“My lord, this– Are you sure this will work?” The voice asked, tinged with worry and concern over the mysterious situation at hand.
“My dear friend, have faith in me!” laughed another voice, this one full of joy and assurance as they shrugged off the worries of the first voice, “It is not as though we have a choice in the matter now, no?”
“Even if you say that…”
“Trust me, my loyal friend,” the first one stated firmly, “Believe me when I say that all of this will be worth it in the end. I’ll be able to remake the world so that all will be fair and just, like we always dreamed about.”
Had the Spartan had a body at this time, he would scoff at these statements. Those were the same words that so many naive fools would use to justify any kind of behavior, whether that be thievery or murder. Unfortunately, he was nothing more than a spirit, and thus he was forced to listen in while stuck in the vast darkness.
“But I think–”
The first one began to tsk in a soft tone that got louder the more time went on. They gave off a light chuckle before speaking their mind.
“Now, come now. When have I gotten us wrong?” They chided, “Besides, we’ve made good ground. We have sympathizers and people fed up with the regime. We are able to make a change here and now.”
“Even then. We’re up against your brother, shouldn’t that…”
Any other words that would have come out of the dissenter were shaken up as the voice began to get distant. Their discussion began to grow faint as they started to silent.
Then the Spartan jolted awake. He gasped as he staggered up, breathing in at a rapid pace. He tried to relax his body and slow down his breath. Time was needed to get everything under control and eventually his body started to respond accordingly.
“You’re all better now. Thank God.” The Crusader managed to get out as he leaned against the staircase, “I was worried I had lost an ally in this hellhole.”
“Fortunately, it seems as though I am made of much tougher material than expected.” The Spartan replied as he patted himself up and down. To his shock, there weren’t any signs of damage to be found anywhere on his body. He was more than fine: he felt amazing.
He didn’t have any hunger nor thirst at this time. Yes, he was at the prime of his life and his magic reserves were all restored. He was without a doubt, far better than he had any right to do so.
He turned towards the Crusader to check up on his situation and found that he was far worse for wear than him. His armor was battered with dents all around and torn with slash and puncture marks throughout, though they weren’t deep enough to cause significant damage. Rather, he had avoided any serious damage with his capabilities as there was no blood coming from the damage points.
The same could not be truly said for his current state of being. He had almost no energy considering how he was forced to rely on the staircase for support. His breathing was ragged and his body was shaking every so often. He didn’t even have the strength to hold up his sword, which had been left to lean against the wall nearby.
In short, he was not in any capacity to fight. Which left the Spartan to go out and venture. The problem came with transportation of liquids and food which meant he’d have to find a means to store the meals before bringing them back. Though, he wasn’t particularly worried about that anymore. In fact, he had an idea.
“Here. Allow me to help you.” With that, he helped the Crusader up and led him away from the lobby. They went up the stairs and inside the nearest room, where to the surprise of the two of them, showed a luxury room that was absolutely immaculate.
There were no signs of any chaos, no dust, nothing. This whole space had been untouched by the chaos of the outside world and it showed absolutely.
The room was completely furnished with multiple objects that were borderline outrageous. A long bench covered in purple cushions with a large wooden table topped with empty bowls and some jugs laid in the middle of the room. A fur rug covered up the entire floor of this area, with numerous paintings of nude females in sensual poses and giant vases that contained flowers of all types of colors. They ranged from light purple to dark blue and bright red, which took on the same aspect as a rainbow.
There was one giant bed that was more than enough to accommodate six people all at once, with pillows all around and a beautiful red silk blanket adorning the top. This set was positioned on a platform that was slightly above the ground which would allow anyone sleeping to look down on anyone in the room.
That being said, this would probably let the Crusader have a good night’s rest.
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“Go ahead and wash up and sleep. You’ll need it.”
“But, the food and water–”
“We have something you can drink.” The Spartan took out one of the bottles and shoved it to his associate, “Just drink the alcohol and allow yourself to rest. If you need to come up with an excuse, then it is a celebration for surviving the harsh battle from earlier.”
The Crusader seemed to try to think of something to say, but he ended up relenting. He nodded and went down to the couch before collapsing on top. He sat there for a little while before he started to sink into the cloth itself.
That left his associate to get some time to relax. With that, he walked out of this room and went into another to begin scavenging. He didn’t need to search for long as he was able to find everything he needed with a single search.
Eight glass bottles with a belt to hold all of these containers. A few baked clay containers to hold any food that he brought to the Crusader. Last but not least, some spices that had survived through everything that had occurred.
There was salt, some green powder that had a spicy kick, and a yellow powder that had a slight bitterness. That allowed him to have a good set-up to cook whatever he needed to bring flavor and to get his associate to stop complaining about whatever he brought.
Which meant he could probably boil some small beasts. That, or make some bone broth if he was desperate enough. Either way, it was time to hunt.
First things first, he needed to make way to the well. Though, he didn’t need to worry anymore about any dangerous enemies in the way. His scouting previously let him know that there weren’t any other monsters patrolling around the area.
With that in mind he went ahead and entered the lobby. There weren’t any more monsters in this area, but he had to make sure he was stealthy. That battle had taken a while, and he wasn’t certain if his information was outdated.
He went to the front doors and started to open them up cautiously. The fog was out strong, and he couldn’t see anything around him. Though, he knew the way forward was safe as there were no sounds of movement going around.
With that in mind, he went out. He kept his guard up and maintained his stealth while moving towards the well. While he could activate his divinity to get a good grasp of the area, he wasn’t particularly certain on why he felt so much better at this position, and he wasn’t going to risk anything.
Though perhaps this was all because of the black shard that I touched. Perhaps all of my recovery is because of that? Then the vision itself, was that a part of the whole process? Though the question is what that small conversation was meant to show me. That had to be the past being shown to me, but what would be the point of such a thing? Perhaps this vision was because I touched the monster’s memories?
If so, then why were there multiple of them? Cloning? Brothers? Something I should keep in mind seeing as how troublesome they were to deal with.
With those thoughts done, the Spartan was able to make his way to the well without any conflict. He went forward and started to look around and found that there was a rope leading down. He shrugged, before pulling on the line to retrieve whatever was down there.
From there, a small bucket that was filled to the brim with water. He smiled at the sight. Thank goodness, they did have some water nearby that they could use to refill water. Now all he had to do was find food.
He got his bottles all filled up, and he sent the bucket back down to the bottom, before moving onwards. Now the focus was hunting. Which meant he’d have to get into conflict to find some small creatures to feast on. Either that, or he would have to do some more training.
That being said, perhaps now was the time to test the divinity. He was in a relatively safe position and reserving the distance used would be more than enough for a test.
He closed his eyes. Without further anticipation, he activated his divinity. That moment made him shocked with the revelation of how smooth and easy such an action felt now.
Before, he would have suffered quite a bit and felt a bit of a backlash to using his powers. Now? He had no such problems, he could feel his body running through this divine power with ease. He no longer needed to worry about using his divinity as much anymore, he could maintain this without much problem.
He concentrated a little bit more. His reach expanded and unfortunately, he wasn’t able to find any small creatures that would placate the Crusader. He did find several medium-sized monsters that would be relatively easy to take down and butcher to make meals.
These didn’t seem as dangerous as the monster with the halo or the giants. These had the same body shape as horses, though there were some slight differences. For one, their heads seemed to circle back into the neck and the tail was long enough to curl up on the ground.
Still creepy, but possibly decent enough for the Crusader to not make a fit about eating its flesh. The only problem was the fact that there was one of the lizards acting as a guard for the herd of six. That would be something easier to deal with.
That was, if it weren’t for the fact that the lizard was sitting on top of one of these horse monsters. This one was looking around with a sneer on its face, ready to take on anyone that was in its path. That upped the threat level of this monster and made it possibly on the same level as the soldiers in the lobby.
Something that the Spartan had to admit was annoying. However, he did want to get food and doing this would be the optimal flesh to obtain. He certainly didn’t want to explore too far to find something to eat, that was far too much for him. Right now, this was the best option available, and he had a good idea of what to do.
He had his divinity filled up again. He had the stealth advantage, the power and the tactics to take these monsters out with relative ease. This was the perfect opportunity to test his mettle and experiment with what the black shard had graced him.
This would be interesting.