Chapter 32: To Suffer Together
They had set off early in the morning; adventurers usually rose and set off in the morning, except for those with darkness powers. That didn’t really apply to Nara, who could Astral Jump through large expanses of land at a time, as long as she remembered the location. Nara found she had an uncanny ability to remember locations (although not directions), putting her shameful lack of ability to remember names in the garage and shutting the door like it was a misbehaving child.
She had a feeling what she remembered was not the appearance of the location, but its dimensional coordinates. She had no way to verify this, but she wondered if this was a byproduct of her Gaze of the Boundary ability, which allowed her to perceive dimensions and dimensional effects, or an effect of her experience in the astral.
After four hours, it was late morning, approaching the afternoon. The season was early spring, and the weather was pleasant, but hiding the hints of a humid summer.
They arrived at their first stop, an ordinary hill outside a forest, a little way beyond a small city. It was a transportation city built at the river’s banks. The towns near Sanshi progressively reduced in population and size with distance from the hub that was Sanshi. This particular location was frequented by local adventurers and would not have many monsters.
A few essence users she didn’t know volunteered first. She sat back, content to observe the proceedings.
Mona watched, not offering any words of evaluation, encouragement, or criticism yet. It seemed she was establishing a baseline for her 15 participants.
They traveled another five hours along the river, dipping into the afternoon. The trip had been uneventful, and Nara, a creature of variety, had tired of her own table games.
She conjured the record of one of her books, A Study of the Mechanisms of Motive Spirits and their Relationship to Ambient Magic.
“Astral magic?” Sen asked, “You don’t seem the academic type.” The book didn’t state astral magic in its title, but Sen was knowledgeable enough to deduce the correct field.
“What, too similar to Aliyah and you don’t want me on your team anymore?”
“I had no such implication. It is a field that begets curiosity; not many but the most dedicated of researchers study it. It’s a difficult topic.”
Astral magic was the quantum physics or theoretical physics of Erras. But since dimensional travel was possible, perhaps it was better compared to Astrophysics.
“I have a reason I have to study this.”
“What is that reason?”
“You need to win another bet for that, Sen.”
“I have more questions than you have bets. We’ve stopped playing.”
“You’re willing to keep playing just to win an answer every once in a while?” Nara asked incredulously.
“I am known for my persistence. I will bet for answers as long as it is available.”
“The game is gone now though.”
“Thus, I propose another bet—we see who it is Miss Mona no longer asks for a demonstration of competency.”
“You mean, we bet on who passes first? Don’t you have the advantage? You’ve taken this test before.”
“And you only make bets when you have the advantage?”
“Fair point. You’re on.”
She didn’t care if she won or lost, but if she had a little fun in the process and made some friends, Nara was happy to make some harmless bets.
After another 5 hours of ship travel, the adventurer hopefuls were restless and tired from the non-stop boat ride. The days were longer, and they still had daylight; As far as Mona was concerned, they would continue until the sun set. Nara wondered if there was a separate test for those that thrived in the shadows, or if they were expected to adapt as a proof of competency.
“According to this contract, an irescythe has made this path connecting the river and the local town its territory,” Mona explained, now routine. “For now, this monster is the only one in the immediate area. Any volunteers?”
“I’m up for it,” Nara said, raising her hand.
“Very well. Make your preparations.” Mona tossed Nara a recording crystal, “Once you are ready, activate that and head off. It will project your actions to this companion crystal.”
Nara nodded. Thanatos swooped out of her shadow in a swirling mass of dark flame and shadow, and she lightly hopped onto his back. She could travel by using nodes and node jumping, but this conserved mana. At iron rank, she didn’t have that much.
As if he was some sort of futuristic perfectly silent Batmobile, Thanatos’ leap onto the ground from the boat was silent as shadow—top of the line muffling and suspension. The thudding of his paws padded by darkness only existed in her imagination. It’d be cute to hear the padding of his paws, but alas.
Nara threw up the crystal, activating it with a miniscule input of mana.
The irescythe was a large, chitinous centaur-like creature. Its top half was that of a praying mantis, four insidious dark green scythe arms that was its namesake. The bottom half was more bug than horse with awkward oversized ant legs that dug into the earth. Its iron rank nature left it lacking the magical enhancements that would have supported such a large and unnatural form.
It was the first horse-like creature Nara saw in this world, and it was a chimeric monstrosity. Nara despaired of horses, and spared a bit of pity for bugs, whose reputation was besmirched as monsters in reality and media alike.
(Jumping spiders were adorable, after all. Until maybe she saw one as large as a human. Or maybe that would still be adorable?)
Setting up her nodes and casting Overture was already a reflex for her, a routine of her battle preparations. She teleported in below the creature and ran her sword between its muscly carapace, spilling green blood onto the ground. Her mind flashed to the midnight wolf, it’s similarities in size, and prematurely marveled at her progress.
Unfortunately, Nara’s instantaneous damage was low, the attack injured, but it was just one of many to take down such a large monster. But she didn’t freak, and she was focused.
“From order to disorder,” she chanted, and applied Entropy on the irescythe.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
It shrieked, immediately retaliating, lifting its legs and snapping them down to skewer Nara who was scurrying beneath it, a bug to it—a wasp perhaps, stinging it to death.
Distracted by her persistent annoyance, it didn’t notice Thanatos approaching it from the size. He transformed into a larger size and rammed the irescythe, tipping over the flailing bug-centaur onto the grass. He wasn’t that much heavier when he was larger, but it did allow him better leverage, or perhaps its bug make-up reduced it’s overall weight than a mammal of its size would have normally weighed.
“If it’s a horse, then it has the same weakness as a horse.”
She tried to chop at its legs, but its chiton was surprisingly sturdy, wasting valuable time. She sighed and turned her attention to its joints, prying her sword through, dismembering the creature alive. It screeched and flailed a bladed scythe leg at her. She phased through it and kept at her work.
The battle was already over. Each time the monster tried to get up, Thanatos bullied it to the floor, then dosed it with flames, gradually eroding its armor and eating up the life-force of the monster. Horses weren’t very good at getting up, and it was thankfully true for the irescythe.
She almost felt pity for the damn thing, squirming like an ant burned alive under a magnifying glass, but Nara wasn’t a fast killer of tough creature like this. Blades arms entirely detached from its body, the monster had long been unable to right itself from the floor. She felt pity for it, despite herself, despite what she knew about monsters.
She put it out of its misery. Her sword strikes now enhanced with Dimensional Instability and triggering Dimensional Rupture for an extra oomph that tore away flesh and chiton armor in large chunks.
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-You have killed [irescythe]. [irescythe] has been looted.
* 10 iron spirit coins
* 1000 lesser spirit coins
* 1 monster core (iron)
* 10 insect quintessence
* 4 irescythe blades (iron)
-Loot has been added to your [Astral Domain]
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Nara could instantly change her clothes by utilizing the properties of her Astral Domain inventory. Her inventory was inherently instantaneous, but transporting herself was not. She had made use of this fact, throwing the monster blood touching her into her inventory as an object before looting the monster. She couldn’t do so for Thanatos, however. She’d have to run her hands across every drenched fur on his body, or focus on each individual bloodstain.
Thanatos whimpered as rainbow smoke rose from his fur.
“I’m sorry Thanatos but didn’t want to use that while recorded. It’s just for this week.”
He turned his head, pouting.
“If I can’t be clean, you can’t either? You’re right, it’s not fair. We can suffer the smoke together. If it’ll make you happy.”
Thanatos softly whimpered, rubbing his head against her leg.
“I don’t mind Thanatos, really. I’ve always been a firm supporter of worker solidarity. You’re not just my familiar, you’re my friend and companion. I said myself—it’s just for a week.”
She scratched her familiar behind his ears, and he laid on her lap, melting into a comfortable shapeless void.
The group switched into a large land skimmer which Ranshi had fit into a sizable inventory power.
“He doesn’t have one of those transforming orb vehicles?” Nara leaned over to Vallis to ask.
“A transforming orb vehicle? I haven’t heard of it. Are you sure it wasn’t a cloud flask?”
“A cloud flask?”
“House, vehicle, and palace in a bottle. Transforming magical clouds that forms physical shapes.”
“Woah. Where can I get one if those?”
Vallis gave her an odd look. “…You don’t. That’s a specialty artifact created by a diamond ranker. Money can’t buy it. There are cloud vehicles, but those don’t transform.”
“That sounds amazing,” Nara said, enamored with the thought. “A transforming cloud that fits inside a bottle? Magic is so coooool.”
“That’s the sort of stuff money can’t buy, but there are plenty of other amazing vehicles. Those floating personal clouds, hover disks, personal air skimmers, wings of skyflight...”
“Flying carpets?”
“Those exist, although mostly as an essence ability from the Cloth Essence. It’s impractical for long distance transportation, but useful in combat.”
Nolan volunteered for a contract next. He fought a pack of grasslands Rathel, a medium size cat-like creature around thigh-height: bigger than a house cat, and proportionately more ferocious.
Monsters varied in size, numbers, and strength but they followed a general trend outside of extraordinary circumstances. Strong monsters manifested as single individuals, and weak monsters manifested in great numbers. The extremes—the very strong and the very weak—were usually the most difficult to handle, especially at higher ranks, and often required specialty abilities. The most common was the medium strength monsters that manifested in small groups, such as the rathels that Nolan currently battled, and the chimeric forest monkeys Nara had fought before.
He was clumsier than Nara, swinging a chef knife as he drew glowing red streaks on the monsters like he was cutting according to a meat-cut diagram. He didn’t have the crutch that were skill books and had been slowly training his footwork and combat skills from scratch. Still, he managed bursts of flames, flying metal pans knocked some rathels unconscious, which bought him breathing room as he completed another cut diagram on another monster. Once he had, the result was immediate—the red diagram glowed, and the monster split – like magic – into neatly wrapped chunks of meat, rolls of fur and leather, stacked bones, and bottles of blood.
“A combat looting ability?” Nara said with raised eyebrows.
“The ability is called Chef’s Bounty,” Sen easily explained. “It can kill most iron rank monsters at iron, and bronze rank monsters at bronze, but silver rankers are too strong to be killed with one diagram. The benefit is, he only needs to complete it once to trigger the looting on death.”
“It’s a strong looting ability for cooks and crafters,” Vallis added, “The full monster is looted, where most looting abilities just drop a single component of a monster at a time. On the flip side, essences, quintessence, and awakening stones are rare compared to normal looting powers.”
“How was his performance then?”
Vallis shook her head, “Rough around the edges. He should’ve gone for a single monster, like you. If he fought without trying to complete the diagram, he would’ve had a better evaluation. Look,” Vallis pointed, “he’s pretty beat up.”
Nolan was looking worse for wear. Significantly worse. One of his ears had been completely torn off in a way that would’ve earned him a characteristic nickname on Earth (No-ear No-lan), and one of his eyes was closed and puffy, streaming with blood. His legs and torso were worse off, chunks of flesh torn from his shins, thighs, and abdomen. His once white battle chef robe was painted with his blood and monster chunks; He would’ve been a choice design for a butcher in a horror game.
He stumbled over to the skimmer waiting nearby, then summoned a kitchen cabinet. With a shaky hand, he pulled a steaming plate of food from the cabinet, shoveling it into his mouth with the desperation of a man at his last meal. Once he finished, he laid back on the skimmer’s bed, exhaustion in every line of his body. Nara, Vallis, and Sen stared down at him.
“…You okay there?”
“Yep. I’ll be fine,” He grunted. “That was a rough one. My food will heal me right up.”
“Magic cooking?”
“Basically, a healing potion.” He said weakly. “But without potion toxicity drawbacks. Works slower though.”
“You don’t need to down a potion?”
“No.” Nolan mumbled, “I’ll be fine.”
He closed his eyes and slept on the spot, marked by the normal rise and fall of the chest that most iron rankers still had. He’d live. No one else seemed entirely to concerned. Nara didn’t know how she felt that this was normal. It wasn’t really a bad thing—he would live. And heal up quite quickly, relative to normal healing. Nara was morbidly curious how it’d look for an ear to grow back.
“...He’ll be fine right?” Nara asked, because she couldn’t help herself.
“…He will be fine…” a quiet voice responded, from a short and lovely elf girl. She had soft blond hair, cut into a wavy bob. Large, sky-blue eyes, and delicate freckles complemented her dainty, adorable charm. It was the sort of appearance that made others coo, and Nara stifled the urge to do the same.
“I’m, um, Kiris. I’m a healer. Life, Water, Balance, Mystic. Um, 14 abilities. And um, 16 years old. Iron rank,” she blushed and spoke with an even quieter voice almost fading away, “...but you knew that already. We’re all iron rank here...that was stupid of me...stupid…why did I say that…”
They all felt a little bad for her. Their stares caused her to shrink back.
“No um…thank you for telling us our friend will be fine,” Nara awkwardly said. “I was worried about him.”
“It’s just…um...my duty as a healer...” she said softly curling in on herself like she could roll into a ball and roll away. She didn’t roll, but it was a near thing: She scarpered off to the other side of the skimmer, curled up and pulling a jacket over her head.
“...is she going to be fine? How exactly do they evaluate healers?”
Kiris was the only healer in the group today (Nolan could count as a sub-healer, of sorts), and she hadn’t seen her fight yet.
“They’ll have her perform by herself for a few, but mostly pair her up with others to heal them. Most healers have at least a few damage abilities, or a familiar they can buff and heal into a nigh-immortal weapon,” Vallis said.
Nara glanced at the anxious elf. “Yeah...I hope she has that weapon.”