle. You want to reignite my addiction. While you may think you know me, you can"t control me." He kept walking to his cave, but the Lich floated in front of him, blocking his path.

"But I can make your life annoying. I can float here all day."

"Can you?" Doevm thought.

"Yes." The Lich pushed Doevm to the ground. "I can also prevent you from getting up."

"But there"s a limit isn"t there?" Doevm thought. "You can only materialize for so long. The most I"ve ever seen you come out of my head is a few minutes at most. I wonder why that is… A few minutes wouldn"t happen to be you"re limit, would it?��� He imagined the Lich"s skeletal face paling and laughed. "Now let me up. You are only wasting my time. I know you won"t threaten my life because we both share the same body. If I die, you die. Go away." Doevm got up and walked past the Lich.

"Fine," the Lich shrugged. "You win. There is absolutely no way I can annoy you for an extended period of time." It dissolved.

"Finally, I just want some peace and quiet," Doevm thought. "Is that so much to ask for?" He made his way to his cave. In his absence, quite a bit of spiderwebs should have formed. To his surprise, not only were there no spiderwebs, there was no dust either. Four days of absence should have left some kind of residue, but it was still completely clean. He set that issue aside for later. On the walls were his own etches. In the past, he had managed to reconstruct seventy percent of the healing spell that Oliver used on him. He sc.r.a.ped random figures into the spell, ruining his progress. Each one of his notes were burned. He sat down, crossed his legs, and cleared his mind. "Don"t think about anything," he told himself. "Don"t think of anything."

"h.e.l.lo again!" A voice more annoying than Maker"s rang out.

Doevm pretended not to notice: "Don"t think of anything. Clear your-"

"Hey, listen!" The parasite insisted. Although Doevm"s eyes were closed, he could see the shadow of a skeletal hand shake in front of his face.

He took a deep breath: "Clear yo-"

"Remember me?" It seemed like the Lich would bark all day at this rate.

"What do you want?" Doevm thought. "I thought we had an understanding."

"You had a wrong understanding. You see, I don"t just have control outside of your body. I also have control of…" The Lich"s voice faded as memories surfaced. Doevm was back in the medical wing bed. Oliver held his hands over his wounds. A familiar magic circle appeared. Since the memory was not perfect, certain things were blurry. Oliver"s magic circle looked like it the seventy-percent reconstructed version Doevm had come up with. "I can control your memory. Go right for it. Clear your head. Don"t think about the various uses of healing magic. Don"t think about how you can reconstruct the spell." Doevm didn"t reel back in shock like the Lich expected. Instead, he pulled out a rock. "Do you intend to threaten my by promising to kill yourself? You wouldn"t do something that stupid."

"Nope," Doevm crushed part of his hand just enough so it would bruise but not be broken. He dropped the rock and shook his hand like it was covered in grime. "That hurt more than expected."

The Lich laughed, "What was that? Won"t you have to get healed if you injure yourself?"

"Only if I injure myself," Doevm thought as he grabbed the rock again. "But I have learned from experience that the best way to get something out of my head is through pain." He smashed his other hand. While his bones were creaking, he didn"t hear anything crack. "I"ve interrogated countless people. I know the exact pressure needed to break bones. As long as you continue to annoy me, I"m going to hit myself with this rock." To add credibility, he smashed the rock into his leg. "These types of wounds are painful but will heal after a day or two. Now it"s your turn. What will you do?"

"…" The Lich went silent. "You"re really stupid, do you know that?" A skeletal hand popped out, grabbed the rock, and hit Doevm"s hand so hard that it broke. "Two can play at this game. You may not want to break your hand, but I can. While there is a limit to what I can do, I can still give you enough wounds to send you to the medical wing."

"You"re right, two can play at this game." Doevm smiled as he held his hand up. "It"s funny, I never actually broke my hand before, yet I can picture it perfectly." Even though he hadn"t used any healing magic, his hand reformed. Even the bruises disappeared. He opened and closed his hand to show the Lich. "Thank you for showing me another one of your abilities. If you can drag me into a dream, why can"t I do the same to you? I"ve just been sitting still this whole time and you haven"t even noticed that my actions were all in my head." He smirked.

"When did you figure out…" The Lich"s voice faded.

Doevm took a deep breath: "It looks like your daily duration is up. You can no longer interact with me." He dropped the rock which vanished. "So his abilities are to manipulate matter and my mind. I can mess with his memories as well, although this time I was only able to do it for a couple of seconds. I didn"t even have to use magic. As long as I put my mind to it, I can suppress him, even if it"s just for those few seconds. This means he is part of my mind, although he can clearly manipulate the physical world. While I still don"t have an answer, I have an idea." He patted his s.p.a.cial ring which was inside his bag. "Thank you, Maximus."

"To further speculate, I just cleared my head and pictured the scenario. I don"t know if I can control the duration or if I can summon him at will. What if I turned him to be obedient? While I can"t control him like one of my Undead, I"m sure we"ll figure out a compromise."

He stared at the cave walls. "But regardless if he is here or not, this will still be troublesome." His method of getting over his addiction was simple: face it head on. As he stared at the defaced research, desires rose out of him. All he had to do was resist. While simple on paper, he already got a headache. "I can"t let this go on," he thought. "I need to stop this addiction at all costs. How am I supposed to grow if I rely on magic? If I miss the opportunity to get into the academy, I"ll never get another chance in this lifetime. If I let my desires overcome my will, how am I ever supposed to become strong? This is merely the first step on a long journey. I have to become stronger, even if I have to kill myself in the process. Arthur"s reincarnation is out there. I promised I would fight him again without magic. After ten years of constant defeats, I will finally get an opportunity to win. So what if I sound petty? So what if Maker wants to be entertained? All I want is to punch the hero in the face without any magic. I just need to win."

As he steeled himself, his mind couldn"t help but wander to Frey. "I can"t believe I didn"t notice it before. Frey is the spitting image of Arthur. Only he would do something so risky and somehow manage to survive. I wonder if I can beat Frey, not just tie with him, can I consider myself to have beaten Arthur?" He shook his head. "That"s just wishful thinking."