Dren was forced to remember something his older brother used to tell him. “Never mess with the crazy ones, no matter how hot or fun you might think they are. It is never EVER worth it in the end.” The most vivid memory he had of his brother saying that included a time when he had several bite marks on his neck, one so deep it almost bled. Dren didn’t think this woman before him was particularly attractive or seemed fun, but she was definitely crazy. So he felt his brother’s sage words of advice were worth heeding.

“Right. That is great and all. But I have things to do.” He backed up, not even considering killing this odd woman. Not because he feared or pitied her, but simply because her madness had thrown him too far off to consider it.

“Let me help you punish this disgusting world.” Her voice still carried the tinge of madness.

“Punish? Look, I’m just here to get stronger as I have my own goals. Sure, I’ll kill anyone that gets in my way. But I’m not here to punish anyone.” He explained while backing up as the woman advanced to keep pace with him. However, as he said that his mind did flicker to one person that he did intend to punish, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell the unstable woman that.

“You have to.” She said with such intensity, even he paused for a moment considering if that was true. “Only you and those not from this wretched world can purify it. To wipe our unclean race from all of creation.” Her eyes were filled with madness and he oddly found himself missing her lifeless look of apathy. Dren couldn’t help but think. ‘Craaazy.’

“You know I’m a human too right? Just from another planet.” He glanced at Ren out of the corner of his eye wondering what to do. She watched them from her perch in the branches seeming as confused as him by the madwoman’s actions.

“You aren’t soiled by this world. We do not deserve to be called humans. We prey on one another to satisfy our wants at the cost of all those around us.” She paused her approach and hugged herself. “Look at the filth you just swept away. Their actions are the actions of all the people of Earth. Given even a little power over another they choose to bring them suffering for their own pleasure. All recent events have done is make more people act out their true nature, but it isn’t like they are doing anything they wouldn’t have done before the system came if given the chance. They did the same plenty before the system. Any chance they got.” Dren glanced between the madwoman as she went off on her rant in an almost haunted tone and Ren. The woman seemed to be talking more to herself than Dren now and Ren still sat unmoving. Her words and actions were just too strange, he didn’t know what she was going on about. For a bit, he considered just killing her to be done with it. But another idea started to form. The woman was mad but he got a distinct feeling, she wasn’t lying when she said she wanted to help him.

Could use use her? It was obvious his cover was blown so it wasn’t like he could easily enter native Havens anymore. Or could he? “Hey. Use identify on me and tell me what you see.”

His words seemed to pull her out of her own world and the madness in her gaze lessoned back to that lifeless glazed eye look as she nodded. A moment later she spoke. “It says you are a human beast tamer. Level twenty four and a leather worker level twenty five.”

Dren nodded, pleased that his skill still worked to hide that he wasn’t a native. Disabling the skill he spoke up. “Try again.”

This time her brows knitted, if only by a tiny amount. “It says Human with Invader after it now, in bold red lettering that pulses like a murderer’s description. Then Profane Blade level thirteen. Profane Acolyte level seven.” Her lifeless eyes seemed to gain a bit more of that madness as she read the name of his class and profession.

Dren ignored her as he thought. His skill would allow him to hide his status as an invader still. Even if his status was supposed to be unveiled. The only problem was that the stunt he had been tricked into at the Necropolis had revealed his face to everyone in the Haven, making staying in the area more difficult. There was the option of just traveling away. If he got far enough away he could blend in and resume his original plan of using dungeons to level up. While picking off any natives he felt deserving his wrath to feed Reaper.

But he didn’t want to do that. It felt like he was running away. Besides that annoying Seer seemed able to track him easily enough. Would running away solve anything? Not as long as she was around he decided. After several long minutes of debate, during which the crazy witch just stood there watching him, he made up his mind. He needed to deal with Maria before he could do anything else. Otherwise, he was likely to be hounded constantly. Rather than give them time to come up with something he couldn’t handle. He would just bring the fight to them.

Mind made up he turned his attention back to the woman in front of him. Now what to do with her? Killing her was still an option. But maybe he could get some use out of her first. After all, just like testing his identify status. Having a native work for him could be useful. If the system allowed it though. ‘First things first. Let’s see what happens.’ Without saying anything he sent her a party invite. She didn’t show any response but joined instantly.

“Fine if you want to help me. I need you to go into the Necropolis and find out some information for me.” Dren said.

“I can’t.” She answered instantly and then paused before correcting her answer. “I guess I could. But I wouldn’t be able to bring you back any information. They would most likely kill me on sight, or imprison me maybe.”

Dren frowned. “Why?”

She looked at him blankly for a moment. “Because of my red status.” Her tone said it should be obvious.

Dren identified her again, the text in white. “Your status is white for me.”

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She tilted her head in a way that reminded him of Ren, which in turn made him oddly uncomfortable. “It should be red. They even mentioned it when they asked me to join them.” She pointed to one of the corpses.

Dren scratched his head annoyed, they had in their evil monologue made comments about her joining their band of bandits. But he just thought they were being, well cliche bandits. Maybe he didn’t see the status since they were a native and he was an invader. Either way that made his plan to use her as a spy useless. “Well then what good are you to me?” His tone was more annoyed than he meant it to be, only further exasperated by his mask distorting his voice. Yet the woman seemed unphased.

“My class has little offensive power. My one offensive curse is potent but as I said before applying it is hard because of the cast time and requiring physical contact with my target while casting. My curses are mostly used for debuffs. Those are rather powerful and can be a strong support tool for you to take advantage of. While my profession allows me to make support items. So I can debuff your enemies while providing you support items in combat. You can also use me however you want outside of combat. Just so long as you help me purge this world.” There went another glimmer of madness.

Dren chose to ignore part of that. “Debuffs and support items? Like what?”

She pulled an item out of her pocket, it looked like a mass of bone and sinew put together around what appeared to be a human eye. It was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. “This feeds off negative emotions. Such as fear, pain, hate, anger, and other like feelings from your enemies. It then converts them to energy you can use to replenish your health, mana, or stamina. The more emotions it feeds on the greater the amount of energy you can replenish. I can make ones that help you resist debuffs that affect the mind or soul. Or one that can convert damage you take into just mental or emotional pain. There are a few others but these are the most useful.”

Dren considered that while she continued. “My curses mostly affect the minds of my targets. It can make them afraid or recall emotionally painful memories. Alone they aren’t enough to debilitate someone, but their effects grow when a target’s mental state is affected by other sources or if I have enough time to stack multiple casts together. I can also make them more unstable, filled with emotions like anger, hate, or lust making them less rational.”

“Is that what you did to them?” He asked pointing to the men.

She looked at them with a disgusted expression of apathy. “No. They needed no encouragement to be filth. It is just our nature after all.”

‘Well isn’t she just a ray of sunshine?’ Dren thought cynically but nodded. Her abilities sounded useful, but if she didn’t have a good offensive ability he could see where it would be difficult fighting alone. But she could make a strong support. He almost asked her why she didn’t just group up but then realized that was a stupid question. ‘Plus she is flagged as a murderer now.’ Then he frowned, that assassin she had cursed had attacked her first. He felt like she shouldn’t have been flagged for that. Plus he was the one that actually killed him.

“Why did the system flag you red if I am the one that killed him.” He pointed to the dead Assassin.

She blinked slowly at him. “It didn’t. I was already red.” Dren frowned and was about to ask follow up questions when she expanded. “I’ve killed twenty three pieces of filth since the integration.” The way she phrased it he had a feeling she had killed more before the integration.

“How many before?” His curiosity won out and he asked.

Her blank face changed, madness filling her eyes and a gleeful smile spread on her lips. “Just one. My bastard of a father.”

*****

After that bit of insanity, Dren had decided it was time to loot up and get out. The entire time he moved around the crazy woman did nothing more than to reclaim her robe and staff before standing there watching him impassively. Once he finished looting the dead as well as finishing off the mage left wrapped in a cocoon by Ren he planned to depart but was stopped when she asked him if he was done with the corpses. When he answered yes, she asked if she could have them. It was then she revealed that her profession required body parts to make her items. While monster parts worked, she claimed human parts made stronger items. Dren wasn’t sure he liked the idea behind it but let her do as she pleased. After all, these men had definitely been scum that deserved no respect alive let alone dead. Ren did give him an annoyed look when he let the witch basically butcher the humans but had never let her do so in the past. Not that he stayed to watch her grisly work.

Moving away from the road so he could think of what to do, he several times considered killing off the mad woman. But when he looked at her and considered it. It made him feel grimy like he was planning to kill a beaten animal. For that is the sense he got from her, that she was broken down to her core, like an animal that had been beaten until it broke.

When he put some distance between them, the woman never seemed in a hurry as she followed after him, he asked Ren what she thought about her. But all he got was a shrug in response, she clearly had no opinion either way. Eventually, he decided to see what use she could be and only kill her if she tried something against them. Or when/if the system forced his hand. That was another thing he was testing, how long he could keep the woman in his party before the system did something. Making camp for the night, he started making plans for dealing with Maria and the Necropolis. He was resolved to kill them if he could or at the least make it clear that messing with him wasn’t something they should keep doing.

After realizing his plans amounted to sneaking in to assassinate the seer. Or charge the Haven like an idiot he gave up on making complex plans. How do you plot against someone who can see the future? His only idea was to simply not have a plan. If he had no plan she couldn’t see it, right? It wasn’t a great strategy but he really couldn’t think of anything better.

Sitting in a small clearing he glanced at the women that sat across from him just watching him. Feeling uncomfortable under her constant gaze he announced he was going to sleep despite not being tired. Giving Ren a glance and getting a slight nod he laid down.

Despite his original plan to just see what the woman would do, he actually fell asleep. Waking up he found Ren sitting so close she was almost touching him as she worked on weaving thread. Rolling over he found the woman still in the same spot, gnawing on a piece of what he thought was leather but realized must be some sort of jerky.

She hadn’t tried to kill him or anything. Nor had the system given him a quest to do her harm either. Almost upset that neither had happened as it meant the choice of what to do with the woman hadn’t been made for him. He sighed and sat up in order to get to work preparing for his assault on the Necropolis.