Timi stood behind him as he cut into it and it hissed in uncontrolled pain, the lower part of its body writhing as if dowsed in flames. He dug around in its large body, seeking out its heart, the action made more tasking by the pain from their battle.
When he didn’t find it, he moved on and cut again. Each time the snake hissed and cried. Each time a notification he ignored came alive.
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[You Have Been Poisoned.]
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Hands covered in blood, he cut into the snake four more times before he found its heart. Discarding his sword to the snow, he took it in both hands. It was huge, and the runes on it were significantly different from those of the other hearts he had come across. It beat with the vehemence of one still pumping blood. Blood dripped all over his shoes, or what was left of them and it brought pain to his legs.
He ignored it.
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[You Have Been Poisoned.]
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He put the heart on the ground, uncaring of if the snake still lived, and cut into it. At its core he found a soul fragment of deep red, and smiled.
“Was this what you wanted?” he asked his minds, holding up the crystalline object as a new notification appeared.
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[You Have Defeated Guda Snake.]
[Rank: Fragmented.]
[Would You Like to Loot Fragment Rank Guda Snake?]
[Y/N]
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If he understood this properly, the snake wasn’t even Iron ranked and it had given them this much trouble.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. On one hand it was at least ranked in someway. On the other, it was the kind of weak most soul mages didn’t bother with.
Then there was the question of looting. He’d never heard of it before, and while it was a bit understandable, he wasn’t certain of what the outcome would be. When he made his choice it was made more out of curiosity than anything else.
“Yes.”
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[Looting Fragment Rank Guda Snake.]
Looting… Looting… Looting…
Unable to Find Looting Skill.
Looting Failed.
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We feel like we should’ve seen that coming, a mind laughed.
Seth did not find it funny.
There’s a problem, though, a different mind thought.
“What’s that?” he asked, and behind him Timi moved his sword gently. It was barely perceptible but it was enough to garner Seth’s attention.
There’s no notification, another mind thought.
Seth paused to look up. “What do you mean?”
The snake’s dead but there’s no notification.
Realization hit Seth like wet paint as another thought erupted.
We haven’t cleared the hidden quest.
Seth rose to his feet slowly. He was tired and needed rest. “This is not the souled beast?” It came out as a question but was not. It was a fact that came with dread.
Timi turned a surprised gaze on him. “You were after a soul beast?”
Seth shrugged and picked his sword from the snow as he stood, trying to prepare himself. In one hand he held the sword with its circular guard and in the other a soul fragment clenched tightly.
Shit, a mind whispered, and his attention swiveled to what it noted.
Turning, he stood in a tattered cassock, battered and bruised, covered in blood that was both his and the dead snake’s. His body was wracked in so much pain that he could not stand straight. His shoulders slouched and his back bent. But there was anger in his eyes as he stared at the unstained ball of white fur and red eyes.
A snow hare stared back.
“You have got to be shitting me,” he cussed.
Timi barely held back a chuckle. “Smart.” He said the word like it was a compliment.
Seth shot him a glare his brother didn’t see.
That can’t be right, a mind thought even as the snow hare grew talons from its feet and fangs like tusks from its mouth. He knew there were reia rabbits. In fact, they had been the first kinds of reia beasts Clint had taught them how to hunt. But he had not imagined—
The rabbit moved in a blur of motion. Seth ducked back, raising his bloodied sword to defend but the hare darted passed him. Its aim was the heart of the beast and it almost made it if not for Timi.
Timi’s broadsword came down like an executioner’s guillotine and buried itself in its neck. The hare lay motionless in the snow, its head severed from its body and Timi drew his sword back.
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He looked at the beast with a touch of disappointment. “It should’ve waited,” he said, not seeming to mean the words. Then he grunted and turned away from it. “Not so smart.”
Seth wasn’t entirely sure he agreed. There was a limit to how smart anything could be in the presence of a big sword with such a powerful swing.
Timi rolled his shoulder, frowning, as Seth dug into the hare in search of its core. “Stiff,” he muttered in discomfort.
Seth looked up from his work. “That bad?” he asked, and his brother nodded.
“The snake’s blood very poisonous.” He moved his arm in a cartwheel and grunted in pain. “It’s been very hard to move.”
Seth’s mouth opened slightly and his minds echoed his surprise. And he’s been fighting with all that poison in him?! We couldn’t even move much less fight.
He’d known his brother was powerful due to his size, the boy had displayed enough of it during their unarmed training with Reverend Domitia. But this… this was something else. This was unreasonable.
Timi continued to move his arms, testing one before moving on to the other. The frown never left his lips.
What are the chances he already has a skill? a mind asked. Something powerful, like ‘the great mountain’ or something.
Seth thought about it then shook his head. “Unlikely,” he answered. “None of us have gotten our first fragment.”
We think it’s a bit arrogant to believe we’re the only one allowed to have skills without a fragment, don’t you think?
“Perhaps.” Seth pulled out an odd core from the hare. One half of it was smooth and pink as a core should be, but the other half was crystalline like a fragment but a taited green like murky swamp. “But its unheard of.”
It’s hubris to think we are the only person with our odd situation. We already have two skills, hopefully three after this test.
Fatigued and out of danger, Seth sat in the snow and rested his back against the body of the dead snake. He rubbed his bloody hand against the snow. The chill of it sent a shiver up his arm that spread through him.
With his now clean hand he reached into the side of his pocket and removed three strips of meat, the last in the pocket, and offered it up to Timi.
Still standing Timi collected it without question but did not eat it.
You sure that’s a good idea? His minds asked.
He shrugged. “It helped me. Might be good for him.”
Timi waited until he was done with his mind, then waited some more.
“It’ll help with the discomfort,” he told him. “It helped me when the blood got on me.”
Timi looked at the strips of meat contemplatively. He looked unsure to Seth’s surprise. Usually the boy trusted him indefinitely. It was a shock to find him hesitant.
After a moment he closed his eyes and slid each piece in his mouth and chewed. The entire process was slow and tense until he swallowed.
Timi turned his arm again and nodded. “Better,” he said.
Seth closed his eyes, relaxed into the body of the snake, and muttered a quiet, “Yeah.”
His minds called his attention to another notification and wasn’t surprised to find it staring at him in its plentiful words.
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Hidden Quest: [End of a Path].
A reia beast has found a path to the realm of the soul. Its pursuit for superiority has led to the demise of more than the ecosystem is willing to sacrifice. Apprehend its evolution and bring death swiftly to this creature before it continues on the path of a soul beast.
Hidden Objective: [Eliminate Soul Beast 1/1]
Reward: Keen sight.
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He was still reading the notification when Timi spoke, drawing him away from it.
“What happened to our brother?”
“Who?” he asked. He was stalling for time, but time to do what?
Timi returned his sword to the earth with a stab so that it fixed itself in the ground and stood tall. “Salem,” he answered.
Seth thought of varying answers. The truth is always the best, Jonathan had often said. To lie to a person isn’t just a sin in the eyes of the religious, it is a show of disrespect to the recipient. It is proof that you don’t believe them worthy of handling the truth or smart enough to see behind the lie.
The first son of the Darnesh family was always so upright. In his time in the seminary a part of him was beginning to see it as a flaw where he had once held a touch of admiration for it.
“He chose to leave,” he answered finally.
“But we’ll see him again.” Timi asked. “Right?”
Seth thought he heard a note of sadness in his brother’s voice. “I highly doubt it. He claimed he’d make his way out of the forest. I believe he’s done with the seminary.”
Timi frowned, then asked in a quiet voice, “Was what I did that bad?”
Somehow Seth felt his answer was more important than he thought so he didn’t answer immediately. The moment of hesitation made him realize he hadn’t even cared to ask if Salem had spoken the truth. He’d believed the boy without hesitation, without giving Timi a chance to defend himself.
So he asked, instead. “Did you…” he hesitated, unsure of how to phrase the question. He didn’t think simply asking it was the best way. “Was what he said true?”
Timi nodded.
“So you…” he swallowed. “You ate Bart.”
Timi nodded again.
“Why?”
Timi fidgeted. He looked nervous. “He was going to betray us to strange men,” he said finally. “Rumor has it that a traitor deserves a traitor’s death.”
That stopped Seth in his tracks. Whatever response he’d had before died without having lived. Rumor has it that a traitor deserves a traitor’s death. The words echoed in his mind. A traitor’s death.
In what world was a traitor’s punishment the death of being eaten.
Since he learnt it from rumors, a mind thought, skeptical, maybe that’s how they deal with traitors where he’s from.
And where’s that, another mind snapped. Some barbaric half human village somewhere in the middle of cannibal island?
Don’t judge.
Fuck us, a mind spat. Sometimes we can judge, especially when eating others is normal.
On Seth’s part he wanted to believe his brother was lying. He wanted to believe there was another possible reason for his actions, something more sinister that his brother feared to tell him. Something that didn’t make cannibalism seem so natural to his brother. But it was difficult. For one, he’d never caught his brother in a lie, rumor or not. The second reason was staring quite blatantly at him, as if mocking him.
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Bonus Quest: [The Hunter and The Hunted.]
Your missing brother has been on the run. Now you have realized there is a hunter and a hunted. Find who hunts who and render your aid as you see fit.
Objective Passed: [Find The Hunter: 1/1].
Objective Passed: [Find The Hunted: 1/1].
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“And where,” he tested, suspecting the answer to another quest laid in the mind of his brother, “is the rest of him?”
“There’s a pile of snow beside the tree where I stay,” he said, his voice was void, empty, as if answering a simple arithmetic question he already had the answer to. “Some of him is still there. The cold will preserve him for sometime.”
Another notification came up and Seth’s mouth fell open.
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Emergency Quest: [The Missing Brother].
You have stumbled upon bodies in the aftermath of a short lived battle. Each one has suffered a dire fate, and whatever had inflicted it upon them has lived long enough to escape the scene of the massacre. However, a piece of clothing has been left behind. A seminarian was here. A brother is missing. Find him.
Objective Passed: [Find your brother: 1/1].
Reward: Mental Fortitude.
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“Are you alright, brother,” Timi asked with a touch of worry. “You don’t look so good.”
Seth feigned impassivity for reasons he did not understand.
“I’m good, brother,” he said, then turned and threw up the contents of his stomach.
His stomach churned and he heaved all over the snow. Snow and blood mixed with greenish yellow vomit tainted with flecks of blood red. He retched again, until his bowels were empty. Then he retched some more. He dry-heaved until his bowels hurt and felt bruised.
Only then did he stop.