Meat. Glorious, delicious, mouthwatering meat. Jadis didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to have some thick, juicy meat in her mouth.
Well, different kind of meat…
Objectively, the unidentified slab of meat that had been roasted over a campfire wasn’t especially good quality. It was gamey and a bit tough, the seasoning was limited to salt, and it had far more char to it than Jadis ordinarily went for. But it wasn’t fucking hardtack and honey mush and thus was the most glorious thing Jadis had ever tasted.
Jadis had to struggle not to devour the plates of food the camp cook had given her, if for no other reason than she didn’t want to look like an ill-mannered beast. She was already getting the impression that the mercenaries were thinking of her, or rather, the three of them, as a trio of ignorant mountain barbarians. She imagined her general lack of knowledge and backstory did promote that picture. The patchwork clothes and roughly cobbled together weapons probably aided that thought along quite a bit.
Having led her inside the camp and ordering those who had duties to resume them, Captain Renz had sat the three of her down around one of a few campfires, large logs having been put around it in place of chairs, and had commanded the camp cook to bring the three of them meals. Jadis was supremely grateful that the captain had thought to get her some food before any kind of questioning. She guessed the whole ‘offering aid’ speech was something the mercenary captain took pretty seriously.
The cook had, at least at first, given her portions appropriate for the various soldiers that were also lining up for their evening dinnertime, but quickly realized his error and had piled several more plates high once he saw how quickly the three of her were munching through the meaty meal. They’d also been given wooden mugs filled with ale, bitter but surprisingly cold and refreshing. Jadis had to say, the hospitality the mercenaries offered was pretty damn good.
“And the three of you are the only survivors?” Renz asked, eating his own plate of meat and some kind of boiled vegetables. Jadis hadn’t gotten to those yet, but they smelled good.
“Yes,” Jay answered the captain’s questions. While she was lying about her origin for now, Jadis planned to tell as much truth as she could. Lying had never been her forte. “At least, we’re pretty sure. The demons destroyed everything. We were a small village, about forty of us, and there were a lot of demons. My sisters and I ran once it was clear the village couldn’t be defended. We came back in the morning and it—it wasn’t a pretty sight. We didn’t find anyone else, so we left.”
“When did it happen? How many demons?” Renz continued his questioning, clearly looking for more detail.
“Maybe two or three months ago?” Jay prevaricated. By her count, she’d been on Oros for less than two months, but she didn’t want anyone to know that, at least not yet. “I’m not entirely sure. Dys? Syd?”
Jadis’ other two selves paused in their eating to shrug or mumble a negative. Jadis had to remember to do that sort of thing occasionally, especially if she was trying to make people believe that they were three separate women.
“As to how many there were, I’m not sure about that either. Maybe double our numbers? It was night and we couldn’t see everything going on.”
While Jay explained what happened to the imaginary Nephilim village, Dys and Syd weren’t just idly eating. Those two parts of Jadis kept their eyes open and ears perked, watching and listening to the mercenaries around her as well at taking note of camp itself.
From what she could see, the camp had a semi-permanent look to it with several buildings made of logs, some of which she guessed were barracks for the mercenaries. There were a few tents and pavilions made of sturdy cloth, but they looked like they were being used for places like where the cooks were preparing the meals, not places for people to sleep. There was a pen with horses in it, an animal Jadis had guessed had to exist based on the horseshoes she’d found in the abandoned village, but there were also some large bovine-looking beasts that had wide horns or antlers, almost like a moose. They didn’t look like any animal Jadis had seen back on Earth and she was eager to take a closer look at the strange creatures at some point.
The mercenaries themselves, now that the excitement of finally meeting actual people had worn off somewhat, were a little underwhelming. They were almost all humans, at least so far as Jadis could judge, and generally kind of rough looking. They were decked out in medieval armor and weapons though, so Jadis was happy to see that. Their armor was more uniform then Jadis would have expected from a band of mercenaries, most of them wearing the same style and colored brigandine that Gerwas and Ludwas wore. A few here and there wore something heavier, such as a solid steel breastplate, but only the captain was wearing full plate.
Jadis had always thought of mercenaries as being something patchwork or ragtag in nature, but these people looked far more like professional soldiers in uniform than the ‘adventurer’ type of mercenary Jadis had imagined.
Most of the mercenaries were giving Jadis and the captain some space, eating their dinner while seated at long tables with benches under a few of the aforementioned pavilion tents. They kept sending surreptitious glances Jadis’ way though, clearly curious. While Jadis couldn’t hear most of what was being whispered, she heard enough to understand that her unknown race was at least one hot point of discussion.
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Not all of the mercenaries were far and away, though. Gerwas and Ludwas had stayed nearby, eating their meals while sitting on another log by the campfire. Their pretty redheaded niece had also joined them, much to Jadis’ delight. While she hadn’t had any opportunity to talk with the girl yet, from what she could see she was very interested in getting to know more about her.
“And what happened then?” Renz prompted.
“We wandered in the mountains for a while. Lived on what we could find until we came across a stone village at the base of the mountains. A valley north of here,” Jay pointed in the general direction, “Maybe a few days travel away. Well, maybe more, depending on how fast you walk.”
Jadis told the story of the month she’d spent in the village to Renz with as much truthful detail as she could, leaving out any parts that’d reveal she was just one person, instead treating the story as though there had been three of them there all along. She described the village, the buildings that were in it, as well as the number of bone thieves that were running around it.
Renz interrupted her explanations multiple times, asking for details on the village and its whereabouts, what the conditions of the buildings and mining camp were, and most particularly any details on the bone thieves occupying it. When Jadis started describing just how many of the bony demons she’d been slaying, Ludwas broke in on the conversation.
“You’re spinning a loose yarn there, miss,” the man said with an incredulous look. “The three of you were killing dozens of bone thieves a day? At level thirty? Not likely!”
Gerwas joined in with a laugh, “You three have a strong look about ye, but not that strong.”
“I, too, find your story somewhat unbelievable on that count,” Renz said, though he gave a pointed look with his dark eyes at the two brothers, immediately causing them to subdue their laughter. “How is it that you three were able to fight and kill so many demons together? Yet you could not defend your village with others of your kind close at hand?”
“We weren’t level thirty when our village was attacked,” Dys quickly answered. Mixing a bit of truth in, Jadis continued the explanation. “The village was ambushed by many demons at once, and we were level fifteen at the time. Plus, most of the village were not combat classes. The dozens we killed later were in much smaller groups, so were easier for us to handle.”
“Hold on,” the redhead, Aila, broke in, speaking for the first time in Jadis’ hearing. “You went up fifteen levels in three months!?” She seemed genuinely shocked.
Did she just accidentally screw up her whole story? Was leveling that fast unrealistic to how most people on Oros leveled? If fifteen levels in three months unbelievable, what did that say about her actual leveling speed of thirty in about a month and a half?
Not knowing what else to do, Jadis went with her gut.
“Yeah, we did,” Syd shrugged casually, boldly looking Aila in the eyes. “It was that or die.”
“Aila, you aren’t the one to ask questions here,” Renz said, cutting the woman off as she opened her mouth to say more.
There was a bit of an awkward silence as Renz studied the three of Jadis, an assessing gleam in his eyes. For her part, Jadis kept eating. It was getting uncomfortable being stared at and questioned so much, but she wasn’t going to let the discomfort stop her from stuffing herself full. Meat was too good to waste.
Finally, Renz broke the silence.
“It’s not unheard of, that kind of level growth, during a demon invasion. The extra experience the gods award one for slaying demons is not inconsiderable.” Renz stated his opinion on the matter slowly, with voice raised just a little higher in volume. Jadis got the impression he was making his voice just a little more audible so that those mercenaries that were eavesdropping in the background could hear his pronouncement. Aila hadn’t been quiet with her exclamation and more than a few heads had turned.
“That said,” he continued, “I would like to verify how it is you three survived such a pace. From what Gerwas and Ludwas have told me, all three of you have combat classes. Forgive me, I know it’s rude to ask, but do any of you have a secondary class capable of casting healing spells? Or do you all have some skill that allows you to recover health at an accelerated rate?”
So it was rude to ask about what capabilities her classes had, huh? That was a fortuitous cultural quirk Jadis was happy to take advantage of.
“We all have the same classes,” Jay answered, drawing a curious look from Renz and the other three at the campfire. “We do everything together so we were offered the same classes and chose the same. We’d rather not reveal the details,” Jay said, putting on the performance of looking back at her two ‘sisters’ and getting their nods of agreement, “But I will say that our primary classes give us a passive skill that lets us recover our health quickly while we sleep.”
Renz nodded after a moment, seeming to accept that answer. “I know of a few archetypes that offer skills that do that. My own knight class does the same,” Renz said, surprising Jadis. “Thank you for answering my questions.”
So Renz had a ‘knight’ class. Presumably not Mirror Knight like her, but some other variation? He’d used the term ‘archetype’ as well. Did that mean certain kinds of classes had similar skills? Maybe Renz had Knight’s Rest too? Jadis was burning with questions of her own but refrained from immediately asking them. Easing into asking about such details that would reveal her ignorance seemed prudent. The captain was talking about a lot of terms as though they were common knowledge, as obvious as the sky is blue. Jadis wasn’t sure what exactly would change if she revealed just how little she knew about the system, so she kept her mouths closed on that point for the moment.
“Is there anything else we should know about?” Renz asked suddenly, breaking Jadis’ reverie. “About the village or the demons you saw. Was it only bone thieves, or were there other types?”
“Not that I can think of,” Jay answered, then turned to Dys and Syd. “How about you?”
“No other demons,” Dys said around a mouthful of the delicious boiled vegetables.
“Yeah, that was it—” Syd started, then Jadis remembered a rather big detail. “No, actually, there was the big one we killed.”
“Big one?” Renz asked, bringing a mug of ale to his lips.
“Yeah, when we killed it, the message called it a, what was it?” Syd started, turning to Dys.
“It was called a ‘Bone Thief Matriarch’” Dys supplied, nodding her head slowly. “It also called it a ‘Demon Mother of Samleos’ too, if that means anything.”
All three of Jadis leaned back in surprise as Renz sprayed a mist of ale out in front of him at Jadis’ words.
“You—You three killed a what?”
Well, shit. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned that part.