"...ahhh." Sighed the giant blonde woman after guffawing at the ridiculous suicide.
There'd been man who'd throwing themselves against monsters they should be unable to kill before, be it for bravery, duty or simple suicidal tendencies, but she'd never actually seen one manage to take on the beast in question using such ridiculous method.
The tactic was insanely stupid, and wouldn't even work on creatures with higher magical resistance, but the mere fact that it worked showed the man was likely capable of defeating the wivern anyway.
"I should probably do my job." She said after a small cough, though it was questionable wether he'd actually pass more than the bare minimum qualifications for acending to the great halls.
"I'm not dead. My HP is barely on the negative twenties." Aki pointed out.
"Yeah, of course you... what? Holy goat shit, he's conscious!" She screamed at what should have obviously been a corpse. Every hole in his head bleed slick blood, his chest didn't rise and fall, his mana pool was emoraging... "You're fixing yourself with ambient mana. With the density up here it should be killing you unless you have a level 6 arcane resistance or the like and that's..." She mumbled in confusion.
"You're not very old, are you?" He asked through a reproduction of his voice, slowly feeding air into his lungs and forcing his body to keep function with minimal brain activity. He was mostly thinking with his soul at this point. "NO! DONT GIVE ME A POTION!"
"What? Why not? How the fuck are you speaking anyway? And why did I stop trying to feed you the potion, damn it!" Cursed Sara, completely ignoring his wishes and the previous words. Chugging down the red, strawberry flavored liquid, she held it in her mouth, lifted his head and fed him mouth to mouth, though she didn't actually have much experience with it.
If he could, Aki would have struggled, or knocked himself out, but that would actually kill him for good. He could live with losing his first kiss like...
"I couldn't possibly be angrier right now! Stop laughing at me or I will fucking melt your armour over your skin, then dig holes over your mouth and anus before launching you into the biggest goblin camp I can find!" The pure wrath in his voice shook Sara from her force feeding act, finally realising he was not using his mouth to talk and had not actually resisted like she'd first assumed he'd do.
The valkire who the blood lust had been directed to on the other hand, could see his soul and magic resonating with the world to suppress her. For a moment, she felt like when she'd first seen the mighty Thor wield his hammer, an insect that had only not been smashed to pulp because of how little she was in his sight.
This man was not even close to the apathic state the giant killer constantly found himself at however.
Her instincts kicked in, one leg giving out, weapon drawn in a presenting manner, wings to the ground and head down.
"Forgive me, my lord!" She exclaimed, trembling in place.
This was, in fact, mildly effective, as he did in fact enjoy the groveling. Aki was more than just a sadistic asshole however.
"Leave. Be happy you can only find me while I struggle for my life, you insolent winged rat." He spat with the venom of many a character being channelled through his own anger.
With a silent confirmation, the woman bolted away, dread in her gaze.
It took a good five minutes, but Sara finally reacted to the battle maiden's presence and departure.
"You just threatened a valkire. We're so screwed." Were her words as her jaw hanged there.
"Not really. They are artificially raised to level 200 and above, so normal envoys can't affect the mortal world outside their own scope of influence, which for valkiries is the soul of possible candidates. Meaning only Brunhild and her sisters can actually do shit worth their level if not accompanied by orders from the all father." Rambled Aki after regaining a good fifty Hp and being able to speak normally again. "Thanks for the potion. I'm not feeling too well, so you might want to go home before i do." He explained, pure hatred directed at the woman despite his words being calm.
"What?" Was all she could munble out in her crouched position.
"I am not well Sara. Mentally. I would not have minded dying them and there, feeling so alive. Right now, i am also pissed that you stole my first kiss though, so being near me isn't exactly for the best no matter how rational i can be. Now run" He ordered. She obeyed, her brain barely registering the action as fear and confusion took over.
*****
Alone, Aki slowly recovered, feeling every ache, rip and convoluted feeling of wrongness in his body. He knew that despite this being part of his unwillingness to simply acumulate the experience of dealing with those through years of healing his own body, it was mostly just pure stuborness driving him trough the masochism.
Even now, a hundred and something kilometers away from his dungeon, he could still buy potions even if he didn't have enough in his inventory, which he definetly did.
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Butchering the wivern for every usable part did help with the recovery, but it was mostly brute forcing the problem instead of the finesse he derised, though that would need much more dragonoid corpses not matter how talented he actually was in comparison to anyone.
Some two hundred Hp later, he finally left the bloody cave, his overcharged mana pool still growing as his arcane resistance leveled up and allowed a bit more of a strech. His regeneration was far from comparable to a star's radiation dispersal, but it was more than enough to keep up with the soul constructs he derived through experimentation.
Again another example of his suicidal tendencies, since those could either end up turning into skills or just straight out snuff his conciousness and leave behind the husk of his soul.
In the end, he got an ability and a skill plus their effect of training some of his resistances.
He could have probably tried something more idiotic, like direct expansion of his soul through absorption of fragments laced in anima. No matter how much death affinity he gained from his scar however, he did not actually posses the capability to do that anyway.
He could probably open a cross dimetional portal and integrate himself with more glutonous characteristics while in a hellscape or other, but his compatability would be absurdly low if compared to anything he would actually need to use the power he'd gain from something like that.
It was better to just naturally produce those instead of taking on some kind of infused treasure giving you power because of the mental power spenditure, but even he had some modicum of restrain as to not be tempted to go down that way.
The void was preferred to an infinty of torment.
Going down from the peak of the mountain, Aki made sure to exterminate everything on the way as he descended on a spiral.
Had he not been delaying his evolution, the XP would have likely been enough to get him to level 40. Instead, all the tier two and three monsters became some tens of thousands of points worth of material for his dungeon plus whatever he got from their anima.
It was over a 24 hours later that he reached the botton, surprisingly clean despite the amount of beasts he went out of his way to slaughter.
Sara had went back and forth from the city, finding some more quests to hand over later, though she was confused and irritated that Aki was angry over her worrying about him and a stupid kiss, it was still undeniable who was the boss in their relationship, so she didn't really figure out how to approach the subject while being polite even as he appeared.
"I will be honest, i am still angry, and we can both agree it is mostly because of petty childishness, medical assistance not really counting as romantic prowess or the like. I thought of a way we can be even however." He calmly told her as got close, a small smile forming in his face. "Nothing too hard." Were his only words before giving her a pouch full of gold coins.
Nothing was said as they treked through the couple of hours separating the mountain and the city in great speed, but after reaching the gates, Aki started giving the worried woman directions through the night streets like he was far more familiar with the place them her, passing through several streets and alleys, sometimes giving her accesories and caring for his own appearence through the walk, his hair held back and glossy, brushed eyebrowns, teeth brushed with magic, boots polished, all of that before dolling her up in a similar stile while close to the more affluent distric.
"Are we..."
"Nope."
He interupted before holding her jaw with delicacy and proceding to apply a soft, pink-ish lipstick on her lips and signaling her to keep walking. She could see he took something similar and applied to his own mouth, but it just made his lips shine a bit. By the time they were on a illuminated street again, he'd done her hair in a short ponytail.
"How are you this good?" She asked when there were no more well dressed people around.
"I liked to help my mom with make up and was always better than her at fashion. Now, just try to have fun for the night. Pretend i am introducing you to a nice place because we found some good things in the wild. Remenber to play as if you own the place." He replied with a childish smile as he directed them to a two story building with two mean looking men guarding a door. "Gentleman, what a beautiful night it is. Nice to meet you. Hope to see you two more times." He firmly shook the hands of both before they could even notice each had a gold coin in hand, patting their shoulders before each could identify the bribe and passing with his associate.
Strolling inside, they found a large, warm enviroment of polished wood, art and drinks, with many well dressed women sitting around and sipping wine, handsome man of all kinds serving them, the ones with darker tones of skin seeming specially popular, one madan even being escorted upstairs by such gentleman with an obvious blush to her cheeks. Wheter from alcohol or excitement was anyone's guess.
Sara imediatly realised this was likely one famous establishment she'd heard a lot about.
Patting her shoulder, Aki parted ways with her and proceded to flirt with the barman, a well build young man with caramel skin.
She did not think she'd be able to just walk out of this.
*****
Several hours later, the young giggled at the doormen, patting their shoulders, walking grogly as he sung in a language none reconised with what was obviously a slur, his master still in the house of pleasure.
From what they'd gathered, he spent three hours with the second best bull of the house, leaving enough money for the woman to play till the morning. There was no way he'd be able to take on people above his level in this condition.
It didn't take long before he reached a good ambush spot, so they jumped him, Gustav holding his neck on a vice while puting a cloth in his mouth so he'd not scream.
Or so it should have been, but as he charged, there was a crack and he flew over the man's sholder.
"SICK bitch, psicopath, yeah i'm gonna SHOW you!" He sang, turning back as a band of metal left his sleeve and seemed to be guided to his throat, stopping any scream for help he could have uttered.
Falling back with the metal piece's momentum, his head hit the stone wall of the alley, Albert gagging as the air in his lungs tried to leave by his obstructed throat and only worsened his disiness.
He could barely discer the sound of the mark stomping on his partner, his life or death impossible to determine as the stone bellow him cracked.
Suddenly there was a very sharp knife in front of his face, the heat on his cheek indicating he probably was already bleeding and would not stop until his tormentor wished him not to.
"When the wolves wear the wool, where do you ran?" Came the whispered question, followed by a sharp pull, yanking him from the wall as the steel around his neck became a full collar, a prickle that evolved in great pain as the knife now found itsef on his neck presenting itself as the man slowly circled his now floating body.
It was then that he realised. He was going to be tortured for fun, not for information.