I gave a nod to the helpful guard as I entered the town, ambling down the street. He had no more clue what I was than anyone else, but as before, as long as I wasn't human, he didn't seem to care. I might even have got in if I was human. He hadn't seemed particularly hostile to the concept. At this point, relationships between the two lobes of the continent hadn't degraded to the point of irredeemability.
The streets were quiet, given the time of morning. Perhaps the excitement of the night before had something to do with it, too. Not that the people who were out and about seemed to care in the slightest that their former lord was dead. They hadn't done in the original timeline, either.
I stopped at a familiar side street and looked down it to see a group of kids playing. Some older ones I didn't recognise, some of the younger ones missing from the last time I'd looked, and the rest looking a few years younger than when I'd seen them last. Easily explained by the fact that they were a few years younger.
A little girl noticed me staring and shuffled herself in front of an even younger boy. He looked about three, and seemed like he was composed of more fluff than flesh, his tail and ears oversized compared to his body. Were all of their young so cute? Was it some sort of natural defence mechanism? It took all of my willpower not to squee.
"Oi! It's rude to stare!" shouted one of the older kids, bringing me back to myself.
"Sorry. You won't remember me, but I was friends with Ancora once. Seeing you just brought back some memories."
"Nu-uh, I don't know her," Ancora announced to her group, obviously suspicious. "I would remember a grown up who looked that weird."
"I didn't have the tail last time we met. Dunno how I lived without it, but I'll admit the colour scheme doesn't quite match my scales. You told me you wanted to grow up into a big, strong mage like your mum."
"Nu-uh!" she answered again. "I want to be a painter!"
Despite some momentary confusion, I decided I shouldn't be surprised. She'd said she'd wanted to defend her brother, presumably the little tyke hiding behind her. Before the war, there may not have been anything to defend him from.
Alas, getting that detail wrong meant that all the kids were now viewing me with suspicion, so I decided it was time to make a quick exit. "Maybe I'm confusing you with someone else, then? Well, good luck with whatever career you settle on. Bye-bye, and sorry for staring."
"...But you knew my name, and that my mum's a mage," she grumbled, obviously not buying my excuse. "At least tell me your name!"
"I'm Katie!" I announced. "And don't tell anyone," I continued, sotto voce, "but I'm a human."
"It's wrong to lie," announced one of kids, glaring at me with hands on hips, causing me to burst out laughing.
"Then, don't tell anyone, but I'm immortal?" I tried.
"You're weird," claimed one of the other kids, which I felt I couldn't deny.
"Both statements were true, though," I replied, pouting. "But I really must be off. I need to go talk to a king, preferably without accidentally setting him on fire or dropping a castle on him again."
"Do you think we should take her to the temple?" asked one of the older children. "I think she needs help."
"Hey, dropping castles on people is easier than you might think. Melt a few walls and splat. Besides, I'm already on my way to the temple. It's how I teleport."
"Yeah, her head is definitely in need of healing," said one of the other teenagers. "Can you lot wait here while we make sure this poor lady gets to a priestess?" he added to the smaller kiddies.
...Great, I'd accidentally convinced a bunch of children I was insane by doing nothing but telling the truth. Screw my life.
I continued up the street with my new teenaged escort, who were trying very hard to be nice and reassuring. I resisted the urge to prove that I really was immortal by beheading myself, deciding that such an act would send completely the opposite impression to what I intended. At least I'd be able to prove teleportation once we arrived. Preferably before anyone attempted some open-brain surgery on me.
The temple was quiet, with the main hall occupied only by a few priestesses, busy cleaning the place.
"Excuse me, are there any healers available?" called one of my escorts. "This lady is ill."
The priestesses looked up, so I felt I should defend myself.
"No I'm not. They just aren't used to immortal time-travellers."
"So now you're a time-traveller as well?" commented the other kid with a sigh. "I'm not sure if that's more or less outlandish than claiming you're immortal."
"She really thinks she's telling the truth. I'll... fetch one of the high-priestesses," said someone, but I wasn't really paying much attention, because I'd finished my walk to the statue.
"Well, sorry, but I'm off," I called. "Bye, and it was nice meeting you kids, even if you do think I'm crazy."
I tapped the statue, teleporting myself back to human territory. It was a pity I couldn't see their faces when I really did vanish on them, but I resisted the urge to travel back just to gloat.
The human chapel was empty, but otherwise exactly as I remembered it before its accidental high-temperature deconstruction. The paintings were back, along with the red velvet seating. The morning sun shone through the stained glass windows, illuminating the room in bright colours. I was stood on the dais, in front of the altar.
On top of which was an ornate silver sword.
Holy sword
This sword was forged by the Goddess herself, formed as a single piece from pure celestial metal and blessed with divine-level holy magic. A single swing will kill any whom the wielder perceives as evil.
Attack rating: 1000
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
I stared at it. Nothing happened.
I gave it an experimental prod. Nothing continued to happen.
Seriously? Had I actually completed my main quest? Completely accidentally, too; I'd utterly failed to consider that reversing time would mean the sword was still here.
Back when I'd first got sucked into the dungeon and discovered I could duplicate my nightie, I'd joked about being able to duplicate the sword and give one to every soldier. Now I really could; store it in my dimension home, jump back in time a few seconds, store it again and repeat.
Not that I wanted to. The thing was far too dangerous to unleash upon the world. Holy magic again. Not 'evil', or even 'who the Goddess deems evil', but rather 'who the wielder deems evil'. Holy magic was horribly misnamed. It should be called prejudice magic, or discriminatory magic.
Now that I looked around with my more esoteric senses, I could pick up the barrier I was standing within. Waving my hand through it proved that it didn't impede me at all. I could just pick up this sword and walk out with it. Thankfully, no-one else could.
Even so, I couldn't completely resist the urge. I picked it up.
Quest complete: Retrieve the holy sword from arx sanctus
I burst out laughing. How could I not? I really had finally completed my fetch quest. And, just as Kevin had promised, it took me less than five minutes. Negative three years, in fact. Quite possibly the fastest speedrun ever! Eat that, everyone who ever called me a failed hero! Admittedly, the notification was wrong, given that I hadn't retrieved it from arx sanctus, but there was nothing new about that. Half of the descriptive notifications I'd been given had been factually inaccurate.
The doors slammed open and in ran a pair of knights, dressed in the same full-plate as the ones that had been standing around at my summoning. In retrospect, perhaps my laughter had been a little too loud.
"Hi!" I called, waving with my sword-free hand, and hopping up to sit on the altar. "I was hoping to have a little chat with your king about the war that didn't just happen."
Once again, I was denied seeing the faces of the people I was screwing with, this time by the coverage of their helmets. From their silence and lack of movement, I think I'd successfully broken them, but it was hard to tell for sure.
We stared at each other for a full thirty seconds before one risked the stereotypical yet sensible question. "Who... Who are you?"
"I'm a Katie!" I answered happily, flicking my tail for emphasis.
"How... She's inside the barrier. She's holding the holy sword!" exclaimed the second knight, making an attempt at joining in the conversation but failing to add anything that the other participants didn't already know, and thus, in my opinion, failing.
Taking pity on him, I decided to parse the 'how' as a question. "If you think it through logically, the answer is pretty obvious, isn't it? What are the conditions for passing through this barrier?"
"Stop playing games," said the first knight. "Who are you, and what do you want?"
I'm pretty sure I answered that already. Maybe those full-face helmets were blocking their ears? "As I said, I'm Katie. It may be best for you to think of me as neither human nor demon. And I'm here to talk to your king. As for this thing..."
I carefully placed the sword back down on the altar.
"That can stay where it is. Bringing that out of this barrier is far too dangerous. I can see why the Goddess locked it away."
The two knights froze up again, not moving even when I stepped down from the dais. Did they find someone having access to the altar and not taking the sword so incomprehensible? I suppose my immortality cheat gave me a slightly different perspective than most; if I was killed while wielding it, it could be stolen, and I'd respawn to face the consequences. Normal people might not care about that, and would care more about what they could do with it.
"Anyone home?" I tried, moving to knock on the first knight's helmet. That was finally sufficient to trigger a reaction, and he jumped backward with a clatter of metal. Another clatter of metal sounded to my side, followed by a clang from my side.
I glanced down to see the sword of the second knight spinning through the air, knocked out of his grip when it impacted my scales. "You cut my nightie!" I complained, patching the slice with some silk. "What sort of knight cuts open a girl's clothes?! Pervert!"
The knight froze up for the third time, so I picked up his sword from where it had clattered on the floor, then applied my manipulate mana skill to my arms, putting my draconic might and enchanted ring to use, twisting the metal into a loop.
I failed to get a full circle, but still managed a good two-hundred-degree bend. Not quite as successful as my heart-ripping manoeuvre, but still a decent display of bad-assery.
"I think," opined the first knight, backing away from me slowly, "that this is considerably beyond our pay grade. Why don't you guard the... the... guest, while I... umm... I..."
That amount of stuttering had been enough for the first knight to back away through the doors, which he pulled shut behind him. I never got to hear the end of the sentence.
"Wow, rude," I said to the second knight. "He blatantly just abandoned you!"
The second knight twitched, but remained silent, so I focused on following the runaway with perceive presence.
Perceive presence advanced to level 19
Getting a level into the bargain. "He took a right, then another, up some steps, then a left, and now he's with someone far stronger than both of you," I said. "Think he's coming back?"
"..." said the second knight, who had apparently developed a serious speech impediment over the previous few minutes.
"Oh, both of them are moving. They're going pretty quickly now. Down two flights of stairs. I think they're in a room with, like, thirty others? I can only see the people and not the walls. Yup, they're all moving now. And now they're on their way back. But your friend seems to be hanging far back. Nope, he just darted off sideways. I don't think he'll be returning."
"..." repeated the second knight, who seemed to have developed a slight tremor.
The staircase turned out to be a bottleneck, with the group of people climbing single file. Bored of waiting, I recalled my quest completion. Did that come with any rewards?
Name: Katie
Primary class: Princess of undying laughter (level 15 – MAX)
- Class skills -
Trigger respawn
Dimension home
Auto-mapper
Appraisal {Enhanced} [Evolve]
Resistance mastery
Gate
Secondary class: Aberrant monster tamer (Level 10)
Improved silk [Enhance]
Draconic breath (rainbow) {Enhanced}
Draconic scales (rainbow) {Enhanced}
Draconic might {Enhanced}
Draconic power {Enhanced}
Tertiary class: Transcendent (Level 5)
Inviolable
Navigator
Paradox
{empty} [+]
{empty} [+]
- Combat skills -
Unarmed grandmastery: Level 40
Grandmaster dodger: Level 40
Spear grandmastery: Level 40
Grandmaster blocker: Level 40
Dagger grandmastery: Level 40
Sword grandmastery: Level 40
Grandmaster parrier: Level 40
Bow grandmastery: Level 40
Whip mastery: Level 22
Flail proficiency: Level 18
Hammer mastery: Level 26
Club mastery: Level 20
Two-hander sword mastery: Level 30
Mace proficiency: Level 12
Sling dabbler: Level 1
Staff proficiency: Level 13
Crossbow dabbler: Level 8
- Resistance skills -
Friend of fear
Pain immunity: Level 38
Poison absorption: Level 50
Incorrodible: Level 50
Disease immunity: Level 40
Mind magic immunity: Level 37
Heat absorption: Level 43
Light resistance: Level 20
Cold absorption: Level 41
Curse immunity: Level 40
Soul magic nullification: Level 25
Spatial magic tolerance: Level 2
Suffocation nullification: Level 22
Earth magic nullification: Level 30
Blunt damage immunity: Level 40
Piercing damage immunity: Level 40
Cutting damage immunity: Level 40
Void immunity: Level 33
Mana toxicity nullification: Level 30
Starvation tolerance: Level 1
Lightning nullification: Level 30
Wind magic nullification: Level 30
Water magic nullification: Level 30
Holy magic tolerance: Level 8
Mana drain resistance: Level 20
- Crafting skills -
Improvisational artisan: Level 15
Artistry: Level 4
Mining: Level 9
- Scouting skills -
Proficient stealth: Level 17
Perceive presence: Level 19
Proficient empath: Level 12
Discern danger: Level 27
- Magic skills -
Perceive mana: Level 19
Manipulate mana: Level 30
Once again, I couldn't help bursting into laughter. One class level. Or maybe a hundred; given that I was capped, it wasn't possible to tell. Either way, my reward for completing the main quest was less than any of my recent shrine repairs. Who the hell was in charge of game balance here?
A clunk from one wall reminded me that the second knight was still here, as much as he didn't want to be, but, alas for him, the wall he'd backed into was disappointingly solid.