The eight gang members including their stunned leader quickly drew their weapons and raced towards Arthur with the intent to kill. In response Arthur waved his staff slightly and the space between them appeared to shimmer before going back to normal. When the fastest of the gang members was about a meter from Arthur recoiled and grunted as he held his face. Following his lead the rest of the gang members stopped.
“What happened, why did you stop!?” One of the gang members in the back shouted up.
“The mage must have put up an invisible wall or something, I ran face first into it.” The first gang member said as he clutched his aching nose.
“Then we will smash through it!” The Scorchman leader of the group shouted with a somewhat normal voice as he rushed forward and swung his war hammer at the invisible wall. The hammer visibly bounced off as if it hit a wall of rubber, but the Scorchman continued swinging and his subordinates followed.
Arthur of course did not stand idle as his force wall was attacked, but given how powerful it was when testing he did not see any reason to be worried. With no reason to worry he began to cast the same spell he used to defeat the mercenaries that ambushed him the last time.
“Undam ignis!”
But just as he was about to finish casting the spell the Scorchman swung his hammer down and managed to create a visible crack in the force wall. This distracted Arthur for a moment and caused him to fumble the spell a little and slightly reduce its overall power. This meant that the wave of fire that would have normally killed or at least incapacitated the eight only left them with some severe burns.
But two of the gang members including the Scorchman leader were left in a good enough condition to continue fighting, or at least until Arthur conjured earth bolts with the spell Tri Earth Bolt and put a few holes in their heads. The ones that were severely burned were quickly finished off with the same spell and Arthur quickly dragged their dead bodies inside.
‘This is such a hassle. I really hope this gang gives up and just moves onto someone else. I probably should have just eliminated their entire leadership when I had the chance to, that way I wouldn’t need to bury more bodies in my backyard. If this keeps up I won't have enough space for them.’ Arthur grumbled to himself as he dragged each body after stripping it of its weapons, armor, or anything else that he managed to find. By the end he was left with three short swords, a war hammer, four maces, and eight gambisons'.
The best part was the quality of the equipment was far better than what he normally got from hunting down bandits, that means if he was to sell it to Burmas he would get a lot more money than normal.
But that wasn’t even the best part of the fight, with eight combatants he earned another 1000 exp. The seven subordinates gave him 100 each while the leader and the other that managed to stay up for a while earned him 150 each. And with that 1000 exp he received his next 10 points.
/- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -\
Name : Arthur
Level 13
Exp : 11600
Next Level at : 13400
Mana : 39/39
Class : The All Knowing
Attributes :
Strength 30
Dexterity 30
Vitality 20
Constitution 30
Intellect 30
Perception 20
Charisma 10
Arcane 30
Available points : 10
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -/
Arthur continued with the clean up of the dead bodies and using his geomancy he buried each of them deep underground along with the previous three that he buried the last time. With that out of the way he could now clean up the blood that began to pool as the gang members began to bleed. Mixing the blood with some conjured water allowed Arthur to manipulate it like he normally did with water and toss it away from his front porch.
But to be certain Arthur did one last sweep to be certain that was nothing that would indicate that a fight occurred there. Unfortunately there was and it wasn’t something that could easily be cleaned up, a small amount of the wood that made up the porch of his house was burned a little by the fire wave he conjured.
‘It isn’t all that much though, if anyone asked I'll just say it was some nearby kids that were making trouble so I scared them away with a bit of fire. And if someone brings troublesome children around I can just say it wasn’t them who did it. What are they gonna say, that I’m lying.’
With a reasonable excuse made up that could be easily adapted without arousing suspicion Arthur relaxed and washed his hands thoroughly before he began working on the soup he felt to cook. Thankfully he wasn’t gone all that long and he was able to keep his eyes on it as it started to heat up and the water boiled.
*********
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
When 5:30 eventually rolled around Arthur had finished the soup and was just keeping it above the fire to keep it warm for when Calavia arrived. He of course tasted the soup and found it to be up to his standards and was confident that she would like it as well.
A short while later at around 5:40 Arthur heard a soft knock at the door and quickly got up to see who it was. Upon opening the door Arthur was delighted to see that it was Calavia in some more casual clothes than the robes she normally wore.
“Good evening Calavia, please come inside.” Arthur welcomed Calavia inside and gestured to an open chair at the nearby table.
“Thank you for having me for dinner at your house. Normally we just go to that tavern you like and have something from there.” Calavia said as the two walked over to the table. Arthur walked over to the cupboard and fetched two bowls and spoons, he handed one to Calavia and allowed her to take the first serving of soup.
“What kind of soup did you make? It looks like you added all sorts of things in here.” Calavia commented as she took a larger serving than Arthur would have expected.
“The soup has both chicken and beef along with potatoes and carrots. And don’t worry about eating too much, I specifically made more than I normally do because you were coming here to eat.” Calavia gave Arthur a bit of a side eye glare at the little jab regarding the amount of soup she took and decided she needed to defend herself. “Hey, I didn’t get a lunch break today because we were so busy all day. It feels like there is a gang war going on out there with how many people came to us for medical treatment.”
“It was that bad? I would have assumed the city guard would do something about any gang wars, since most of the more prominent gangs have been wiped out after the attack on the southern district.” Arthur said as he sat down with his own bowl of soup.
“They have been cracking down on those types of crimes more often since the perpetrators are far less experienced than the previous ones, but it seems like something is going on behind closed doors and people are too scared to say anything about it.” The room went silent for a while as the implications of a resurgence of criminal activity became apparent.
“Why don’t we move onto less depressing topics, like your brother. You said he is coming to visit you here when he gets a leave from the military, why don’t we talk about your relationship with him. You must be close to him given how happy you were about seeing him again.”
“Oh my brother and I have pretty much always been close, when I was little he would always try and help me when I was having trouble with something, and when I got older it just stuck with the two of us. Although he didn’t really have much of an interest in magic he always did his best to help me study, although most of the time he wasn’t all that helpful it still showed that he cared.” Calavia smiled as she thought back to the fun times she had with her brother before he left for the military “That only made the day he left to join the military even worse. I was 17 at the time and I only saw him on rare occasions and holidays like Saint Lysanias day.”
“Saint Lysanias day, what is that?” Arthur asked as it was the first time he heard anything about holidays within the five months of his life that he could recall.
“Saint Lysanias day is a day that was chosen by the circle of fire before it was called that to celebrate Saint Lysanias. He was the 10,000 year ago equivalent of a king and he led a defense against a large army of goblins led by several powerful demons. With his leadership the army was held back and prevented hundreds of thousands of lives from being taken by the enemy army. Without him we likely would not be living here or even at all today.”
“Wow, and he did this all without any magic? That certainly sounds like a very powerful and important person.”
“Well there were some conflicting reports from back then regarding how exactly he did it. Some said there was a holy aura around him from Solarius himself that kept his loyal soldiers strong and fearless, others said that it was his natural charisma and tactical knowledge that allowed him to coordinate the defense.”
“So it's a bit up in the air whether he had a god on his side or not.” Arthur said as he was about halfway done his bowl of soup.
“That is pretty much correct.” Calavia said as she was nearly done hers. “But something to note is that not long after was when the old gods arrived and first brought divine magic with them. Some people like to use that as evidence of divine intervention, but it could also be coincidence as no god ever took credit for helping.”
The two continued discussing several less hypothetical topics such as Arthur’s next goals for learning magic and what he now had access to as a mage that can cast tier two spells. That mostly amounted to Calavia telling Arthur about her favorite tier two spells and what books in the library had them.
But after two hours of eating and talking it was getting late and Calavia needed to return to her home. She of course asked to bring a bowl full of the soup Arthur made and he allowed her under the condition she would return it.
“If you want I can walk you back to your place.” Arthur offered as he opened the front door for Calavia.
“No you don’t need to do that. You already made dinner for the two of us, and besides I am a powerful mage. Anyone trying something against me probably won't get to live to regret their mistake.”
With Calavia gone Arthur cleaned up his bowl and the two spoons before putting what was left of the soup in a few containers he had. With both him and Calavia eating they managed to finish up most of the soup, and thankfully Arthur had just enough food containers to store the rest.
***********
Arthur awoke at around eight o’clock the next day and quickly got up from his bed and dressed himself in his normal attire. For breakfast he had some of the soup from the night before and when he was done he began brewing some potions with some of the ingredients he had left.
When Gaelin arrived with the normal amount of ingredients he picked from the forest Arthur happily paid him and sent him on his way. But the moment he was out the door Arthur quickly finished up the potion he was brewing and finished with his alchemy for now. Right now it was time for a second attempt at the rat flesh golem.
Arthur still had the slab from the last time that he could have used, but he decided to recreated it while looking over the instructions in Brexius’s journal. By the end he did not see any major difference in the two but decided to use the new one anyways.
He still had more than enough ink for the task so he did not need to buy or make any, since he could now cast tier two spells buying the ink was no longer the only option. He also had more than enough of the ingredients to create more of the artificial blood he would need once the body is fully constructed.
Arthur also had a large stockpile of dead rats in his dimensional bag from Vibia. He was only thankful that the dead rats didn’t start rotting inside there.
With all the necessary ingredients and components he began by removing all the bones from the five rats he selected and using the spell provided in the journal fused them together. It did take a while but eventually he had a full rat skeleton that was taller than the original. He continued with all the steps, he connected the skeleton at all the joints and added the first layer of mussel, then he sewed and fused another layer and carefully added the blood vessels. With the blood vessels in place he mixed up the artificial blood and slowly dripped it in and closed it up.
Now all the preparatory work was done with fewer breaks than the last time. Most of that was due to the increase in his mana capacity from reaching level 13, and by extension increased the rate he naturally recovered mana.
But now was the hardest and most worrisome part, the actual enchanting process, the same part that Arthur was most certain was where he went wrong the last time and screwed up the rat flesh golem permanently.
‘Let's hope I actually learned something from the last time and I don’t just repeat my mistakes.’ Arthur thought to himself as he took a deep breath and fetched the bottle of ink from his bag.