***
{Inside The Projection}
Their little battlefield was finally still, thick with the stench of blood. Bodies of monsters littered the sand. Hundreds of them. The only sounds left were the labored breaths of the survivors and the occasional groan of the wounded.
Malik stared at that scene for a while, thinking, considering, contemplating, but then shook his head, let out a slow breath, and rolled his injured shoulder.
‘…I better not.’
Blood seeped from the claw marks, staining his dirty white shirt a dark red, warm, and sticky against his skin.
It looked pretty bad, though he could barely feel it… Not that Layla cared.
She was the first to rush onto the battlefield, like a wife running to her husband, hands hovering over his worst-looking injury.
“You’re hurt!”
He glanced down at his body and shrugged.
“It ain’t a big deal. I’ve had worse.”
Layla pouted.
“Not a big deal?! You shouldn’t be so careless!”
Meanwhile, Ali Baba stood nearby, his arm wrapped in a cloth where he had taken a hit.
“I see how it is. My own daughter ignores my injuries to fawn over some outsider?”
The others chuckled while the man tending to him snickered.
“Guess we know who’s more important, ay Leader?”
Layla’s face turned red.
“He’s not even hurt! He’s fine! Stop being dramatic.”
Ali Baba scoffed.
“Oh? Dramatic, am I? I nearly lost an arm!”
“You have a scratch. You’ll live.”
“Yeah, yeah… Tell that to my poor arm~.”
The laughter spread, and Layla groaned, burying her face in her hands as the teasing continued. Even Malik smirked a little, though he quickly wiped it off when she turned to glare at him.
Layla grabbed his uninjured arm.
“Follow me. I’m fixing you up.”
Malik sighed but let her pull him toward the medic area.
Watching that, Ali Baba chuckled and gestured for everyone to move on.
“Alright, alright. Enough gawking, you lot! The battle’s won, but we’ve got work to do! Check the wounded! Gather the weapons! And someone drag those roasted lizards away before they stink up the entire caravan!”
And sure enough, the caravan’s healer was soon hard at work, tending to the worst injuries first.
Thankfully, their losses weren’t nearly as bad as they could’ve been. A few people had gotten injured pretty badly, but most had made it through with only a few scratches.
Still, they needed time to recover—and recover they did, lying around in the medic area, getting patched up.
“So…”
While Malik was getting treated, Ali Baba strolled over, shaking his head with an amused smirk.
“Fusing, huh?”
Malik glanced at the curved sword still clutched in his hands.
The runes were gone now, the blade silver, the heat settled.
“Yeah.”
Ali Baba hummed.
“Not bad.”
“NOT BAD?! What do you mean, ‘not bad’?
Layla gawked at him.
“That was insane! You saw what he did!”
“Oh, I saw~.”
Ali Baba mused.
“And it means one thing.”
He clapped Malik’s uninjured shoulder, grinning wide.
“You’re in for a Hell of a ride now.”
Malik raised an eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
Ali Baba laughed.
“I mean, you just skipped about five years of training in one fight. You think I’m letting you slack off after this? Oh no, my friend. I’ll be using you as much as I can.”
Malik sighed.
“Great.”
Layla gave her father THE eyes.
“Baaaabaaaa…”
He coughed.
“Ahum! Ahum! It won’t be too much, don’t worry!”
“Hehehe, I love you~.”
Malik looked at the comedy act in front of him with a deadpan face.
‘…It beats having slavers as company, I guess.’
Earlier, before the… world happened, he’d have loved them as company, but now, he only saw it as a job, nothing more. Or at least he forced himself to see it that way. He’d be a liar if he denied that those two didn’t grow on him a little.
“So more responsibilities and no extra pay? You’re giving me quite a bad image of your caravan. Don’t tell me I joined a soulless group without knowing…”
Ali Baba waved his hands around in a panic, afraid his daughter might look at him like that again.
“No, no, no, of course not! If you keep up this performance, I’ll increase your rate by one silver per week.”
“Give me a good reason to work with you again. Five.”
“I can’t give you blatant special treatment. Two.”
“If I don’t talk, nobody will know. Four.”
“It still goes against my—”
“It’ll be fine. Besides, those monsters we killed will get you a big bump in coin.”
“…Three.”
“Deal.”
…
Ali Baba clapped his hands together, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Alright, listen up! We’re changing course. We need to stop at the nearest village to sell off our goods and get proper medical treatment.”
A murmur of agreement spread through the caravan. The fight had taken its toll, and nobody was in a hurry to face another ambush unprepared.
“You lot.”
He pointed at a group of people who had done little during the battle.
“Since you barely lifted a finger, you’re in charge of cutting up the monster. We’ll be selling them in the village, so don’t mess it up.”
Groans and grumbles followed, but nobody dared to argue. The orders were given, and the plan was set. Everyone went to work.
Later, they rested a bit earlier in the night, needing as much sleep as they could get.
The next morning, just as the Shams rose high in the sky, they began to move.
Their journey to the village didn’t take long—it had been just a short way off their original path. By midday, they arrived.
The village was small, just a kilometer or so of built land, but lively, nestled between rocky outcrops and star-bleached buildings. People bustled through the narrow streets, haggling over goods, leading steeds, and shouting greetings. Stalls lined the pathways, selling everything from dried dates to… slaves. Right. Slaves. It was a normal thing to see.
Ali Baba and Layla immediately set off toward the marketplace, followed by people dragging carts full of items. The rest of the caravan split up, some heading to find healers, others looking for a drink to wash away the taste of battle.
Malik, however, found himself with nothing to do.
He could’ve joined the purple heads, helped out a little, but that wasn’t in his job description, so he didn’t bother. Or he could’ve gone to have fun with the men, drink away, but that was wasteful, and they were too dirty to have as company, at least most of them.
For some reason, matters such as cleanliness, decorum, and the like, now ranked higher in his mind. Those without such… things, he didn’t see as people worthy of his attention.
In any case, besides those two options, he could’ve gone to buy new clothes but that was expensive. Mending them was too.
He had them cleaned yesterday, and he saw that as enough, not caring for the small cut revealing his shoulder or the tinier ones all over.
Malik was a bit of a cheapskate. Even with all the silver in his pouch.
And so, ignoring everything… he wandered.
***
{Outside The Projection}
Having calmed down, the crowd glanced at each other, a questioning look in their eyes.
They were curious about many things, but they boiled down to two.
First—they had already established that what played in the projection was his important memories, a moment of great triumph, a defining turning point, or even a lesson learned. But this before them?
It made them doubt that.
“Why remember this?”
The second was something only the smart among them picked up on.
His inner voice was once so clear in the projection, constant. Now? Not so much. It had grown quieter and quieter as the memories played out.
At first, they had assumed it was just a side effect—his focus, his rage, drowning out the noise. But now, they weren’t so sure… perhaps it related to his power, as that was the only rising linear variable besides time.
Interesting, right? Yet it wasn’t what confused them, at least not entirely. Because while his thoughts had faded, something else had become clearer. Replacing it. And they heard it… saw it.
Embodiment.
It was taking hold of him without him even noticing.
Step by step, Malik was following the path of Sultan Al-Sahara. Whether it was subconscious, something buried deep inside him, or something implanted by his “old man’s” teachings—they didn’t know.
But they knew one thing for certain. Discover more stories at My Virtual Library Empire
The stronger it became, the more undeniable, the stronger he’d be.
It was only a matter of time before he noticed it himself and fully turned into the Sultan they knew. The one they loathed.
***
{Inside The Projection}
The village was quite different from his hometown.
Here, everyone seemed to know each other, and not for nefarious reasons.
Children darted between the stalls, laughing as they played a game that involved tossing small bones. Likely belonged to some game their fathers hunted. An old woman sat on the side of the road, weaving a basket. Merchants called out their prices, each trying to outdo the other.
Suq Al-Khamis was just as lively, but this one… it was warm too.
Malik had spent the last hour just wandering, taking in the sights, the scents of sizzling meat skewers and spiced tea mixing with the more unpleasant stench of livestock and unwashed bodies. It was nostalgic.
He wasn’t really looking for anything in particular—just killing time while Ali Baba and Layla handled the selling.
Eventually, he stopped near a blacksmith’s stall, eyeing the weapons displayed—a mix of swords, daggers, and curved blades similar to his own.
“Looking to buy?”
The blacksmith asked, not looking up from his work, fixing a sword’s hilt.
“Just looking.”
The man grunted, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“A fighter, huh? You sound like one.”
“…”
Malik didn’t respond. He had nothing to say to that. He didn’t even know how he “sounded” like a fighter.
“If you’ve got no business here, you’d better go. I’ve no interest in talking to rude kids.”
Glancing at the weapons for one last time, he shrugged his shoulders and moved on, not interested in mending whatever misunderstanding his silence had caused.
He passed by a stall selling jewelry, then another with exotic spices. Those ones were pretty common, making up most of the stalls.
It felt peaceful, a stark contrast to the battle from the day before.
But that was always the way of things. One place bled, another thrived.
His feet carried him toward a quieter part of the village, where the noise of the market faded into the distant hum of daily life. He passed a well, where a woman was drawing water, then a small church built into the side of a rock.
Someone had left offerings at the bottom of the stairs—small trinkets and bowls of food.
A prayer was carved into the stone next to it, though he didn’t stop to read it.
“Sir, please wait!”
Then suddenly, the reason for this memory’s importance arrived.