Author's Note: So I updated today after all. I tried my hand at messing around with tables for game like things but not sure I like how they turned out. Please enjoy the longest chapter yet.
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Chapter 6
I entered the Merchant’s Guild, and its condition was pretty much identical to yesterday. The only small difference today was that there was another receptionist girl other than Kiara. Kiara was busy at the moment as well, so I couldn’t walk up to her to conduct my business, so I moved a bit to the side of the common area and decided to wait until she was free.
A certain man from yesterday was there and was shooting me quite a fierce glare from across the room. Shouldn’t you try to be less obvious with that hostility? Even the other men you were talking with just before are giving you odd looks now. I’m at least 95% sure this man is the one that hired those thugs from yesterday to rob me. I didn’t bother disposing of the bodies in anyway, so odds are they got found and word got back to him somehow. Or maybe not. It might just be that since I’m here, unhurt and unrobbed tells him that his plan went south.
Unless he tries to start something today I’ll be magnanimous towards him and ignore him. Before I start ignoring him though, let’s give him a cheerful little wave and smile. Yep, now he really looks like he’s going to explode in anger.
Oh well, I tried to be friendly. It’s not my fault! Oh, something more important came up, Kiara is now no longer busy.
Putting any thought of the angry man out of my mind, I walked up to Kiara’s spot at the counter, “Hello Kiara, I’m here to conclude that business from yesterday.”
She nods to me and comes around the counter, “Miss Seri, the Branch Manager told me to show you to his office when you came so please follow me.” She beckons and unlike the previous day, she leads me toward a staircase going up to the second floor. I noticed that, excluding Mr. Angry who was still glaring at me, this action made some of the others in the room curious and they too watched me go up the stairs. Not much I can do about it though and none of them were hostile at least. On the second floor, she stopped at a door and knocked. “Manager, Miss Seri is here.”
A voice from inside called, “Bring her in.” Kiara opened the door and led me inside. The room was furnished quite well. A few bookshelves along the walls and what appeared to be paintings hanging up. There was a storage cabinet in one corner of the room as well that looked a bit out of place. At a desk in the center of the room was Malcolm. The desk was covered in paperwork and Malcolm looked exhausted. “Good afternoon young lady. I hope you at least slept well.”
“Good afternoon to you too. I did indeed sleep pretty well. Also I hope you don’t mind but I actually might have some other business with you aside from finishing that sale.”
Malcolm got a gleam in his eyes as he heard that, “Well then have a seat and let’s get started.” He opened a drawer on the desk and pulled out a small pouch. “Here is the payment for the gems. Feel free to count that it’s all there.” I nodded and pulled out the pouch containing the gems to pass to him. Contrary to my thought that he’d check the contents right away he simply slipped the pouch into the same drawer he had taken the money from. Well, he might be being nice and trusting me but I’m going to make sure the coins in here are the right amount. I picked up the coin pouch and spent the next few minutes counting every coin until I was sure I had the exact number of coins he had mentioned yesterday. From my examination they looked like the coins I had seen people using in the morning as I wandered around so I’m pretty sure they’re real coins too. Malcolm was watching with an amused look while I counted the coins. I just noticed but it seems like Kiara had left the room while I was focused on that.
I slipped the coin pouch into my bag and returned my attention to Malcolm. “Now that that’s taken care of. I’d like to get your help with something. I’m in need of certain materials. My exploration of the town didn’t turn up any leads, so you’re likely my last hope before I have to go look somewhere else.”
Malcolm looked interested. “Materials you say? What kind of materials?”
I reached into my bag and pulled out the lump of etherenite first. This was the mineral I needed the most of to rebuild the engines and warp drive so it was the obvious one to start with. I handed it to Malcolm and he took it and examined it carefully, rotating it around in his hands as he did. He grimaced before handing it back to me. “I’m sorry, I can’t seem to Appraise this. I guess my Merchant level is too low. It does remind me of something I saw in the past, but I can’t seem to recall where. Were there any others? You did say materials as in plural.”
Feeling a bit dejected, I pulled out the two lumps of titanil and chromanite and handed them to him. Once again he examined them, but this time he didn’t take as long before handing them back. “I’m very sorry. These two I’ve never seen the like of before. Really, just where did you manage to acquire these? You’re really a bundle of surprises.”
I shook my head, “I can’t say where I acquired them. I just need to find more of them, a lot more. Do you have any idea where I could go that might be able to give me a lead? Long distance travel isn’t a problem.”
Malcolm gave me an odd look. “Well if travel isn’t a problem then I’d say that the Tevalon Empire to the east is your best bet. Unlike the Estevaria Kingdom, it doesn’t discriminate against the non-human races so there’s a much greater variety of goods that flow through there.”
I took in this new information. So I had been right that there were other sentient races on this planet. Should I ask about what other races there are or would that give me away too easily? Probably shouldn’t chance it yet. If I go to the empire I’ll probably meet other races anyway if he’s right about them all living there. “Do you have a map I could see? I’d like to see what roads to follow to get there. Also I’m guessing that I won’t be able to use these coins if I go there will I?”
“I do indeed have a map that I can show you. As for the coins, I’ll provide you with a letter you can use. Just visit a Merchant’s Guild branch and get them exchanged for Tevalon coins. Of course there is the exchange rate so you might lose a bit.” He got up and walked over to one of the corners of the room. He opened the cabinet that was there and came out with a large scroll. He brought it back over to the desk and untied it and spread it awkwardly on top of the paperwork. “Here’s our town of Westmoor.” He pointed at a certain spot. “Estevaria’s capital is down here.” He dragged his finger along a road on the map to the south east. Now that I can see the whole kingdom here, this area really is on the outskirts of the kingdom. It also doesn’t look like that forest is considered part of the kingdom judging by the rough borders I see on the map. As I was examining the map Malcolm continued. “And the border to Tevalon is over here.” He dragged his hand a bit north and east from Estevaria’s capital. “The empire’s capital is much further east and north then this map shows. Sadly, this map is only really of the kingdom, so I can’t show you that.”
I nodded in acknowledgement, but I was focusing more on the map. I know not to trust a low tech level world’s maps to be perfectly accurate. If I use the distance of this town to the forest as an estimate, then this country is probably about three times the size of France? That’s kind of a rough guesstimate but considering I seem to be at the far northern tip of the kingdom and I need to go far south and then east if I follow the route Malcolm showed me I’d probably have to travel maybe five thousand or more kilometers to get to the empire. Of course he also said the capital of the empire was further north and east so maybe if I just go east from here I’ll end up in the empire anyway? Might save some time. I decided to ask, “Malcolm would the capital of the empire be somewhere directly east from here?”
He looked like he was considering the question carefully. “I wouldn’t say directly east, probably a bit south east. There’s no roads connecting this backwater area with the empire though. The only safe trade route is from the capital to their border as I showed you.”
Alright so a bit south and then east, I can work with that. I’m still probably looking at thousands of kilometers worth of travel, though. “Thanks for the information. That’s all I needed help with.”
“Alright then, let me just write you that letter. Also again, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to aid you in your search.”
I shook my head in disagreement. “No way. You helped me a bunch. This will save me a lot of time rather than wandering aimlessly.”
He smiled at my response and then fished a clean sheet of paper from a drawer and started to write. That reminds me but I really need to learn this language at some point too. After a minute or so he folded it and handed it to me. “There you go, that will get you some help at any guild branch, especially if you try selling gems again.”
As I took it from his hand, Kiara burst into the room looking terrified. “Sir, there’s an emergency!” She was panting as if she had just finished a sprint.
Malcolm got up from his seat and spoke reassuringly to her. “Calm down Kiara. Take some deep breaths and try to explain what’s going on.”
Kiara nodded and did as told. It took a minute for her to calm down sufficiently then she started to explain, “Sir, a guard messenger from the wall just came. He said they spotted a pack of demon wolves coming toward the town. He wasn’t sure how many of them there were since he and a few others were sent right away to sound the alarm but he guessed that there were at least fifty if not probably more than a hundred.”
Upon hearing this news, Malcolm’s eyes widened and he slumped back into his chair with an ashen look on his face. “Was he sure that there were at least fifty of them?”
Kiara nodded, after seeing Malcolm’s reaction to the news her state of panic was starting to return. “Yes Sir! He was absolutely sure there were at least fifty.”
It was at this point that I decided to interject. I had a pretty good idea what this group of so-called demon wolves were. If I was correct then they had followed me to the town after they recovered from when I wiped their senses. “Is there an issue with that number of wolves? Can’t the guards stop them?”
Malcolm looked shocked at my question and then started laughing, “Against fifty demon wolves? Not hardly. Fifty demon wolves, the town might have a chance against them if everyone banded together. We’d take a horrific number of casualties but we might be able to survive. A hundred? It’s over, there’s no chance of survival!” At his words Kiara broke down and started crying.
I was surprised by this admission. Were the people of this world really this weak or was it just because this is an isolated backwater town? Normally I wouldn’t care too much about accidentally getting people killed but this time it did seem like I had unintentionally led the wolves here so I guess maybe I should take care of the situation. Though that would mean revealing my abilities a bit. Well they have psi users, so I’ll stick to using psi rather than using my guns but first I need some information.
“Hey Malcolm, and you too Kiara, stop moping around now! I need information so I want you to answer the following questions quickly understand?” I was speaking in a much more forceful tone than I had been up until this point and it startled the two out of their pity party. They were both looking at me like I was the crazy one! “First, do demon wolves ever bow down to other races?”
Malcolm looked still too stunned to reply but Kiara spoke up, “Well, there is that legend about Hero Kohdy. He tamed a pack of demon wolves by just showing off his strength.”
“Is there any more details about that legend?”
“Not really. It just said that the demon wolves followed him after witnessing his strength but until he actually dominated them they weren’t truly tamed and would still do as they wanted. The story wasn’t really clear what that meant and no one that tried imitating him ever lived to tell the tale. A pack of demon wolves is just too strong after all.”
I nodded at her words and considered what she had said. So the wolves elected me as their leader because they perceived my power in some way. They decided to follow me as some kind of test of my leadership until either they find out how strong I really am or how weak I really am and then decide to fight for control again. “I see. Thanks for the info.” I guess I’ll go take care of this. Shouldn’t be too hard to get the wolves to back down. Hopefully in the time since the message and this conversation happened the wolves didn’t attack anyone. That might makes things a bit messier.
I started to leave the room but a small hand latched onto my arm trying to pull me back. I could have easily dragged Kiara with me but decided to turn back around and face her. I was somewhat gratified that she had real concern in her eyes, even if it was unnecessary from my viewpoint. “What are you doing!? You can’t go out there, you don’t even have a Class!”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
I very carefully removed her hand from my arm and then with my other hand I reached up and placed it on the side of her face and stared into her eyes. I could tell she was uncomfortable by this but before she could react I brought our faces together and stole a kiss. She was a bit too stunned to react and I quickly took advantage of it by using my psi to put her into dreamland. She collapsed forward into me and I laid her down on the floor.
At the sight of these actions, Malcolm finally roused from his stupor. “You, what did you do to her!?”
I merely gave him a peaceful smile. “Don’t worry. I didn’t do anything to her. I just sent into a happy dream. By the time she wakes up everything will be resolved and she won’t have to be afraid.”
I tried to leave again but Malcolm called out, “Wait! What are you going to do?”
I turned my head to look back toward him and this time I showed him a savage grin. “I’m going to go discipline some misbehaving puppies!”
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I burst out of the Merchant Guild at close to max speed. I heard some screams from the direction of the wall but from this distance I couldn’t tell if it was just fearful ones or if they were dying screams. Since I had resolved myself to stick to my psi abilities for this fight I swapped my main Class to Psion and kept Empath as my SubClass. This combination would give me the greatest control over my powers.
The town was in a state of abject panic. I wouldn’t be able to easily move through these crowds so I leapt with psi assistance up to the roof of a nearby building. I had moved so quickly and the crowd was so frenzied that very few noticed my action. I started moving and jumping along making my way to the gate that I had entered the town with, the wolves should be concentrated there. I was definitely hearing sounds of battle though as I got closer so it’s likely the wolves had killed people already. That pisses me off and makes me feel even more guilty. <((This series is only officially posted to royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any other website, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money for this story, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
Less than a minute later, I was at the wall. The wolves were just inside the city now and were massacring any of the guards that tried to attack them. Maybe luckily for me but most of the guards were dead and the townspeople had long since run away from this area so not many should witness what I’m about to do.
Doing something that I should never do, I reached up and deactivated my shield. I felt as my psionic energy that was being drained to power the shield returned to me. I took a few deep breath and prepared myself for action.
Reaching out with my psi, I searched for each wolf presence. Each time I found one I raised it into the air and started moving over the wall and out of the city. This took a lot of concentration since I needed to make sure I grabbed each wolf and there were over a hundred of them. Eventually I had all 127 wolves in the air and and had set them floating out of the city. Many of them were struggling in the air but some were just going with it. One such was the pack leader, or maybe it’s former pack leader since they followed me.
I hopped from the roof I was on down to the ground. Wow, I hadn’t noticed but they even tore through the gate. Some of the surviving guards were staring at me with open mouths as I casually walked past them and out through the rubble that had yesterday been a gate.
Once I was out in the open, I started lowering the wolves to the ground in front of me. Most of them had pretty obvious signs of having attacked people. Once they were all on the ground, about half of them started growling at me and looked ready to attack while the other half looked calm. Some of the rambunctious ones decided to take action and tried to rush me. They quickly found themselves pushed into the ground with my psi. I might have lowered them to the ground but that didn’t mean I had severed the connection I had made with each of them. I still had a psychic hand on each of their necks ready to take action if it should be necessary.
I wasn’t sure exactly how I should go about displaying true dominance but I figure violence is probably the things that these wolves understand the best. I’ll make them feel utter helplessness. Immediately I exerted pressure on all the growling wolves and they fell to the ground as well. Some of the calm and quiet wolves took that moment to try to attack but like the others got done in. At this point about eighty of the wolves were now on the ground struggling against my power while the rest, including the former pack leader, looked on.
Now, how to deal with these last ones. They’re not growling or trying to attack me so it wouldn’t feel right to discipline them yet. I’ll just ignore them for now while I let these others tire themselves out.
After a few minutes of punishment I finally let up my power on the wolves and they struggled to stand back up. All of them are looking at me very warily now and none of them are growling. I guess I’ll move to the next step. I’ll take advantage of my Empath class to enhance my psi to communicate and get them to follow some simple commands. Communication won’t be perfect but they should understand, hopefully.
Bolstering the connection I already had on each of them with a second layer I sent some feelings and thoughts. I started with the most obvious and easiest to understand. [Sit]. Most of the wolves obeyed but still a pretty good portion didn’t so they returned to punishment time. After another few minutes of punishment I tried again. [Sit]. This time they all obeyed. [Good dogs]. <((This series is only officially posted to royalroad.com. If you are reading this series on any other website, then you are doing so without the permission of the author, Xacual. If you have paid money for this story, please file a report and request a refund as it has been stolen and is being sold illegally.))>
Let’s move onto a bit more complicated commands. [Lay down]. Oh, this time they all obeyed right away. I’ll up the difficulty even more. [Roll over] I sent the thought along with performing a hand gesture. Some of them managed it but from the connection I could tell most of them were confused by the command. [Roll over] I repeated the command a few times and continued the hand gesture. It took another few minutes before they all had satisfactorily accomplished this command.
Now I took some time alternating between the three to make sure they all understood. There were a couple wolves that got a bit antsy during this time but another dose of punishment and all the wolves were perfectly obeying. I decided I’d end the training session here with another easy command. [Come] I beckoned them. They all immediately rushed up close to me. [Sit]. And now I had 127 wolves that were all basically two thirds my size, except for the former pack leader who was taller than me, sitting all around.
Some game windows popped up for me at this moment.
*Class Unlocked: Beastmaster* -For taming a number of beasts you have acquired the Class of Beastmaster
-This Class allows you to communicate with tamed beasts and increases their intelligence to understand more complicated commands. You now have control over your tamed beasts’ growth. All tamed beasts have a 5% boost applied to all their stats.
*Beastmaster Has Leveled Up x 27* -For taming a large pack of 127 Mutated Wolves, Beastmaster has increased in level to level 28
-Penalty: Experience Gained -70% for Class not being equipped
-Stat Boost has increased from 5% to a 10%
*Stats Gained* -Resilience +5
-Willpower + 15
-Grit + 5
That was surprising. Beastmaster probably wouldn’t have been my first choice for a new class, but I can roll with this. I decided to check my status.
Name: Seri Race: Experiment S341(Unique) Displayed Title: Sniper Princess ⏬ Class: Psion L100 ⏬ Subclass: Empath L100 ⏬ Vitality: 2040/2040 Psi Energy: 2710/8355 Physique: 562 Endurance: 158 Willpower: 764 Expertise: 691 Resilience: 189 Grit: 351
I was feeling ecstatic with this result. It was only a small change, but finally after over a decade in game, my stats had increased!
Looking back towards the town I see a ton of people looking from the walls and from the destroyed gate opening. Ahh, I guess it’s time to leave. Sending out a quick command to the wolves [Follow] I started running back in the general direction of the forest.
A cacophony of mental voices answered my commanded [Yes Leader] and all the wolves were now running behind me. Interesting, I guess that’s a result from the Beastmaster Class taming bonus. I’ll have to play around with that later.
I kept to a pace that shouldn’t be too hard for the wolves but we still managed to reach the forest in about three and a half hours. Another thirty minutes and we were at Lullaby. I saw the maintenance droids were still at work but there wasn’t much visible progress yet. I gave the wolves a command to go hunt and get food for themselves and told them I’d see them in a few days. I was pretty anxious to log out and get some real sleep.
I climbed up to the top of the ship and entered using the lift. Upon entering the ship, Lynn appeared in her usual fashion, “Mistress! What happened with all those wolves? Why were they all following you?”
With a wide smile I answered her, “I managed to acquire a new class and tamed them all!”
Lynn clapped her hands together. “That’s fantastic Mistress. Congratulations!”
I stretched my arms above my head and yawned. “Anyway Lynn, I’m going to go take a long rest.”
Lynn bowed, “Understood Mistress, I’ll keep everything going while you sleep. Are the wolves going to be a problem?”
I shook my head. “No, I ordered them to fend for themselves for a few days, they might sleep near the ship or something, but just ignore them. With all that said, I’m going to bed.”
Lynn merely waved me off with a smile before vanishing. I trudged my way through the ship to my bedroom. After reaching my bedroom I hurriedly undressed and got in the shower. I wasn’t going to get into my own bed dirty after all. After showering, I put on some pajamas and got into bed. The lights dimmed and I closed my eyes and said “Log out.”
I expected to feel the familiar sensation of my consciousness leaving my body but it didn’t happen. I decided to try again. “Log out.” Again nothing happened. I sat back up in bed and tried to open the game menu.
It didn’t appear. The only menu that would appear was my status screen. I tried to access my friends list, the company menu, anything, but nothing would come up.
Something was wrong. I was starting to get scared and panicked. I said aloud the command for a support ticket. “Emergency Support, I request assistance immediately.” I waited a few minutes but no one got in touch with me. That had never happened before. The game devs had always prided themselves on their very fast support staff. It was one of the few pluses of playing an older niche game rather than an overpopulated popular one.
What’s going on!? Why wasn’t anything working!? My mind was racing to come up with some kind of plausible answer. I thought of all the weird things that had happened since I landed on this planet. Getting ill and vomiting, actually having to use the toilet, and dreaming. None of that had been there in the game, or should have even been possible in the case of having dreams.
It was almost like I was in a real world now.
No no no! That can’t be possible! There’s no way that could happen! This is just a nightmare. Right!? I’ll wake up and be in my bed at home and the update won’t have come yet.
I grabbed one of my pillows and pulled it into my embrace and curled up in a tight ball.