In this world, souls are often used to power magical equipment, create homunculi, or as sacrifices to bound summons to you. All of these depend on your skill level in conjuration and enchanting. My first task now is to grind my skill levels for conjuration using the [Soulbound], but first I need to find a Giant Crab spawning ground and soul gems.
Soul gems were special crystals that can seal souls in them. The quality and the size of the gem determined how large of a soul they can store in them. Soul gems are a valuable commodity in this world, even a gem that can store creatures up to level 5 are worth 100 gold. However, all I need is one.
Today was my final day in the infirmary and I was just lying in bed as usual staring out the window when I noticed that all the guards were being hasty.
Why were they all running around like there was no tomorrow?
I will have to wait until Liam to come in for his final checkup on me before I can leave to ask him.
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When Liam entered my room, I noticed that his eyes looked tired and bags were appearing under them. His hair was messy, and his gentle smile was beginning to disappear.
“Are you okay Liam?”
“I’m fine, it’s just that the inspection is in 3 days, so all of us are preparing for the Prime Minister’s arrival.
Oh shit, I have been so busy with the prayer that I forgot about that. Well, I can use this time of chaos to the best of my ability.
Usually, during this hasty pre-inspection period, the guards will give the menial tasks to the prisoners because they would be short-handed. During this period, I will volunteer to help in the kitchen. It’s not like I had anything to do in the first place. If the Prime Minister of the country was coming, I knew that Giant Crabs were going to be served. Now all I need to do is to secure a soul gem.
“Liam?”
“Yes?”
“D-do you know where the mage barracks are?” I said with my trademarked puppy eyes.
“Th-they are near the main gate; it will be the stone building with the iron door,” he said while breathing in heavily.”
Is this guy trying to hide a bloody nose or is he just a massive lolicon? Well, I’m not going to question it further, after all, this guy is under my control and I didn’t even have to use magic.
“Well it looks like you’re fine, you can now leave the infirmary and return to your dorm room,” said Liam as he walked towards the door.
“W-wait Liam, before you leave, can you tell me what day it is?”
“Today is the 2nd Anemo of the month of Hibiscus of the year 1060 AD.”
Hibiscus huh… that means I have 4 more months until I can make my escape from this prison. It also means that I have 4 more months until the 14 Cataclysm.
“Do you have any other questions before I leave?”
“N-no, I think I’m fine now.”
“Alright, you have to leave the infirmary by the end of today,” he said with a wave as he left the room.
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“What a strange girl,” I thought as I left her room. She is obviously planning something but what is it? She has been wanting me to pray with her for the past 4 days and has been prying me for information. It’s not like I was really annoyed after all she is really cute. It is so nice to see that loli elves exist in this world.
As I entered my messy office I sat down on my desk and looked at my mortar and pestle. I looked at my journal to see where I left off in my experiments of making perfume.
None of these are properly mixing, and they don’t even make a nice smell.
My goal in this ratchet life was to become rich and I thought attending the Imperial Mage College and majoring in alchemy would teach me how to transmute magic, but all I did was learn how to make potions. What a total waste of time, 20 years of my life gone like nothing… well it’s not like my life is going to end in less than a year anyways. This war is also a nice way to pay off my debts even if I do not even understand why it even started.
As someone who volunteered rather than being conscripted or drafted, my pay was higher than others. As a Mage who specializes in healing, I can also stay away from combat, so it was guaranteed to be safe. Being assigned to this prison camp was a delightful thing, especially with the fact that I can make extra money on the side by selling those female prisoners to brothels.
I pulled a piece of paper from my robe; I can’t wait until that little girl turns 15…
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*Achoo*
Am I sick or is it just allergies? Nah that cannot be I just felt a little shiver down my spine. That definitely means someone was talking bad about me. I wonder who it could be?
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I left the infirmary as bouncy and joyful as ever. The ground around the prison camp was as rough as I remember. The stone road was being cleaned by several prisoners with some guards joining them as well. Other guards were running around trying to not bump into each other.
I quickly ran over to the mage barracks during this time of chaos. My legs felt like they were burning as I continued to run. I could not breathe normally; this is what I get for being a lazy bastard these past couples of days. My breathing was heavy, and I felt like my lungs were not getting enough air in them. I do not remember the prison camp being this large, but then again, I never left the central complex of the camp.
When I arrived in front of the mage barracks it looked a lot different than what I imagined. The building was a lot closer to a spire rather than a standard rectangular building. It was made of stone bricks and you could tell that it was built hastily. There was a stair on the outside that looked like it started on the second floor of the building.
I looked around before I entered the mage barracks. For some reason, most of the guards have abandoned the main gate, but it could be that there were Mages who were accurate at far range Destruction Magic were watching over the main gate.
As I entered the building, I saw the light was appearing from magical orbs that were attached to a central pillar of the spire. The pillar was made of wood and it looked like it helped maintain the structural integrity of the building. Nobody was in the building as far as I can tell, but I did not want to take any chances. I grabbed a random bucket that was behind the stairs of the building.
The bucket was empty, but I did have the terrible smell that was similar to the one that was in the infirmary. I also noticed that this seemed a bit crustier than the other one. I wonder what these buckets are for anyways.
After I grabbed the bucket, I looked around the first floor of the spire. There was a table in the middle with several wooden chairs out and about. On the tables was a dagger and several books. The books seemed to look like the generic decoration books that were in the game, so I did not bother to look at them. There were several bookshelves on the sides of the building that did not have a stairway. The bookshelves had dusty looking books that look like they were not touched for years. They also had potions and gold coins on them, if only I had an inventory pouch, so I could carry those things.
Thinking about it, how much Inventory Space (IS) did I actually have? After all the amount was determined by race, gender, height, age, and SP in the game. How much exactly would a female Dark Elf child have? I never played a female character nor was there ever an option in the game to play as a child. Speaking of which, why did I never play a female character in the game, after all the modding community for the game was legendary for making lewd armors for females.
After some deliberation, I decided to drop that topic and continued my way up to the second floor. The second floor seemed to be where all the mages slept because there were beds everywhere. All the beds were neatly made and properly clean. Although I did smell gross in here, is this what it would be like in a college dorm room or sharing an apartment with friends? I wish I could have answered those questions, but I did not exist in that world anymore, nor did I ever have friends in the first place.
I continued my way through the second floor, the beds were all neatly arranged with chests in front of them, I tried to open one of the chests but they were locked and I didn’t have any lockpicks to try to open them. I headed towards a door at the other end of the spire.
Unlike the door on the first floor, this one was made of dark wood with some metal parts. The metal parts were rusted, and the door looked like it was beginning to rot. As twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The force required to open it was like opening a door made of pure metal.
When I opened the door, it showed the stairway that I saw when I was standing in front of the spire. As I took my first steps on the stairway it felt more stable than I thought. The stairway was made of lumber rather than stone or wooden planks, however, with each step I took, I did not feel any splinters getting into the skin of my feet. Although the rough texture was not comfortable at all.
When I reached the top of the doorway, I saw that it was an open doorway. I looked inside to see an old man wearing black robes with blue accents passed out on the floor. Right next to him was a bottle of wine, so I can only assume that this guy had way too much fun in the middle of a workday. Around him seemed like a summoning circle sketched in white chalk.
I silently tippy-toed over to the drunken man and slowly placed my bucket on his face. I looked at the chalk beside the man and it was just the cheapest low-quality white chalk I have ever felt. If this guy were trying to summon something, there was no way white chalk would ever work, never mind something this cheap.
From what I can recall from the game, he needed at least red chalk if he wanted at least a low-quality elemental. If he was going for something higher tier, the standard color was to use blue chalk.
I placed the white chalk back beside the drunk man and silent tippy-toed over to the makeshift desk on top of the chest. The desk had a journal and a feathered pen on it. There was also a dried ink container right next to the feathered pen. I looked in the journal out of curiosity to see what the man had written. Unfortunately, I could not read it at all because it was written in a different language then what they had in the Saxon Kingdom. When I escape this hellhole I definitely need to search for that special stone.
I then carefully placed the book on the floor as well as the feathered pen and ink container. I investigated the chest, it seemed like a dungeon chest rather than a storage chest, unlike normal chests, dungeon chests were blessed by Gazania the Deva of Commerce. The blessing was that the chest would refill every 48 hours with new loot.
The chest did not seem to be locked so I opened it and it seems like this dungeon was registered as a summoner’s dungeon because of what it had inside of it.
Typically, in the game loot depended on your level and what type/level of the dungeon you were raiding. It seemed like this system carried over to this world, and in the chest, there was a cracked lesser soul gem, some books, 10 gold coins, and some lesser mana potions. The only thing I needed was a cracked lesser soul gem, but I will eventually return for you other precious pieces of loot...
I grabbed the gem and stored it in my bra. I then quickly headed over to the man to grab the bucket when I saw right next to his wine bottle that there was a large purple soul gem. What was this guy trying to summon? Something that requires that kind of soul gem requires black chalk with living sacrifice.
I thought about grabbing that large purple soul gem, but then I realized that it would be suspicious if it went missing. I then grabbed the bucket and quickly placed it back where I found it. I quietly left the building hoping that I did not leave a trace. Next up, it was time to volunteer to work at the canteen as a chef.