Chapter 17
The sound of the leathery wings beating the air could be heard as Zayne was dragged from the ground, the stranger standing still was caught by the chains out of desperation. Zayne trying to grab onto something that would help pull himself free made the error of choosing the man in greens. Some would say it was due to his low intelligence, others would point out that its plot armor.
The two armies stood shock still as the nightmare that had plagued them for centuries had just been taken care of in a matter of seconds. The goblin force was down to less then half of creatures that it did when trying to take the city of Waterbrook, they numbered at 75,00 and were cramped tight in the streets. Patrick’s people didn’t fare any better, suffering 25,000 loses and most of that were soldiers. The original 50 were still there but the odds of beating the creatures back was futile without their wall. Then to have some monster come out of no where and take the man in chains was unthinkable. So unthinkable in fact he didn’t believe the man in chains would die that easily.
Patrick turned from the flying draconic thing over to his known enemy, as the goblin force took off down the empty street.
“Sire, do we give chaise?” O’ Brian asked, the head knight of Patrick’s.
Patrick watched as the horde rampaged down the road, knocking things over and smashing glass as they pasted through headed to the forest beyond. “No, send the scouts. I don’t want to be here in this pit trap.”
The reason was simple, he didn’t know where he and his people were and this tower of ruins was something he didn’t want to stay in without a clear sight all around him. “Tell them to find a field or valley, somewhere that we can hold.”
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Christoph had gone through two dimensional teleports in seconds, put between two armies and now he was swinging in the air on a chain that was crushing his lungs. If that wasn’t enough, he was god knows how high off the ground with a fucking dragon above him. The cherry on top was the guy drenched in blood was now actively attacking the dragon!.
The crazy bastard had gone from being a captive to being the aggressor, and he was winning!.
Zayne was in the clutches of the dragons’ right foot; his left arm was weighed down from entangling the stranger but that wasn’t enough to stop him. Pulling the man up, Zayne ripped apart the digits holding him. The sound of broken bone and cartilage was audible to his ears as he grabbed onto the leg. The climb was brief as he used his skill -ethereal chain- to latch around one of the jutting out bones on the dragon spine. His -kung fu killer- skill had since evolved into -killing fist- letting his hand sink down and into the dragon, as he pulled himself up he ripped and tore off scales and flesh to make his way to the back.
The dragon didn’t just take the abuse Zayne was giving. The ageless creature dived and turned in unpredictable patters trying to shake off the thing. To the dragon’s horror, a chain rapped around its neck. Though the chain was a lot thinner then what could ever choke such a beast, Zayne’s skill level was more than adequate.
The man that got caught up in all of this was currently holding on to dear life at the broken leg causing minor pain to the dragon as it moved about. This freed Zayne to use his other hand more effectively. Taking ahold of the chain around the dragons’ neck with both hands.
Zayne had one trick up his sleeves, he didn’t use it often because he could kill the object of his whatever just as fast with his hands without expending too much stamina. Using the skill blades, his ethereal chain took on that aspect shaping the edges of the chain. The stamina use was small but this was just one foe, wouldn’t take more than a minuet tops. He proceeded to strangle while sawing through.
Blood and viscera poured out as the dragon lost health, the beast in it's frighten state started to pour mana in it's core getting ready to blow out fire. Unfortunately, the gash in its throat was too great seeping flame through the cut as small breaths flowed out of the mouth. The flames did little to Zayne as he continued until the dragon started to lose consciousness causing everyone on board including the dragon to fall like an arrow. As blood sprayed in Zayne’s eyes, he didn’t get the chance to see the ground rising up to meet him with him still sawing through the neck. The stranger, however, was screaming his heart out as the farmland around them became too close for comfort.
The once upon a time soldier was used to jumping out of airplanes, and this was just like it. He would recall the tale to many others about how Zayne and he took down such a beast their first day on Galaria but he would leave out the bit of him screaming. At the last second, Christoph let go before impact falling into hay bales, then hitting the ground, he then rolled too many times to count as he made his may to the drain field, where he stayed soaked in cow patties. He would also leave out the bit of the drainage field.
Christoph laid there as a morphine like feel overwhelmed him taking over his cognitive function. He didn’t know when he gained concessions but when he did, he found stains in the front of his pants.
The landing for Zayne wasn’t as pretty as Christoph’s, as he tried to regain his sight from the attack, Zayne had an urge to thrust his hips as colors danced across his sight. Feelings he had never known surged through him as he approached the ground. The fall fell all too short as they abruptly stopped. The dragon and he was headed to the barn that housed the equipment where the farmer used to plow their fields. Over the years, many seeded planets had joined Galaria bringing in new and innovated ways to do things. One of those was farming equipment, plowing equipment. The thing that stopped and broke the dragons fall was the plow for soil.
More specifically, the chisel plow. The plow was standing up right facing the dragon, as the dragon and Zayne hit the plow spikes piercing said dragon and Zayne. The beast got the worst of it, as the man in chains was hit at the mid drift through the dragon. They didn’t go all the way through but did enough damage to get Jiminy worried.
“Holy hell, can you TRY not to get impaled every five minutes!” Pain washed over Zayne but it was minor thanks to his pain resistance skill. The lose of 60% of his health was worrying though, so he pulled himself out to look at the damage he had caused to his new prey.
The dragon was for the most part, still intact. He started to glance around it looking for the juicier parts to take back with him. He went to the wing that stretched 10 meters long, the size wasn’t the problem nor was getting it off the beast. The problem was that jiminy was animate on him taking it with him. Zayne didn’t really care one way or another but needed something to eat. Deciding on taking the right wing and the head, Zayne went to work tearing off the rest of the head and pulling the wing off. By the time that he was done, the stranger had made his way over to him.
The man was dripping wet from foul smelling liquids and had a pissed off look to his face. Zayne took ahold of the machete he had stabbed through his coat and prepared to take the man out.
“Do you have any idea where we are and how we got here? Is that a menu in front of my face like the rpg games back at base? And was that really a dragon?” The questions fired off in rapid succession as more came, not giving Zayne a chance to respond. Not like he would.
The man was standing there blabbering about as Jiminy and Foulness gave their input on what to do with the man in front of them. “Off that mother fucker!” was of course Foulness’s opinion.
Jiminy had other plans, “You know, this is the perfect chance to make a friend in this knew place. If nothing else, you could always throw him to Sara when-”
“If!” Foulness cutted in.
“When she comes around. And we all know that she will come and find you.”
That made Zayne, Foulness and Jiminy all shutter from the thought of Sara finding them again. It wasn’t pretty the last time they had been together and the only way of getting her off of him took a literal goddess to do so.
That made the choice for Zayne easy, she hadn’t seen this man before so she was less likely to go all stabby on him and he seemed harmless in a fashion. Plus, maybe Zayne could get some enjoyment out of this. He hadn’t had fun since the beginning of the tutorial until now. One could call him his good luck charm.
He stared at the man thinking on how to communicate with the stranger. “I know we talked about this before, but you don’t need the skill increase any more. Your stealth is good enough and if you include mist step then it’s just a minor buff.” Jiminy was quick in helping Zayne in the task.
Foulness on the other hand didn’t want to give that up just yet. “Just shake your head from left and right you stupid bastard.”
Zayne didn’t want to give up on that buff just yet either so opted to do just what Foulness said. Shaking his head just so caused the man to stop talking.
“Can you understand stand me. Can you talk!” Chris was getting off his excitement and coming down with how real this is. He just fought a fucking dragon for God’s sake, what other nightmares could there be.
As the man contemplated on life Zayne went ahead by picking a direction in the distance to the nearest woods, there he planned to make a nest of sorts. “We can call it our flesh nest!” Foulness offered. He started to make guttural sounds at the thought of what that e tailed.
Chris was still speaking as he followed Zayne off the farmland when the owner came running up to them screaming about the mess they made and who was going to pay for the clean up off his property. Off to the distance, a dust trail with stomping hooves came charging at the farmland from the kingdom in the distance. From Zayne’s experience, that was a nope situation with his health being low and food in his arms. Holding onto the parts more firmly, he took off dashing out of sight with Chris coming up behind him. Zayne soon out paced the man but he was easy to spot what with the huge wing and head sticking out between his grips.
The soldiers had seen the unusual spectacle but were more focused with the danger the young fire drake could cause. This didn’t mean the knight captain wouldn’t send two men after the queer sight, because he did. Like, come on. It was a man carrying a dragon wing in their hands for systems sake. Highly suspicious!
In the realm of Galaria, the dragons were an intelligent race that was part of the consul on this side of the continent. Hurting it was taboo let alone killing it. Two of the knights branched off to follow the suspicious pair while the rest came upon the farm. Once there, the sight of the fell beast caused concern to the knight captain Margellio.
It wasn’t practical knowledge that the dragon’s were an intelligent race, in fact it was a guarded secret. The dragon was dead, knight captain Margellio knew that for certain. The only question was why. The who was simple enough, the two strangers carrying parts was quite obvious.
Turning to his knights, he gave his orders. “Bring the farmer in for questioning, see to it that no other talks to him until I do.”
The knights gave a bow before hauling off the farmer. He cried as he spoke out that he didn’t do anything in the occurrence of the things death. Captain Margellio stopped his men before they could go any further.
“The way I see it is that barn of yours was modified with the plow on the rafters. You baited the youngling in with your cows, then sprung your trap.” Margellio said all of this with a straight face.
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The farmer looked puzzled. “But if that were true, my level would be much higher then it is now! I’m only level 5.”
Margellio considered that for a moment. “Bag him so no one can see his name and level. Then after your done bring him to his cell, get him up to level 18. There should be some exp. stones in the royal treasury, I’ll make a report to his majesty so he understands the situation first.”
He turned to his other subordinates, “Attach rope and chains, and don’t forget the pully. Make it look like it fell apart after use.” Margellio was already setting up an escape goat if he couldn’t find the weird duo.
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Zayne and Chris raced off into the distance as the two horse riding knights followed, slowly gaining on them… well, on Chris. Zayne was in the clear but as he looked back at his new luck charm, he discovered that he was still in the wheat fields. So much for a lucky charm, Zayne thought. Contemplating on whether to go back for the slow man or just go off like he usually did. Jiminy would like to say Zayne truly thought on going back but that wouldn’t be true. No, Zayne went on his marry way as the knights finally caught up to the stranger.
Chris was caught between a rock and a hard place, neither of his options was good but he had years of training with the arm forces. Unfortunately, he didn’t have his gun. As the knights started to speak gibberish to him, Chris took the chance to look over what they wore. Each knight had the predictable plate armor with the sword on their hip, the shield that usually accompanied the fable men were tied down on their horses.
As the knights dismounted they spoke to Chris saying soft words in the attempted to calm him down. The truth was, he had never been calmer. Yeah the dragon scared the hell out of him but if anyone ever said they could stare down a dragon the size of a two-story house then they were a liar. No, as they got within arms reach Chris swept their legs out from underneath them. The fall was hard but the knights were getting up a lot faster than what he had originally that they would. Panicking at the thought of taking on two angry knights, he ran to the woods after the only man that could understand him.
Zayne didn’t try to lose the stranger, nor did he try to leave a visible trail for anyone to follow. He did just as he always did, what he wanted. And what he wanted was to dig into this lizards’ head to see if the brain was as good as the other lizards he had before. Jiminy spoke abruptly cutting off his happy thought. “Don’t forget to make new cloths! The ones you have now wont win you any points in making friends.”
“Not that shite again, listen man. We have been over this multiply times, he’s not what any body would call friend material. All they would do is scream in his face then take off running. Just look at that bloke he left back there.” Foulness said.
As the two bickered between each other Zayne made his way threw the forest looking for any cave or hole he could find. He found a couple but they were either too small or didn’t have the depth that he wanted. Hours had past as Zayne walked through the tall woods, the trees were starting to get taller than what he was used to. Finally, after the long debate, He had found a suitable spot. The long stretching cave had a nasty smell to it with little tuffs of fur here hand there. It seemed to be occupied, no matter.
Thinking of a way to handle this was something out of nature for him, so Zayne just went with it. Pulling out the shiny new machete, he made a quick dash through the pits of the cave until he came upon a large brown bear. He made for a quick slash for the neck of the beast jumping back as he did so. He prepared to lunge again but the head of the thing just simply fell over.
“That was rather quick, didn’t think it was going to be over that fast.” Jiminy wasn’t the only one that was shocked by how easy killing that thing would be. Foulness was literally moping on the anticlimactic turn it had gone, there was just no build up.
The sound of soft whimpers was coming from the corner of the cave where a few dead carcasses laid, little eyes poked over the top. Zayne made his way over to them slowly, as not to spook them. There, he found three cubs with fresh tears in their eyes from the sight of losing their mother. “Aww, their so cute. Hey, Zayne. Why don’t you keep one as a pet? You could use the-”
Too late, the splatter of blood against the cave wall showered Zayne in fresh viscera. “You MONSTER!” Jiminy screamed. The three little bears laid on the cold ground as the silence stretched across the cave.
“Well, what did you expect.” The giddiness in Foulness’s voice was tangible.
Hours had passed since Chris had escaped the two knights; the horses didn’t seem to want to go anywhere near these woods giving him the breather that he so badly needed. He had gone in a straight line not wandering off from the beaten path. He had read too many books where the main hero had done just that, meeting an untimely death. As time pasted by, he began to see the same trees and rocks giving him the impression that he was going in circles. After the fourth time seeing Abraham Lincoln looking rock, he had begun to set up little flags made out of leaf's and twigs marking his path. After about another hour, he found the start of the flags.
It was no longer a question on whether or not he was lost, it was if he could find a way out. Chris took every direction that he could but to no avail, he was truly screwed. It wasn’t until it started to get dark that he seen a light off to the distance.
“I swear to Achlys, if someone walks through this very cave right now I wont argue about the cloths that you so badly want!” Foulness seethed. At that very moment, the stranger entered the cave entrance.
“Ha! You heard him Zayne, get with the making.” Jiminy said happily.
“Hello? Is there anybody here? I’m just coming in to get out of the woods. I’m not here to kill-” Chris stopped speaking as he came into view of the atrocity of the gore filled cave. In the center was the same man that abandoned him out in the field. He couldn’t see his face, now that he thought of it he couldn’t remember seeing his face at all.
In the center of the cave, Zayne sat with a big fire and a roasting size chunk of meat right above it like he was roasting marshmallows. The smoke that covered the top of the cave was concerning, but not as much as the blood dripping walls. It was like the guy just took the stuff and splashed the walls with it. Intestines hung like draperies over and around stalactites, organs and fur laid out sprawled across the floor. The shit was something out of a Hell Raiser movie.
“Um, yeah. SO, you don’t mind me sitting here right?” The stranger sat in front of Zayne as he waited for his food to be done. It should have been marinated in blood longer but he didn’t want to wait so long. Especially now that he had work to do after his food. Its not like the system would give him something that he needed.
“Oh no, we forgot about the rewards for passing the tutorial.” Jiminy sounded horrid at the thought.
Jiminy went to work pulling up the notifications since he turned it off to only show skill and ability gains. “Here we go,’
Save the town-Legendary quest.
Reward: mask of the killer, random skill increase, 13,000,000 gp.
Mask of the killer, this black mask is made after the likeness of the man the myth the legend, Jason. Though it only has the two eye and nose holes, with no other markings. This mask gives the wearer the curse weakness , along with the curse ability of Ted Bundy charisma. By putting on this mask you give your self the wearer the cures of doubling body stats but stops intelligence growth, if by some miracle the wearer ever gets enough courage to take the mask off, all physical stats are half, half stats are then put into mental stats. This will be permanent until mask is put back on. The curse weakness can not be removed.
Random skill increase, for getting around the quest by some unlucky reason you give up the right to get a good increase. The increase of skill is fart. Congratulations, your skill fart has hit level 100. The skill fart has taken on an EV effect following class requirements. Gas fast, farting gives the aura of stamina regening effect, all who takes a whiff of your fart will regen stamina 15% faster, you sick fuck.
A bag materialized out of thin air in front of Zayne falling into his lap, before Jiminy could protest he opened the bag to find a black mask in it. Without thought, he put the mask on that cloaked his entire head, while Jiminy screamed. He quickly grew two sizes in the blink of an eye losing all of his hair in the proses, he needed to remeasure himself again for his clothing.
“It said cures! What the hell were you thinking.” He sounded out of breath but that didn’t stop Zayne from going over his stats.
Inside the bag he found another item, something resembling a seed. As soon as he grabbed it he gained a skill. Skill inspection.
Zayne peered at the seed as text popped above it.
Seed of languages, rotten. Gain the following languages- common, demonic. Without thinking about it, the man in chains popped the seed in his mouth swallowing it whole. Notifications blurred in front of his face as he felt sick. It was worst then the ripe goblin meat he had once eaten.
Chris seen the whole bag falling out of the sky which gave him pause, that was weird. He thought. Catching on to what was happening Christoph too went through his screens. It was something that he had dreamed about before while out in the field, who didn’t think about being isekai to some unknown land. The problem was he had never had to do this before, the technology on earth wasn’t near advanced enough for them to get an interface implanted in their head.
He went through trying to figure out how it worked, as he made out some of the tabs that showed different things he found that he had two tabs for levels. The body and mind, then the class and skills. It was unusual to how it all worked but given enough time, he would get the hang of it. After all, he had experienced this in his games and books.
He found his class levels, 13! How the hell did he manage to get to 13 already. Chris dove into the tabs looking over notifications and messages, after some time he found the past logs and how he had gotten the levels. It said that he had caused 2 points of damage to the dragon, the level 150 dragon. The realization of that made him go ghost white.
He looked around to find his savior wearing a look alike of the Friday the 13th mask, and was currently cutting and what the hell was he doing? Did he just fuse together leather?
Zayne had gotten the skill up and didn’t think much about it, he was used to getting skills and their ridiculous EV forms like tongue tying. Jiminy went through the prompts as he got to work on the leather he had gathered from the over sized lizard when Jiminy screamed in his head again. “You got levels! I never thought the day would come” Jiminy started to get choked up as he held back tear of pride for Zayne.
“What does that mean?” Zayne asked with his sinister voice in his head, from his work toiling away with the hide. He planed to make his trade mark coat but there was enough here to make an under shirt along with pants and boots. It would be flashy as Foulness would say but it was something Jiminy said had to be done, that and Foulness had lost some bet between them. Zayne didn’t know, he stopped paying attention when the topic wasn’t directed at him.
“It says that you have skill points to put into but this is going to take some time to get done. I’ll have something ready later.” Zayne continued to work on his clothing melding flesh together and stitching bone here and there. The bone was used as vambraces inside the coat along with protecting his side with the shirt, his spine and his chest. It didn’t show through the scales of the dragon but once he was finished, it was something he was proud of making.
Fire drake duster, +75% fire resistant, +150 armor. Master crafted- gains the intimidate skill +20
Fire drake wing shirt, +10% fire resistant, +25 armor master crafted- gains the intimidate skill +5
Fire drake padded leggings, + 50% heat resistant, +50 armor, Master crafted- gains the intimidate skill +15
Fire drake padded boots, +15% heat resistant, +25 armor, Master crafted- gains the intimidate skill +15
(Remember, he has 1,300 years of experience (-_-)
All in all, the look of the clothing was something to be proud of. Zayne however was proud that he had finally gotten to master craft. It had taken him a long time in the craft but he had finally done it. Putting them on, he did a little twirl as the duster flashed like dark embers making the cave light up. He was getting pumped from the success urging him to go out and kill.
Without a second thought, Zayne marched out of the cave causing Chris to follow behind in his wake. The stranger had also gotten something out of the mystery bag but Zayne didn’t give it a second thought as he left the cave entering the forest. There had to be something around for him to kill.
Christoph followed without question. Realization came from the level ups that he wouldn’t survive in this world without some one around to help him level up and the only person that he knew of was the man in chains. Well, he was now the man in red, but that wasn’t the point. He needed this guy to live in this new world.
As they ran through the woods it became apparent that the stranger couldn’t keep up, so Zayne finding no other way other then carrying him grabbed the man by the collar and used mist step. Once there he dragged the man through the woods searching for a suitable target. It took a while to find something but when he did, it gave Zayne pause.
Out in the distance by a lake, there he spotted a man and women doing some sort of dance. He stepped out of mist step forcing the stranger to crouch with him behind the bush watching the unusual pair as they sang a strange melody. It went along the lines of never finding some one else and that they would die without one and another, the oddest part was the woodland animals that usually avoided Zayne was dancing and assisting the duo in their song.
It was something the bards did back at the walled city but this was different, it held more of a sincere not to the words as they danced. Christ knew from watching the pair that it resembled something out of his childhood, something to do with cartoons and a mouse. He was about to say something to his killing friend but as he turned to look at him, he vanished.
Zayne strolled forward to the pair as he used mist step, no sound was made and no one knew of his presence but that didn’t mean that they were harmless. He got behind the man as the singing reached a climaxed then popped out of mist step grabbing the man by the head and neck, snapping it like a twig.