My back clicked as I leaned side to side. “What were these, again?”
“They’re called Wildfolk.” Ren removed her hat to rub at her forehead. Her hair caught the light in a way that drew my eyes, before she covered it once more.
“Look like meat,” Wolf added.
Not entirely inaccurate, I supposed. Although they weren’t up to my culinary standards, they would make quite the meal for the bear. While their lower halves were humanoid, from their chest upwards they were… feathered? Mostly hues of brown and the occasional white, their faces like those of owls, with small antlers from the tops of their heads.
“Are they a thing in your world?” I worked out my shoulders to limber out.
She shook her head. “No. They are strange.”
Well, we’d better go kill them. I didn’t say that part out loud because it sounded bad enough just echoing around in my head. The System hadn’t given us much incentive as to why they needed to be culled—our adventure just taking us close enough to the area where the pop up promised us reward for wholesale slaughter.
“We’re under leveled for the area, so we should get good returns here… maybe for two levels?” She removed an arrow from her quiver.
I looked around the area. Mostly unassuming. Woodlands to our left—light brown trees with more rounded shaped leaves. A field in front of us with the monsters pacing around. Just to our right was a ledge that dropped down to an emptier field, with spare trees and some low houses further away.
“Sounds good.” I nodded, but my mind was elsewhere. Something wasn’t right with this area and I couldn’t quite place it yet. Still, out in the relative open, we should see anyone trying to get the jump on us, and it looked otherwise quiet and pleasant—if you ignored what we were about to do.
Swapped my Accessory back to the damage increasing item, and strapped the wand and scroll holders to the insides of my forearms underneath my suit.
“Fog Wand is down to one charge, shame it doesn’t reset.” Somewhat lucky of me to have stored those away during my doctor's appointment so that I could drop and activate them when I was kidnapped. Probably a waste of a use, but it was done now.
“Want to take one of mine?” She shook her own leather containers at me.
“No, thanks though.” I brought a magic card into my hand. “Let us begin the show.”
Although her eyes rolled, there was less ire in them than usual. I didn’t have the ego to assume I was winning her over to being just like me… but perhaps some acceptance was starting to paint over the gaps now that we were meeting in the middle. Sometimes to kiss.
My card wavered slightly off course as I threw it, my distracted thoughts causing it to flutter wildly at the last second to strike the first Wildfolk’s feathered shoulder rather than where I supposed their neck was. They turned toward me and received an arrow directly to the forehead. They stumbled before dropping to the floor.
[Wildfolk 1/25]
“Just do that twenty-four more times, easy.” I grinned at her, before my eyes were drawn to two more of the monsters, who turned toward us as the first had died.
Rather than draw weapons or charge towards us, they began to charge a ball of green energy between their hands.
“You were saying?” Ren clenched her jaw and was already pulling back another arrow.
Wolf surged forward, his body glowing orange as his paws pounded across the soft grass. We had hoped to just draw the enemy into his waiting jaws, but it looked like these were all spellcasters.
My cards raced ahead of him, splitting as they passed over. One struck the Wildfolk on the right, severing some of his fingers—the second landing behind them to release a Hellhound+ from a magic circle.
Ren’s arrow blazed with radiant energy as her Smite Shot burned through the air to strike the second monster in the chest. Feathers soaking through with crimson, it let loose the spell before keeling over. The green orb flew from their hands and burst against the bear, singing some fur but not doing anything too dire. He slammed into the wounded monster and crushed them beneath his wide paws.
As Wolf bit through into his prey, the Hellhound+ came over, panting and tail wagging. He sat down in front of Ren and tilted his head with a whine.
Her face softened, and she raised an eyebrow at me. “You sure you don’t send them to me?” She crouched down to give him pets.
“I do not, honestly.” At first, I had, but after a while, they just did it of their own volition. I wondered whether they could tell how much she adored dogs, or it was part of our own bond strengthening that they saw her as an equal to me. Roger certainly had cooled on her after we had… actually, I’d rather not think about the distraction, nor the implications.
Speak of the demon, though.
“I’m a fuckin’ bird!” He tried to smile with the beaked mouth and it just looked as though he was in great pain instead.
I withdrew Jokkar’s mace and handed it to my demon as he waddled over to me.
“Thanks, boss. You and… ‘the elf’ doin’ alright?” He leaned to the side to see past me.
“Still breathing, Roger. You and the family?”
He fidgeted awkwardly. “Eh… less said the better. What you want me to kill?”
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“More of these… bird people. If you and Wolf split up to tag opponents, and we’ll assist from range? They are magic casters, so… have fun?” It didn't feel necessary to warn him, I doubted it would dampen his enthusiasm to learn things the hard and bloody way.
“On it, boss.” He nodded and turned to face the still-living creatures ahead, waddling off to get closer to the bear.
“We’ll loot as we go, fight from the ones felled, like a chain.” I tilted my head and then felt her hand on my arm. My eyebrow raised as I turned to her.
She seemed rather calm, beneath that blue top hat. A slight scowl, but something more from habit than any true feeling. Whatever had darkened our souls when staying at the camp had shifted, and getting back into having a clear enemy to grind through had done wonders for both our moods.
“Fiona told me that the maximum level is twenty, and progression is tied more to skill advancements.”
It wasn’t the most romantic or heartfelt thing she had said to me, but she won me over with those eyes. “Oh, so looting things for stats will be even more important?”
She nodded. “I just wanted to make a note that you’ve been doing better with that.”
“That’s…” I was going to say condescending, but perhaps she had a point. A little bit of personal growth never killed anyone. “…just one of the ways you’ve improved my life.”
“Ass.” She rolled her eyes. “You’ve had it easy lately. Don’t make me grouch on you again.”
I gave her a bow, just as a crunch came from down field. Roger had broken the arm of a Wildfolk, and was trying to swing his large mace around for a second strike. The blast of magic sent him stumbling back and his attack faltered. Mine did not, as a blazing card zipped across the grass and pierced through the opponent's chest.
“You wait for our signal, Roger!” I exhaled through my nose as I flexed my fingers. No blood.
“Sorry!”
I turned back to Ren, only barely missing the slight smile fading away.
“Your eyes went purple again.” She gestured for us to get back to work.
The hound ran off as I circled another card into the air. “When I threw my magic card or when I admonished Roger?”
She raised an eyebrow as she fired off an arrow. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
That was generally the point of asking questions, but I saw what she was trying to do. It had long gone unspoken that my eyes would glow and I would arc with some manner of electric power when things were most dire. When I exhausted both my mana and my emotional reserves. Whether it meant anything or not wasn’t really something we had deliberated over.
None of my passives mentioned it, so perhaps it was just an aftereffect. Something visual that didn’t hint at something untoward and demonic within me. I flicked my card around the next enemy, slicing them three times before Wolf slammed into them.
[45 Gold]
[Egg (3)]
[Chance Box]
Back to those again, huh? I’d save them until we were done fighting around here and then open them at once. The eggs felt… these were bird-like people… so I wasn’t sure where my moral scale put looting their potential young. Perhaps they were unfertilized? Actually, I didn’t want to know either way, so into the Inventory they went.
“Chance boxes,” Ren groaned, looting through a different Wildfolk.
“Right?” I stood up and threw another card out, walking over to the next corpse. Wolf was having no issue against single spellcasters, even as more aggroed, with the occasional heal or shield, he tore through them, taking very little damage. Roger was getting a little more beat up, but changed corpses every so often to stay fresh.
I looked down at my hands. They were fine, which was a relief. No blood yet. “What do you think of Quinn?”
She withdrew an arrow, still focused on the targets ahead. “Is the context of this question you fishing to see how open I am to expanding our… stage show?”
“You can call it Party,” I wrinkled up my face. Was I asking that? Neither of us trusted new people very easily. “Not join us, no… but he could be useful?”
Ren grunted, but didn’t have any further thoughts to add.
Perhaps not a subject to tackle quite yet. I wasn’t even that keen on growing a full five-person group either, truth be told. With my summons, we were practically that, without the added dynamics of inter-party conflict. Loot shared three ways. Plus, we knew nothing about Quinn and he might be a terrible mix, anyway.
My Hellhound+ faded away, giving a short bark to us both, tail wagging, before he departed. I raised an eyebrow. “Do you think if we gave them name tags, we’d eventually see the same one?” If they even went to Hell, or however it worked. I felt like they did, but didn't know where that assumption came from. In fairness, I did feel all sorts of odd things on the regular.
“I think we should try,” she nodded, her expression nothing but business. “Speaking of, got any tricks we can practice while we grind?”
“Sure.” I grinned. “You’re an accurate shot. You think you could place an arrow a foot above the next monster?”
“Of course.”
With a nod, I drew another Hellhound+ card into my hand and flung it near straight upwards. Reaching high into the air, I curved it into a wide arc—way out of normal visual range of whoever was standing around. Ren drew an arrow as it started to head down towards the intended target.
Then she fired, and the arrow zipped across to strike the card exactly where we had both planned. The magic circle beamed into the air and a fresh hound dropped down atop the Wildfolk’s head.
“Summons have to land on an inanimate surface. I wondered if an arrow being an attack wouldn’t work, but… good shot.”
Ren nodded. “You can already throw them any distance you please, almost, but this way they can spawn in mid air if needed.”
I had done something similar before with a thrown object, which was fine for short range—but it always paid to have different options and someone else on board. With a sigh, I brought up the Map to ensure we weren't wandering near the danger zone.
The area was a rough square, with the intended progression path being to follow the main road that went diagonally from the bridge in the bottom right, up to the largest town in the top left. The Crimson Shadow held most things above that line, while the ‘resistance’ survived below it. I used that term loosely, seeing as the only thing they were resisting was taking action against the gang.
The necromancer and his Party were a little way to the right, away from dead center, if I excused myself the pun. We were slightly above the road, but much closer to the bridge to the point we shouldn’t need to worry. Chewing through the Wildfolk was taking us further north—but we should be in the clear.
“So eager for more trouble, trickster?” She caught me glaring at the invisible screens. “You were almost tortured to death yesterday and you’re just waiting for the inevitable ambush, huh?”
“You can feel it too, though?” I closed down the STAR and brought out another magic card.
“Yeah.” She erased another monster from this world.
[Wildfolk: 18/25]
I looked out at the woods to our left. Pretty well illuminated, with nothing hiding within other than a few of the monsters wandering away from this field. To our right, it was clear as well. Something vibrated at the back of my mind, though. An uncomfortable feeling like I was being tickled with a feather. A flare of something that reminded me of the pigman from yesterday, but different. Familiar and unwanted. My card went out, and I began to orbit us both.
Ren stopped and frowned at me.
Split them as they spun around us both, switched the direction of one, slowed the speed, lowered the height. Then I expanded the orbit away from us. Increased the speed as they got further away. Wolf and Roger turned to see what I was doing. Blood ran down my fingers as I concentrated.
Then, there it was—a shift in the odd feeling in my head. I spun to face behind us and launched both cards to swirl around like a vortex. A dozen feet. Two dozen. To the left a little, my brain nudged the cards. One stopped as it struck something as the other zoomed off into the distance.
A figure dropped out of invisibility and stumbled. Facing away from us, they scrambled to sprint away, but Ren’s entangling arrow slammed through their leg, dropping them to the ground as vines curled up around them.
I stepped over, already there before I had even realized it. They turned, and underneath the shadow of their mottled gray cloak, a singular white eye glared at me in panic.