What? No. Lanek protested, attempting to drop the crown. However, he found that he was unable to let go of the crown, much less control the rest of his body.
Do you wish to lay claim to the Crown of Laethon?
Lanek grew angry as the System pushed the notification to the fore once again. Losing control of himself was something that Lanek could not abide even back home, but whatever had changed within him since becoming Eldros’ Herald made his reaction far stronger. It made it easier to ignore the notification, allowing him to focus all of his willpower toward fighting back against the System.
While he doubted that the System was trying to hurt him, Lanek had a pretty strong feeling that it wouldn’t hesitate to change or sacrifice him to achieve its goals. For all he knew, the System could be trying to change him into some mindless tool that it could throw against the gaunts. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot that he could do to stop this.
Let’s see if it can block everything I do. Changing his focus, Lanek ignored the notification and pushed his mind toward the store. God, I hope I don’t need to be holding onto my reward stones for this to work.
Thankfully, the store opened up with no issues aside from a giant blue box covering the majority of his vision. Luckily, Lanek knew exactly what he was looking for, so the blue box wasn’t much of a hindrance. With a thought, he purchased the maximum number of resolve points that he could afford. He grinned as he felt the surge that always followed a large boost to his attributes. Good to know, the store can access my reward stones even if I’m not holding them.
Lanek’s resolve surged past his other attributes, stopping at 642. He threw his mind back at the System, fighting to dismiss the notification and drop the crown. However, the notification refused to budge and his body remained stationary. Maybe it isn’t the System? Is the crown cursed?
With that thought in mind, he shifted targets and focused on the crown itself. Instantly, he could feel a presence within the crown fighting against him, almost in desperation. The longer he pushed against the crown, the more a faint figure became visible, its hands clasped around Lanek’s and the crown itself. As the fight continued, the figure abruptly looked up, causing the notification screen to fade as the figure made eye contact with Lanek.
Its eyes widened as its shape came into full focus, revealing a middle-aged man wearing plate armor. The spirit’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. Lanek did feel a buzzing directly in his mind as the thing tried to communicate. Finally, the spirit dropped its hands from the crown with a look of frustration and simply pointed at itself and the crown.
With its hands removed from the crown, Lanek was able to move once more. “Are you trying to say that you are in there?” Lanek asked, eyeing the spirit suspiciously, but with more than a bit of curiosity as well. The spirit broke into a smile and began nodding vigorously.
Liv, hearing Lanek speaking stuck her head out of the bathroom to ask what he wanted but froze at the sight before her. “Uh, you okay over there?”
“I don’t know. Can you see the spirit?”
Stolen story; please report.
“Aye, I can.”
“Good. I don’t know what it wants, but its strong and froze me in place a few minutes ago. Could you keep watch and help out if I stop speaking for too long?”
“Got it.” Liv replied, emerging from the bathroom and sitting within reach of her friend while still retaining a clear line of sight on the spirit. “What should I do to help?”
“If it looks like I’m frozen again, just smack the crown out of my hands. Don’t touch it.” While Lanek spoke, the spirit looked between the two humans with a complete lack of concern. It seemed to be content that it could communicate with Lanek.
“So, I’m going to take a guess and say that you’re the last king of Laethon?” Lanek asked, turning his attention back to the spirit. The spirit looked thoughtful for a moment before raising its hand in the air and tilting back and forth.
“Kind of?” The spirit nodded. “This is going to be slow going. I have an idea on how we can communicate more clearly, but it will take time.”
The spirit that may or not have been the previous king of Laethon gestured for Lanek to continue. “I think if I increase my spirit attribute enough we will be able to communicate clearly. I know that we will likely be able to speak more easily if I claim the crown, but you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not willing to do that just yet.” The spirit looked resigned at these words but nodded regardless.
“It’s not that bad, I can raise my stats quickly. You won’t have to wait for me to level up. All I ask is that you be patient and don’t attempt to lock me in place again. That was you doing that, wasn’t it?” The spirit nodded, looking a bit sheepish at the question. “Good, I didn’t want to have to worry about the System being a potential enemy in addition to the fucking gaunts.”
The spirit looked like he was about to say something at his statement, but abruptly shut his mouth and looked around unhappily. However, at Lanek’s mention of gaunts, he almost lunged at Lanek with wild and rage-filled eyes. Lanek waited for a moment for the spirit to regain control of himself.
“Hate the gaunts?” The spirit nodded with gritted teeth. “Because they killed your people?” Another nod.
“Alright. I’m going to let you go now and I expect you to do the same. I’ll touch base with you when my companions and I are in a safe place and I’ve upped my spirit attribute. It may take a few tries since I don’t know how high it needs to be, but I do promise to try.” The spirit nodded and faded from view.
“Lanek, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Liv asked as Lanek placed the crown into his pack. “It felt powerful and you said it was able to stop you from moving.”
“I’m not sure at all. But, we need all the help we can get and he clearly hates the gaunts. Also, did you see his face when I mentioned the System?”
“I did. That was a bit of weird reaction, wasn’t it?”
“Yep, I need to talk to him if for no other reason than to figure out what was going on there. If there is a problem with the System, I need to find out as soon as possible.” He turned his attention to his furry companions. “Alright, Sanguineus and Kazuma. You guys have free reign starting tomorrow. I need reward stones, so hunt as much as you want and bring me the stones. Don’t worry about scouting or protecting us, Liv and I can take care of ourselves and we’ll have Maximilian and Yuri with us. That being said, make sure to take care of yourselves and not push yourselves too hard, got it?”
Both of the furballs sent affirmative pules toward him before going back to sleep. He turned back to Liv.
“You good with doing some gaunt hunting on the way north?”
Liv grinned. “Oh yeah, as long as it doesn’t distract us from getting to my people.”
“It won’t. I’m not planning on going out of our way to hunt them down. I don’t plan on avoiding gaunts or monsters in our path, especially if they are something we can take down.”
With those plans in place, the rest of the night passed with simple conversation and a warm meal before they turned in. Lanek did end up feeling awkward at sharing a bed with Liv, but it passed quickly thanks to his exhaustion at the events of the day so he followed Liv’s example and fell asleep very quickly.
When the sun rose, Lanek and Liv were well-rested and eager to return to their journey. They would not waste any time looting Ashport, the locals would have taken their valuables with them considering that they had performed a clearly planned and orchestrated evacuation. They might have even been able to plan out their evacuation for days or weeks before they actually left.
As soon as the party left the confines of the guild hall, the wolf and cat took off on their own. Now that they were freed from their duties of protecting the main party, they fully intended to make the most of the situation and hunt their foes down mercilessly. While they were concerned about Lanek and the rest of their companions, they knew how strong they were and trusted Maximilian and Yuri to protect the humans in their absence.
It was time to hunt.