Freddy sat on the boulder, holding his helmet with both hands. The woman he was talking to rambled on and on about the possible ways his talent worked, all far too close to the truth for comfort.
There was no evidence that “luck” or “fate” existed. But if they did, his were trash. He had long stopped betting on things simply working out for him.
The thing about talents was that most, around 60-70 percent, were just straightforward boosts to some form of physical or mental characteristic. They differed in the finer details, but there were many cases of countless people possessing pretty much identical talents.
His talent technically fell into the second most common category: straightforward boosts—in this case, regeneration, but with a condition for activation—in this case, doing damage.
There were many talents like this. A boost to strength that only activated against several opponents or a regeneration boost that got stronger the more damage one suffered or a speed boost that activated after parrying a blow—but that single additional variable made a tremendous impact.
A far greater number of such talents was unique. Sure, many people had a regeneration talent with a condition related to killing or fighting, but it was likely that nobody else had 1% Lifesteal with supreme-quality healing attached to it.
This woman knew more or less exactly what his talent was. If she spread the word, a piece of information that acted as a more or less unique identifier for him would get out into the world.
Information was power. As such, it was no surprise that many people earned money by collecting it. What seemed like a mundane rumor of what his talent did could end up in an information package one of these dealers sold to large organizations. And basically every large organization purchased such packages by the thousands.
Then, their employees sorted that information and reported anything of note to their superiors.
The odds of this becoming a problem were tiny. Miniscule.
But not nonexistent.
There was a non-zero chance that such a rumor could reach either the Kraven clan or Madame.
Madame was more likely.
Not only did she know precisely what his talent did, but she was also more adept at collecting such information.
Tiny as it was, the possibility was there.
And if possible, he didn’t want anyone to ever discover that he was still alive.
“Hey, are you okay?” the woman asked as she probably finally caught on that he wasn’t paying attention to a single word of what she was saying.
“Yeah, I’m just… I’m just getting some ideas,” he vaguely stated.
“Oh… Alright… So are you—?”
He got up, rushing to his feet. The woman was caught off guard and stepped back as he straightened his bulky body and looked down at her. “I think our talents might synergize really well,” he said.
She nodded slowly. “Does that mean that—”
“What do you say about forming a team with me?” he suggested.
Her eyes widened, and she spluttered. “I’d… I think that would be great. But shouldn’t we first—”
“Great!” he cheered as he reached for her hand and pulled it into an enthusiastic handshake.
He didn’t really have a way to keep her quiet. But keeping their synergy a secret would be in her best interest if they became party members. This was a temporary solution at best, but it would work until he thought of something else.
Worst case scenario, he’d have to change his identity again and—
His thoughts were interrupted as the woman suddenly puked all over his jacket. She released a nasty, wet burp and coughed. “I’m so sorry!” she apologized. “Oh, that’s so embarrassing. I just felt a sudden burst of sickness, and I…”
He used Create Water and washed most of the puke off. Right. She was dying, wasn’t she? For the briefest of moments, the thought that he could just leave her alone and let her die, taking the truth of his talent to her grave, crossed his mind.
He instantly crushed that thought. That willingness to do anything still lingered in the back of his mind.
That wasn’t who he was—not who he wanted to be, danger to his life be damned.
There were enough unintentional bodies left in his wake already. He had to stop adding more before it turned into a habit.
There was just one more thing to ask. “Are you a member of any formal organizations?”
The woman looked at him and shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m independent.”
“What about family?” he asked. “Friends? How established are you in this area?”
That question seemed to upset the woman a bit, but she answered, “I have a few friends, but I haven’t really been in contact with them… and probably won’t be any time soon.”
“Good,” he said. That was all he wanted to know.
Once the woman got a hold of herself, he took the glove off his right hand, the one without any rings on it, and asked, “Do you have a knife?”
She nodded enthusiastically as she pulled one out of thin air, recklessly revealing that she had a storage item. Well, not that she was working particularly hard to hide the suspicious ring on her finger. He sighed again. Yup… this was a woman who should never be trusted with keeping a secret.
The knife she handed him was super sharp, so cutting a finger off would be easy enough. Just as he was mentally choosing which one to sacrifice, she said, “Wait! I’ll need two fingers, actually.”
He raised an eyebrow beneath his helmet but obeyed anyway, cutting off his pinky and ring fingers with a single, smooth swing. He also unintentionally nicked his middle finger a bit, unskilled with weapons as he was. He made the blood coagulate with a small burst of blood essence, and his wounds were closed shut. A small benefit of having the blood affinity.
The woman caught the flying fingers out of the air and then proceeded to… put them together? The two bloody holes were connected, and before he could ask what the hell she was doing, they lit up with a small burst of pink light and fused.
Her half-pained expression slowly morphed into one of genuine mirth as she lit up like a candle. “Hahaha…” she chuckled. “It worked,” she said as she started crying. “It worked!” she screamed in joy.
He wasn’t feeling quite as enthusiastic as he observed the crooked double-ended finger-fusion in her hands. He watched it twitch and felt his lunch churn in his stomach.
She breathed out. “Okay, now to see if this will work.”
Again, before he could ask what, she poured life essence into the finger. He knew what she was doing, well, tentatively at least. Overloading living tissue with life essence mutated every cell into a less specialized one. This would make the fingers less fingers and more just a large mass of strongly interconnected but independent single-cellular organisms. This was how that heart Madame had given him could feed on meat.
He knew what she was doing and why she was trying it, but… he wasn’t sure that it would work. Both of them watched in trepidation as the fingers appeared to melt, fusing into a ball of nondescript pink tissue. Once the fusion was finished, the woman looked up at him. “Can you please bring back a gorel corpse?” she requested.
He had been expecting her to ask him to do that. Without hesitation, he jumped up the nearest boulder and shot out. Not long after, he found a small group of workers. With a Hydraulic Flex, he dashed in, smashed the nearest gorel’s skull in, and dragged it back to where the woman was waiting.
With the corpse in hand, the woman used the knife to chop large pieces of meat off and feed them to the small ball of pink tissue, one piece at a time. The little ball greedily devoured them, slowly growing in size until it doubled in volume.
Gulping, the woman nervously pressed a finger to it. Moments later, her grin returned. “It didn’t lose any quality!”
That was huge.
That pile of tissue couldn’t live longer than maybe six months, but during that period…
Numerous chunks of meat made their way into the ball of tissue until the entire gorel corpse was gone. Then, the woman used her essence manipulation to delicately separate a small chunk of the tissue that she put aside.
Pressing her fingers to the bigger chunk, she made the large mass of meat shrivel and stop squirming in a single instant. Then, her body started to change.
Her flaking skin shed its excess, dangling bits, and the discoloration rapidly vanished. Her bloated face started oozing liquid as it shrank, and the near-constant frown of pain vanished from her brow as she slowly breathed out.
They both stared at the display, mouths hanging open in disbelief.
Her vibrant, purple eyes looked up at the two holes in his mask. She was quite the beauty now that her face didn’t look like it had lost a fight against a wall.
For a long moment, a creepy expression played on her face. She almost had the look of an addict who had just taken an extra large dose of their drug of choice. It was a look that sparked nasty memories for Freddy.
A melodic chuckle escaped her lips as she pressed her mouth to her face. “Bring me another gorel,” she said.
He didn’t move.
“Uh…” she hesitated. “Please?”
Freddy slowly lifted his hand and used Create Water. A flood of liquid washed over the woman, rinsing the expelled fluids, puss, and blood. “You smell like shit,” he added helpfully.
The woman blinked rapidly. “Thank you… I guess.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
He sighed and climbed the nearest boulder, looking for yet another gorel to bring back.
***
Freddy stared at the two regrown fingers on his hand. If the target had a soul and agreed to it, the woman could use these sparks to heal them. She had just done so to him, and he stared in wonder.
They weren’t quite as perfect as they would be if his talent had grown them back; he could feel that, but it was good enough to make one thing evident.
He watched the woman produce her seventh blob of flesh and drain its life spark. “That’s it,” she said. “I can only store five at a time in my body.”
“Only?” he asked, snickering snarkily. “Do you have any idea how powerful that is?”
She nodded. “Hell yeah! I probably just became the best healer, like, ever!”
“Best healer, huh,” he repeated with an edge to his voice.
“What?” she asked. “Is there a problem?”
“No… no, I’m just wondering,” he said. “ You know, it’s just that we have officially become a team, and I think it would be best if you kept me informed about what you want to use this power for.”
She stiffened at that, frowning. “What do you mean by that?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve just saved your life, no?” he asked.
Her expression darkened. “Yes… And?”
“Relax,” he urged. “I’m not gonna be creepy about it or anything. I just have one request,” he said, leaning in threateningly. “Don’t let anyone know about this,” he intoned slowly, making his point as clear as possible. “Nobody. Not a single person should know how the synergy between our talents works.”
That didn’t seem to be the thing she was expecting to hear. “You want me to keep this a secret?”
“Yes,” he said. “We’d be in some deep trouble if people knew about what we can do.”
“Of course,” she confirmed, relaxing a bit. “That goes without saying. We’d probably be locked up like animals and drained of everything we had.”
He raised an eyebrow under his helmet. Well then. She wasn’t a total lost cause, it seemed.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about it, anyway,” she said. “That being said, uh…” she trailed off. “Hi?” She waved at him. “If we’re going to be working together, shouldn’t we introduce ourselves?”
He chuckled. “My name is Liam Johnson,” he said.
“I’m Sophia Summer,” she introduced herself in turn.
“Pleasure to meet you, Sophia.”
“Same, Liam,” she said. “Do you mind taking your helmet off so I can see your face?”
“I’d like to keep it on,” he refused. “For personal reasons.”
She nodded. “If that’s what you want.”
He eyed her carefully as a small smile curled up on his face beneath the mask. “How do you feel?” he asked her.
“Better than I’ve ever felt in my life,” she said with a chuckle, stretching her arm over her head. “Seriously, I feel great. Is breathing always this easy?”
He chuckled. “Alrighty, then.” He got up. “How about we go and see what you can do?”
***
A single worker sniffed its way through the leaves, looking for mushrooms and grubs in the dirt.
After confirming that there were no other gorels in the surrounding area, he nodded at the woman, and she stepped forth.
She insisted on fighting bare-handed. That caught him by surprise. Had she been going around fighting gorels unarmed as a one-star? Even with a weapon, that was an insane feat. And this woman, too, might be a bit off her rocker.
The worker immediately noticed her and rushed at her, balling its spoony fingers into weighty fists.
It swung an overhead strike, but she deftly dodged it, sneaking in a kick from its blind spot and hitting it right in the jaw. The creature screamed, pretty pissed at the sudden attack as it whirled on her.
What followed was a display of martial arts prowess unlike anything he had ever seen in his life. The woman fought completely unarmed, displaying insane levels of competence as she landed one strike after another. Soon enough, she landed a solid kick on the creature’s eye, turning it into a bloody mess, and before long, the other eye was blinded, too. This didn’t stop it from rushing at her, as it didn’t really need its eyes to orient itself, but it did make it impossible for the creature to predict her next move.
One kick after another landed on the monster’s head until it eventually finally ran out of energy.
She landed an axe kick on the back of the creature’s neck, and it stopped moving.
By the end of the display, Freddy was left with a sour expression. First, this woman was good. Way better than he was. While she claimed to be entirely independent, one didn’t get that good without training from early childhood.
That meant she had a background. One that she was keeping hidden.
He’d be a hypocrite to criticize her for keeping her background a secret. But that didn’t change the fact that an angry family might come to look for her and “take care of him” in the process.
“How long have you been an arch?” he asked.
“For about three weeks,” the woman said.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty new to this,” she said, gulping for breath. “But I’ve been practicing martial arts for almost fifteen years.”
“Fifteen years, you say…” he commented. “Seems like an awfully long time to spend without a prime. You could have been at least a peak two-star by now,” he suggested. “Any reason why you postponed it for that long?”
She looked a bit stricken by the question for a moment, but she got herself under control rather quickly. “Eh,” she said. “Long story.”
He stared at her.
“Uhm…” she started. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah, yeah… I’m just wondering, you know,” he said. “I’m just assuming, but you probably waited that long by choice; well, someone’s choice, at least, am I right?”
She met his gaze. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“No, no… No… It’s nothing really; just tell me one thing: what’s the likelihood that an angry clansman might kill me when they come to pick you up?”
She froze at the question, staring at him with wide eyes. “You don’t have to worry about that,” she said. “I’m not from that kind of background.”
The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he placated her. “I’m not trying to accuse you of anything. I just want to make sure I don’t get caught up in someone’s family drama.”
“Don’t worry about that,” she said.
“All right, all right,” he said. “Well then, uh… Let’s go find some monsters to kill.”
They couldn’t find another lone gorel for him to fight, but it didn’t take long for them to stumble upon a small group of three, with two workers sniffing through the leaves while a guard sat lazily to the side.
He simply walked up to them, and when he was within twenty meters, they noticed him. The guard reached him first due to its superior speed.
His ego was slightly bruised, and he felt an urge to show off a bit. Thus, when the monsters came, he made extra sure to make it seem like he was exerting as little effort as possible.
Unceremoniously, he started a Flowing Strike and raised his leg. The dumb beast practically impaled itself on his foot, eating the kick with its chin and dying instantly. The other two weren’t much better as they took a punch to the head and fell with a stream of blood rushing out of their cracked skulls.
“W… Wow…” Sohpia said. “That’s uh… That’s some power. Isn’t there a lot of backlash?”
He raised an eyebrow at that. She could tell that much just from watching him use Flowing Strike once?
“I have a talent for healing, remember?” he reminded her. “I can take the burden without much trouble.”
She scowled briefly, then bobbed her head side to side as she pondered the logic behind it. “A bit extreme if you ask me, but hey”—she glanced at the gorel corpse that took the brunt of Freddy’s attack— “it definitely works.”
He smiled under the helmet. Plus one point for team Freddy.
On that note, they started their first hunt together, seeing no reason to stop there.
However, it seemed that she had an ego on her, too.
“Whoa, what are you doing!?” he asked as he spotted her rushing at a group of five.
“Don’t worry!” she said. “I just want to see how I do against them.”
“This crazy…” he whispered.
She did not do well against them. At all. There were two guards and three workers. Within the first two minutes, the woman received two lethal injuries—the first was a nasty cut across her neck that nearly decapitated her, and the second was a long gash along the length of her arm that would have bled her out.
She healed both wounds instantly and merely continued the fight. Seeing that she had no chance of coming out on top, he stepped in and killed the gorels before they ended her.
“What the hell!?” she yelled. “Why did you interrupt me?”
“Why did I—” he stuttered. “Do you have any idea how close you were to dying like five times just now?”
“Yeah,” she said, blinking innocently at him. “I’m pretty weak at unarmed fighting, so I’m trying to improve.”
He blinked at her. “You’re what?” He scoffed. “Okay, sure.”
“Yeah, I have a few of these bad habits I’m trying to knock,” she declared
“And this is how you choose to do it?”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “What’s wrong with that?” she asked. “My talent can heal up to five massive injuries; why wouldn’t I use that to my advantage to train in high risk?”
“Yeees,” he agreed, somewhat condescendingly, “but it can’t grow your head back if a gorel claw takes it off. Get it? So maybe cool the ‘high risk’ down a bit, okay?”
Something about how she looked at him at that moment didn’t sit right with him. “Okay,” she said as she sat on the ground. She pulled the little blob of flesh out of her dimension ring and started feeding it chunks of gorel flesh as she worked to restore the two sparks she lost in the fight.
Freddy shook his head as he bent over to bag and rack the corpses they had just downed.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“I’m packing the bodies…?” he answered with some confusion.
“Why?” she asked.
He blinked at her. “To sell them? To earn money?”
“Oh! Yeah, I forgot.”
His jaw clenched. Yup. That, right there, was someone who had never worked a day of their life. Shaking his head, he finished gathering the corpses.
The two of them returned to the lobby in silence and left the bodies.
As they stepped back into the realm, the woman pointed in a direction, “Hey, we should go over there this time.”
His legs froze. “That path leads to a few major hives,” he said. “I think it would be best to avoid those.”
“Nah, don’t worry,” she said. “I was hunting in that area, and it’s not too bad. Most of the more powerful parties hunt there, so, if anything, there is less of a risk since most of the deviants get culled.”
He squinted at that. Frankly, the same idea had crossed his mind. It was true that that area had a lower risk of encountering deviants, but there were too many gorels there. Entrances to the bigger hives were scattered all over the place, and those were like a never ending fountain of prey.
He wasn’t particularly afraid of big groups of gorels; in fact, the lower risk of deviants was probably a fair trade-off in his case. But for her… He glanced at the woman at his side and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I told you, I’ve already been hunting there for a while. Besides, are you forgetting about the… you know?”
Well, she did have a point. It wasn’t like injuries were a big risk to either of them and with him at her side, it was unlikely that anything would get the chance to take her out before he could step in to prevent that.
They made their way down the path and steered into the woods. He carefully tracked where they were going, constantly mentally referring to where they were on the map.
They were near one of the bigger entrances to a large hive, but that entrance was located within a depression. If they wanted to reach it from where they were, they’d have to jump off a small cliff, and the gorels didn’t have a habit of climbing like that, so the place they were at was relatively safe.
“Hey, come over here!” the woman called as she rushed over a large boulder.
Where the hell is this woman going? he asked himself, feeling drained by Sophia’s energetic, carefree attitude.
He made his way across the boulder and glided down. His eyes widened as he realized where they were and ducked. “Shit!” he swore. They were right at the edge of the cliff, hidden behind a few flimsy bushes.
“Come!” she called. “Come see!”
“Come see what, you crazy…!?” he scream-whispered. He groaned as he crawled through the bush and made his way next to Sophia, who was looking down into the depression. “Jesus Christ,” he called when he saw the sight for himself.
Hundreds upon hundreds of workers made their way down a series of paths carved into the depression, heading into the woods like a stream of ants.
They found themselves right on the edge of a red zone, peering down on an army of foes.
“Isn’t it cool!?” she asked. “Let’s go down a bit. They’re a lot less coordinated in large groups when on the surface. It’ll be easy to run away,” she declared as she turned to face him, a bright light shining in her purple eyes.
She had to be messing with him… right?
“Come on,” he spat. “We don’t have time for this.”
“You’re right!” she yelled as she got up to her feet. “The day could turn to night at any moment; we should hurry.”
“Keep it quiet!” he requested. “What if the—” His words were interrupted as she pulled him by the arm…
And threw him right off the cliff.