‘Ping’ [Lightning Sorcerer] Has leveled up 9 > 10
‘Ping’ [Enchanted Bladefighter] Has leveled up 9 > 10
‘Ping’ [Disciple of Nature] Has leveled up 5 > 6
‘Ping’ [Sword Trainee] Has leveled up 8 > 9
Only a level in each class. Which is fair, it's not like I did all that much damage to him. Garrus, George, and Karif were the ones who finished him off.
“You doin’ alright lad?” Garrus came to a squat next to me, his face scrunched up with worry.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple times, then thought better of speaking and just nodded my head. I was letting [Rest] do its job and recover my mana and health just a little bit faster.
“Had yerself in a real bind there. If Penny hadn’t come out to fetch us, you would’ve ended up dying there.” Garrus spoke in a slightly monotone voice. I stared at him trying to decipher the emotions covering his face. It took me a while cause it’s not one I was used to seeing in people other than my parents. Disappointment.
Garrus was upset with me because I ran ahead and nearly got myself killed. I didn’t disagree with the sentiment. I had nearly died. But if I hadn’t done it, Penny would’ve died, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if that were the case.
“It… would’ve been wo-” I had a hacking fit in the middle of my sentence. Penny who was holding me still shushed me. Being the pillar of intelligence that I was, elected to ignore her, “Worth it… To save her.”
I managed to force out the last bits in a raspy voice, before coughing again.
“You complete and utter idiot. I never would have forgiven myself if you died for me.” Penny whispered.
“I say the same, if you had died after I took you in, I wouldn’t forgive you for it.” Garrus said with a soft smile.
This was such a strange moment. I always liked to think that when push comes to shove, I’d be the kind of person to stick my neck on the line. But I also always assumed I’d be one of the people suffering from bystander syndrome, just standing and waiting for someone to do something. But at that very moment, I was okay with dying. It was something I was willing to sacrifice my life for.
It left me with a sort of bittersweet feeling to know that they all felt the same way. I really was lucky to come across this group.
I looked at my mana and finally had enough to cast [Healing Blossom], my strongest healing skill. I brushed my hand against the floor and the little flower sprouted up and began healing me… Except it was taking way longer than I expected. The skill was supposed to heal me by 33% of my max health per second, and yet it felt like it was doing it by 1% instead.
Was it because Miltaen had been a demon that my wounds were healing slower? Was it a side effect of his skill? Might’ve been some sort of vengeance thing. Reminded me of a certain spider troupe individual from an anime I had watched. Regardless, I was talking way too long to heal.
Eventually my mana dipped out again and the flower disappeared.
Good lord this was going to take forever.
“What in Palacene’s name happened here?”
Jalen exclaimed upon seeing the carnage that had been wrought some way into the forest. Two bodies littered the floor, one cut through cleanly at the neck. The other was perfectly bisected from right shoulder to left hip.
“Look here, Jalen. These bodies are wearing the town guard uniform. But these are demon bodies.” Warren said in his traditional stoic voice.
“It looks like a group of people attacked them, and then headed further north. Who do you think did this?” Jalen asked.
“Let’s follow the trail then. I have a pretty good idea of who did this. And I have questions.”
“Drink slowly, your throat is still burned and I can’t have you coughing this back up.”
Karif let a liquid slowly dribble into my mouth. It was a clear and viscous liquid. I had initially thought it was water, it had an almost overpoweringly sweet taste. It tasted like vanilla extract smelled like it was supposed to taste. It soaked through my mouth and coated my throat. I felt warmth spread through my body and I watched my stats as my health, mana, and stamina all raised slowly.
“There you go, very good. A little bit more and you should be well enough to speak and walk again.” Karif said letting more of the assumed potion flow into my mouth.
Penny stayed sitting with me the entire time, she had refused to leave my side. Garrus and George went looking through the caves to make sure no other demons had remained. The reason it had taken so long for them to get to the inner chamber is that they killed every single demon between the entrance of the cave to this point.
I was honestly a little impressed, they had managed to go through at least one hundred demons in the span of 10 minutes. It apparently hadn’t taken them long to deal with the remaining guard demon, the one that had been in the third tier. Three to one posed pretty good odds for the experienced adventurers.
They had then systematically gone through the cave eliminating every demon they came across on their way to where Penny and I were. At some point during my duel with Miltaen, Penny had slipped out to hurry them along knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold out against him for very long.
Which had been exactly the case. If they hadn’t shown up when they had I would’ve died then and there. It did piss me off a little that I hadn’t been able to handle him, but such was the world of stats, systems and levels. Someone was going to be stronger. Thus the only thing left for me to do was get even stronger. Strength in this world had many more real applications than it did in my old world.
Back on Earth one person could only become so strong, could only be so fast, and so skilled at their craft. But here? Here there was no foreseeable limit. Someone could potentially become strong enough to punch the planet and shatter it. I needed to become stronger if I wanted to protect my friends here. They had helped me when I had first shown up in this world along with the elves, the least I could do is return the favor.
“You should be well enough to stand now, how do you feel?” Karif asked me, pulling me from my inner thoughts.
I stood up and stretched. I still ached slightly, and I could still seem some burns that I pulsed my magic through, but it was still healing slowly. It was going to be a time thing I guess.
“I feel better, much better. What was that?” I asked him
“It’s lesser ether. Despite the name, it’s extremely powerful as I’m sure you noticed and also very expensive. It’s a sort of all purpose heal that works against most poisons, curses, and magics. This particular batch was made by an alchemist we happen to be on good terms with. Saved his life, and in return he gave us this in hopes that it would save one of us one day.” He smiled slightly, holding the bottle up so I could see it.
“I’m assuming there’s a greater ether then?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“Aye there is, or so they say.” Garrus said as he reentered the cave.
“Greater ether hasn’t been made by anyone in the past 500 years that we know of. Anyone who could make it is either not telling, not sharing, or dead. Either that or just no one knows how to actually make it anymore.” Karif elaborated. “People are studying old scripts and reviewing legends and myths but no one has been able to figure it out. Although if it were easy to make, everyone would be doing it.”
“There aren’t any more demons in the cave, we searched it high and low and found nothing. We’ll have to stick around the village for a couple more days and look around, but I think that pretty much clears up this job.” Garrus said satisfactorily.
“No,” I said quickly, “This doesn’t finish the job. This was just half the group, we’ve taken out the leader, but not the group.”
They all stopped and looked at each other inquisitively
“Alex, what are you talking about? We killed the few dozen demons that were here.” Penny said, giving me a confused look.
I turned to face Garrus, George, and Karif. “You all didn’t realize? The first three demons we faced were the guardsmen weren’t they? Don’t you understand what that means? The-” I quickly came to stop and held up one finger to signify silence.
Everyone tensed, I had been running my sensory skills this entire time. I was sensing another flow of electricity that wasn't part of our group, meaning that something else in this cave was still alive.
I heard soft footsteps coming from the cave leading out of the room we were in. They slowly got closer and I could faintly hear a voice.
“I mean, couldn’t we have just waited outside? They would’ve come out eventually. This place smells, it’s dirty, there are bodies and blood everywhere and it’s getting everywhere and I don’t like it.”
“Oh dear goddess, Jalen, please be quiet. Our job is to finish this as quickly as possible, not pamper your ego, if walking into the cave gets our job done quicker then we do it.”
I recognized the name and the voices. It was the investigators that had questioned me the other day. I wasn’t sure why they were here or if I could trust them. I signaled to the rest of the group to hide along the walls. Karif casted a spell that turned all of them invisible. That was handy, I would’ve liked to have something like that. I stood in the center of the room to draw their attention for when they arrived.
I didn’t have to wait long before they both walked into the room. They both took a moment to look around, noticing the demonic remains in this room. They observed for a while longer before Warren spoke.
“Did you do this?” He asked simply.
I nodded my head slightly, “Why are you here?” I asked in return.
“Doing my job, I was ordered to come and find the source of the disappearances, but it looks like you found it before I did and removed it. Although not without injury it seems.” He nodded towards my missing arm.
I raised a hand and rubbed it over the stump of my arm. We stared at each other for a while longer.
“What do you plan to do now?”
I raised an eyebrow, “I plan to kill the rest.”
“The rest?” He asked with a little surprise, “There are at least fifty dead demons in this cave. Are you implying there’s more?”
“I am. Around one hundred more.”
“Interesting, well why don’t you have your friends come out of hiding and maybe explain what’s going on here then?” Warren smirked slightly at that before coming and resting on one of the many raised stone tables in the room.
Karif lowered the spell that was hiding them.
“Who are you?” Garrus asked in a gruff voice, he was still being cautious.
“They’re investigators sent here from the capital.” I answered for them, “I was worried they were compromised as well but I doubt even a demon would be stupid to throw away the element of surprise they had of knowing you were hiding there.”
“Compromised? What do you mean?” Warren asked.
“Surely you saw the bodies outside the cave. Two of them were guardsmen. I have two sensory skills. Neither are pretty good, but one in particular works in an interesting way. It’s called [Electric Sense]. It allows me to see and feel the flow of electricity in everything. Living things all have some small flow of electricity. But the electricity that flows through a human is different from the flow of that through a plant or a deer or a cow.”
“Or the flow of a demon.” Warren whispered, I could see recognition of my implication on his face.
“The entire town is made up of demons. That’s why none of them talked, that’s why no one wanted to help. That’s why the town seemed so dead and unnatural. They are all demons masquerading as humans.” I said, finishing my explanation.
Warren sat down contemplating what I had said and weighing it against what he knew.
“Alright, I believe you that the townspeople are demons. I believe it’s a bad idea to provoke them. If you start killing them indiscriminately, there’s nothing stopping them from just leaving and going wherever they want. Some of them will also have wings which makes it even harder for us to follow them.”
“Then what do you suggest? I doubt leaving them untouched is a great idea either, they’ll pick back up what they were doing initially or split up anyways.” I replied.
“What I suggest is really quite simple, we just need more people. And if I’m not mistaken Vinwood is quite close, assuming you’re running, and has a well staffed adventurers guild and guard force that we could make use of. I say that I should go along with the leader of your party and convince them to help us prevent the demons from escaping.”
That… Actually made a lot of sense. Not a bad idea honestly, and it would help with guaranteeing that we actually dealt with the problem. Assuming we could convince them to help us.
I glanced over to Garrus, “What do you think? I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Honestly it’s probably our best shot at dealing with this.”
Garrus in turn glanced at the rest of the group's members, each one nodding their head in assent.
“Fine.” He said, “I’ll go with the investigator back to Vinwood while the rest of you stay here and keep an eye on the town. Hopefully it won’t take us longer than a day to get everyone moving.”
“Great, we should leave now then. The sooner we get there the better.” Warren said as he walked out of the cave.
‘Ping’ [Lightning Sorcerer] Has leveled up 9 > 10
‘Ping’ [Enchanted Bladefighter] Has leveled up 9 > 10
‘Ping’ [Disciple of Nature] Has leveled up 5 > 6
‘Ping’ [Sword Trainee] Has leveled up 8 > 9
Only a level in each class. Which is fair, it's not like I did all that much damage to him. Garrus, George, and Karif were the ones who finished him off.
“You doin’ alright lad?” Garrus came to a squat next to me, his face scrunched up with worry.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple times, then thought better of speaking and just nodded my head. I was letting [Rest] do its job and recover my mana and health just a little bit faster.
“Had yerself in a real bind there. If Penny hadn’t come out to fetch us, you would’ve ended up dying there.” Garrus spoke in a slightly monotone voice. I stared at him trying to decipher the emotions covering his face. It took me a while cause it’s not one I was used to seeing in people other than my parents. Disappointment.
Garrus was upset with me because I ran ahead and nearly got myself killed. I didn’t disagree with the sentiment. I had nearly died. But if I hadn’t done it, Penny would’ve died, and I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if that were the case.
“It… would’ve been wo-” I had a hacking fit in the middle of my sentence. Penny who was holding me still shushed me. Being the pillar of intelligence that I was, elected to ignore her, “Worth it… To save her.”
I managed to force out the last bits in a raspy voice, before coughing again.
“You complete and utter idiot. I never would have forgiven myself if you died for me.” Penny whispered.
“I say the same, if you had died after I took you in, I wouldn’t forgive you for it.” Garrus said with a soft smile.
This was such a strange moment. I always liked to think that when push comes to shove, I’d be the kind of person to stick my neck on the line. But I also always assumed I’d be one of the people suffering from bystander syndrome, just standing and waiting for someone to do something. But at that very moment, I was okay with dying. It was something I was willing to sacrifice my life for.
It left me with a sort of bittersweet feeling to know that they all felt the same way. I really was lucky to come across this group.
I looked at my mana and finally had enough to cast [Healing Blossom], my strongest healing skill. I brushed my hand against the floor and the little flower sprouted up and began healing me… Except it was taking way longer than I expected. The skill was supposed to heal me by 33% of my max health per second, and yet it felt like it was doing it by 1% instead.
Was it because Miltaen had been a demon that my wounds were healing slower? Was it a side effect of his skill? Might’ve been some sort of vengeance thing. Reminded me of a certain spider troupe individual from an anime I had watched. Regardless, I was talking way too long to heal.
Eventually my mana dipped out again and the flower disappeared.
Good lord this was going to take forever.
“What in Palacene’s name happened here?”
Jalen exclaimed upon seeing the carnage that had been wrought some way into the forest. Two bodies littered the floor, one cut through cleanly at the neck. The other was perfectly bisected from right shoulder to left hip.
“Look here, Jalen. These bodies are wearing the town guard uniform. But these are demon bodies.” Warren said in his traditional stoic voice.
“It looks like a group of people attacked them, and then headed further north. Who do you think did this?” Jalen asked.
“Let’s follow the trail then. I have a pretty good idea of who did this. And I have questions.”
“Drink slowly, your throat is still burned and I can’t have you coughing this back up.”
Karif let a liquid slowly dribble into my mouth. It was a clear and viscous liquid. I had initially thought it was water, it had an almost overpoweringly sweet taste. It tasted like vanilla extract smelled like it was supposed to taste. It soaked through my mouth and coated my throat. I felt warmth spread through my body and I watched my stats as my health, mana, and stamina all raised slowly.
“There you go, very good. A little bit more and you should be well enough to speak and walk again.” Karif said letting more of the assumed potion flow into my mouth.
Penny stayed sitting with me the entire time, she had refused to leave my side. Garrus and George went looking through the caves to make sure no other demons had remained. The reason it had taken so long for them to get to the inner chamber is that they killed every single demon between the entrance of the cave to this point.
I was honestly a little impressed, they had managed to go through at least one hundred demons in the span of 10 minutes. It apparently hadn’t taken them long to deal with the remaining guard demon, the one that had been in the third tier. Three to one posed pretty good odds for the experienced adventurers.
They had then systematically gone through the cave eliminating every demon they came across on their way to where Penny and I were. At some point during my duel with Miltaen, Penny had slipped out to hurry them along knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold out against him for very long.
Which had been exactly the case. If they hadn’t shown up when they had I would’ve died then and there. It did piss me off a little that I hadn’t been able to handle him, but such was the world of stats, systems and levels. Someone was going to be stronger. Thus the only thing left for me to do was get even stronger. Strength in this world had many more real applications than it did in my old world.
Back on Earth one person could only become so strong, could only be so fast, and so skilled at their craft. But here? Here there was no foreseeable limit. Someone could potentially become strong enough to punch the planet and shatter it. I needed to become stronger if I wanted to protect my friends here. They had helped me when I had first shown up in this world along with the elves, the least I could do is return the favor.
“You should be well enough to stand now, how do you feel?” Karif asked me, pulling me from my inner thoughts.
I stood up and stretched. I still ached slightly, and I could still seem some burns that I pulsed my magic through, but it was still healing slowly. It was going to be a time thing I guess.
“I feel better, much better. What was that?” I asked him
“It’s lesser ether. Despite the name, it’s extremely powerful as I’m sure you noticed and also very expensive. It’s a sort of all purpose heal that works against most poisons, curses, and magics. This particular batch was made by an alchemist we happen to be on good terms with. Saved his life, and in return he gave us this in hopes that it would save one of us one day.” He smiled slightly, holding the bottle up so I could see it.
“I’m assuming there’s a greater ether then?” I asked raising an eyebrow.
“Aye there is, or so they say.” Garrus said as he reentered the cave.
“Greater ether hasn’t been made by anyone in the past 500 years that we know of. Anyone who could make it is either not telling, not sharing, or dead. Either that or just no one knows how to actually make it anymore.” Karif elaborated. “People are studying old scripts and reviewing legends and myths but no one has been able to figure it out. Although if it were easy to make, everyone would be doing it.”
“There aren’t any more demons in the cave, we searched it high and low and found nothing. We’ll have to stick around the village for a couple more days and look around, but I think that pretty much clears up this job.” Garrus said satisfactorily.
“No,” I said quickly, “This doesn’t finish the job. This was just half the group, we’ve taken out the leader, but not the group.”
They all stopped and looked at each other inquisitively
“Alex, what are you talking about? We killed the few dozen demons that were here.” Penny said, giving me a confused look.
I turned to face Garrus, George, and Karif. “You all didn’t realize? The first three demons we faced were the guardsmen weren’t they? Don’t you understand what that means? The-” I quickly came to stop and held up one finger to signify silence.
Everyone tensed, I had been running my sensory skills this entire time. I was sensing another flow of electricity that wasn't part of our group, meaning that something else in this cave was still alive.
I heard soft footsteps coming from the cave leading out of the room we were in. They slowly got closer and I could faintly hear a voice.
“I mean, couldn’t we have just waited outside? They would’ve come out eventually. This place smells, it’s dirty, there are bodies and blood everywhere and it’s getting everywhere and I don’t like it.”
“Oh dear goddess, Jalen, please be quiet. Our job is to finish this as quickly as possible, not pamper your ego, if walking into the cave gets our job done quicker then we do it.”
I recognized the name and the voices. It was the investigators that had questioned me the other day. I wasn’t sure why they were here or if I could trust them. I signaled to the rest of the group to hide along the walls. Karif casted a spell that turned all of them invisible. That was handy, I would’ve liked to have something like that. I stood in the center of the room to draw their attention for when they arrived.
I didn’t have to wait long before they both walked into the room. They both took a moment to look around, noticing the demonic remains in this room. They observed for a while longer before Warren spoke.
“Did you do this?” He asked simply.
I nodded my head slightly, “Why are you here?” I asked in return.
“Doing my job, I was ordered to come and find the source of the disappearances, but it looks like you found it before I did and removed it. Although not without injury it seems.” He nodded towards my missing arm.
I raised a hand and rubbed it over the stump of my arm. We stared at each other for a while longer.
“What do you plan to do now?”
I raised an eyebrow, “I plan to kill the rest.”
“The rest?” He asked with a little surprise, “There are at least fifty dead demons in this cave. Are you implying there’s more?”
“I am. Around one hundred more.”
“Interesting, well why don’t you have your friends come out of hiding and maybe explain what’s going on here then?” Warren smirked slightly at that before coming and resting on one of the many raised stone tables in the room.
Karif lowered the spell that was hiding them.
“Who are you?” Garrus asked in a gruff voice, he was still being cautious.
“They’re investigators sent here from the capital.” I answered for them, “I was worried they were compromised as well but I doubt even a demon would be stupid to throw away the element of surprise they had of knowing you were hiding there.”
“Compromised? What do you mean?” Warren asked.
“Surely you saw the bodies outside the cave. Two of them were guardsmen. I have two sensory skills. Neither are pretty good, but one in particular works in an interesting way. It’s called [Electric Sense]. It allows me to see and feel the flow of electricity in everything. Living things all have some small flow of electricity. But the electricity that flows through a human is different from the flow of that through a plant or a deer or a cow.”
“Or the flow of a demon.” Warren whispered, I could see recognition of my implication on his face.
“The entire town is made up of demons. That’s why none of them talked, that’s why no one wanted to help. That’s why the town seemed so dead and unnatural. They are all demons masquerading as humans.” I said, finishing my explanation.
Warren sat down contemplating what I had said and weighing it against what he knew.
“Alright, I believe you that the townspeople are demons. I believe it’s a bad idea to provoke them. If you start killing them indiscriminately, there’s nothing stopping them from just leaving and going wherever they want. Some of them will also have wings which makes it even harder for us to follow them.”
“Then what do you suggest? I doubt leaving them untouched is a great idea either, they’ll pick back up what they were doing initially or split up anyways.” I replied.
“What I suggest is really quite simple, we just need more people. And if I’m not mistaken Vinwood is quite close, assuming you’re running, and has a well staffed adventurers guild and guard force that we could make use of. I say that I should go along with the leader of your party and convince them to help us prevent the demons from escaping.”
That… Actually made a lot of sense. Not a bad idea honestly, and it would help with guaranteeing that we actually dealt with the problem. Assuming we could convince them to help us.
I glanced over to Garrus, “What do you think? I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Honestly it’s probably our best shot at dealing with this.”
Garrus in turn glanced at the rest of the group's members, each one nodding their head in assent.
“Fine.” He said, “I’ll go with the investigator back to Vinwood while the rest of you stay here and keep an eye on the town. Hopefully it won’t take us longer than a day to get everyone moving.”
“Great, we should leave now then. The sooner we get there the better.” Warren said as he walked out of the cave.
