Chapter 16: A Precious Thing
DM decided he would need to keep a closer eye on Lupy while he figured out how to help her. He finished the day’s physics lesson and sent Vera on her way. DM believed she was now ready to learn and apply the formula for the force due to gravitation, an important goal of hers.
He turned his attention to Vulp. She was going through the final steps of getting formally adopted into the Lord’s brother’s family. As part of this process, both before and after the adoption, she would receive tutoring with an emphasis on matters that noble families in particular need to know.
Her desire to get stronger was a bit unusual when compared to young noble girls, but not unwelcome. In the Holy State, female knights were a minority, but at least they were fairly common. The religious principles spread by the church contributed. For example, Vera’s explanations that believers need to remain humble led towards a degree of parity between the different sexes and even between humans, beast-kin, elves, dwarves, and others. The system was not perfect, but DM was impressed nevertheless.
Even after getting adopted, it would be some time before Vulp took on any formal duties other than keeping up with her studies. She had also adequately asserted that she be allowed to continue adventuring with her friends. Not only was that an important part of her social life, but it was an effective way for her to continue building strength. Any pushback early on was easily dealt with by pointing to Rufus’s ongoing behavior as an adventurer despite being first in line for his father’s responsibilities.
Satisfied with Vulp’s circumstances, DM switched his view to Shiba. She was days, or perhaps weeks away from being able to bring to life a small animal. It seemed that basic necromancy like this was frowned upon but not formally restricted. So long as necromancers stayed out of the public eye they would be left alone. City officials likely just didn’t want to have to deal with them anyway. Regardless, Shiba was keeping it a secret from all but her friends that she was learning necromancy techniques.
Having completed many menial tasks at the request of her teacher, she finally was beginning to learn things of value. The necromancer had demonstrated turning a rat into a zombie rat, but the zombie did not retain memories of its prior life. The rat could take similar actions as a normal rat due to instinct, but it was effectively a new creature.
Although the necromancer would not bring about any human zombies, Shiba did ask about it. If the necromancer really tried, he probably could create such zombies, but they too would not be the same people who died previously and left behind the corpse. Compared to many other animals, humans were not particularly strong. High-level humans and beast-kin were all on the stronger side, but most of those benefits apparently left the body when the person died. As Harold the necromancer explained it, leveling up empowered your soul, and when you died, that power departed along with your soul.
Shiba asked an obvious question. If you attempted to resurrect a person shortly after they died, was there still time to recover their soul and return them to full health with their memories intact? Harold insisted that there was no precedent for such a deed but it might be possible regardless. He didn’t know how.
Unsurprisingly, the Church was adamant that nobody should attempt to resurrect someone after they die. Healing was encouraged, and the Church was arguably the best at it, but once your soul was taken, your time in this realm was complete. Kat learned about this coincidentally as part of her ongoing studies into healing techniques.
Through prayer, which seemed to DM to just be an alternate incantation to other white mage spells, Kat was able to heal two people at a time now, although her success rate was not yet one hundred percent. She was also borrowing one of the Church’s crosiers which was surprisingly difficult to learn to use after having learned basic casting using a two-handed staff like the type commonly used at the Guild.
Although the Guild would be disappointed, Kat was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to pass on this acquired knowledge or these abilities to others. In some cases, learning how to do something was insufficient for teaching somebody else how to also do it. The Church must have recognized this was the case when they authorized some free training for Kat.
Although Kat hadn’t given it much thought, DM was wondering about why the Church was so excited for Vera to learn new things. A Church which embraced rather than shunned science was likely a boon to the society in which DM now lived. However, the Church seemed to be interested in DM’s scientific knowledge simply because it aligned with their existing beliefs and teachings.
To use an example, what if the Church believed the world was flat? When DM taught Vera an experiment to disprove the Church’s belief, would they embrace the scientific conclusion or, in contrast to sun-centered model example, slam it as false. DM hadn’t actually seen evidence of the Church looking to science for support normally. Perhaps they were fair-weather supporters of the scientific method only. By monitoring Vera and Kat, DM hoped to gain an inside perspective on the Church’s nature. He would also be choosey about what else to teach Vera so that he didn’t unnecessarily step on their toes.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Setting aside his thoughts about the Church for the time being, DM glanced at Bandit. When she wasn’t with her friends, she was alternating between training her specialized skills and completing missions alongside Thaw. In fact, for the first time, Thaw was sending her out on a secret mission without supervision.
Thaw had received word from the capital Guild branch that several newbie adventurers, all female, had stopped adventuring. While this wasn’t that uncommon, the Guild had investigated, as they always do when members stop reporting in, and realized that they couldn’t find any evidence of what had happened to these girls. By pouring through records of mission completion and cross referencing the results, they produced the smallest bit of circumstantial evidence that one adventurer in particular had been in the right place at the right time to have knowledge of and access to each of the missing girls before they stopped reporting in. It wasn’t really enough to go on, but it was the best lead they had.
Just as one of Thaw’s colleagues had pieced this together, working in secret, the adventurer in question had accepted an escort request for a journey to the Twin Cities. Bandit’s mission was to figure out whether or not the young man planned to return to the capital, and if not, try to become his next target. Depending on the situation, she would apprehend the target or, if necessary, eliminate him. In modern law enforcement, this might be a form of illegal entrapment, but none of the folks involved knew about that or cared in the slightest. DM knew but didn’t care either. If the guy tried to harm Bandit, he would have a very bad day. Of course, DM would only step in if Bandit actually needed assisting tentacles.
By the time word had made it from the capital to Thaw, and then to Bandit, the target of this investigation had already arrived. Bandit suspected that Thaw would be keeping an eye on her to monitor her performance, but it was also possible that Thaw had her own missions to attend to and wouldn’t be around. It was dangerous to assume Thaw would always be watching, especially now that her training and mission set were developing. Of course, DM couldn’t monitor her all day long either.
Bandit was nervous about the prospect of potentially needing to kill someone. Most likely, if she needed to use lethal force it would be fully justified. However, she had never killed a person before. She knew that Thaw wouldn’t kill without a good reason, but she’d clearly had cause to kill many people in the past despite this. Bandit had agreed to this line of work, and whether she was doing it on DM’s behalf or not, she would follow through with it.
As she tried to convince herself of this, she bumped into Lupy who was wandering around the city. The timing was off for Bandit to trail her target so she offered to join Lupy for a meal. Having nothing else to do, and having worked up a bit of an appetite, Lupy agreed. The two relocated to a tavern that was welcoming to the Guild.
It was an off time and they were seated in a quiet corner, so the two could talk without anyone overhearing aside from when someone came by to ask what they wanted to eat. Lupy knew that Bandit was on a mission that she shouldn’t be talking about, at least in public, so she didn’t ask Bandit about what she was up to. Instead, Bandit asked Lupy how her day was going.
“I was kinda wandering around when I met three guys who made fun of me and then attacked me.”
“What happened next!?” Bandit clearly was not expecting that story.
“They died.”
“They… died? That’s it?”
“I had no choice. They attacked me. Also, I used my minotaur to help me.”
Bandit’s eyes went wide. “Where was this!? Did anyone see?” She looked around and was suddenly thankful nobody was nearby.
“Nobody was around. It was some smelly alley.”
Bandit reduced her voice to a whisper. “Did DM contact you?”
“No. I don’t know if he saw.”
“Where are the bodies now?” Bandit asked, once again, in a low voice.
“Where I left them.”
“Did you report this to anyone?”
“I’m telling you.”
“That doesn’t count!” Bandit objected. “When they’re found, the city will investigate what happened. What happens when they figure out it was you?”
Lupy shrugged.
“Lupy!” Bandit stopped to think about the fact that Lupy had just done the thing Bandit had been agonizing over: killing. Yet, Lupy seemed entirely nonplussed. “Are you okay? Like, mentally?”
“I’m okay.” Even Bandit knew that just because someone said or thought they were perfectly fine didn’t mean they necessarily really were fine, but as far as Bandit could tell, Lupy was hardly bothered by what had happened.
“How is it? Killing someone…”
“It’s okay, if they deserve it.”
“It’s that simple?” Bandit tilted her head.
“I guess. Like, if I went up to some person I don’t know and just killed them, I’d feel bad about that.”
“That’s good…”
Lupy continued, “But if I’m just defending myself, there’s no reason for me to feel bad.”
“I guess that makes sense, but I haven’t killed anyone so I don’t know.”
Just then, an employee arrived to serve them their food, so they switched to a more suitable topic. Specifically, what type of monster Bandit would like to be able to summon in the future.
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DM had been so darn busy monitoring everyone else and hosting newbie adventurers and Vera that he hardly had any time to work on developing the Dungeon. Those new trap doors were a nice touch, but they weren’t enough to waylay skilled intruders. If he could further his knowledge of the dungeon console, he’d have more options to choose from when deciding what information to provide the Guild as part of their agreement. So far, the Guild had made good on their promise to cooperate. DM hadn’t received one hostile intruder since formalizing the relationship.
He was concerned about the elves. Daphne’s party had just begun their journey back to the Twin Cities with Alenia and two other elves in tow. Judging from Alenia’s conversation with Daphne, which DM watched intently, Alenia would be crossing paths with a certain tentacled dungeon master in the coming weeks.
DM had some time to come up with countermeasures for that meeting. He didn’t think she would eliminate him the way Barney had attempted to previously, but he had to admit she was one scary lady. Beautiful, but scary. From the little bit he had seen, her two friends were cut from the same cloth as well.
Would the Guild be able to help him with this looming encounter? He suspected not. He recalled Thaw’s warning to him that he should beware female elves. The way she laughed as she walked away supported his theory that his life wasn’t in danger, but there were other precious things that some tentacle monsters wanted to protect.