Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 34: Church Princess (Patreon)

While Sam sorted through the wizardess’s equipment, his father continued to speak with Ayala and Krana in the cavern behind him. He kept one ear on their conversation, but it was still mostly focused on calming Ayala down and basic introductions.

He searched the wizardess, but as he’d expected there was no aura on her. It was like experience and didn't come from civilized races. He wasn't sure what that meant, but it was something to consider.

Everything he found on her was in the two enchanted pouches, except for a dagger, which was also on her belt. There were a few small runes on that, but he couldn’t help shaking his head.

What a terrible piece of enchanting...it barely had any function except to make the blade a little sharper and more durable.

The main equipment was the two bags, which were definitely dimensional pouches. When he put his hand into them, there was a strange, separate space that allowed him to search through it, and he was able to pull out what he wanted.

They weren’t that large inside, but each bag by itself held more than his old pack did...about five cubic feet. It was an excellent find. He could take one bag and the other one could go to his dad. These had to be what the other adventurers were using all the time.

There were five enchanted amulets that looked the same, which had to be the wards against the acid worms. The enchantment on them was shakier than he’d expected..., all it seemed to do was project a sense of “I’m an unpleasant, cold rock.” Perhaps that was enough for them to work?

There was also a small collection of clothing, which he searched through for durability enchantments, some travel food, flasks, quite a few bottles of wine, ...and a collection of monster ears and finger bones. There was no energy in it at all, which meant it was just a trophy collection. He tossed it aside.

There were also two small, brown spheres that had to be monster cores, two pills he didn’t recognize, a scroll that looked like it was for healing, a couple of gems, a handful of gold and silver coins, and a small book that...was mostly blank, except for a half-completed spell diagram at the front.

Did wizards not actually use spellbooks? Sam grumbled to himself as he put it back in the bag. It was a place to draw his own designs, at least. There were writing tools too.

He sorted the items back into the two pouches, divided up the food and coins, and settled Ismela’s old belt around his waist. It was a lot better than the one he’d had.

Overall, Ismela’s loot was useful, but it wasn’t what he’d expected a wizard to have. Perhaps most of her items were elsewhere, or maybe she just hadn’t been very strong for where she came from.

He couldn’t evaluate the rest of the world by the standards of the village. He was already Level 29, which was near the top of the village's strength, and it felt like it was only the beginning. If the wizard had been just a few levels higher than him..., maybe that wasn’t much in a world where you could Evolve.

The World Limit was 399. Perhaps Level 50, or 100, or even 150 was the standard for success. He wasn’t sure.

If nothing else, the items told him a lot about the life of an adventurer. They gave him a standard for evaluating his progress and what it might be like to visit a city. As for the enchantments she had...with the exception of the dimensional bags, the rest of them were pretty bad.

There were some clear differences between them and what he could make. His enchantments had a sense of personality...of life, whether it came from the auras he used or the more complicated runic patterns that he’d borrowed from spell scrolls. Maybe that was just a feature of his class?

It would be useful to study the dimensional bags and the other runes, but that was all. Perhaps he could incorporate them into his own work.

As he thought that, he realized that his thought process was more complex than it had been before.... He was considering things more deeply and gaining more information from the evidence in front of him.

That had to be an effect of his new Wisdom. It almost felt like he’d grown up and gone through a few more years..., even if it was only that he was getting more out of his experiences now.

“Demon! You’re as corrupt as the stories say, looting a human like that!” One of the guards shouted at Sam from across the cavern, pulling his attention towards them. The guard was snarling, his hands clenched into fists as he stared towards Sam.

Sam frowned at him, his eyes hardening. He had not forgiven this group for attacking him. He had some positive opinions of the dwarf already, but the rest were completely unknown.

Personally, he didn’t care about taking the wizardess’s equipment. She had attacked him, and this was paying that back in some small way. Perhaps his view wasn’t orthodox, but he was just being practical about it.

If the guards were going to cause trouble about it, well...their first meeting had already made them his enemies. If they wanted to continue on the same course, he would match them step for step.

He glanced down to where his father was talking, and then sighed as his new attributes continued to affect him. Perhaps there was still a way to salvage this....

“She tried to kill me,” Sam replied, as he tried to keep his composure. “I’m claiming her equipment as payment for that.”

“You’re a demon...a monster that’s a plague on the world!” The same guard shouted back. “It’s no surprise at all that she attacked you on sight! No decent human would associate with you. You should be killed, along with the others who are helping you!”

Sam’s temper flared at the threat to his father and himself, but he tried to keep his composure. They had never seen a demon before, right? It had to have been...difficult for them.... His expression hardened.

The Guardian had tasked him to solve the problems with the seal, and had warned him that people would dislike him, but this was too much. How could they not see that he was talking to them, and that he’d been attacked first?

Were they that...blind?

The two guards here were reminding him very much of Kilien and Boric back in the village on the night before he’d left. Boric had mocked him for having a broken class back then, and now these guards were mocking him for...being a broken human?

That only made him more angry with them.

“How do you know what a demon is, or what a human is?” He shouted back, his temper flaring.

“I looked as human as you a couple of weeks ago, until Outsider energy transformed me into this! Look at me talking to you, reasoning with you...is that not human?”

He snarled out the last word as he glared at them. He had no reason to hide his history and maybe telling it to them would help change their minds.

“Is attacking an unknown party of people fighting monsters human?” he shouted. His anger continued to pour out at them.

He was still angry about being attacked and he added all of that into his voice. Crystal flames swirled around him, instinctively flaring into the air.

The World Law’s attempt to imprison him just a few days before and the Guardian insisting that he forgive it also combined to make him angrier.

The flames swirled higher, surrounding him in an enormous spiral of crystal blue flame that rose up toward the roof of the cavern. Ismela’s remains near him were incinerated, boiling away under the intense heat.

“Why is the world such a disaster!” he yelled, his eyes fixed on the guards. “Why can’t it make sense and why can’t people see what is true and what is not?!”

Beside him, Krana was backing away from the flames, her hand rising to block her eyes. At that moment, he really did look like a demon.

“Sam! Calm down!” Jeric shouted from below, spinning to look towards his son. “We’ll talk it out!”

“Only a demon would act like that!” the guard shouted again as Sam’s voice and the flames confirmed everything that was already in his mind.

The second guard, however, frowned at Sam’s words, as something in them caught his attention. His eyes tracked the flames that were forming, as worry began to crease his features.

“You’re a monster..., an Outsider!” the first guard continued. “How can a monster reason with humans? Throughout history, all you’ve done is destroy cities, burn farms, and eat people. Some of you are smart enough to act human, but that doesn’t make you human!”

“Yeres, shut up!” The other guard asked suddenly, elbowing his partner and interrupting his words. “What do you mean you were human? Is that really your father?”

“Sam is my son!” Jeric shouted back, turning his attention momentarily toward the guard before he looked back at Sam. “Sam, we’ll figure it out. Ignore them..., they’re just frightened.”

Just then, Krana suddenly shouted, drawing everyone's attention to her at once.

"Stop! I’ve had a vision about him and I can see that he is not a demon or a monster!” 

The dwarf's words rolled the cavern with a deep, resonant echo that made everyone stare. They were frozen with surprise as she continued to speak.

“You know me and you’ve traveled with me up to here, and you know what a Seer tells you is true! Believe me, he is not a demon, regardless of what he looks like. In fact..., he is incredibly important in stopping demons!”

Sam turned to look at Krana, stunned into silence with everyone else. The flames around him began to slowly subside as he stared at her.

She'd had a vision...about him?

“I saw him, this man you think looks like a demon...,” Krana continued, looking towards Sam and then towards the guards. Her voice was strong and vivid, as if she were seeing the vision again.

“He was the one standing in the rift between the world and Outsiders, sealing the barrier closed again. If you attack him, you are putting the entire world at risk!”

Her words stunned the guards into silence, and even Ayala turned to stare at her. None of them had any idea what Krana was talking about.

An uneasy silence settled over the cavern as everyone's attention was focused on the seer.

---

The story of Krana’s vision was slowly explained to everyone present, from the monsters breaking through the walls of the dwarven kingdom to the rifts in space that threatened to tear the world apart.

“That’s...a legend of a Breaking,” Ayala whispered as she listened. Her voice was reverent. “The star that fell from heaven to seal over hell....”

She had come around a bit as Krana spoke. Some of her shock had disappeared. She still looked sometimes toward where Ismela had died and then towards Sam, her hands shaking, but she was more composed now.

Wherever she had come from, it was clear that she wasn’t used to this type of thing. Nonetheless, she was adjusting.

“What do you mean about a star sealing over hell?” Jeric turned to look at her, frowning. “I’ve never heard that story.”

“Don't you have a church where you're from?” Ayala answered as she turned towards him. She was still trying not to look at Sam. “It’s well known and part of the church's doctrine....”

Since her father was so involved with the church, she had grown up surrounded by its teachings. To her, these things were as plain as day, like learning to read. How could they not know this?

To Sam and Jeric, however, it was new information. They didn't have much to do with the tiny church in their village. They had rarely even stepped inside it.

If something was common knowledge there, they didn’t know anything about it. It was also possible that their church was too small and unofficial to have any real information.

“You mean a Breaking of the World Law...,” Sam asked, drawing her attention back to him. He saw her flinch, but that didn't stop him as he continued, “The legend that it’s been destroyed and remade?”

Ayala hesitated, frozen in place, but then she slowly turned towards Sam. She looked into the space between him and Krana. In the end, she answered.

“Yes..., broken by demons and Outsiders. That’s why you...,” her voice trailed off for a moment. “Well, you...look like a demon from those stories, although I...trust Krana when she says you’re not.”

“There are Outsiders involved in breaking the world?” Sam asked, frowning. The Guardian’s words were running through his mind, but he didn’t know how everything fit together.

Was this what he had been warning him about?

The Guardian had said that he needed to protect the World Law and that something was tampering with the seal, which had created flaws. Also, that if he didn’t stop it, the world was at stake.

Did this girl actually know what the Guardian was talking about? Or was this some information he could get from the church?

“Yes, Outsiders...,” Ayala sighed as she started to explain. This was a topic that she was familiar with. As she spoke, some of the color in her face began to return.

“My father is constantly talking about them.... It’s almost the entirety of what he talks about when he sees me. They are a source of constant frustration that takes up the attention of nearly every high-level individual in Osera, and perhaps in the world. It’s why you don’t see Second or Third Evolution people very often.”

“Who is your father?” Jeric interrupted, as her words caught his attention. If this girl could speak so easily of Second and Third Evolutions..., she definitely didn’t come from a normal family.

Ayala’s expression grew hesitant, but when Krana nodded at her encouragingly, she answered.

“My father is a Paladin of Law in Osera, one of the major defenders of the city. That's a paladin of the Church of the World Law. He’s at his Second Evolution, which is World Knight.”

Sam frowned as he heard it. Second Evolution meant her father was over Level 200!

It also meant that this girl...was about as close as it got to being a princess of the church.

He wanted to know more about the seal and what the girl knew, but there was another question on his mind too. One that was more obvious.

What sort of father would send his daughter to the Abyssinian Plains with just a few guards...?

“Why did you come here?” he asked, focusing on her as he let that question take precedence for a moment. This didn't sound like a normal leisure trip for a princess. “This isn’t a normal place to adventure.... Why did your father allow that?”

A moment later, as Krana nodded to her again, Ayala slowly filled in the answer.

“I have a...class to unlock that requires me to come here. He...thought it would be easy enough to do, so he didn’t pay much attention, I suppose....”

Instead of saying anything more, Ayala asked a question of her own as she looked between Sam and Jeric.

“Who are you two and how did you get here? If you’re not a demon, then what are you?” Ayala held her gaze on Sam for the first time.

“I’m Jeric Hastern, and this is my son, Sam.” His father answered the question. It wasn’t the first time he’d given his name, but it was apparently the first time Ayala was listening.

“Hastern...,” Ayala murmured to herself, her eyebrows scrunching up in confusion. After a moment, she shook her head, as if something didn’t make sense.

“We were exploring an Outsider ruin,...” Sam began, explaining the basic concept of what had happened, from the initial teleportation to their trip here. It took a little while, and by the time he was done, the two girls were staring at him in surprise.

Even the guards on the other side of the cavern had begun to listen in. Their expressions were closed, but they were silent for now. Perhaps something in the story would help them to understand what was really going on.

“I’ve...never heard of anything like that happening before,” Ayala finally said. “Outsider ruins are very dangerous though. The church investigates all of them and tries to destroy them. You shouldn’t have gone into that one.”

“We know,” Jeric interrupted, his eyes tilting toward the unseen heavens. If they hadn't gone into the ruins..., Sam would never have unlocked his class.

He kept that part to himself as he brought the conversation back to what they were going to do now.

“But you were telling us about Outsiders and...,” he turned to look at Krana, “how that fits into the Seer's vision.”

For once, the conversation between the two parties was becoming productive as the two guards stayed silent in their part of the camp. Sam leaned forward to hear what Ayala had to say.

This was the information that he needed to know. Or, at least, it was the church's perspective of how the world worked. Maybe it would fit with what the Guardian had told him to do.

“Alright...,” Ayala said, as her thoughts turned toward church doctrine. “According to the church, the world is a star that fell from heaven..., sealing over the path to hell. That is why it is called Aster Fall. Aster means 'star' in an old dialect. There are also rumors that there was a world here before that, and that something happened..., resulting in a vast, ancient war between humans and Outsiders, which turned all of Aster Fall into a battlefield.

"Some say that was when the star fell, ...that it sealed off that battlefield and made the world what it is now.” Ayala continued to think through things as she added more details.

“The church says that Outsiders are still trying to constantly get into the world because they want to steal that star, or maybe 'stars' since there’s more than one in some versions..., and it is our job to protect it. The levels we gain are the World’s Blessing to help us in that task and the flow of experience is a holy force that empowers the world, the seal that prevents Outsiders from entering, and us, the worshipers.”

"Wait, the seal that prevents Outsiders from entering is connected to experience?" Sam interrupted, his attention locking onto that point.

She knew what was happening with experience gain? Did she know why there was a maximum then, and why you only got half of the experience from a monster? And what did she mean by saying that it was connected to the seal?

Were they talking about the same seal here?

“Experience is a type of energy, right?” Ayala responded easily, as if it were a self-evident fact. “That energy is part of the world. According to my father, it’s what maintains the seal over hell...the one that the world is blocking. You don’t get all of the monster’s experience because the rest of it goes to that.”

Since her father was so involved with the church, she had grown up surrounded by its teachings. To her, these things were as plain as day, like learning to read. How could they not know this?

“So the flow of experience is also the flow of energy in the world seal?” Sam muttered to himself as he thought out loud. And the World Law was taking some of it to maintain the seal? Is that what the Guardian had meant by the whole world being part of the seal?

“And the seal is imprisoning or blocking Outsiders...." he said aloud. "So, what are the flaws in the seal then?”

“Flaws?” Ayala frowned as she listened to him, distracted enough that she focused on his words and not his appearance for once. “That’s what my father calls the points where Outsiders break through. Those are the flaws or holes in the seal. I think they can be other things too though, like places where the World Law can't reach, although to suggest that sort of thing is blasphemous, according to some priests.”

For all of her background, it wasn't like she believed everything she'd heard. Many people questioned the World Law's decisions from time to time.

Her words started to bring together many of Sam's ideas, including things the Guardian had mentioned. Maybe that was why he hadn't explained more..., if it was supposed to be common knowledge? He had said he was short on time.

As for flaws where the World Law didn't reach...apparently his class was one of them too, but he wasn't going to tell all of his secrets to a random girl he had just met, even if she was friends with a dwarven Seer who'd had a vision about him.

Still..., he reached up to rub his chin as he thought. “Have you ever heard about fixing a flaw?”

“No..., just blocking them or killing the things that come out of them,” Ayala replied immediately. “I think that...over time, if there’s enough experience flowing around the world, the flaws are supposed to heal over again. Haven’t you ever been to the church before? These are common topics of the sermons.”

“Tell me what you know, please,” Sam demanded, ignoring the dig. He’d never had a good relationship with the church or a reason to spend time in it. The church was focused on the World Law and on leveling, which had been denied to his family. “What does the church say about the seal, Outsiders, and the world?”

“Experience is the flow of energy into the seal...,” Ayala repeated again. “Part of it comes to us, to strengthen us to fight, and part of it goes to heal the world and the keep hell sealed over. That’s why only monsters give experience....

"Humans and civilized races are supposed to be the holy defenders, while the monsters are part of the world and return to it when they die, strengthening us and the world at the same time. Some people even think that they are the souls or fragments of Outsiders that have been left behind...and that their energy turns into a sort of monster as the world processes it. At any rate, it is our job to slay them and support the seal.”

Ayala paused for a moment as she pulled the rest of her thoughts together and then added some more information.

“When an Outsider invades, they threaten the balance of the world.... We need to fight them and make sure that they are never able to gain the things that they are after. If they do, the world will shatter and the gods will have to step in and rebuild it again. That's a Breaking..., which is what Krana's vision sounded like. It's the end of the world."

She turned to look towards her friend as she paled again. Her father had also scared her with stories about that. He was a very devout follower of the church.

“The church says that it has happened before when we’ve failed in our duty, and everyone in the world died...that the World Law was broken and remade.”

“If there are gods out there, can’t they stop that from happening?” Jeric muttered as he gazed upwards.

“I don’t know...," Ayala replied, "but it is said that the gods can’t reach the world and that this is a testing ground for our faith. It is our duty to protect the seal and the world, to prevent Outsiders from invading, and to constantly level up in order to give the world the energy that it needs to stay strong. If we fail, both the world and the realm of the gods is at stake.

“In those stories, there's always one type of Outsider who is the most dangerous of them all, even more than giant beasts or strange monsters...." Ayala’s words trailed off as she turned to look at Sam, her face paling again.

"The most dangerous Outsiders...are the demons who look like you.”