Chapter 9: A Leap in Place (3/3)

"Oh! On the hunter and the beast runs", Rutger passed by on his way somewhere.

"Good evening, Mr. Rutger," I greeted him politely as Eris and I approached. "We have something to discuss with you."

"Good evening to you too," the head of security replied without much enthusiasm. "What do you want to talk about?"

"About your subordinates and their strange penchant for painful suicide," I said coldly, maintaining my tone. Maybe I didn't want to run into a full-fledged conflict, but I wanted to show that Eris was under my protection, and anyone who decides to harm her will face the consequences. Rutger, who did not particularly like our group and who did not trust it, will certainly pass on the new disposition to his subordinates.

"What... do you mean by that?" Rutger replied with a stern look from under his bushy eyebrows, but there was little firmness in his gaze, rather echoes of suppressed fear.

"I mean that it's extremely unwise on their part to try to assault my friend and insult me," I replied.

"Are they alive?" Rutger played with his mustache and raised his eyebrows.

"They're not only alive but well," I grinned. "After all, they are your people, and you are responsible for them. The first time, I decided to just have a talk. I hope you'll deal with this, and no one will test my patience again. It's not limitless."

Somewhere on Earth, the attempts of a young girl to threaten a seasoned warrior would probably look quite comical. But we were not on Earth, and the owner of the "Cossack" mustache didn't even think about laughing at the warning.

"I apologize for my subordinates," the man said, bowing his head and placing his right hand over his heart. "These people were hired a few days ago by one of my deputies, and they didn't pass the required checks. When we reach the Southern Fortress, I will turn them over to the police. Is that an acceptable punishment for you?" He asked in a tone that didn't promise anything good for the culprits or their hirer.

I shrugged indifferently, and Eris, glancing at me, nervously nodded in agreement.

***

After dinner, the group prepared for sleep. Securing the local version of a camp stove in a special socket, we by means of simple transformations planned by the designer, we turned the seats into couches. Akira chased the guys away, and she and I changed into our pajamas. Then we allowed the same for the others, taking a break outside. In my opinion, there was no need to bother with this. After all, a short black top and sports briefs made of tight fabric looked quite modest, but since Akira had her quirk, I didn't bother persuading her otherwise.

When the friends settled down on the sofas, engaging in late-night conversations, I didn't join in the conversation. Instead, I pulled the blanket over myself and pretended to be asleep. In fact, I still had to check what one incompetent experimenter had done to himself before going to bed.

***

"Ah, now I understand why I was so morose and dissatisfied during the day," I thought, irritated at my recklessness and its consequences.

No, if everything had gone perfectly, I would have been able to leap over several steps, either solving or reducing most of my problems. But that didn't happen. Attempting to leap forward, I found myself grounded. I was no Icarus; the earth pulled me back, painfully rejoining to tackle my issues at a more manageable pace.

In hindsight, thinking about the fate of the original Icarus, this might be for the best. Swift paths were either unreliable or came with a steep price.

Returning to the consequences: the slap from reality not only sobered me up but also provided some valuable information, albeit not very pleasant. Studying my own energy revealed that the flow of prana had slowed down, as had the rate at which my body generated it. The reduction in drug dosage and the overabundance of the dense and aggressive energy of the teigu had significantly worsened this situation.

Bad. Even a slight decrease in density and the amount of life force had a noticeable impact on my stamina. Fortunately, there was no sign of further deterioration; instead, my spiritual and life energies were gradually returning to their old patterns. Only a cold ice shard remained in the center of my chest, where strange processes were still occurring. I hoped it wouldn't lead to any significant problems.

I'd had enough of what was revealed.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Hoping for a miracle, I tried to use my willpower to increase the speed of my life energy flow. As expected, it was unsuccessful.

"Well, if everything was so easy, then we wouldn't be stuffed with this poison. They would have fed other stuff, yeah," but I knew that Akame was able to turn something like that, consciously removing some of the internal restraints; so I would learn.

It was unfortunate that there was no one among my acquaintances who could guide me in learning this skill. It was both useful and dangerous. I perfectly remembered how one of the murderers of the Oarburgs — the top of the lower or lower middle level of the Master Enforcer, having removed all restrictions, was able for a while not only to dominate two rakshasa demons, but also over Gozuki - the previous owner of teigu Murasame! — and two members of the Seven, and did it while fighting the deadly curse of the said teigu.

Let this exorbitant reinforcement not last long. And, as I've heard, even if that assassin had survived the cut from Murasame's cursed blade, she would have lived a little longer, dying from the tremendous exertion of all her powers. Nevertheless, the jump from the very bottom of the average rating to the very top was impressive. A very valuable ability, which, as explained by the Rakshasa demons, did not cause significant harm to health with wise and careful use.

In fact, all spirit users' abilities were dangerous. An incorrectly used acceleration, for instance, could easily turn a user into a sack of minced meat and bone shards. This was particularly true for higher-level users.

Returning to reality, the fact that my life force had reached a critical point was very unpleasant. I had hoped that my spiritual energy, of which I had plenty, would compensate for the lack of prana, but that hope had been in vain.

If you were to picture a spiritual warrior as an abstract electrical device and spiritual power as a adjustable battery, then life force in this scheme would act as the wiring. The lower the density and quantity of prana, the higher the resistance (endurance costs), and the smaller the cross-section of the imaginary wire (strength at any given moment). Even if there's the potential to supply more energy from the "battery," weak "wiring" might not withstand it and could simply burn out.

Like all analogies, this one wasn't entirely accurate but provided a general idea. Less prana meant less strength.

Unpleasant. This could easily send me from the first place on the List not just to the middle but all the way to the bottom.

After lying still for a couple of minutes, not thinking about anything, I turned onto my back and directed my sightless gaze at the carriage's ceiling, continuing to reflect on the unfortunate fate of one wayward witch. Myself.

Wait, what? A girl? A girl! Magic and magic artifact has? Of course it does! So it's a Mahou Shoujo! Well, maybe dead puppets instead of cute little creatures conforming to Mahou Shoujo (magic girl) standards are a minor problem... After all, I can add a couple of relatively cute monsters to my collection.

"Sailor Kurome!" — I barely managed to suppress a laugh when I imagined myself in the world of canonical magical girls in cute pink outfits.

A dose of humor lightened the mood. Feeling more cheerful, I continued thinking about how to get out of this pit of a... let's call it chocolate, into which my beloved command thrust me using drugs. Damn them!

In theory, the newly acquired ability for accelerated perception could partly compensate for the reduced speed and stamina. By being able to see an opponent's movements as if in slow motion, I could fight and defeat adversaries about one and a half times faster than me, assuming relatively equal levels of skill. Well, to avoid exhausting my stamina, I would just need to wrap up fights quickly. In an ideal scenario, it would be a combination of one strike, one kill, as practiced in northeastern Iaido.

This all depended on the time spent training and correcting my fighting style. Of course, it wouldn't entirely solve the problem, but it would mitigate some of its sharpness.

On the other hand, why should a summoner engage in combat when they have marionettes that can inflict pain on their enemies instead? The artifact, in fact, primarily required spiritual energy, which I had plenty of compared to life force.

So I imagined a scenario in which I'm enjoying a cookie or sipping wine while my undead minions tear my enemies apart and trample them into the mud. Nice.

But I still needed a strong team of puppets. Right now, I had Kenta, who barely qualified for one of the last spots on the Ranking, an almost equally ranked enormous Master of hand-to-hand combat, and a medium-level Adept gunfighter with a rotary machine gun. Finally, there was one more low-level puppet not worth mentioning.

Actually, even the current leader of the collection wasn't very suitable for opposing enemy assassins. Unlike fighters like me, who focused on speed and eliminating individual targets, this Master from an extinct school, specializing in body reinforcement, could work as an unstoppable killing machine against low-rank spirit warriors and regular people. Such a "tank" was great for covering my weaknesses and was indispensable for annihilating armies and fortifications. But it was way too slow; even a skilled Warrior of speed-oriented styles could outpace it.

Indeed, a Warrior wouldn't be able to break through fortress walls in just a couple of strikes and didn't have skin as tough as an A-rank monster. But that didn't negate the need for speed.

The collection needed to be expanded. Ideally, I wanted to add newcomers with teigu. However, even if I managed to find and kill a teigu user, the higher-ups would still confiscate the valuable ancient artifact. Monsters? Powerful monsters, as well as human Masters, were not something that could be found on every corner. Even if you knew where a Class A or S monster lives, you would still have to go deep into the Wildlands to kill it.

And the acquired giant puppet, with all its strength, will bring a number of problems during use — during short fights, in dense urban development, indoors. Just because of its size. I haven't heard of A-rank monsters, even relatively weak ones that would weigh less than a dozen tons.

Problematic.

One way or another, I needed to acquire a good bestiary with descriptions of the abilities and habitats of mighty creatures worthy of joining my death squad.

But without flying transport, embarking on a safari through monster territories was out of the question. Most of the large flying creatures in the central Empire had been exterminated. In short, solving one big problem led to a whole heap of smaller ones, which in turn subdivided into even smaller problems. Quite a mess...

It was worth saying a few words about the path that I hoped, would lead one modest necromancer to the pinnacle of power, making them one of the strongest beings in this world. Or it could lead to death, insanity, or transformation into something unpleasant, horned, clawed, and toothed.

"Hmm, that's a lot of bad endings."

However, it made sense. The higher you climb, the greater the chance of falling off and shattering into pieces.

In general, my plan was to consume or merge (with complete dominance of my consciousness, of course) with the entity contained within Yatsufusa. Madness? Not really! From the very beginning, I was almost certain of the theoretical feasibility of this idea. Now, my assumptions had been experimentally confirmed. Yatsufusa might have had a different mechanism of operation compared to the quasi-living armor Incursio, which had originally been designed for a symbiotic relationship with the owner. however, I know how to deepen the existing bond between the owner and taigu. So I can...

Dig your own grave.

Although the chances of survival when attempting to merge with a teigu were exceedingly slim, not to mention the almost negligible probability of remaining sane, the possibility itself existed. Unfortunately, it was purely theoretical. But I had my doubts that Yatsufusa was designed for such shenanigans. It would have been strange if problems didn't arise. Well, it was worth thinking about how to solve them.

In any case, the first step had been taken.

In summary, things weren't as bleak as they initially seemed. I was alive, relatively healthy and strong, and I hoped to become even stronger and healthier in the future. All I needed to do was put in the effort and not try to swallow the elephant in one bite. Well, when it came to perseverance, I had plenty of it.

Satisfied with my decision, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep. Gradually, my thoughts became increasingly bizarre, and I finally plunged into slumber.

It was a rather strange and not very pleasant dream.