It took almost seven days to reach the tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and they were fervently constructing something when he arrived. Odd behavior for a town under duress, especially considering that they neglected to build proper walls and instead focused on… was that going to be a silo or something? A question for whoever was in charge. Walking up to the town entrance, pitiful as it was, he made himself known.
“Adventurer Weis. I’ve taken up a task for this town. Looking for a Larese?”
The guards looked at each other before one agreed to take him there. The men were trained but not very well. Identify revealed them both to be in their twenties, not exactly the most impressive. Of course their gear matched, old leather that might barely hold up against a boar paired with a bronze head spear already beginning to rust. He pushed down a sneer, doing his best to be the model adventurer that he was.
The hero doesn’t sneer at the people he saves, even if they are pitiful, disgusting, inbred, savage—
A door opened, the guard having led him to the only building in town that looked like a proper home, and out came a young-looking woman. Long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes locked with his as he felt his knees buckle. She had a presence that couldn’t be denied, that much was certain, but it had nothing to do with levels. He’d never been the most popular, not even in his previous life. That lack of experience was as much a problem for him then as it was now.
“This man was looking for you. Said he’s an adventurer.”
He forced himself to stand up straight, unable to look directly at the woman before him. Well, at least he couldn’t look at her in any manner bordering respectful.
“Adventurer Weis at your service.”
She nodded at both of them before turning to the guard.
“Thank you, Gertric. I’ll take it from here.” The man walked off with something approximating a salute before the gorgeous woman turned to look at him again. He fought back a gulp, fought not to sweat, fought just to stand stock still instead of falling over for her. She smiled.
“Please come in. We’ll talk inside.”
She turned and his knees buckled. By the time she was looking back at him again, he’d managed to get himself a bit more under control. Stepping through the threshold, he couldn’t help but be impressed. Walls adorned with paintings, sculptures in the corners, metal tools on solid wood shelves, this woman was obviously well off. His father was a guard captain, a proper one unlike these peasants, and his house growing up wasn’t exactly threadbare. But this, this was well beyond what he was accustomed to seeing even before he reincarnated. Let alone the miserable squalor he’d been seeing after.
“Your home is incredible. The art you’ve collected is exquisite. Is it all the same artist?”
She favored him with a smile so radiant that it blotted out the hearth in the corner. Fortunate that he’d made his way to a chair then, since his legs gave out from under him. He barely managed to turn the fall into an only slightly awkward sitting motion as she nodded again, coughing afterwards.
“So, let’s get down to it. I assume you’re here about our job posting so let me tell you what I know. Our retired adventurer, Fresk, has informed me that the monster plaguing us is not simple. I’m ignorant about most monsters, but I still tend to agree. It demanded flour from us along with tools for cooking, and it leaves us alone so long as we keep giving it what it wants. I put out the request some time ago, but your timing is perfect. Just recently, its demands started to elevate. Food off our plates, demanding to learn our trades, the monster has been insistent on taking everything from us a little bit at a time. I have no doubts that when it has learned everything it can from us and grows bored with cooking that we will all be killed by it. Please, you must help us!”
She clasped her hands together almost as in prayer, looking at him as he struggled to keep his eyes above her neck. It wasn’t his fault; the motion was quick and her god given assets responded to the jostling. Anyone would look! It’s disrespectful to ignore a work of art!
He coughed, looking down at the ground and slightly ashamed of his mental justifications.
“I will do my best to defeat this creature. If you would please give me a description of it and any other details you have. I’ll then go around and interview the townspeople. If you could also point me to this Fresk that would be helpful too. I’ll be on my way to kill it afterwards, but we can discuss what happens after, after. Fear not, the creature will be dead before the sun rises next.”
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Her smile proved it was the right decision to come here. All of her was a work of art, one that he struggled not to observe in its entirety.
“Thank you, Sir Weis. Let me tell you what I know about it. I know it has some spatial magic…”
“…it looks like a tiny upright bear, always reeking of death,” one of the lanky peasants supplied.
“...sometimes mumbles under its breath is some bizarre, alien tongue,” stated a fidgety farmer.
“It demanded that I teach it my craft, my way of life, and tried to take the very bricks I used to build it. Threatened to kill me if I didn’t.” The mousy woman added in right after. Larese had brought him out to the town well, the closest thing they had to a proper square. As soon as he asked for information the peasants obliged. The square had been bustling with people for over an hour now, each one more than happy to complain about this creature. He tried to pay attention, getting as much information as he could from everyone.
“…incredible cook like you wouldn’t believe. The thing summons cookfires just like--”
The mustached man snapped, sitting on the town well as he told his story. He’d been putting up with this a while now, but Weis was beginning to tire of the repetition. It was time for his final interview.
“Can anyone lead me to the adventurer known as Fresk?”
Hands went up.
Everyone is more than happy to help out a handsome adventurer.
The overexcited villagers led him out of the town and back to whatever it was they were building out there. He could immediately tell which one was the retired adventurer he was looking for. There was no sugarcoating it; the man was deformed. Hideously deformed at that. It looked like someone had taken a wrench to his face and twisted, forcing everything to be slightly askew. Scars littered his body, at least as far as was visible. But by far the most staggering were his eyes.
The left eye was higher up than the right, but both were at slight angles they shouldn’t have been at. One seemed almost normal at a distance, but it was just wrong. Rather than white surrounding a colored iris with a pupil inside, his eye just had a massive black pupil. The other eye was solid and caked over, something having presumably petrified it to stone some time ago. He did his best to not be openly disgusted as he made his way up to the man.
He'd get what he needed from the walking deformity and then get out of town. He officially didn’t want to be here anymore.
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A teenager reeking of overconfidence came out to the construction site, calling him from his work. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he made his way over, ignoring the visible step back the kid had. Fresk was used to that response, knowing damn well what his face looked like. He just made his way over as the townspeople crowded around, hungry for gossip or any glimpse at the supposedly glamorous life that adventurers led.
Foolish.
“I am Fresk. You’re here about the creature?”
The boy nodded, looking far too self-important for someone so young. Perhaps it was the youth that caused it in the first place, but it was hard to know.
“I am Weis, Blade of Light. I was hoping that you could tell me about the creature terrorizing these people. No one I’ve talked to had identify or used intuit on it, apparently on your orders.”
Fresk sighed, knowing that the boy wouldn’t listen to his council just by the look on his face. The kids rarely listened, but that never stopped him.
“I tried to Intuit the thing when we first met around two or three weeks ago. I vomited on the spot. Last time that happened to me was when fighting a monster that was later identified as level 115. If you’re below 100 then I recommend you turn around.”
The boy held back a sneer, poorly. It seemed the child didn’t just think himself better than Fresk, which he was used to. No, the kid considered him superior to all of them. Competent, overconfident, condescending, and young. The most dangerous combination for any adventurer.
“I’m on the cusp, actually. Maybe this creature will tip me over the edge. Tell me what you know, and I’ll get rid of it for you.”
The boy didn’t hold back his sneer anymore, letting derision infuse every word he spoke. Fresk described everything he knew about the creature. Every move it made, every spell it cast, every detail down to how easily the apparent mage seemed to carry dozens of pounds of metal one handed. The boy listened and never relaxed his sneer as if he had something to prove.
Fresk sighed at the end as he watched the kid wander off towards the creek, following it downstream. No point lying to someone so competent, it would just get him in trouble and delay the inevitable. Not to mention it would have endangered himself and others based on that overblown pride. No, that would have been the worst move. The kid would just have to come out on top.
I suppose it’s possible that the kid wins.
He thought to himself. The words even almost came out of his mouth, too. But even in his mind, they felt hollow. Instead, he said what he really felt.
“If he doesn’t return by sunset tomorrow then we rescind the request. I won’t encourage children to throw their lives away against monsters.”
Larese was there, lurking in the back just close enough to hear everything but far enough to not be seen or heard. That was just as little of a surprise as the silence that followed his declaration. This one’s blood would be on his hands; he accepted that. He’d been party to the plan even if she had executed it by herself. Someone’s child would die to this monster because of actions he had condoned and even defended. The town’s first sacrifice to their new monster lord. He decided then and there that there wouldn’t be a second.