“This might be the best adventurer’s guild I’ve ever seen,” I mumbled honestly the moment we stepped into the building.
“That it is!” a woman raised her mug to us from the bar counter, and a man laughed from the practice mats after cutting all the flying clovers and flowers kept afloat and moving by enchantments.
“Welcome to Torwana!”
I smiled, but decided not to speak further. The facilities here were just next level, from the drinks served at the bar, to the training areas provided freely to the adventurers, and even the church part where people could get blessed before they went out to risk their lives. It was more functional than normal guildhalls too, and the decorations that were present were all made from locally sourced materials that were apparently changed out quite regularly.
The staff was well-trained, and they were able to process our requests very fast. The library was rich in information, somehow containing books about not just this wonderzone, but also the other ones within the purview of Edengar. Moonwash made full use of her gold rank, and we spent a few days just waiting for her to peruse those books, before then telling us about anything that might pique our interest.
Regretfully, she couldn’t stay here forever. We had to pry her away at some point, but I made sure to promise my girlfriend that we would come back. I didn’t intend for this to only be a short stop.
~~~
We took our quests, and then set off towards our next adventure.
The winds instantly grew stronger the moment our wagons exited the gates, for the walls no longer broke up the breeze. The rest of the wonderzone came into view, and it was just as beautiful as before. The constant song of this place rose in prominence, and we oriented ourselves towards the single mountain in the distance. It was unnaturally steep, embraced by winds of chaotic directions that were visible from here. It was a howling beacon, towards which we traveled.
The clearing surrounding the city quickly faded away into alien vegetation, for there barely was a cleared area surrounding the walls to begin with. It was already hard to keep nature out of settlements, but it was made even harder by being in a wonderzone. The mana was thick in the air here, and I felt so wonderfully alive as flowers twirled in the air, and the occasional trees danced with it. So naturally, something had to happen which immediately ruined my day.
I was shat on.
Literally.
A stalactor flew in the air. It was a bird I’d read about in the guild libraries, and the brown fucker shot a hardened spike of literal shit at me from above.
I managed to react, thankfully, else I would have no choice but to eventually wipe all life from this world. But I didn’t actually have the time to draw my sword, so I had to swat the shit away with my hands.
Now there was poo dust at the back of my guantlet. And the mythril was actually scratched!
“GRAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!” I growled and stomped my concealed hooves. I was so stark raving fucking mad, but my friends were the exact fucking opposite. They laughed and hollered and rolled across the wagons, and then they laughed some more!
They will pay and so will that fucking bird!
I heaved a deep breath, floating through my unkind thoughts like a buoy in the ocean. It was funny, I had to admit. I would react just the same if not even harder if it happened to one of them. But it happened to me!
At least Moonwash was not laughing.
“Stinky. That’s funny.”
…Well, she still wasn’t laughing. But she just had to make it clear what she really thought about what happened! AaaAAaaaaaaAAaAAAaaa!!!
I looked back, to see Torwana city still in view. More importantly, there was a different adventurer party I could see to my right, and another a long way behind our group. It would not be a good idea to fly after the putrid little monster.
But…
“ARGH!!” I roared in frustration and annoyance, and then summoned a lance of hellfire. I launched it towards my target, but the projectile was thrown off and carried away by the wind. It could not maintain its cohesion in the end, and the hellfire lance dissipated into smaller and smaller embers.
The stalactor farted again. Air pressure built up in the birds ass, and then it was all released in one go along with the hardened payload. The result was a fast-moving spear of shit, but this time I was ready. I swiped my sword in the air, and the piece of shit broke apart. The bird did another circle above, and when I moved it vaguely followed. I realized that the shitty bird might have been specifically targeting me!
“How do people even defeat these things?”
“Usually, they don’t,” my girlfriend answered. “The problem with that bird is that it doesn’t need to come down to attack someone, so it just stays in the air, and few people can reach it.”
“Hmmm.” I tried a spear of wrath next, but it didn’t hit my foe from all the way up there either. It was only disrupted by the winds like before. “What do we do then?”
“We can wait it out,” Therick suggested.
“Yeah,” Berry giggled. “Let’s… Let’s just stay here for a while. It’s fine.”
“But what about me!? The bird is shitting at me!!”
She giggled harder, and so did the rest of my friends.
I fended off another sharp spike of shit. The bird had still not targeted anyone else!
“What if I throw you?” Angerly pondered, and I agreed.
“Okay!”
“Wait, really?”
“I really want payback.”
“Well, here goes then.”
My ogre friend got off her wagon, picked me up with both hands, and then threw me as hard as she could. I sailed through the air without the power of my wings, and I regretted how I really couldn’t use them just yet. Still, I made it far enough, and I formed bullets of wrath and fire as fast as I could, before throwing them all at this shitty fucking bird!
It dodged.
The projectiles were able to reach, but the fucking stalactor dodged.
“THAT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!”
I whined into the air as I fell back down.
Angerly and Berry were there to catch me, and I pouted after I had landed safely.
In the end, Granuel tried to shoot down the monster, but found his projectiles unable to travel that far either. But then Moonwash copied what he was doing, and sent out many beams of sunlight, until a few managed to hit and burn the enemy.
“That’s right!” I raised my fist angrily when the bird ultimately fled. “You better run!!”
~~~
We came across a swarm of singing bees that made just the most irritating sound with their wings. The wagons halted to a stop as the horreks panicked and could not agree on where to go. My friends too suffered, and they clutched their heads in mind-numbing confusion as we stumbled out of our vehicles. I didn’t fare much better, but I clung onto my wrath and the pain of hell. Rage overtook my being and I dashed for the overgrown insects(about cat-sized) and rampaged across their ranks. They were swift and small enough to potentially avoid my slashes, but the waves of burning and rotting magic that followed were too big for them to escape. It didn’t take long until we managed to drive them off, and we could go back to the city.
Moonwash read, we stayed at another inn, and we enjoyed the luxuries of civilization.
~~~
Another time, we fought a cardillo. It was a donkey-sized armadillo monster that could curl up and travel insanely fast like a rolling wheel. We saw it coming, and Berry placed herself in its way to stop the creature in its tracks. She fell over herself and stumbled from the impact, but so did the enemy stagger to a halt.
We surrounded the monster before it could recover.
The cardillo remained curled. It refused to lower its defenses, which I had to admit was the smart choice. The thing’s defenses was really thick, and the attacks of our weaker members were easily deflected. A little bit of testing showed that several truly full-power strikes from me would definitely break it, and the same went for Angerly’s mace. But the solution we ultimately went for, upon Granuel’s insistence, was to burn the fucker.
Oh, the monster itself was quite inflammable, as I found out when my curseflame had a harder time spreading through its shell. But the cardillo was quite vulnerable to heat, and while it could initiate a spin, it was almost immobile right now with us restricting its movements. So we dug a pit, dumped some grass and twigs, and then set it all alight. All the while, I continued to pile on blasts of hellfire and curseflame.
The kitchen very quickly got too hot for the monster, and I Therick stabbed it through the heart the moment it uncurled to try and dig itself out of its predicament.
The materials left were hardly damaged.
~~~
My favorite catch was when we saw a fish that could swim through the air. It looked so pretty
with the faint rainbow shimmer on its scales, and the sharp notes produced by the stronger flicks of its body.
We were alone this time, as confirmed by my friends, so I snapped my wings open and jumped so that I may fly and catch my prey.
I failed.
My wings were yanked away by the strong winds like a failed umbrella in a storm.
I crashlanded painfully, not too far away from where I had taken off.
I was too heavy to actually be carried by my wings, and it was only through its magical properties that I could fly. This meant that while the winds could cancel my flight, it couldn’t toss me away very far other than forcing me to fall.
“Well, that didn’t work.” I laughed as my friends caught up to me. “Let’s try again!”
Granuel and Moonwash tried to bring down the swingfish themselves, but it just swam away after taking some damage. I then spent the next few days practicing my flying, and learning how to stay stable against the winds of a storm. It was difficult, I fell and failed many times, but by slowly refining my technique with the help of my Memory Core’s perfect recall, I managed to stay afloat for some time.
By some time, I meant under a minute if I truly gave it my all and everything aligned just right. I was still unceremoniously dropped by the end of it. And if I tried to land gracefully, I was just as likely to fuck that up and be taken by the winds.
Still, it was good enough for another try, and we found another isolated swingfish. I got as close to the thing as I could, and then I launched my projectiles. Most missed, and only a few managed to nick the monster who almost immediately started to swim away.
There was another way.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Angerly tossed me like last time, and I flapped my wings in the air for more speed. The fish tried to swim away, but I got close enough to hit it properly until it began to drop.
The swingfish still managed to stay afloat with jerky movements halfway through its fall. That was when Moonwash and Granuel struck, and the fish was dead by the time I reached them after falling down to the ground myself.
~~~
Deja-vu
We had gone back and forth from the wonderzone to the city, establishing a new routine for our stay here. But then, today, just as I was having a nice drink with friends at the adventurer’s guild’s tavern, someone suddenly pulled up another chair and sat right next to us. She was a level 40 human woman with the most punchable confident smirk on her face.
“You must be The Harvesters, right? I’ve heard so much about you!”
I looked at my friends, waiting for them to talk to this random asshole right next to me.
Therick spoke for the group as always, “Yes. That would be us.”
The woman’s gaze glanced over to him, almost dismissive. “Wonderful! I’m Prancine, of the Primal Party. And I’ve come here to make a proposition you can’t refuse.”
She was looking not at my party, but at me specifically when she said that.
I did not reply.
She clicked her fingers in front of my face, and I almost punched her. I wanted to dig my claws into those eyes and fucking pull.
“Heeey! Cat got your tongue? Why so glum?”
“What do you want?”
“Oh come now. That’s not how you treat your superiors, is it?”
My whole body twitched. I could not believe what I just heard. My wings shifted in their extradimensional compartment in my back “And how, pray tell, are you my superior?”
She snorted, as if I was a child who had asked a particularly stupid question. And then she produced her badge. “I’m gold rank. Level 40. Do you not even have the level sense to figure that out? I had some hopes for you.”
Of course I fucking knew—ARGH!
“I do not care for your hopes.” I drank a mug of ale, then another one to try and drown the rage because I was this close to burning the entire guild down. “And I could tell what your level was the moment you came here. But you are not my superior.”
She stared at me, almost taken aback. A laugh escaped her mouth, and then she glared at me with all the condescension in the world. “I’ve heard of your feats. I’ve heard of how strong you are. That’s why I have come here to recruit you. But disrespect me one more time, and you will find out exactly why I’m your superior.”
Fuck you. I’ll kill you and make a blood eagle out of the corpse. Let’s see you call yourself my superior then.
With a monumental effort of will, I answered instead with a politeness that she did not deserve.
“I don’t care.”
I was confident that I could rip even her limb from limb, but I did not wish to reveal myself just yet. I would not allow her the satisfaction of exposing me… even if she would be dead by then.
A tense moment passed, but then Prancine ordered a drink for herself and the infuriating smirk returned on her face. “I’ll let that go. I want you to join my party.”
“Were you not listening?” I stared at her incredulously, after the tense conversation we just had. “No. I’m not interested.”
“That’s because you don’t know,” she drummed her fingers. “You’ll be missing out on a lot. I am a knight. A noble. And you haven’t even taken the same title for yourself despite your heraldry. Instead, you’re palling around these nobodies. You have so much potential, and I’ll bring it out!”
Mana roiled inside of me as I imagined the creation of black flames that would engulf her whole. I felt some sort of reaction inside of me, but I decided to shelve that for later.
“Thanks for the pitch,” I snarked and turned back to my friends. “But go find someone else who’d actually buy your bullshit.”
“...You’re a real problem, aren’t you?” Prancine did not leave. She was unable to accept a dismissal when she heard one. “All talented people are, but you just take it to the next level, don’t you?”
I did not respond.
My instincts screamed.
“Look at me when I’m fucking speaking.” She grabbed my face and wrenched it to face her. “Remove your helmet when you’re indoors and when you’re fucking eating–”
Prancine grabbed my horn, and was about to try and pull my helmet off through that, but my fist connected before she could try. She fell off her chair and landed on the ground in sheer and utter surprise. The bewildered expression on her face was priceless as she wiped the blood off her nose with her fingers.
It was pathetic.
I stood up. Aggression pulsed through my body as a savage smile was bared through my teeth. My hand hurt from the sheer force I conveyed through that one strike, but I was ready to draw my greatsword and continue.
“Whoa, whoa!”
“Hey Haell!”
“Calm down, please.”
My friends both pulled me back and readied themselves for a fight of their own, as Prancine’s own Primal Party gathered around her.
“I’ll kill you! I fucking kill you! I offer to take you in, and this is how you repay me?”
“No one fucking asked, bitch! Shove it up your ass and die!”
“You don’t know shit! You’re a whelp! People would kill for my offer!”
She drew her bow, but then her party members started to talk some sense into her.
“Prancine, please.”
“Not here…”
“We’ll get in trouble with the guild.”
“Look. People are already talking.”
The kobold guy was right, and I did not like what I was hearing.
“Who does she think she is? Just because she’s got some famous parents!”
“That’s Golex the Hero! He’s not just famous.”
“Who cares? Who the fuck is stupid enough to provoke a gold ranker?”
“Yeah! Prancine should really teach her a lesson or two!”
“That Zharignan brat started it!”
“I don’t know… she’s been here for a few months now, and she’s been… well, quiet. Prancine was the one who wanted to start something.”
“She wanted to recruit her! Is that such a crime!? It’s a good thing.”
“But she was already in a party! It’s clearly disrespectful!”
“No it’s not. Haell just had to refuse.”
“But she did!”
“You guys are missing the point. She clearly got physical first by grabbing the poor girl’s helm.”
“It doesn’t matter. It won’t end well for her. That’s a gold ranked!”
“Yeah. That’s fucking nuts. Does she not have common sense?”
Why the fuck are people already convinced that it’d be my loss!? I seethed silently. They know fucking nothing!
“Fine,” Prancine eventually said, after having listened to the gossiping adventurers. A slight smirk wormed its way back to her bruised face. “I’ll let this go.”
I was about to retort when Berry place her hands above my arms that were already holding a greatsword between them.
“You too, Haell.” Her other hand was now replaced by a long spike, because of how hard I’d pushed in the past.
“Ah, fine. Okay. Alright.”
I glared at Prancine, and her eyes stared back into mine. We would never be friends, but in that moment we were in sync.
This is not over.
~~~
“Shove it up your ass and die,” Granuel repeated my own words from yesterday, before laughing madly. We were currently on the road again, or lack thereof, this time in search of a rare plant that could potentially make a sword sharper somehow.
“Ugh, shut up! It was a heat-of-the-moment thing. And it was a great comeback anyway!”
“Sure, sure…” he wheezed.
“I agree though,” Angerly sagely agreed from the front of my wagon.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Berry hedged.
“I will bring trouble later,” Therick admonished, “...but I’ll admit that it was a great moment.”
“It was hot,” Moonwash finished, leaning against me.
I chuckled, and leaned back.
Our journey continued, and we took turns killing the monsters along the way, gradually making it further inside the wonderzone.
I got off our wagon at one point while Berry disembarked from the other one to catch a tumbear in the distance. A tumbear was a very fluffy panda that often traveled by just letting itself be carried by the wind. It wasn’t a light animal by any means, of course, but its tumbleweed-like hairs had properties that allowed this to happen, along with a slew of other Mutations.
“Don’t look and just listen,” Berry whispered. “We’re being followed.” We continued to sneak towards the tumbear grazing on the grass. “Prancine is nowhere to be found, but it’s definitely the Primal Party.”
“Ah!” I said in realization. “I forgot my dagger! Hang on!”
I went back to my wagon, and informed Moonwash and Angerly about what had happened. Afterwards, I resumed my hunt with Berry, captured the monster successfully, and brought back the carcass into the wagons. I then went back to my own carriage, and began sorting through some crates.
Granuel looked at me with a particularly urgent gaze after a few minutes, and Moonwash began to draw on the wagon floor.
Our vehicles kept moving, my eyes scanned the horizon as if for a genuine love of nature, and then the floor underneath me lurched as our horreks neighed.
One of them had been shot and injured by an arrow.
I jumped to my hooves and faced the approaching people. They walked towards us confidently, but they did not yet know that they were not the only ones who wanted this outcome. A savage smile split my face behind my mask when Prancine showed herself, from an entirely different direction than everyone else. My expression then turned into a further rictus of rage as I allowed myself to embody my wrath. The separate elements inside of me reacted, and they wanted blood to boil.
“Well, well, well.” Prancine drawled, and I heard her nonsense as if she spoke while drowning. “You fucked up. There’s no one here to save you now. There is no one else here but us. Are you ready to admit yet that I’m superior!?”
“I’m glad,” I said in lieu of a reply as I stepped out of my own wagon. The armor concealing my hooves fell away, and the contacts that hid my eyes burned. I deployed my wings to show them the depths of who they had offended, and it had the desired effect. My friends had agreed with me that negotiations were futile now that things had come this far. “I can finally let go. Thank you.”
The gratitude was genuine. I was confident that I wanted to kill them infinitely more than they wanted to kill me. And now they’d gone through the trouble of getting rid of all witnesses for me. How could I not be thankful?
“Wa-wha–” One of them stammered upon finally seeing for the first time what I truly was, but his voice was drowned out by a different one.
“Fireball.”
Moonwash’s ritual sailed through the air, and then all hell broke loose.
The rest of my friends descended upon them, while I charged and flapped my wings beyond the chaos. The ritual had surprised Prancine for a second, but she quickly recovered. So I stalled her further by unleashing my evil eyes and aura. Bullets of hellfire and wrath followed, and she was unfortunately sensible enough to dodge.
She nocked her arrow, but then I activated my Evil Eyes again, this time of the hellfire variety. The sudden pain, which had only gotten worse since the infernal became hellfire, forced a pained grunt out of Prancine. It didn’t even do any damage other than the sensation, but she was pathetic enough to miss her shot because of it.
The distance between us shrunk rapidly. Prancine still had the time to shoot one more arrow, and all my tricks didn’t stop her this time, but they still messed up her aim. What truly saved me from a head-shot in the end, however, other than using my greatsword as a shield, was that my speed changed as I traveled, creating chaos as my hooves carried me forward with all the wrath in the world.
Prancine released the arrow, and the fantastreel-tipped thing went through my armor and buried itself in my left bicep.
A mild pain registered, but I kept going. I did not let the injury slow me down as I forced the damaged arm to move normally anyway.
I reached my target, and she tried to jump away.
My blood melted for this last stretch, and then my sword swung down like a guillotine with all the momentum of my charge.
“ARGH! FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT ARE YOU!!”
She made another mistake. She talked in the middle of battle, and while it barely slowed her down, it still made it just a little bit easier for me to follow up. My body was puppeted by my wrath, magic was launched in waves by my horns, and my sword swung again before she could grab a weapon other than her bow.
The elegant brown bone of the weapon stopped my sword for a moment, and then it crumbled under the weight of my metallic rage. The blade continued its arc from there, devastating her torso, and leaving it to visibly rot.
“No! Wait! Shit! WHAT DID YOU DO!?”
She discarded her broken bow and drew her shortsword, but it was instantly flung out of her arm upon my next swing. Prancine was not weak, her level wasn’t just for show, but she was disoriented and gravely injured, on top of having only one functioning hand with which to use her weapon.
She could not match my sheer power in that state. Not at all. And I showed only the opposite of mercy upon seeing her struggle.
I reveled in it. I grew angrier with every pound of flesh that I took. I did not pause to monologue, as satisfying as it would be.
All I cared about was the crunch of bone and tissue as I gleefully hacked her body apart. She was cornered now, and I did not fear the damage I did to my own body in order to make her suffer worse. I remembered every insult of our one interaction, and I made sure to repay each and every one in blood.
Prancine struggled to the end. She dodged even when her remaining arm was only a mess of tissue and bone. She kicked, until even that was impossible because I’d sliced off a leg. And still, she found a way. She jumped on her one functioning limb, and deployed an axe kick that entirely crushed and dislocated my left shoulder.
I crashed into her. I smeared her across the ground. I overloaded her with destructive magic until there was not a single patch of healthy skin left.
Prancine screamed and shouted profanities even then. She did not stop until she was dead.