Our home, Cytheria is a massive realm of ninety-seven worlds, so vast that just exploring one of them could take centuries. Most grow up never knowing that there are other worlds or that the greater realm is called Cytheria. If it weren’t for Diviners utilizing their Gifts to gain answers from the System, even academies like ours would be unaware of the truth of our world.
Every world has its own races, its own societies and cultures, and its own unique laws of reality. However, the one constant is the System. The System creates and maintains the Travel Gates. The System gives us access to our status and allows us to cultivate our souls through pursuing our Classes. The System forms the structure that allows civilization to exist by enforcing binding agreements and contracts.
I wonder how many of us ever think on the origins of the System? The young are unlikely to do so, as the System is a part of daily life. It is only as one grows older that one begins to wonder, what is the System?
The System grants us power, it supports our lives, and without it we wouldn’t be able to use our Gifts or magic. However, the System also encourages conflict and war, seemingly rewarding those who indulge their worst instincts, while also rewarding those who pursue progress as a society and culture.
So just what does the System want of us? No one knows. All we know is that without it, we wouldn’t be able to survive, and our races would be devoured by the monsters waiting in the wilderness.
~From A System Study by the First Magister of Larden Academy
On what used to be a grassy plain, dozens of men fought in the crimson mud over the bodies of their fellows. What had once been two opposing lines of armed men with mixed weapons had turned into a chaotic melee as the two sides mixed with one another, cries of pain and roars of anger resonating through the air.
Amidst the screams and the clash of metal against metal, a mercenary in a steel-plated brigandine with chainmail underneath slammed the edge of the round shield in his left hand against the hilt of his opponent’s sword, knocking it out of the way before thrusting with the mithril-edged steel bastard sword in his right hand, plunging it into the other man’s face with a crunch. He kicked the dying man off the sword and deflected a spear thrust from a peasant in crude leather armor. With a hacking slash, he cut the spear shaft in half and then slammed the pommel of his sword into the desperate brown-haired human’s forehead, knocking him to his knees. With a grunt, he swept the sharpened steel edge of the round shield across the man’s throat, and crimson blood painted his already stained armor from his stomach to his knees.
An arrow lodged itself in his shoulder between the plates of his pauldrons, and he launched himself toward the elven archer in mercenary leathers before he could run away, punching him with the shield in the face. Before the slender elf could recover from the stunning blow, he slashed open his throat with the edge of his sword and kicked him to the ground.
When the mercenary looked up, he saw the last few remaining enemies being cut down by the few survivors on his side. He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, calming his rapidly-beating heart. Most of the men that had been on his side at the beginning of the day lay trampled in the mud, dead or dying. While it was not an unusual sight in his experience, it didn’t exactly make him feel good, either.
He slapped the side of his open-faced helmet to snap him out of his after-battle daze and turned back to their side’s command center. A half-dozen mercenaries on pitch-black demon horses rode by, the heads of the opposing noble’s knights and the noble himself tied by their hair to their saddles.
They’d begun the day with around two hundred men, one hundred thirty militia, fifty mercenaries, and twenty-three knights. From what he could see, only a dozen or so militia had survived, with perhaps two dozen mercenaries and two knights. Given how fiercely the equally-matched knights had clashed during the battle, it was inevitable that both sides would take heavy losses, but he didn’t see their client recovering anytime soon from the results of the idiotic battle.
Normally, both sides should have retreated after losing a few dozen men, but the nobles had stupidly used their Leadership skills to push the militia and knights into a rage, turning it into a battle of attrition instead of a short skirmish to make a point. Now it was likely the surviving noble would be spending the rest of his life just rebuilding his territory, if some other noble didn’t take it from him.
Thankfully, those with a mercenary Class had resistance to Leadership skills as part of the benefits of gaining them, so most of the mercs had remained relatively sane. The problem was that the mercenaries were placed in the center at the front of both sides’ lines to prevent them from slacking off, and as a result, they’d taken more losses than they should have.
The young-looking mercenary sighed and grabbed the arrow standing out of his shoulder, ripping the barbed weapon out in a spray of blood, a rather large chunk of flesh hanging from its tip as he tossed it to the side. A moment later, the wound closed itself, leaving only a hole in the leather between the plates of his brigandine that revealed smooth white skin that showed no sign of ever having been torn.
His face barely twitched at the pain, his expression seemingly permanently locked in a look of boredom as he followed the other survivors toward their client.
As he walked, he vanished his bloodied shield into the small spatial ring on his left hand, a silver-colored band that could hold two cubic meters. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then sheathed his bastard sword before vanishing it as well and switching it out for a short sword with a triangular blade, his eyes fixed on a gigantic bear therianthrope as the other mercenary argued with a human man in rich tailored clothing sitting on a demon horse, two knights in steel plate armor to either side.
The bear therianthrope was one of the horseman mercenaries, and he pointed at a pile of heads lying on the ground before the noble, his voice increasingly angry as he made gestures that indicated he expected to be paid for his trouble. The other horseman mercenaries remained on top of their mounts, their expressions mirroring his as they glared at the noble, who looked down on them with contempt.
Baron Ekredt is an idiot. Refusal to fulfill the hiring terms of a mercenary contract will get the guild’s debt collectors on him, and they’ll gladly strip his manor and fief of everything worth a single credit, The mercenary thought with a small crook of his lips that served as a wry smile in his case.
The terms of the contract had stated that a set reward would be given for every knight of the opposing house that was taken, and that if the opposing lord (one Baron Houschitz) or a member of his family were taken down, an even larger reward in credits would be awarded. Such contracts were insured by the System, and breaking them was a horrible idea, even in the rare cases where it was possible to do so.
That wasn’t even mentioning the inevitable retribution from the Mercenaries Guild. The Guild, once it had verified the breach of contract, would deploy high leveled mercenaries to conquer the Baron’s fief, then loot it of anything and everything of value. Whether the Baron and his family would be alive afterward was questionable, as no allowances were made for noble blood in such cases.
However, his anticipation of the noble’s inevitable return to sense was broken in the next moment.
The noble gave the therianthrope mercenary a smirk and spoke the words that would seal his fate, “Noble Privilege: Break Contract.”
A blue and white System Contract appeared in front of all the mercenaries, showing the various conditions of their hire… and a moment later, it shattered into pieces, turning black and falling away. The young-looking mercenary winced and gave the noble a pitying look, Oh System, that was stupid. Just because you have the Art, doesn’t mean you should use it…
The therianthrope mercenary roared in rage when he realized what had happened, and before anyone could say anything, a massive ax bigger than his own body appeared in his hands and turned the knights and their lord into crimson paste splattered across the knoll. Twisted pieces of armor were mixed in with the red, pink, and white of their remains, but not one bit of them was recognizable.
That therianthrope has to be at least level 60, with most of his points in Body. I wouldn’t even be able to lift that ax, much less swing it, The mercenary thought as he watched the killer and his men strip the dead men of their surviving valuables. He didn’t see a point in protesting, as neither was bound by the terms of their contract anymore. It was too much of a risk, even if he thought he had a way to win.
Therianthropes naturally started out at level 8 with a boost to Body and a weak Mind. As a result, their magic was weak, but their bodies were naturally durable and tended to gain resistance skills to magic and environmental effects faster than the other common races. As a bear therianthrope, the man probably had most of his Body stat’s effects focused in strength and durability, with less agility and dexterity. His Spirit stat would probably be focused into resistances and energy regeneration rather than energy capacity.
I wonder what magic he was born with? It isn’t Flesh Magic, or I would be getting those vibes from him, The young-seeming mercenary mused as he began to run toward their now-deceased client’s estate, the green wind energy stored in the sword in his hand enhancing his speed as he ran.
He needed to reach the estate well-before the other mercenaries, as – at this rate – they would all likely end up being accused of breach of contract due to the circumstances. He would need to ensure at least one of the Baron’s family members survived to serve as a witness, or he would have to pay blood money he couldn’t afford to avoid expulsion.
I shouldn’t have agreed to this contract, but the conditions were so good… Usually nobles know better than to use Arts to break contracts with mercenaries… He grumbled as he sensed the energy stored in the sword getting low. He hadn’t been able to find a good wind mage willing to restore it for a good price, so it only had a tenth of its capacity at the moment.
Still, the horse-riding mercenaries were still arguing with one another over the spoils of the noble’s camp, so he had some time to reach the manor before they figured out something was up.
With a sigh, he vanished his brigandine and helmet into his spatial ring, replacing it with a hooded Black Wyvern leather mantle and a brown-painted mithril cuirass. It only protected his chest and back, but that was more than enough for his purposes, as it was light enough that he wouldn’t lose much speed and tough enough to keep glancing blows from messing up his guts. Even with Flesh Magic, restoring organs was costly in energy, after all.
If he used his other magic, he could have already been at the manor… but since he didn’t intend to kill everyone capable of witnessing it, it wasn’t an option, in his mind.
He made it to the entrance of the manor about the same time the horsemen seemed to realize something was wrong. A single aging man in leather armor stood at the gate, his horrified gaze fixed on the bloodied knoll in the distance.
“Get inside and tell the servants to run! Those idiots aren’t going to leave any witnesses alive!” The mercenary barked. Several of the horsemen had branched off and begun slaughtering the other mercenaries and surviving militia. The knights were all down already, unable to react in time to their betrayal.
The mercenary ran his senses over the manor and pinpointed two sources of dense but immature energy. He smashed open the first-floor door, ignoring the richly-decorated lobby of the manor, and he ran up to the second floor.
He turned his head to the right, taking in the rich brown hardwood floors and smooth stone walls at a glance. Far too much wealth had been poured into the manor’s décor for his tastes, but that was no surprise, given how stupid the Baron had been. Men like him didn’t understand the concept of investing in their fiefs.
The cat-like furry ears hidden behind his hood twitched as he heard the old man at the gate finally begin warning the servants to flee, but he didn’t have time to worry about them. He ran down the corridor, his metal-plated leather boots thudding with each step, leaving flecks of dried blood and drops of newer spattered on the expensive wood floor.
As he ran, he returned the spent wind sword to his ring and replaced it with a more mundane iron shamshir, judging that the corridors were too confined a space for his favored bastard sword. He came to a thick wooden door near the end of the corridor and kicked it open, to see a two small blonde-headed half-elven children quavering atop a canopied bed with blue silk covers.
Without waiting for them to react, he ran up to them and touched each in turn, enhancing the flow of certain hormones and decreasing others, causing them to fall asleep in an instant. He then took a length of rope out of his spatial ring and secured the children to his back, snatching a signet that he recognized as belonging to the Baron’s house off a nearby dresser and tossing it into his ring.
He glanced out the window and saw that the horsemen were already approaching the manor, and he cursed, biting his lip until it bled. Thankfully, the bear therianthrope was far in the distance. Apparently his massive demon horse had run when he splattered the Baron.
The others he could deal with, if he didn’t have to do so all at once. They were just humans, and in the battle they hadn’t shown themselves to be much of a threat to him on foot.
He kept the shamshir in his hands but added a rapier made from slick black cursed steel in the left. He didn’t have the dual-wield skill, but he was familiar enough with using weapons in either hand that it didn’t matter that much. A part of him longed to use his usual bastard sword or his other favorite weapon, but he resigned himself to his fate.
He walked steadily toward the lobby, barely feeling the weight of the children tied to his back. When he arrived at the lobby, the front doors flew in, the broken body of the old gate guard slamming into the marble floor, leaving a long red streak staining the previously pristine white stone.
The mercenary didn’t bother holding back, rushing the first man with his rapier, punching it through his throat before he could react. He then pushed the man into his fellow behind him, knocking them both to the ground and releasing the hilt of the cursed blade. His left hand under his glove was badly burnt, so badly that blood and pus were leaking from blackened and cracked skin, burnt blood seeping from the wrist. However, a moment later, the dead skin fell off within the glove, revealing pink, pristine skin.
The third and last of the men thrust a spear at him, which he caught by the tip on the hilt of the shamshir, redirecting it under his left armpit before lightly slashing the man across the right shoulder, startling him into nearly dropping the weapon. With a smooth motion, the mercenary stepped forward, weaving the blade for another light slash that opened up the side of the man’s throat in a spray of blood.
He vanished the shamshir and replaced it with his usual bastard sword, thrusting it through the dying body of the first enemy and into the man below him, twisting it with a brutal strength one wouldn’t have expected from his somewhat slighter frame. The man on top slumped backward, his eyes going blank, and the one below shrieked out loud as the broad blade churned his guts.
The mercenary drew the blade out and replaced the sheath on his hip before removing the cursed rapier from the dead man’s throat and tossing it into his spatial ring. The demon horses tied to the shattered gate tried to back away, but he was at their side a moment later, cutting through the reins of one as he pulled himself into the saddle, balancing himself against the two tiny bodies tied to his back.
He kneed the demon horse below him and started it galloping away from the manor, his expression grim beneath his hood.
__________________________________________________________________________
A few hours later, he heard the heavy clop-clop of a demon horse running from behind him and looked back over his shoulder with a grimace.
Thankfully, it wasn’t the bear therianthrope. Instead, it was the remainder of his unit, three more humans carrying short lances, their eyes full of fear and rage as they chased him down the highway.
He narrowed his eyes and growled, “Dammit, they just don’t want to give up…”
He thought about what he had in his ring, but recently he hadn’t had a chance to refill on any of his usual tools. His last job had gone too far into the red, and he’d used up most of his favorite items in the process.
I just don’t have any luck… He thought glumly. While he was a decent rider, he was no cavalryman. He was a mercenary who could ride a horse.
He considered what he had at hand for a few moments, maintaining the distance between his pursuers despite their experience as horsemen. In the end though, most of the options he had were unacceptable, so he took the one that was the least so. He sat back a little and removed the armored glove on his right hand, tossing it into his ring. This revealed a thick-fingered, muscular hand with hardened black claws similar to those of a monster lizard could be seen. Blue scales also lined the back of his palm, making it look like he was wearing gloves beneath his gloves.
He reached down and touched the demon horse’s neck, ignoring its shiver of terror as its instincts told it something frightening was at its throat. His mind sank into the horse’s body, and his Flesh Magic took over, removing the toxins built up in the horse’s muscles from fatigue, healing micro-tears in the muscles and a few minor fractures in the breastbone. Flesh Magic wasn’t healing magic, precisely. Rather it was magic that had absolute control over living matter, just as Metal Magic had control over all inorganic materials. To use it properly, one had to have knowledge and understanding of that knowledge, both of which required experience and education few could obtain without great expense.
The horse shot forward as he made alterations to its bone structure, increasing their density even as he repaired minor deformities in the creature’s muscles and organs that had been there from birth. If it weren’t for the fact that he’d touched thousands of horses with his magic over the years as a mercenary, this wouldn’t have been possible, but as it was, he had just optimized the poor thing into the optimum version of its breed.
He saw the adrenaline start pumping in the demon horse’s brain, along with the hormones he knew came with emotions of exhilaration and joy. Soon, the pursuers fell far behind as his horse increased its speed by almost one and a half times.
That’s about all I can do… I’ll just have to keep cleansing the fatigue as we go… I hope my energy holds out, He thought with a tired expression as he kept his bare hand against the horse’s neck.
___________________________________________________________________________
In the end, his worries were unjustified, as he reached the Gate to the next territory without incident, leaving his pursuers behind in the distance. As he approached, the guards barred his way and he brought the horse to a stop.
Unlike the natural borders of noble fiefs, Territory Gates actually led to places far distant and were regulated directly by the nations involved, in this case the Vandarn Kingdom. As such, the soldiers had good reason to stop someone carrying two young children on his back riding desperately toward their post.
“Halt! State your purpose for passage!” The one on the left, an old but tough half-dwarf with a whitened beard held with steel rings falling down to below his mithril-coated breastplate. His face was grim as he looked at the children, and the mercenary wanted to sigh at his bad luck as he realized the guard probably thought he intended the kids harm.
“I was hired by Baron Ekret to aid in his battle against Baron Houschitz, but when Baron Ekret refused to pay and used his Art to break the contract, one of the mercenaries murdered him and proceeded to loot his camp. In order to make sure I wasn’t mistakenly seen as working with him, I made my way to the Baron’s manor and removed his children before they could be killed by the rampaging mercenaries,” He reported honestly, “I didn’t have time to explain things to the children, and it is unlikely they left any survivors at the manor, so I’m afraid you’ll either have to use a Truthstone or take me at my word.”
“Your registration moniker?” The other guard, a young half-orc with green skin and small tusks poking through his lips asked.
“The Black Mongrel,” He replied.
The half-dwarf frowned, “Ah, that mixed-breed with the reputation for having the worst luck with employers.”
The Mongrel winced, “I know I have bad luck, but do the rumors really say that?”
“Often enough that people at the Guild in Tonarre are taking bets on whether you are System-Cursed,” The half-dwarf replied.
“Shit, again?” He muttered. It wasn’t like all his employers were nasty assholes like the Baron. In fact, most of his jobs went off without a hitch. The problem was that when things went wrong, they always seemed to do so in the worst way possible for him.
As a result, he usually had to move to a new Territory every year or two to get away from the rumors.
“Do you have proof these children are the Baron’s?” The half-orc guard asked.
The Mongrel fished the signet out of his ring and tossed it to the guard, “This was all I could get my hands on while running.”
The guard fiddled with the signet, and a moment later, it shot out a mist of blue light. When the blue light touched the children’s bodies, it turned green, indicating that they were the proper owners.
“Well, that settles it… I guess we have to report to the King’s Governor,” The half-dwarf said resignedly.
“Losing a ruling noble to berserk mercenaries and his own stupidity… shit, if he isn’t replaced soon, the entire fief could be lost to the Wilds!” The half-orc guard, seemingly a bit panicked.
“Worse, his neighbor’s fief doesn’t have a master anymore, either, if what this mercenary says is true… no choice but to use the emergency call,” The half-dwarf said glumly.
“Aaah… the brass are going to be pissed,” The half-orc matched his partner for the depression that cast a shadow over his face as he helped him get the kids off the Mongrel’s back.
“The kids can inherit one of the fiefs when they reach adulthood, but the other one… Baron Houschitz lost his wife and children two years ago in that flash flood,” The half-dwarf said with a sigh.
“The King will assign a new Baron. There are always second sons with talent out there, just waiting for a chance like this,” The half-orc said, looking hopeful.
“To take over a territory ruined by a moronic war with his neighbor?” The half-dwarf said in an acidic tone.
The half-orc winced, “I can dream, can’t I?”
“Why are you two so bother by the potential loss of this Territory?” The Mongrel wondered out loud. Territory Guards shouldn’t have had any reason to be so worried over events inside the Territory. Their only jobs were to guard the Gate and keep criminals and slaves from passing through.
“We kinda messed up on our last posting, and now we are System-bound not to leave this one for the next ten years,” The half-dwarf said, slumping his shoulders.
“… what can I say? I hope things turn out all right,” The mercenary tried to comfort him awkwardly.
“We’ll make sure the kids get into the hands of the Governor. You are free to pass through, but you’ll need to stay in town until the Governor decides otherwise,” The half-orc warned as he gestured for the Mongrel to walk through the Gate.
His shoulders slumped with a sigh, “And I didn’t even get paid… I hate digging into my savings, especially when I’m already low.”
“There is always doing side-jobs in town for the Adventurers Guild,” The half-dwarf said encouragingly.
“This time of year, it is all dredging the gutters and killing giant rats in the sewers. That’ll barely pay enough to sleep with a roof over my head every night,” The Mongrel said sourly.
When things went well, war contracts paid great, but all mercenaries were a single bad job away from debt slavery. It was why he’d taken the contract for this job in the first place. His previous job had been even more disastrous, and he’d had to pay a contract penalty in excess of his expenses to prevent his demotion.
Stolen story; please report.
With a sigh, the mercenary walked through the Gate, his consciousness briefly going black as the System disintegrated his body and re-materialized it on the other side.
When he opened his eyes, he was on the road just outside the walls of the town. He frowned, At least it didn’t drop me in the lake like last time.
Territory Gates weren’t always predictable. While the Gate Beacon ensured travelers would materialize within a few kilometers of itself, the position was somewhat random, based off of ambient energy fluctuations within the territory. Thankfully, this time he was practically on top of his destination, so there was no need to swim seven kilometers to the shore of a lake full of monsters like last time.
He walked with strides heavy with reluctance toward the gates of the town, keeping his hood up to hide the cat-like ears atop his head. His second set of ears, closer to that of a human but pointed slightly due to his ancestry, were hidden by his pitch black hair. Those and his gem-like purple eyes signified his Shadow Elf bloodline, and it was the odd mix of features that marked him as a Mongrel and earned him his moniker.
At a glance, with his hood up, he was often mistaken for a human, but his human bloodline was actually the thinnest of the five. His great-grandfather was human, but his other immediate ancestors were all purebloods or mixed-bloods of other races, which was why the System referred to him as a Mongrel.
He knew if he put down his hood, he would get looks of curiosity and disgust from all around. This part of the Kingdom wasn’t exactly forgiving when it came to Mongrels like him. Half-bloods were common, but they were expected to marry into one of their parents’ races by tradition. Those who continued to marry outside their race generation after generation were considered to be hopelessly perverted by most, their bloodline tainted by association.
The gates were open, as always. This part of the Territory didn’t have any strong monsters, and even the civilians could kill those that did exist. The walls were only three times the height of a man, just enough to stop an ogre from leaping over them.
The road turned from dirt to cobblestones the moment he entered the gates, and the plates on the outside of his boots occasionally clanked against the stone as he walked. Most of those walking the streets were humans, elves, or dwarves, with the occasional therianthrope of one type or another carrying heavy things on their backs or running parcels at speeds even high-level humans would have trouble matching.
Humans were by far the most common, but most of them were slaves or common laborers. Few were willing to live this far out on the frontier of the Kingdom if they could avoid it, so a large portion of the population were either slaves or indentured servants. Their children would be born as free citizens and part of the Territory, and in a few more generations, the frontier would be much farther out.
The Mongrel felt no pity for their plight. Slavery in the System was always the result of debts or crimes, so there was no point in feeling sorry for slaves or indentures. Town slaves didn’t have to worry about dying in rockfalls or being worked to death in the mines, after all.
When he was younger, he’d pitied slaves for their fate, but a decade as a mercenary had taught him that slaves – ones in the Kingdom anyway – had usually earned their fates, one way or another. There were exceptions, but it was impossible to fool the System. The System only recognized real crimes and debts, and there were no skills designed to get around that function.
Slowly, he made his way through the crowded streets, taking to the alleyways several times to get into the western part of town. As he did so, the construction became increasingly poorer, going from stone with clear glass windows to polished wood with murky glass, then to worn wood shanties with wooden shutters and no glass.
The slums weren’t his favorite part of town, but at the moment he didn’t have the credits to afford his usual accomidations. Thankfully, he knew the right people to keep out of trouble in the area, so he wasn’t particularly worried about problems popping up.
A few young thieves (most likely without the Class) tried to pick his pocket, but his money was all in the blood-bound spatial ring, so they had no way to get to it. He didn’t bother threatening them, but he did slap them on the wrist as they passed by, to tell them he’d noticed.
I’ve changed a lot over the past ten years, He mused. When he first arrived, he wouldn’t have even noticed the attempted pickpocketing. If he had, he would have cut the children down, then regretted it after. Now it was just part of the scenery when he walked through the slums.
He came to a stop in front of a building that stood out for being entirely intact, the wood construction a bit dusty but otherwise lacking the signs of rot and neglect that most of the slums’ construction had. He stepped inside, pushing open the free-swinging doors, to find a taproom full of quiet men and women nursing drinks and eating thin soup quietly.
The bar was in the back, and behind it stood a black-skinned human with a massive scar opening his bare chest from collarbone to abdomen. The scar stood out with its stark white color around the edges and the angry red within. It seemed as if it were only a few months old, instead of over twenty years old as the Mongrel knew it to be. Scars rarely remained on people’s bodies in the System, and if they did it was due to a curse or a specialized weapon. In this case, it was the former.
“Hey Mongrel, you’re back! I guess since you came here, your side must have lost, eh?” The black man said with a cheerful grin.
“We won, then some idiot killed the client after he used his Art to break the contract,” The mercenary said sourly as he sat down at the bar, passing his hand over the gray crystal on its surface to bring up the blue and white panel of the menu.
“Your luck is as awful as always, I see! Well, you came back alive and I didn’t receive a bounty notice for your head, so you must have gotten out of the way before you could be implicated, eh?” The older man said with a wink.
“Why do nobles think they can get away with breaking a contract, anyway? Everyone knows the Nobleman Class gets those Arts as a trap, and no one who has used them has gotten away with it in centuries,” The Mongrel grumbled.
“Nobles are raised to think they are special, so they always think they are the exception,” The bartender and owner of the establishment replied with a shrug.
The Mongrel tapped out an order for the soup, a tankard of half-decent beer, and a room for the night. He winced as he saw the credits leave his personal balance. He would have to sell some of the raw gems he used as a savings method or he would only be able to stay for a week.
A moment later, a steaming bowl of soup and a tankard of beer appeared in front of him from the bar’s inventory. He took a sip of the beer, making a face when he found it sour, then spooned some of the soup into his mouth, the virtually tasteless liquid sliding down his throat without getting rid of any of the beer’s aftertaste.
“Gillie, did they mess up this batch? It wasn’t nearly this sour last time,” The Mongrel said with distaste as he took another sip.
“Nah, it’s the miasma from below. Some necromancer raised a bunch of zombies in the sewers a few days ago, and the miasma from that soured most of the beer in the slums,” The black man said, shaking his head sadly.
“Did they at least hunt him down and stop him from repeating the act?” He asked as he spooned more soup into his mouth.
Gillie’s silence in answer to the question said everything.
“Guildmaster Drayd is holding tightly to the credits again, isn’t he?” The mercenary asked with a sigh of exasperation.
Drayd was the Guildmaster of the Adventurer’s Guild for Tonarre. His reputation for paying what was promised was good, and he was excellent at settling disputes between adventurers. However, he was also something of a miser with the Guild’s money, rarely offering what a job was worth if he could cut a few credits off the total.
“Yep. He is only offering three thousand credits for the necromancer’s capture or his head, and fifteen credits for each zombie. That’s less than fourth of the standard for the necromancer and a little over half the standard for the zombies. He must have spent too much time looking at the Guild’s accounting books again,” The large man concluded.
“Shit, he’s paying D-Rank rates for a B-Rank job,” The Mercenary said with more than a little disgust. Even low-level necromancers were a C-Rank threat, but ones that had already managed to raise an army big enough to taint food and drink from the underground… well there was no way the necro wasn’t at least level 30. Given the support Arts that necromancers gained at level 20, the zombies would be more dangerous than usual, and at least some of them would be infectious.
Arts were special abilities gained based on the paths one took in life. Sometimes they were based on magic, sometimes on fighting ability, some based on Class, and yet other times involved one’s craft. In the case of necromancers, they inevitably gained the Legion of the Dead Art if they had spent more than fifteen levels as a necromancer. The Art had several well-known effects, such as causing undead they raised to give off more miasma, making them stronger, and allowing the necromancer to raise and control greater numbers at once.
If the miasma was reaching the surface despite the cold iron bars inserted during the initial construction of the sewer system, the necromancer had to have that Art.
“There are going to be riots when people realize the food supplies are tainted,” The Mongrel noted.
“The Governor is away, so there is no one to rein Drayd in,” Gillie said with a bitter smile that was quite different from the one he’d been showing.
“There is no point in saving credits if it gets you dismembered by a raging mob,” The mercenary said with a sigh.
“Drayd has always had a problem with tunnel vision when it comes to money. That’s why the Governor has to slap his wrist every once in a while to keep it under control,” Gillie said.
“Why did they put a guy like that in charge here, anyway? Wouldn’t he have been better off as a bean counter in the capitol?” The Mongrel asked curiously.
“He got moved here after he revealed an embezzling scam at the Guild in the capitol. The people who sent him here probably anticipated he would screw up this way eventually,” Gillie said, the bitterness in his expression growing deeper.
“Sad that he is falling straight into the trap of his own free will,” The Mongrel remarked.
“Drayd isn’t a bad man… he just hates to see what he sees as ‘wasted money’. If he’d spent more than a few months as an adventurer, he would know better, though,” Gillie said sadly. Guildmasters were usually chosen from retired adventurers, but Drayd had become an accountant for the capitol’s Guild only a few months into his adventurer career. As a result, he fundamentally didn’t understand adventurers’ difficulties.
“Still isn’t worth it if the city burns down around him,” The Mongrel pointed out.
“I know… could you talk to Zerag and get him to kick Drayd’s ass again?” Gillie asked hopefully.
Mongrel scratched his head right behind his cat-like ears, “I suppose I can do that, but Zerag won’t be happy about it. You know how he hates leaving the Mercenaries Guild.”
Zerag was the head of Tonarre’s Mercenaries Guild and technically the Mongrel’s superior. He had to head over there after he ate anyway, so it wasn’t that much trouble. However, Zerag hated leaving the Guild except for going to the red-light district or the bar. He’d make both of them pay for it later.
“I’ll send him some of the lager I kept in the silver case in the back. That should keep him happy,” Gillie said.
“That or a coupon for Mary’s,” The Mongrel said with a slight smirk.
“I’m not wasting my points on him,” Gillie said with a straight face.
The mercenary chuckled lightly, then quickly finished his meal before standing up and heading out.
Mary’s was a high-end brothel that offered coupons to frequent patrons. Zerag was one of their more regular patrons, and he spent most of his monthly pay there the day after he got it… which was why he rarely left the Guild. He didn’t have the money to buy food or drink outside, and he slept in his office.
The Mercenaries Guild, like all the major Guilds, was in the center of town, near the Governor’s Manor. This was because the Kingdom preferred that power be centralized in one part of town, rather than allow them to place their buildings where it was most convenient. Outside the Kingdom, the Adventurers Guild was usually built near the gates closer to the poorer areas but not inside the slums. The Mercenaries Guild was usually placed well away from the gates and the residences for the nobility to keep them away from the rich and powerful and places where they could get up to mischief.
The Kingdom maintained its feudal system by sending second sons out to develop their own fiefs on the frontier while constantly purging greedy or treacherous nobles and replacing them with Governors drawn from the more loyal nobility. Most power in the Kingdom was in the hands of the royal family, while noble families rarely lasted more than three generations before the rot set in. The reason it was done this way was that few individuals had a high enough level in a leadership Class to form a Territory on their own, so it was more efficient to split new Territories into multiple fiefs whose nobles would eventually do something stupid enough to get themselves purged and their lands handed back to the Kingdom.
Given that, historically, most of the kings had been half-elves or full-blooded elves, they had the time to wait for the shorter-lived nobles to trip themselves up. It was a system that was conducive to long-term stability while giving the illusion of constant change and growth.
Not that the Mongrel was aware of this. For better or worse, he was a mercenary – whatever his past – and had no understanding of the royalty’s reasons for centralizing power or why there were so few fiefs in older Territories.
The Mercenaries Guild was a three-story stone building just west of the Governor’s Manor. Mercenaries in varying types of armor ranging from light leathers and monster shells to metal plate walked in and out of the open doorway constantly. Just outside, small weapon and armor shop stands stood, waiting to serve the needs of newer mercenaries or provide a service window for larger orders from big trading companies or the System Shop.
Several mercenaries who recognized his figure spat on the ground or made faces of disgust, while others looked at them without understanding or with contempt. The mix of reactions had gotten old for him long ago. When he was younger, it had pissed him off, and he’d gotten into numerous fights over it. Ten years was more than long enough to help him get over it, though.
He didn’t react at all, feeling nothing for their contempt or disgust. When he was younger, he hadn’t understood their feelings, and even now he didn’t really understand it. It was a gut-level disgust that was a reaction born of the System Error that occurred whenever someone recognized what he was.
The System didn’t hate or dislike him. It treated him the same as everyone else. However, small errors occurred whenever someone tried to read his status due to his race. This was because, while the System had a specific category for every single race and half-blood, there was no category for his particular mix of bloodlines.
Those who felt disgust or contempt were those who had tried to use the Assessment or Examination skills on him at some point, and as a result they had gotten an error message that had made them vomit their guts out on the floor. Now they viscerally felt that he was something wrong, something cursed by the System.
Even knowing this logically, it still was annoying.
Once inside, he headed straight for the desk, materializing his membership card, a silver plate with his moniker and his current class imprinted in the middle, and a gray crystal in the upper right corner. When he arrived at the counter, he spoke to the pretty human receptionist behind it, “Sorry, I need to see the Guildmaster about an issue with my last job.”
She took a look at his card, her face expressionless. She was young woman with elegant features, ivory skin so pale that the veins in her neck were visible beneath her face powder, emerald green eyes, and long silky brown hair. Around her neck was an iron collar that symbolized that she was a debt slave. Her eyes were as devoid of emotion as her face, so he guessed that she was one of those that had failed to adapt to her new position in life. Given the perfection of her features, she was probably the daughter of a ruined noble or a bankrupted merchant. It was common for both to pay for the ‘Gene Perfection’ treatment offered at the System Shop, which cost three hundred thousand credits.
People like her lived for centuries in a youthful form, but he supposed that would be hell for her, considering how long it would take to repay the kind of debts merchants and nobles tended to build up when they tried to cling to their power and wealth.
The Guilds tended to use slaves for receptionists to avoid issues with favoritism and nepotism. Moreover, it was motivation for the mercenaries and adventurers to work hard, as it was possible to purchase them from the Guild if they gathered enough money to pay for their contracts.
That was why there were also incredibly handsome male receptionists, for the females and those who bent that way.
“Understood, the message has been passed on,” She said in a lifeless tone. A moment later she continued, “The Guildmaster has called you to his office.”
He took his card back from her and returned it to his ring before heading upstairs, ignoring people’s reactions to him as usual.
His boots clunked against the thick wooden floorboards of the second floor as he headed for the second set of stairs at the end of the corridor. The rooms on the second floor were cheap bunk-rooms for small mercenary bands and newbies. For the first month after a newbie entered the Guild, they could stay on the second floor and train in the basement in exchange for helping clean the Guild in the early morning before sunrise. During this time, most newbies received training from retired veterans and volunteers in the most common weapons – shortswords, short-axes, round shields, and spears – and were encouraged to find a favored weapon to go into battle with.
The reason for this was to instill loyalty into them before they made it big, and this included loaning them cheap hand-me-down weapons when necessary. That loyalty was one of the reasons why so many mercenaries willingly gathered when the Guild called them to arms. It was also why no single nation dared exclude the Guild from their territory once established.
The Mongrel reached the opposite end of second floor several minutes later, careful not to proceed so fast that his surprisingly heavy body would crack the floorboards. The Guild would make him pay for every crack and splinter, after all.
The third floor was decorated more richly. The floorboards were covered with a heavy brown rug, and the doors were black lacquered mahogany instead of raw oak or cedar.
The door at the end of the hallway was almost twice as big as the others, with a brass handle instead of an iron one, and when he approached, it opened on its own, showing a large daemon sitting behind a massive desk stamping paper after paper so rapidly that the average being wouldn’t have been able to see his hands. His hair was green and stood out from his round head, two black horns emerging from his temples, curling around themselves and curving until they came to points that framed his head perfectly. His hands had thick black nails that the Mongrel knew could punch through steel as casually as they could rip through paper, and his massive frame was covered in thick ropes of muscle that would allow him to shatter the gates of castle in a single blow. His ears were long and pointed, his face fierce, his skin color dark red. What should have been the whites of his eyes were tar black, with red pupils stark against the darkness.
Occasionally, a long thin tongue would snake around his exposed fangs as he stopped to consider what must have been a particularly irritating report before he continued.
Daemons were one of the rarer races, the distant descendants of Archdemons’ experiments with elves and humans, they bred extremely slowly and had few females.
Once he was done with the massive pile of papers on his desk, roughly an hour later, he looked up with a sigh, “What happened this time, Mongrel? Did your client try to stab you in the back and toss you into the cesspit again? Or did they poison your food? Did the client’s daughter try to sneak into your room for a thrilling night that would get you castrated?”
The mercenary winced. Those examples were all incidents that had occurred within the last year, though the last one was one that had happened a dozen times since he started his career. Noble girls tended to either be as pure and prim as they looked or the reverse, with nothing in between. Given the fates that awaited most noble females, it was understandable, but he still hated being the target of their games.
“No, this time the client used his Art to break the contract then got himself killed by a bear therianthrope I’ve never worked with before,” He replied.
“Aw shit… you can’t be serious! That has to be Iruf the Black!” He said, taking his head in his hands with a moan of despair.
“He’s that famous?” The Mongrel queried. He wasn’t familiar with most of his fellows. He just didn’t spend that much time with others of his kind.
“He’s famous sure, but his grandfather is the problem. His personal ability is a threat, but his father and grandfather are both on the Board of Directors. They keep covering up for his screwups, even though it is obvious he is a failure at anything other than killing people that piss him off!” He groaned. Despite his appearance, he wasn’t particularly brave. Daemons generally didn’t have any need to develop a way to control their fears, as even most monsters would run from a teen-aged daemon in terror on sight.
Unfortunately, society created situations where even a daemon’s natural survivability and racial magic could be easily countered at times.
“I don’t think they’ll be able to cover it up this time. The noble he killed was the only one left in the Territory. The Kingdom will want an explanation,” The Mongrel replied shook his head.
“Hopefully you are right,” The daemon said with a sigh.
“I didn’t even get paid for this job, so I’m requesting the usual reward for information,” The mercenary said.
“I’ll send it to your account. Was there anything else?”
“Gillie says miasma is spoiling the food in the slums, so you should get off your ass and kick the Adventurers Guildmaster until he puts up enough of a reward to tempt a B-Rank party to take care of the necromancer in the sewers,” The Mongrel replied.
“Any reward for me?”
“A case of Gillie’s favorite lager.”
The daemon’s expression brightened and he rose to his feet, half-running down the hallway with a bounce in his step.
Given how little money he usually had this late in the month, events like this were the only way he could get a good drink.
“At least he doesn’t take bribes not to do his job,” The Mongrel muttered as he headed back downstairs.
____________________________________________________________
That night, the mercenary known as the Black Mongrel removed his armor and clothing to take a bath for the first time in a month. The inn he was staying in was a Sakarkan-style inn with a massive bathhouse connected to it, and he hired one of the young bath attendants (in the Sakarkan Empire, it would have been prostitutes, but due to Kingdom law, they were just handsome young men in bathing suits) to wash his hair and back before he got in.
This was a real job, as he’d built up a lot of grime over the past month, most of which was spent skirmishing with the opposite side in the woods. The foaming soap used to scrub his back turned from white to gray in record time, and it had to be rinsed off four times before it came off clean.
The Mongrel’s body was muscular from head to toe, though his body was slight for his strength. Blue scales could be seen around the base of his legs and on and around his wrists, and the stub of tail, chopped off in battle long ago, was visible just above his rear end. He could have gotten it healed, but he still remembered how much it hurt when it got cut off, so he’d chosen to use his Flesh Magic to seal it off instead.
Despite constant exposure to the elements, his skin remained pale white and perfectly smooth save for the scales from his dragonoid heritage, a remnant of his Shadow Elf mother. His cat ears twitched in response to the gentle ministrations of the attendant, but he was accustomed to the discomfort of being touched there.
He passed his hand over the crystal on the attendant’s bronze collar and transferred twenty-five credits – enough for five meals or two nights at a decent inn – and sank into the hot pool, relaxing as he did so. Like most of the lower service workers in places like this, the attendant was an indenture, who would be freed as soon as he earned enough money to pay off his contract.
His hair, now that it had been washed, was not just black, instead having dark, dark blue strands mixed in. Dragonoids tended to have scales and hair in the color of their draconic origin, and the draconic origin of his dragonoid great-grandparent was a blue dragon. Pure-blooded dragonoids were like lizardmen with human faces in appearance, the females having more human-shaped bodies, while the males tended to be massive and muscular. In exchange, the females had wings and could fly, while the males were ground-bound.
When he was a child he had had vestigial wings, but his elder brother’s mother had cut them off in a fit of cruelty. The only remnant of them were two patches of blue scales between his shoulder blades.
He relaxed in the bath, luxuriating in the water of the hottest of nine pools. His dragonoid ancestry made him feel extremely good while in extreme heat, though he also felt comfortable in the cold due to his others. He half-closed his eyes, meditating and pulling up his status for the first time in over a month.
Name:
Level: 33
Class: Mercenary Variant
Race: Mongrel
Body: 50
Mind: 40
Spirit: 78
Skills:
Gift:
Arts:
Not much change there… He thought idly. He’d gone up one level and gained a point in body and mind and three in spirit, but his skills were pretty much the same, though he couldn’t see the levels for the ones that were redacted. He tapped his skills, looking at the percentiles for each with thoughtful clicks of his tongue.
Bastard Sword went up by a few percent, as did Flesh Magic and Round Shield. Campfire Cooking and Basic Enchanting show no signs of evolving, as usual. Medium Armor went up almost thirty percent because of all the times I got hit, and I must have eaten something nasty at some point, given that twelve percent of my next level for Disease Resistance got added, He thought. Even he couldn’t see the percentages for the redacted ones, one of the costs of redacting skills that often led to them being neglected. However, every mercenary needed a few trump cards hidden on their status.
Few people redacted their name. However, in his case it was a necessary decision he’d made even before joining the Guild (though it had cost him ten thousand of the fifteen thousand credits he’d inherited from his mother to do so).
I need to train well before my next job, or my status will get even more lopsided, He thought as he took pleasure in the sensation of the hot water warming him from the outside in.
Thankfully, the Kingdom was one of many nations that had split off from the Empire as it began to decline, so it had retained the tradition of public bathhouses and some inns – like this one – had a bathhouse attached to them. Without the promise of being able to bathe upon his return, he would have found it difficult to endure the nastier conditions he experienced during some of his jobs.
I’ll need to increase the weight of my training suit again, or I won’t get any results… I got lazy after my previous job, so I only trained my magic, He thought, his lips twisting in self-derision.
After an hour, he rose from the bath, his skin faintly pinked from the heat but showing no other signs of his excessively long submersion in hot water. Dragonoid blood – regardless of what type – lent itself to being resistant to heat, even if his blood was too thin to be immune to fire.
The inn he’d chosen was at the lower end in terms of cost, because Imperial-style inns had become increasingly unpopular in recent years. Most preferred the privacy of Kingdom-style inns to the more open construction of the Imperial ones.
As a whole, it was constructed of mud brick, built in such a way that an open courtyard was at the center with the rooms lined up on all three stories facing the courtyard. The windows on the outside were wide and utilized door-like shutters that were normally kept open to keep the flow of air going. On rainy days, the shutters would be closed on the outside windows, while most kept the doors to the courtyard open, since each level had an overhang that protected well against rainfall.
The Mongrel generally preferred Imperial-style inns. That they were cheaper was an attraction, but it was also that – when he had time between jobs – he could utilize the courtyard for his daily training instead of paying the Guild for the right to use one of their training rooms. As long as he didn’t train in the early mornings or late at night, there wouldn’t be any problems.
If it weren’t for the reward he got for reporting the therianthrope’s actions, he would have had to choose a low-end inn instead, so he was thankful for that.
Take a week off to get back into shape and get rid of the crap that built up in my body while I was on the job, He thought. During the previous job, while he had spent a lot of time in the wilds, most of it had been spent waiting for something to happen. As a result, he had actually dropped away from his ideal muscle tone. Toxins had also built up inside his body from eating the rations provided, so he needed to cleanse them before they started causing problems.
Flesh Magic was really convenient for dealing with that sort of thing.
The bed in the Mongrel’s room was made out of cheap polished wood with a thin straw mattress that could be aired out easily in the window on a sunny day. The sheets were brown linen, with a single fur coverlet on top. He sat down on the edge of the bed and slipped out of the thin robe he’d put on at the bathhouse, leaving him wearing only a white loincloth.
He slipped under the covers and closed his eyes, thinking idly about what was to come the next day.
________________________________________________________________________
Flesh Magic is one of the rarer magical affinities, and it is also one of the ones that requires the most practical experimentation and education to master. Flesh Magic users tend to constantly modify their own bodies when they are young, often without realizing it, and it isn’t uncommon for a young Flesh Mage to suddenly topple over dead after modifying the wrong gland or organ.
However, a Flesh Magic user who makes it to adulthood is an unstoppable force of nature. Simple modifications such as enhancing muscles and modifying hormonal balance can often make them deceptively capable, and older Flesh Mages will often add duplicate organs like second hearts or copy organs from monsters or other races into themselves to gain their powers and effects. Adult Flesh Mages are incredibly difficult to kill, as surface wounds will be healed in moments with minimal expense of energy, and even wounds to organs only have the most minor of effects.
What is worse is that Flesh Mages will often sculpt others’ bodies with a touch, stopping hearts, cutting off the brain, or causing a gland to flood the body with toxins. For this reason, most Flesh Mages learn martial arts so they can more easily come in contact with opponent’s bodies during combat.
The most common path Flesh Mages take later in life is the creation of custom life forms. This is a path that only Flesh Mages and Life Mages can pursue. It is not uncommon for a Flesh Mage to purchase criminal slaves and carry out modification experiments upon their bodies. The primary reason for this is that while a Flesh Mage will have an instinctive understanding of their own body’s balance, learning to do the same for the body of another is much more difficult.
There are also Flesh Magic users who specialize in strengthening and healing others. These are the most respected Flesh Mages, as there are innumerable diseases that can only be healed by a Flesh Mage or a Death Mage, and – unlike Life Mages – a Flesh Mage can often heal inborn flaws and inherited diseases.
Unfortunately, Flesh Mages are so rare that most don’t understand their abilities and only recall the horror stories of chimerical monsters and men turned into flesh-eating beasts…
~From An Explanation of Rare Magic