I thought about riding the horse back to town, but the animal was too tired. I cut him free of his bridle and saddle to set her loose. I ran back to town on my own two human feet. I tried to put a contract on the archivist but I got an error message.
> Target's creature type is invalid for this ability.
Who would've guessed? You can't assassinate the undead. I'd bet ten bucks the bastard is also immune to critical hits.
From the hilltops, I could see that the boats decided to not clear the traffic jam and just keep away from the piers. Plumes of black smoke came up from some buildings. I think some repressed arsonists use the chaos as an opportunity to give free rein their wicked and twisted whims. The archivist wasn't the one to set not a single of these buildings on fire. Not even the wharfmaster's office. That one's on me.
I should be banned from urban areas. That's the third city I cause a mass evacuation in as many years. Maybe that [Calamity] class is still available.
I ran back to the city and set my title to display also letting chameleon fade to let my hair take its un-natural but permanent silver color. I changed my clothes to flashier ones. This wasn't a job for the Death Princess.
Finding the rampaging revenant was easy. He was busy running and terrorizing people. All I had to do was to follow the screams and sounds of destruction. The dude was strong. Slow, yes. But those seventy-five levels worth of Attributes were focused on Strength. Maybe Endurance as well but I had no way to know. He was injured, I could see that his HP was at three-quarters.
The reason was obvious. Some intrepid ship crews were fighting back with bows and ballista bolts. The archivist didn't stop and wait to be hit so a lot of those attacks were misses. The threat of a high-level undead spreading blight everywhere and corrupting the place warranted the destruction of the city. They could rebuild it easier than purifying the blight.
I modulated my voice to look less like the one I spoke with when acting as the Death Princess.
"Hey, you sack of bones! Judgment has come for you!" I shouted at the archivist.
I needed to play with a very restricted hand. I couldn't shift, I couldn't use Nenandil. I had no powerful attacks that worked on the undead. But I had a plan.
"It is you! Curses! You should've died in the fire, girl!"
He ran in my direction. I could easily keep him away. I fought giving ground, dodging, and deflecting his powerful blows. He did get a hit or a grazing blow on me every now and then. And it hurt.
> Archivist used revenant slam. You lost 199HP (Base 48 x1,75 Strength x1,58 Skill x2 Perk x1.5 Perk x0.5 grazing blow)
That was a grazing blow. I led him to the docks and then down a pier.
I reached the end of the pier and looked back with feigned fright.
"This is the end of the line, girl. Today you join me in my eternal curse!"
I sheathed my daggers. For this to work, I needed to keep him where I wanted.
He came with a haymaker. I leaned away and touched his arm to deflect, latching to it and spinning to put another hand on his back.
The pier creaked and came down at once. We plummeted down and disappeared under the brackish bay water. It tasted awful.
Nenandil froze us in a solid block of ice, connecting it to the debris and irregularities at the bottom and keeping us from floating up. I tried to keep him restrained but he was just too strong. The fairy worked double-time to pepper him with ice shards while we grappled. He could be a level seventy-five physical powerhouse but Nenandil was only two levels below him and she got half the Demon Lord core's power.
His HP was still going down slower than mine. I cheated, shifting to my hybrid form and activating my regeneration. After a long struggle, the Exp notification came.
> You killed level 75 Revenant. You gained You gained 214,453 Exp (56,250 base x 10,000 perk x 0,0001 curse x 3.05 perk x 1.25 perk).
That's why [Assassins] don't commit random murders. Without a contract's boost, normal kills are just a waste of time. And normal [Assassins] can't put contracts on people like Apricot's special brain can.
I waited a bit to recover my HP and clean up my clothes. Looting the monster yielded absolutely nothing. Nenandil purified a bubble of water for me, encased in ice. Once I was finished, I cut off the Archivist's limbs and surfaced carrying the torso. I needed proof of my kill.
Intrepid sailors on a rowboat helped me get out of the water hauling my trophy. The townspeople on the piers, boats, and docks cheered when I raised the now dead-dead body of the archivist. Even more when they read my title.
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I spent a week in the city as the {Heroine} before I could arrange to hire a boat to take me where I needed. Sullivan's crew either fled the city or went into hiding after the death of their boss, afraid the Death Princess would come for them. The rumors were numerous but everyone knew how one of the strongest gang leaders died and why. The parchment strips with the information I retrieved from Sullivan I sent to the Master along with a letter using one of our guys as a courier. I needed to make sure he knew I was still alive.
Still alive. Compared to my earlier incarnations, Apricot was doing very well. But I would need to shelf that train of thought. The one responsible for transportation had arrived.
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Captain Maeloc Dowric was a man in his thirties, a tanned complexion with a light brown, sun-bleached hair. He ran the Floating Fantasy, a fast sail vessel for both high-value-low-volume cargo and wealthy passengers. I met him at the inn I was staying at.
"Captain, welcome. Thank you for your time," I said as we sat on a table at the mess hall to negotiate. I checked him. Level fifty-two.
"The honor is mine, milady. And my compliments on killing that monstrosity."
"He was in the way," I replied. "I need to track down someone. Their last known destination was Port Whitecastle."
"That place is infested with pirates nowadays," He said. "My crew and I, we aren't afraid of them. But fighting pirates usually means more repairs and more time on dry land."
I took a velvet pouch with a single platinum coin inside and passed it to him. "I can pay that upfront. I'll fight alongside your men if a pirate comes. I expect that to be more than enough compensation for any hazard that might find us."
That coin could buy him a new boat. He looked inside the pouch and grinned. "You got yourself a vessel, milady. We depart in the morrow."
We shook hands and he went on his way. I left the inn to go shopping for fancy clothes. A proper {Heroine} needs to dress the part.
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The Floating Fantasy was luxurious. It had three deluxe cabins suited for nobility. If it wasn't for Apricot's single-minded drive to reunite her family, I would take this boat and visit all the corners of the known world. That journey would be postponed by a few thousand years, unfortunately. Apricot's life was one of violence, sadness, and murder.
The trip from Pynkney to Port Whitecastle would take two weeks. On the fifth day, the alarm bells rang. I got out of my cabin and climbed the stairs to the main deck.
"Incoming vessel from port! No flag!" The barrelman at the crow's nest shouted.
I found captain Dowric and approached. "Pirates?"
"Let's hope not. I don't recognize the ship, though," He said and he probably knew most vessels traveling these waters. I didn't doubt it could be true.
"They are hailing us!" The barrelman shouted. "Punctured hull. Need help."
"Attention!" Dowric shouted. "Do not give away suspicion. All hands prepare for boarding."
He turned to me. "They're pirates, milady. A ship with a punctured hull wouldn't be with all sails deployed. And a trading ship that size would know we are too small to help. Even if they wanted to just unload some key passengers or cargo with us, a sinking ship makes men desperate. We're fighting."
I grinned and readied my daggers. "Fine by me. It is about time I get some decent bloodstains in these new clothes. Gives them character."
Fairies had no sense of morals like us humans. They were things of nature and nature is not a kind entity. Nature can be kind and cruel all the same.
I turned to the captain, "I'm boarding them. Sounds like fun!"
"Are you crazy?" Maeloc Dowric asked with an amused smile.
"If they kill me, our contract is completed."
"Maybe I should kill you then," he teased.
"I'd come back to haunt you. Forever. Get twenty more levels under your belt," I snapped back. "Then we talk."
"That much?" He gave me an appraising glance. Probably doing exactly that.
"Yes. Freaking Demon Lord gave me that much. After he died," I said, implying that I was strong enough to kill a Demon Lord before I gained twenty levels.
"Well, have fun," He chuckled.
The alleged pirate boat was approaching. I went to the port side and let Nenandil slip into the water when nobody was looking at me.
"Pirates Ahoy!" I shouted in English. "Hoist the colors!"
One less item on the bucket list. The sailors around me took that as a warcry. Not far from the truth. One of them even mimicked me phonetically. The others followed with their own bravado. With their ruse exposed, the pirates removed some tarps from their ballistae and started loading barbed grappling hooks to the weapons.
"Boarders! They want the ship!" Captain Dowric shouted. The sailors psyched and intensified their shouting, raising their battle spirit. Dowric then told me. "Give 'em hell, milady!"
Arrows flew from the pirate ship. The archers coordinated their shots very well, trying to put as many shafts on the air at the same time as possible to make it harder to dodge.
Counting the timing between the volleys, I walked back to the starboard side and took a deep breath. Judging the distance enough, I palmed two throwing daggers, ran as fast as I could, and jumped over the railing as they loosed another flight from their short bows. I took a couple of arrows but the HP system and the archers' damage value prevented me from taking a grievous injury. The arrows hurt when they impacted my armor but otherwise it was just a bruise.
As I was about to land, I threw my daggers at the two nearby pirates and drew the fancy ones from their crossed scabbards on my back. The pirates came to overwhelm me with sheer numbers but that's when my collection of perks shone. I had bonuses to all combat Skills because they were human. The more enemies I faced, the better my evasion became. An attack that missed me hit another of my foes. And I was wielding daggers and getting up close and personal, jeopardizing their accuracy with longer reach weapons. They were all taller than me but that bonus was negligible. Until you took into account that all bonuses were multiplicative.
They did get a lot of hits on me, their Dexterity score was good. But these pirate sailors levels were all in the twenties or thirties. Their damage potential was low. Mine as well but each cut caused hideous bleeding wounds as if the weapon sucked the blood out. My five-digit HP pool soaked that damage and kept me going. Maybe, maybe I would have to shift but I would save that if I fell below forty percent and still had too many odds against me.
Wounded pirates started to mount. I moved away from them. I didn't have enough time to focus on a killing strike and one of them could grab me from a weird angle or something like that. Things would get ugly if I lost my mobility. Some were unconscious from bleeding too much, others could be faking it. I couldn't tell very well but the Skills from my medical profession told me some that were down weren't that much wounded. I got very few Exp notifications that added nothing compared to the two billion I needed.
But again, piracy was their job, unmotivated people usually lazed on their jobs. I had a fancy {Heroine} title showing to whoever cared to {Appraise} me and I was owning them. I wouldn't put it beneath them to just play dead to avoid becoming actually dead.
I could see that the elite was waiting. Pirates levels forty-something were away from the melee, studying my unrefined combat style and waiting for me to grow tired from fighting. They had the numbers to spare and I doubted they cared how many injured sailors they would end up. Bodies were cheap and these rank-and-file pirates were desperate destitute men with not much to lose.
They were right. I was getting tired. I heard the ballistae firing and saw the giant grappling hooks arcing toward the Floating Fantasy with massive ropes trailing. That's when my fairy gave me a warning.
Sticking to the genre, I clamped a dagger on my teeth and jumped toward the ropes with my free hand and feet. I clung to the rope with my talent and sent a message back.
The pirate ship tilted the bow rose and the aft sunk as the vessel was yanked backward by a sudden wave. The same happened but in opposite to the Floating Fantasy. The hooks missed and a lot of pirates fell on the deck. A few even had to dive into the water.
If everything failed, I would dive with Nenandil's help.
The pirates got quickly back on their feet and now I was a juicy target for their bows. I waited for them to aim then jumped to the side to dodge a volley of arrows. Some latecomers even corrected their aim in the direction of my jump but they didn't account for how far I could jump.
I looked around and found her. I couldn't believe it. Tight leather pants, a white blouse that only emphasized her bust, raven black hair, and a hat with a plume. It seems I found the pirate captain-ness.
"Hey, sweetheart, how about you and I stop to talk? I think it will be hideous to wipe that much blood from your deck," I shouted to her.
"I'm getting a new ship," She flippantly pointed to the Floating Fantasy. "The next captain of this one can deal with the bloodstains."
"Well, I have no reason to make their job easier then. Cya soon!" I blew her a kiss and jumped down, back into the fray just in time to evade another volley of arrows.