Chapter 83: A Waste of Essences

Encio faced Scar Throat, a leonid of dirty blond fur and the Hunt, Wolf, and Spear Essences for the Predatory Confluence. Scar Face could summon a pack of wolves, but they were dispatched in short order by Encio’s high powered special abilities. Group summoners were weaker than individual familiars, and Encio had multiple abilities that excelled against multiple opponents.

Encio’s high speed and Spirit Avatar familiar made him incredibly difficult to damage. With his high cost long cooldown abilities down, Encio had to rely on Sword Wave and Fragment of Time to consistently damage his opponent (or just normal slashes, because at iron rank, a sword was still a sword).

As the most experienced party member and the furthest along in his attributes, Encio overwhelmed Scar Throat, even if his opponent was surprisingly skilled.

“With skills like this, you shouldn’t have had any trouble making it as an adventurer.” Encio evaluated while locked in combat with the leonid, “Why stoop to banditry?”

Scar Throat traced his finger along his scars that ran across his throat and shoulder. Combat lulled, and Encio allowed the pause. He had promised to allow their surrender, and Encio did not feel threatened. Scar Throat could feel that arrogance, that confidence. It broke out like a rash across his skin, unable to be ignored, an ever present itch reminded himself of his ugly faults and what once could be.

“I gave the whole adventurer business a shot. Passed my certification. Started taking contracts. Made friends. Was part of a team.” Scar Throat began, “Then it all went wrong. Got into a fight with a powerful monster, bronze rank, together with my team. We thought we could do it.”

His face scrunched in painful remembrance, “The fight dragged on, and they got cold feet. Stabbed me in the back and left me as bait.”

“That’s a pathetic reason.”

He laughed scornfully, “I know I’m pathetic. Just like the rest of them. Picking on the weak. I can’t help it; I’m terrified of monsters.”

“You could have been anything else. Adventuring is not the only path. Many who stumble on the path as an adventurer join the Adventure Society as functionary.”

“We all looked up to them. Adventurers,” he breathed a sigh, almost reverent. “I remember watching them laugh and stride through the city, sunset at their backs. ‘Blessed by the world,’ I thought. That casual comradery and confidence. That subdued, controlled power. I wanted that. I wanted to be just like that.

Aren’t you the same? I couldn’t let my dream go. I thought, just a little more money, just a little more equipment. I’d have that head start that so many other adventurers had. For sure, then, I could do it too. Monsters wouldn’t be so frightening. I could make up for it all. Be the hero.” His final words were sarcastic, spitting, resentful. “Hero indeed, left as I was to die.”

The battle resumed, Scar Throat suddenly darting forward in hopes of catching Encio off guard. He jabbed his spear rapidly at Encio, merely piercing an incorporeal mirage of Encio’s familiar, Ardor. His lips curled in frustration. Scar Throat knew he was outmatched; He was skilled, but nowhere near the skillfulness of Encio, trained nearly from birth with the best his family could offer. He could feel every second tick away, his candle of life burning its wick to the bottom. His fear, the one he thought was reserved for monsters, bubbled up like thick black tar, an ugly stain on his soul.

It had not been just a fear for monsters.

His despairing against the melting wax of his life ripped unwilling, hateful words from his soul, giving them form in air with ragged breaths of exertion.

“Some of those adventurers, they were the ones that betrayed me! I deserved to kill them! It was my right! Are you any so different, attacking us now?!”

“Then surrender. We will turn you in to the Adventure Society instead. They can deal with you. Maybe, if you plead and beg for your life, you won’t be executed. Considering your circumstances, if you’ve only attacked your former teammates, you may find leniency.”

It was true that the adventure society might provide leniency, even if Encio rather they did not (if it was true that he only attacked his former teammates—Encio knew it was not); he did not think Scar Throat deserved it, and Encio knew Scar Throat would not surrender. He was too far broken, too far gone, too fearful. He did not have the hope to bet on leniency and the preservation of his life. He did not have the courage to walk through that doorway and leave his fate in the hands of others.

Ever since that day, Scar Throat could trust no one, not even himself.

Scar Throat roared, mad fury and rage, a cry of despair wrangled from a feral animal whose shadow of death gripped its ankles. He hadn’t just attacked his former teammates. He hadn’t touched them at all. They were a group of adventurers, and this group only attacked solo adventurers. The final flame of life he could muster, his last huzzah, for all of the wrong reasons.

Encio knew not everyone had what it took to be an adventurer. And he knew Scar Face could not do it. He had no courage not to change his way of life, not even the courage to abandon his childhood dream, for it would be a mark of failure on his pride. A child suck in the past, that could not accept his weakness, unable to move towards a new chapter of his life.

Unable to settle, but unable to excel.

The end of the battle was as ordinary as the dirt that surrounded them. Encio slashed Scar Face’s abdomen, cutting open his flesh with a wide gaping gash. Encio didn’t need to use his abilities; Scar Face was outclassed. Nara was growing, but Scar Face had stagnated. He could not catch up to Encio’s decade of training and experience.

Scar Face saw Encio’s emerald eyes staring down at him unamused, and bored, as if he had just fought a disappointing sparring partner, one he wouldn’t bother calling on again. As if Scar Face wasn’t bleeding his precious, pathetic life onto his own clothing out from the large cut carved across his body.

“What a waste of essences.”

He was on his knees, staring as the young man reconjured his blade just to remove the blood from it.

“Just finish me off already…” Scar Face said. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear the pain of slowly bleeding to death here.

“I wonder if you listened to their victims when they begged you. You didn’t, did you?”

Encio said from his lofty position, his shadow cast on the bandit.

“I’m not like you. If you want mercy, I’ll grant it. But you can still surrender. You can wait there until we capture your leader, and our healer will fix you up. Don’t you want to live?”

“What’s the point. I’m not surviving this. At least this way…it’s less public.”

Nobody had to know his name—who Scar Throat was, who he never could be.

“Your reputation, is it? Do you even have a reputation to care about?”

“Even as a bandit I have something I care about. My family…doesn’t know I’m a bandit. I don’t want them to know. So have mercy on me, honorable adventurer. End this quietly, please.”

And Encio looked into his eyes. Saw the fear, the terror, the regret, the anger, and the shame—He had more fear for living than he had for death. Decisive as he was, Encio was not cruel. He would grant mercy, whatever form mercy came in.

Encio shook his head, but he swung his sword.

*****

Aliyah faced off against Chester a human with the Earth, Hammer, and Heidel Essences for the Transfiguration Confluence. It wasn’t a particularly good match up for her, but there was no good match up for a caster like Aliyah. At low ranks, they needed the protection of teammates else she’d die. What they made up for their early rank weakness was the consistent firepower they offered. Encio was powerful, but ran out of mana quickly.

Aliyah’s abilities were not as instantaneously powerful, but also less resource intensive. She also offered useful mana regeneration abilities for the team.

Chester’s combination was one of those random, slapped together essences she expected of a bandit. Heidel of course—a grazing animal, a beast of burden. Not particularly popular with adventurers, but used by laborers. A cheap essence (as cheap as essences could be—not quite the cheapest, considering the Flea Essence, or the Locust Essence, which had the potential to cause widespread damage to crops), if you were willing to use it.

It didn’t mean their abilities were bad—all abilities were good. Unlike more popular combinations, there wasn’t a lot known about combinations like this. That meant the possible ability pool and ability directions were completely unknown. Essence users chose well-known combos because it was easier to encourage abilities in a direction they liked, find equipment that meshed well with their abilities, or receive applicable training.

The Time Confluence had a few other known combinations, all less popular and more expensive than Encio’s own. The Dimension, Vast, and Void combination for the Time Confluence was one of the most expensive combinations known with three legendary essences, but extremely hard to use. Rare essences were often more esoteric, which meant using highly complex abilities when a simpler do the job with less hassle. It’s why Encio had his particular combo with a common, an uncommon, and a legendary essence (instead of a triple legendary combo, which, even if Sezan could theoretically afford it (he could), he simply may not be able to buy them.

Chester conjured a handful of mud, which oddly did not drip from between his fingers, tight like a padded glove, and slapped it to his neck, sealing the wound. Aliyah’s face crinkled at his action, not keen on the idea of mud touching her own blood. Erras did have the concept of sanitation, and his action spit in the face of it, even though Aliyah logically knew that the mud was generated from his ability.

Chester’s skin was covered in green scales much like the two-headed diminutive and reliable beast of burden. In his hands, he wielded a far too large hammer, even for his own massive body size. Mirroring the heidel was his mind—His attacks were straightforward and easily telegraphed, hammer repeatedly smashing down and swinging into empty air.

It did not mean his attacks were not a threat—Aliyah couldn’t let her guard down. Each time he smashed the hammer down, the ground cracked, and shards of earth exploded from the impact that launched towards her. Chester wasn’t much of a tactical thinker, but he didn’t need to be. If he was just fighting monsters, the will to charge forward and attack was enough.

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He wasn’t just fighting monsters.

Aliyah repeatedly used her two force trap abilities to slow and delay Chester. If he smashed apart the core, they slammed waves of force into him. During that time, Aliyah wove her own spells, either launching a quick Mana Burst or a more powerful but slower Wrath of the Magister.

Chester couldn’t keep it up. The pain overwhelmed him. His own blood felt as if it was eating away from the veins and arteries that held it in place, thanks to the myriad effects of Wrath of the Magister. His flesh simultaneously burned from heat and cold. His heidel scales cracked from the damage, fragments falling away in flakes of jade dandruff. Unlike adventurers, he didn’t have the mental training to bear it.

Sen and his sister Maya had been raised to become brilliant tacticians and leaders, a specialty of the Arlang and their northern border monster wave defenses. Sen’s plans were usually unnecessary, but he utilized every advantage to reduce risk. While adventuring, it could only take one mistake for the situation to devolve into death. Iron rank had the highest rate of workplace accidents (read: death) for adventurers, where new essence users were arrogant, physically delicate, lacking their full set of abilities, underfunded, and prone to making mistakes. Cities with a developed adventuring culture like Sanshi reduced this risk (hence their popularity), but some amount of danger was necessary to refine inexperienced adventurers into powerful combatants. The problem was, finding the region between safety and fatal danger where adventurers thrived and grew instead of burning up and dying out.

The bronze ranker was the only real threat to the team. If he was contained, Aliyah, Eufemia, and Encio were unlikely to lose one-on-on or even two-on-one fights. Encio especially, was a well-honed weapon that cut through his opponents with terrifying skill.

Aliyah lacked the mobility of Nara that would have danced around Chester, but Chester was inexperienced. She did not need overwhelming mobility. For a party of bandits that picked their fights by overwhelming lone adventurers, they did not have the skills nor experience to win.

And this, although slow, dawned on Chester. And when Chester saw Scar Throat die, his morale was crushed.

He dropped his hammed to the ground, the cracked ground caving beneath its weight.

“I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m tired,” he said simply, plopping onto the ground.

“You…surrender?” Aliyah said, a little flabbergasted. She knew they had negotiated this stipulation for Nara’s relief, but did this bandit have no awareness of his fate if he was captured?

“Yeah. I’m done.” He looked up at Aliyah, guileless and simple, and Aliyah felt a pang in her consciousness for a man she now suspected had been manipulated by someone he trusted.

Encio walked up to Chester, holding a suppression collar out to him, “Put this on.”

Chester did.

Chester was a man of overwhelming strength, much like his brother. Encio removed thick metal manacles from his inventory and secured them around Chester’s wrists and ankles.

Aliyah let out a drawn out sigh, “I’m glad that’s done with. I’m really not suited for physical activity.”

“What are you talking about? We need to help Sen.”

“We do, don’t we,” Aliyah sighed, “I suppose I should go help my disciple and teammate.”

The two had settled into a comfortable rhythm, balancing against Graff’s powerful attacks. They flowed around Graff. Nara was the wind: when Graff’s bear claws launched towards her, she shifted back, as if she followed the wind generated from his attacks. Sen was the water, his staff sweeping back and forth, a hard glacier forged of a thousand winters when he needed to be, and pressuring and guiding like ocean currents at other times.

“Do they need help? They appear to have it all under control,” Aliyah remarked.

“I’m not one for gambling, Aliyah. There’s a time for challenge and growth, but I think some of our teammates have been challenged enough in other ways.”

They looked back towards the entrance of the bunker. One fewer bandit than expected had made it out. Aliyah let out a long breath in acknowledgement.

Aliyah looked at him, her glowing gold eyes piercing, and she understood a bit more of what made up the human named Encio.

“Clearly, I’m not the eldest of the group.”

“That’s John.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Encio groaned, “Don’t say it’s me, and don’t tell Nara. She’s going to say I spent to long with my grandfather, and now I’m acting like an old man.”

“A mature man.”

“I resent that. My grandfather is not a mature man.”

“Luciana would think otherwise.”

Encio stared, astounded at her implication.

“The gods weep, Aliyah. My grandmother!?”

Aliyah shrugged. “Do you think they’d be amenable in changing their paradigm?”

“Aliyah, I’m starting to think you court danger more than any of us here.”

Encio had placed himself first in the part for “most likely to get killed by a jealous lover” (he wasn’t boasting: it was just true), with Eufemia in second place, and Sen in third (probably by a stalker jealous of him and his chosen partner), but he mentally slipped Aliyah into first, and shuffled himself down to second.

“She’s a beautiful woman,” Aliyah said simply. Encio didn’t like the gleam in her eyes.

“Please, Aliyah,” Encio begged. “Stop.”

*****

Eufemia had the toughest opponent to fight, she did not have any particular advantage. Her only objective was to hold out for as long as possible while preventing Lala from joining the fight with Graff.

Lala possessed the Cat, Spike, and Venom Essences for the Manticore Confluence. Like the rest of the bandits, she possessed an animal essence. Compared to essences like adept, might, magic, and swift, animal essences were usually last picks, the unwanted. A few animal essences stood out, such as spider, bird, wolf, and sloth. Spider was a commonly used for its control and trapping abilities, like the trap essence. Bird contained many flight abilities and desirable familiars, similar to wolf, which generated abilities and familiars that were simple and useful for hunting monsters. The sloth essence generated many slowing afflictions or effects that penalized attributes and was popular with debuff specialists. It wasn’t as if animal essences were unwanted or useless, but most would admit the Flea Essence wasn’t quite as desirable as Fire, even if it had the potential for swarm familiars and massive affliction application.

Lala had lucked out; The cat essence was a decently popular animal essence, unlike the heidel essence that Chester had.

True to her Manticore Confluence, Lala had large leathery barbed wings and a scorpion tail that stabbed outwards, puncturing Eufemia and inflicting her with potent venom, pocketing her body with small bloody holes.

Eufemia had no counter to this, but occasionally a glow of red and gold enveloped her body, cleansing her of some of the poison. John was doing his best to dual task, providing back up as needed.

Lala utilized short dual daggers, her fighting style a swift dance of tail stabs and spinning strikes. Her wings provided some protection, deflecting all of Eufemia’s unsound blows.

Eufemia mimicked Encio’s weapon. His sword’s reach gaining her a small advantage over Lala. Since John was managing her health and her afflictions, Eufemia used Void Cancel to disable Lala’s wings instead of the manticore tail, allowing her and her familiars Light Rays to attacked unblocked.

A Ligh Ray bore a small burnt hole through Lala’s arm, and she hissed in pain, glaring death at Eufemia. Eufemia snorted; she was certainly trying.

Eufemia’s armor was copied from an adventurer during the trial. It was the conjured armor of an offensive Light Essence user, which boosted her speed and the power of light subtype attacks.

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Ability: [Mirror Realm]

Essence: Mirror

Special Ability / Conjuration

Cost: None / Very high mana

Cooldown: None

Effect (Iron): You have a personal, dimensional storage space. You may duplicate known armor conjurations. This may make your version of the ability higher or lower rank than the original, including losing or gaining additional effects from higher ranks. Duplicating armor incurs a very high mana cost. Duplicated armor adapts to your body. Duplicated armor can be equipped and unequipped directly onto your person. Duplicated armor conjurations that are completely destroyed must be re-duplicated. A single duplicated conjuration may be stored at a time.

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Eufemia awakened Mirror Realm from her legendary Awakening Stone of Creation. Like the rest of her abilities, it capitalized on her knowledge. Knowing other’s capabilities was more important to Eufemia than ever. She could only duplicate abilities she knew and only cancel abilities she had seen (and remembered). As Eufemia met new people and learnt their abilities, her own capabilities would grow.

Her abilities reflected her thirst for freedom and exploration. For so long she was trapped and afraid in Nekroz, living a life and persona she had no choice but to adopt for the freedom she wanted. Now Eufemia was free, and she wanted to see it all.

She was more similar to the freewheeling, whimsical, and clueless outworlder than she initially thought. Their experiences were on a different scale, of a different realm, but they shared the same motivation.

Eufemia’s Echo Spirit was with her, playing a similar role to Encio’s Spirit Avatar. If anything, Eufemia’s Echo Spirit was more powerful at iron rank than Encio’s Spirit Avatar, able to mimic any ally instead of just herself. Her Echo Spirit was an illusory copy of her. Together with switch teleportation and Flicker, Eufemia was impossible to pin down.

Lala’s manticore tail stabbed into Runa, harmlessly running through the familiar.

With Eufemia’s Firelight Wisp, it was also as if some of Runa’s attacks were real, confusing Lala further.

It was a relatively evenly matched fight, although Eufemia pulled ahead in combat skill. However, Lala possessed more offensive capabilities. Eufemia specialized in her adaptability, shining in team fights, a fulcrum levered for maximum damage in the perfect opportunity. In a duel like this, her variety fell short.

Her incredible concealment and illusory abilities had wasted many of Lala’s attacks, preserving the balance between the two. As the fight dragged on, Lala’s expression warped from one of anger to frustration. Eufemia didn’t miss the change in her emotions.

The fight was difficult and unpleasant, poison coursing through her veins and corroding her flesh. Her own Light Rays bore holes through Lala, and eventually their ragged appearances matched. There was one pivotal difference: Eufemia had a healer.

Lala began to fall behind, on stamina, mana, and in health.

“Wait,” The woman said, holding a blade forwards, pointed defensively towards Eufemia. She gestured with the other, “Let’s talk.”

Eufemia scoffed. “Now that you’re losing you want to talk? Did you let all those iron rankers talk?” It’s what Sen would have thought—the fairness.

“We all do things we’re not proud of, isn’t that right?” Lala said, smiling in a way that twisted Eufemia on the inside. Lala could tell: this woman was like her.

Although it was an unexpected barb, it did not show in Eufemia’s expression or aura, having long since refined her ability as the perfect actress. Her control was refined in the hell that was Nekroz, where mistakes meant death, where she had to believe in what she said and the way she presented herself, or else an iron ranker would sense the lie on her. A pathetic, bottom-feeder bandit couldn’t crack her. It took someone like Encio, with both real power and experience, dangling want she wanted just out of reach, to shake her up.

“You sound so self-assured. You just cannot accept the fact that others are not like you, the dregs of society. You think that we’re all the same, walking the dishonorable, easy path? I can tell, you fancy yourself some victimized heroine. Oh, just one more theft, and you’ll be on your way, a rising star in the Sanshi political landscape, the Adventure Society’s favorite iron ranker. I’m sorry to say that position is already taken.”

It was probably Sen or Encio, really, definitely not herself, but she wasn’t explaining.

Seeing Lala’s darkened expression, Eufemia’s sneer widened.

Amateur’s mistake: Never show emotion without purpose.

Eufemia charmingly smiled, her words more venomous than Lala’s poison, “Even now, you’re envious, aren’t you? Is it…Of my beauty?” Eufemia drew her hand down her face, framing her perfect red lips and twirling her sparkling blood ruby hair.

“You fucking celestines, the sluts of the races!” Lala seethed.

Ah, Bulls eye. Eufemia loved it when she was so very right.

“Oh?” Eufemia mused condescendingly, “No one wants you, even at iron? I do wonder if even silver would do the trick? Is there really a point in advancing further?”

She took a long gaze at Lala’s facial features. She wasn’t ugly, just average, but Eufemia knew it was a sore spot. Eufemia was prepared to hit where it already hurt.

She sucked in a breath and winced, her gaze morphing into pity. “It’s not, is it? That’s unfixable.”

Lala screamed curses and the two re-engaged. Lala’s rage did not make her any easier to fight, but Eufemia kept working on it, breaking down her mind.

“You’ve been a bandit for how long? And you’re still only iron? Are you incapable of improvement?”

“All those adventurers you killed, and you couldn’t find something better to wear? They can’t all be without taste. That must be you.”

“You must think dual daggers make you look sexy? Like some sort of leather-clad assassin? Sneaking into some noble’s house to fall into their arms and start a heart-pounding, life-changing romance? Just give it up, your imagination is more stimulating than your looks. Why not settle for a rugged, barbarian look instead? You have the tattoos—

“—THEY’RE RUNES—” Lala spat.

“—I think it would suit you.”

“I thought your grip on your weapons was weird, but that was just the natural shape of your hands? Oh.” A beat. “I’m sorry, even I think going after natural deformities is too far. Did your rank up not fix that? I guess it’s a part of your soul now.”

That fact she had learnt from John. Marks, such as cultural tattoos, that felt inherent to their identities stayed past rank up. Encio’s beauty mark was once such kept ‘imperfection’ (ugh, the bastard. Of course he kept his fucking mole). Birthmarks would often stay as well.

Eufemia’s savage provocations worked, and Lala began to make more and more mistakes. Her exhaustion, now mental on top of physical, drew her into ragging, desperate gasps.

“Pity,” said Eufemia, bringing her sword down for the final time, “I’ll never get to see you at silver and confirm I was right.”

Lala let out one final, bloodcurdling scream of anger, blood bubbling up from her throat, but she was unable to resist Eufemia’s final blow.

“Remind me to never piss off Eufemia,” said Nara to Sen in their private voice chat. She didn’t need to look to hear the outraged screams.

Sen silently agreed, and reminded himself that words were as powerful a weapon as magic or might.