Chapter 50

I woke up with my head resting on Elincia’s lap, which was strange considering the last thing I remembered was the dark tunnel collapsing over my head.

“Damn beast!” Elincia said and I realized it was just the Changeling.

Begrudgingly, I rolled over my stomach and sat down. As much as I enjoyed Elincia’s thighs –they were a top quality pillow–, it felt wrong for me to put my head on them if it wasn’t really her.

“You are a damn beast.” I replied as I massaged my eyes. New pains had been added to the earlier ones I had collected over our journey into the Farlands. A quick examination revealed an ugly burn on my forearm and the skin of my calf had turned red. My leather jacket and my pants were seared as well. Luckily enough, my clothing had taken the worst of it.

A quick scan of my surroundings revealed I had been dragged far from the mountainside into the lush forest. Landslides had reached deep into the forest and there were even a few giant rocks settled on the soft forest bed not far from us. The Changeling had been wise enough to drag me behind a giant old tree.

The creature had saved me.

“I’m not going to pet you while you are in Elincia’s shape.” I said as a wide smile was drawn into my face. Even with the blisters and the bruises, it was good to be alive.

The Changeling instantly transformed into the Bernese Mountain Dog and pounced over me. It was just as heavy as I remembered. I had to push it back to prevent him from licking my face.

“Thank you for saving me. I owe you.” I said when I finally managed to put enough distance between the slimy tongue and my face.

The Changeling puffed its furry chest and gave me a single hoarse and proud ‘woof’.

“Do you have a name? I can’t be calling you ‘Damn Beast’ in front of the kids… if you want to come with me to the orphanage I mean.” I said.

“Name!” The Changeling wagged its tail.

I didn’t know I needed a talking dog until now. The fact it could adopt the form of a fireball slinging wizard and drag me out from collapsing caves was just the cherry on top.

“Let’s see. Damn Beast… DB… What about Debbie?” I asked.

The Changeling turned into a tortoiseshell cat and made an exaggerated gesture of vomiting.

I’d take that as a no.

“Ok, drama queen, please show some respect to all Debbies in the universe.” I scolded it.

The Changeling gave me a mischievous glance. I closed my eyes and squeezed my brain to come up with something. Suddenly, a metaphorical mana flame lit into my mind.

“What about Loki?” I said. “You can’t say it’s not the coolest name out there.”

The Changeling turned back into its dog form and zoomed around the nearby trees like a dark blur. The only thing that separated it from a real dog was the fact it yelled ‘Loki’ instead of barking. I’d take that reaction as a resounding yes.

“Alright, Loki. We have to return home.” I said as I cast a worried glance at the mountain behind us.

The fact there were no System prompts floating in front of my eyes with half a dozen ‘level ups’ meant the Lich was alive. I considered the alternatives. Maybe the Lich was actually dead but it didn’t yield any experience because it didn’t technically belong to the System. Or maybe it was alive under the tons of solid rock.

A shiver ran down my spine.

“The ‘level up’ prompt probably appeared when I was unconscious.” I said in an attempt to calm myself down.

If the prompts appeared when I was unconscious, I just had to check my level in my character sheet.

I opened it.

Name: Robert Clarke, Human.

Class: Scholar Łv.1̵̤̄3̵̪̄

Titles: Lonely Boy, Stone in Love, Hot for Teacher, Confidant, Classroom Fiend, Favorite Teacher (96), Master Tutor, Silver Scholar, Delinquent Reformer (5), Stalwart Mentor (7), Role Model, Expert Mathematician, Expert Physicist, Adept Historian, Adept Linguist, Journeyman Biologist, Novice Chemist, Novice Orator.

Passive: Lv.5 Swordsmanship, Mana Manipulation, A̵w̴arɐnes̵s, Master of Languages.

Skills: I̶d̶en̴t̶i̷f̴y, Ŝţʉɴ ⅁ɐzɘ, Intimi̷dɐte, Minor Illusion.

Status: Exhausted Lv.5, Denial Lv.2, Minor burns Lv.1.

I closed my character sheet and looked at the horizon.

“It could be worse.” I said, slapping my legs and walking away from the mountains.

My character sheet should remain closed until I had an idea of what was happening. As much as I wanted to identify the corrupted skills, I didn’t want to trigger any catastrophic error in the System.

I took a peek into my shirt, and noticed a web-like black mass under my skin where the Lich had touched me. Just like my character sheet, I didn’t want to look at it again in case it made it worse.

“You know, Loki. Men don’t go to the doctor. They wait until the pain goes away or they die in the meantime.” I tried to lighten my mood, but I only managed to make it worse.

I hope that with enough time, I will be able to piss the black substance out of my system.

The Changeling didn’t seem happy with my assessment.

“One problem at a time.” I said, looking around the forest.

If I would be able to locate the cave Elincia and I used to arrive in the valley, I’ll be able to find the way back to Farcrest. There should be someone who knows how to deal with this strange affliction. I looked around, expecting [Awareness] to guide me in the right direction, just like it had been doing since I entered the Farlands, but the skill remained silent.

I didn’t have to open my character sheet to know it was one of the corrupted skills.

“Loki? We have a problem, dude. I don’t know the way back home.” I said.

Sure, I had a vague sense of the direction of things, but actually finding the cave and then traversing it without getting lost could take me days if not weeks.

“The way back home!” Loki parroted as it started sniffing the ground. “The way back home!”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

I trusted its nose.

Loki guided me through the valley, always going to the south and east. We stopped at noon to drink water from the creek. The orc miners must’ve gone through the Greater Slime’s frozen body because the creek was full of water once again. I tried to distract myself from my current problems by thinking about the potential uses of the Slime Cores. It was of little use because my attention invariably slipped back to my character sheet or the spider web-like mass in my chest.

“Man, I wish I had access to the Internet to search for my symptoms.” I said, peeking at my chest again. This didn’t look like the kind of ailment that was cheap to fix, if it was possible to fix at all.

“One problem at a time!” Loki parroted.

“One problem at a time, pal.” I replied.

We walked through the forest until we reached the southern cliffs. Without [Awareness] whispering directions into my ear, I couldn’t know how far, or close, we were from the caves. The surroundings didn’t seem familiar at all. However, my assessment of the path was wrong because a minute later Loki reached the entrance of a cave.

“The way back home!” Loki said.

I summoned a small flame of mana –I didn’t dare to cast anything more mana intensive in case it produced a strange reaction with the Corruption inside my body–, and entered the tunnels. Loki sniffed the path in front of us and guided me through the forks and turns. Other than our steps, the cave was completely silent, but that didn’t prevent me from pricking my ears in a vain attempt to pick up any dangerous sounds.

After burying the Lich under tons of rock, I didn’t trust the mountains to maintain their structural integrity. Luckily enough, the ground remained silent. This zone of the mountains must’ve been out of the area of effect of my spell.

As we got deeper, we found lots of untouched Blue Moss. Not knowing if the sample I had farmed survived the Monster Surge, I decided to take a second sample.

“Do you think Byrne is the caffeine addicted scholar Elincia mentioned?” I asked as I put a generous patch of Blue Moss into my bag as well as a patch of Green Moss. Loki barked back.

Not a minute passed when we found the remains of our battle against the slimes. The bodies were just watermarks against the rock, but the core shards remained solid. I grabbed one core that was almost intact. It was a translucent sphere with a green hue. The surface was uneven and hard as glass.

When I tried to identify it, a sharp pain spread across my chest. I fell to my knees. The black mass seemed to stab me everywhere it had spread, forcing me to stop using the skill. The broken core fell from my hand and clenched my teeth until the pain passed. When I opened my eyes again, I saw Loki looking at me with a worried canine expression.

“I’m okay now.” I said as I stood up.

I chastised myself from trying something so reckless. I should’ve known something like this was going to happen. The pain lingered for another second before completely disappearing. My forehead was covered in sweat and my hands were shaky.

I grabbed the core and put it into my bag.

From the duration of the trip back to the surface, I refrained from using any of my skills. Luckily, other than a tiny slime feeding on a patch of moss, there wasn’t anything interesting or dangerous in the cave.

“The way back home!” Loki suddenly said as it turned a corner at full speed.

I followed the Changeling to find the cave’s entrance.

“You truly are a lifesaver. We have to find the orcs now.” I said as we emerged high into the slope of the mountain range.

Loki puffed its chest and ran around my legs. I was trying to catch it when a powerful roar echoed against the mountains. Loki perked its ears and scanned the trail. Not even a hundred meters from us, a band of orc warriors armed with shields and spears much like Dassyra, climbed the slope. They had spotted us.

For an instant I thought Loki was going to transform into the Fireball Magician and smoke the poor orcs. My fears were unfounded, because it transformed into a mouse and scurried into my pocket in a panic.

I raised my hands before any of them could load their slings. I wasn’t in a position to fight, or even display my strength to intimidate them. The band of orcs spread over the slope and surrounded me. This was faster than finding them myself at least.

“I’m not a monster!” I said, keeping my hands up. “I was at the outpost with Dassyra and the Caretaker. I need to find the Caretaker.”

The leader of the band approached me with its shield raised and its spear ready. He was even bigger and greener than Dassyra. His muscles bulged under its brigandine and its tusks were so big I was sure he had trouble eating. His body didn’t seem starved though. I nicknamed him Hulk.

“Your personal sheet, System Slave.” Hulk said with a fierce voice.

“I don’t know how to show it to other people. I’m just a level thirteen Scholar.” I lied. Knowing how much the orcs despised Corruption, I couldn’t just show them my corrupted character sheet and expect them to receive me with open arms.

“What about the creature in your pocket?” The orc stopped a few meters in front of me, still with his shield raised and his spear menacingly pointing at me.

“Just a Changeling that got fond of me. It’s not aggressive.” I replied, hoping all orcs had the same reaction as Dassyra when she met the creature. “Come on, Loki, I need you to transform into Dassyra. Show them we met her before.”

The Changeling trembled inside my pocket but ultimately peeked outside.

“It’s okay, buddy. They will not harm us.” I reassured the shaking shapeshifter.

For a creature that could turn into a mage, Loki was really fearful.

Loki nodded and turned into a twister of black mana before emerging as a perfect copy of Dassyra. The orcs recoiled in their surprise and exchanged hushed words before lowering their weapons. After a moment, Loki turned back into its mouse form and returned to my pocket.

“You met Warchief Dassyra, that’s true.” The orc leader nodded. “But we are yet to know if you are friend or foe. The camp has to remain hidden. Tie him and put something on his head.”

“What?” I asked before a dozen green hands fell upon me. Soon enough I was tied, blinded, and bouncing like a sack of potatoes on the shoulders of one of the orcs. It wasn’t particularly comfortable but at least my feet had a moment of respite. And it was infinitely better than being chopped by a machete.

“Be careful with my moss! You know how difficult it was to find!” I said just for the sake of complaining. The orc grunted back but I couldn’t know if they actually secured my belongings.

It was hard to tell how long the trip lasted, all that I knew was that low branches hit like whips. Without [Awareness] it was impossible to properly tell the path. Loki remained inside my pocket, hanging for its dear life for the whole duration of the trip. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the orc that was carrying me put me down and removed my blindfold. I noticed the sun almost touched the top of western mountain range.

“Worst traveling company ever.” I grunted.

The orc camp was completely different from the outpost. The tents were disorderly scattered around the clearing in the forest. Orc families were reunited around campfires while the warriors patrolled the perimeter. Everyone had worried and stressed expressions. It felt like a refugee camp. I scanned the surroundings, trying to catch a familiar face but without [Awareness], all orcs looked almost the same.

“This one.” Hulk’s voice brought me back to reality.

I turned around, expecting to find Dassyra’s imposing frame. Instead, besides the orc leader walked the elder who had interrogated Dassyra upon our arrival to the outpost. For a moment, I feared he would tell the warriors to dispose of me.

“The ugly Handy Assistant?” The elder orc asked as his eyes fell on me. “Let him go. He’s Dassyra’s guest.”

The orcs freed me from my restraints.

“Where’s Elincia? Where’s the Caretaker?” I jumped to my feet, ignoring the warriors.

“She’s resting in the main tent. That way…”

Before the elder orc finished the sentence, I was already on my way. I dodged patrols and scurried through families and carts full of provisions until I found Dassyra’s tent. A weight fell from my shoulders as I heard Elincia’s voice across the fabric.

“What part didn’t you understand, you fucking green bitch! You left Rob to die!” Elincia yelled.

I had never heard her so angry before.

“Are you kidding me?! It was you who got a javelin in the calf. Don’t try to pass the blame on me.” Dassyra replied, as angry as the elven woman.

“Yeah, because I totally WANTED to get a javelin on my calf. You should’ve left me instead of him, you brittle idiot. You are an orc, you should act like one.” Elincia struck back.

She was mad mad.

“It was Rob’s will to save you. You should be grateful I dragged your pale ass out of the cave before it collapsed!” Dassyra grunted.

I bit my tongue. The tunnel collapsing was probably my own fault.

“This is going to be hella awkward.” I muttered as my social anxiety kicked on at full steam.

“Hella awkward.” Loki parroted from my pocket.

The two women continued their screaming match while I hesitated just in front of the tent’s entrance.

Time to face the music I guess.

I stepped into the tent.

“First person who didn’t abandon me alone at the orphanage and I got him killed.” Elincia muttered as she hid her face into her hands.

“The reports about my death were greatly exaggerated.” I interjected, standing in the doorway.

I didn't think it was possible for Elincia to look so pale.