Ch078-What A Lovely Day (Patreon)

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Ch078-What A Lovely Day

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“If more adventurers were as willing to mind their business as you were, I would be out of a job. How was he? Did he eat?” the man with the gold plate asked.

It was the same stern-faced man that had spoken to Sylver back when he had recovered the tags from his first quest involving giants. Even though only a year had passed, the man looked significantly older than he had back then.

He had shaved his short blond hair away and was now completely bald. In contrast, he had grown a dark beard, that was greying at the roots, and had tied the thing into a simple braid. The scar that went down his head had healed into a less offensive version, it was flush with the skin now, and no longer appeared irritated.

His voice on the other hand, now matched his appearance.

“Basil? He seemed fine. It’s hard to tell with an elf unless you spend enough time with them, they’re much subtler than humans or other races. And yes, he ate a green mush and used a piece of dried bread to scoop it out. Tasted like over-salted onions, but not quite, and much chewier than its appearance suggested,” Sylver answered.

“He… He let you try it?” the man with a gold plate asked.

“We traded. I had some really good dried meat from Ron and Basil wanted to try it. Why?” Sylver asked.

“He uh… I don’t know how to explain this without going against his wishes of keeping you in the dark as much as possible… He doesn’t share food… It’s something he’s almost known for. I apologize for mentioning it, please forget I said anything,” the man with the gold plate said. Sylver shrugged.

“It’s not a problem… I was planning on giving these to Shera after this, but I’m fairly certain they would end up with you anyway,” Sylver said, as he reached into his robe and removed the makeshift bag full of adventurer’s tags.

Sylver placed it onto the table and removed the string that kept the bundle together. A small mound of gold and silver plates sat between Sylver and the man, with a few iron and copper ones mixed into them.

Spring appeared at Sylver’s side a moment later and placed all the silver jewelry with a white stone embedded into it onto the table. The jewelry mound was bigger, but only because some of the pendants came with thick chains and added to the volume. Everything was silver coated, to be precise, and of a low enough purity that it didn’t have any of the annoying anti darkness effects.

Sylver felt rather sorry for the gold-tagged man, as his eyes watered slightly at the sight of the tags and jewelry. He took a deep breath and used a handkerchief to dab at his eyes before he spoke.

“The bodies?” the man asked.

“I burned them. They died instantly, the density of the dark miasma overpowered whatever they were using to resist it, and they dropped dead before they knew what hit them,” Sylver explained.

He decided there wasn’t much point telling the man he harvested their skin and flesh to create temporary bodies for Flesh and Bones. He would burn the temporary bodies once he had proper ones made, so he wasn’t lying about burning them, only about when he burned them.

The man stared at the two piles and snapped his fingers. Both of them disappeared simultaneously.

“What are you after?” the man asked. His tone changed completely as if he wasn’t about to burst into tears a moment ago.

“I take it you mean specifically in terms of adventuring and quests and the like… Increasing my level, I guess? Money, tools, weapons, and anything that would make me stronger. There’s something I want, that will be impossible to get without being significantly more powerful than I am now, but it isn’t something you would be able to help with,” Sylver answered.

The man with the gold tag leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His head bobbed ever so slightly, as he seemed to be counting something, and he spoke with his eyes still closed.

“You aren’t the first solo adventurer to go from level 3 to level 73 in under a year. If anything, compared to them you’re a fair bit behind. Mage classes in particular often give you all the tools you need to create a good enough advantage on a monster of a higher level…” the man said.

“I think I’ve done quite well, all things considered,” Sylver said. The man nodded and continued.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asked. It didn’t sound like a threat; it was the first time someone had asked Sylver the question without any malice behind it. He was just genuinely asking if Sylver knew who he was.

“Going by the fact that your tag is gold, I would guess branch manager or something of that nature? Maybe a specialist regarding whatever the rings with white stone are about? But no, I haven’t asked anyone about your identity, and up until I found those rings I quite honestly forgot you existed,” Sylver answered.

“These are… a separate matter from everything else. A bit personal, and not something I’m comfortable discussing, and you wouldn’t be interested in,” the man said.

“I’m more curious than you give me credit for, but I’ve learned a while ago that sticking your nose into everything you see, very rarely works out well. A kind of wider application of ‘don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear an answer to’,” Sylver explained. The man sat properly and opened his eyes.

“It’s a good attitude to have. When you defeated Samuel, were you going all out?” the man asked.

“Who?”

“Samuel Du’Rodier,” the man repeated.

“…Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to rest properly, who is Samuel?” Sylver asked. The man’s eyes widened slightly.

“The guy who stepped on you, and you crippled him in the arena below the guild,” Spring said, whispering through the shadow in Sylver’s ear.

“Oh! Yes, Samuel, I remember now, what about him?” Sylver asked before the man had a chance to say anything.

“When you fought him, were you going all out?”

“No. I took it seriously, but I can’t say I was giving it everything I had,” Sylver answered.

“Hypothetically, would you be able to win if there were 4 of him?”

“Are you asking if I would be able to beat a party of 4 D rank adventurers by myself?” Sylver asked.

“A hypothetical party of 4 level 80 adventurers,” the man said.

“At the risk of sounding arrogant, almost certainly,” Sylver answered. He understood that fighting people who were 30 levels above you when you are level 20, isn’t the same as fighting people 10 levels above you when you are level 70. But Sylver had faced worse odds before and came out ahead, and Sylver didn’t get the feeling saying he’s weak would do him any good.

The man sat quietly for a while and simply stared at Sylver.

“In that case, congratulations are in order. I’ll let Mira know to give you access to the second floor so you can pick a C rank quest to be tested on. You’ll be accompanied by an observer, and if you manage to complete the quest successfully, you’ll officially become a D rank adventurer… What did you call the elf who gave you this letter again?” the man asked.

“Basil.”

“Right. There would normally be at least a 6-month period between going from E rank to D rank, but Basil is very rarely wrong with things like these. He was somewhat vague regarding why exactly you can be trusted, but his word is good enough for me. Quite honestly, you’re the first human he’s described as “dependable”,” the man said.

Not to mention, with the royal family involved, Sylver already knew why exactly they were so carefull to “reward” him.

“On top of that I’m guessing there’s something I know or saw, that you wouldn’t want me to tell anyone about,” Sylver said.

“Since we’re being honest with each other, I’m almost certain you don’t even realize what exactly the damaging information is. I’m hoping this would be enough to buy your compliance and silence. You don’t want to get involved, so you’re getting what you want, I’m getting what I want, everyone walks away happy,” the man offered.

Sylver quietly thought about it for a few seconds.

“I’d like for Shera to be promoted. I like working with her and would like to continue to. With my luck, I’ll run into something even more important soon, and I’d like her to be my representative, even when I’m C, B, A, or SSS rank… And I have a friend that’s looking into working in the guild, and I’d things to go as smoothly as possible for him. If he’s useless, he’s useless, I won’t ask you to employ him if he can’t work, but I’d like for everything to be expedited as much as possible. He’ll be in Arda in about a week or so,” Sylver said.

The man answered so quickly, Sylver wondered if he should have asked for more.

“Done. Give me a day to sort everything out. And as before-”

“This conversation never happened,” Sylver finished.

Sylver made an effort to remember the man’s face, given that he didn’t question or laugh at the possibility of Sylver reaching SSS rank. They shook hands, and Sylver went downstairs to hand in Lola’s quests and transfer Shawn the 3,700 gold.

*

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Just like all the other times, Sylver had come in during the day, he regretted it. The adventurer’s guild was crowded, loud, smelled like sweat and beer, and there were so many people being passively healed that Sylver’s skin crawled.

One of the F rank parties standing near the front saw that Sylver was holding a stack of quests, and saw the giant bag full of coins Spring was holding next to him, and let him go ahead of them. Sylver thanked the small party of humans and handed Shera the papers and the reward. A new girl Sylver hadn’t seen before took the bag of coins from him and went to the backroom to confirm the amount, while Shera handled categorizing the quests by rank and difficulty.

“Considering she’s paying 2 times the normal reward, I would be willing to bet all of these will be completed by the end of the week. None of these are particularly difficult, tedious would be a better word for them,” Shera said, as she handed a portion to a guild employee standing next to Sylver, and the blond man went to the board to start posting the F, E, and D rank quests.

“Good to hear. I’m looking for something a little strange. I’ve recently learned the requirements for a perk, and I need to defeat a warrior and a mage. Are there any quests that would have that?” Sylver asked.

“Do you need to fight them at the same time?” Shera asked.

“No, but it isn’t a problem if they’re together, it would be better for me in fact,” Sylver said.

Shera did something behind her desk while Sylver quietly waited. A large portion of the people standing behind him had moved towards the quest board and were going to the end of the line after changing the quest they were taking. They sounded quite excited about it.

“A woman and her child were kidnapped 2 days ago. Witnesses said the kidnapper was a mage that used wooden golems. The level is unknown, but the guild has estimated somewhere around the low 50s or 60s, based on the area and other factors. The reward is 400 gold if the woman and daughter are alive, and 100 gold for the kidnapper’s corpse,” Shera read out.

“Does the woman have any blood relatives?” Sylver asked. Shera quietly read to herself for a minute.

“Her sister is the one who created the quest, so yes. I don’t know about other family, it doesn’t mention it,” Shera said.

“That’s fine, I’ll take that one then. And the warrior?”

“This isn’t exactly a quest, but there’s a bounty on a thief that has a warrior-type class. The person who was stolen from has a way to track the items, and the bounty is 250 gold. Since you’re doing this to meet a perk’s requirements, this would be the easiest way,” Shera read.

“It’s fine, I’ll take it anyway. And Ron from Ron’s Rest has a quest here, finding a Shuba, I’d like to take that one too,” Sylver said.

Shera looked through her papers for a while and finally had to ask the blond man standing nearby to go and find Ron’s quest from the board.

“I also need a quest clearing bandits,” Sylver said, as Shera looked over Ron’s E rank quest.

“What is it with you and bandits?” Shera asked.

“My class favors humanoid enemies; I don’t know what to tell you,” Sylver said.

“There aren’t any nearby. The army’s mowed through the forest and ‘recruited’ everyone they could find. The only ones left are so well hidden, that we don’t know about them… You could go talk to one of the generals, they might give you the location of enemy camps?” Shera offered. Sylver considered it.

“Who exactly is Arda fighting exactly?” Sylver asked.

“Well, at the moment, there are two wars. Two major ones at least, in the north, and the west. The northern war is with the Karoks, they’re mostly dwarves and gnomes, or at least they’re decedents of them. Among other things, they have a very powerful resistance to magic, and Arda and the nearby territories mostly rely on mages for their defenses, so that’s been at a standstill for a few months now,” Shera explained.

“That’s out then, and the western war? I remember hearing about it starting not too long ago,” Sylver said.

“About 8 months, but the official declaration was much more recent. Humans, oddly enough. Nomadic tribes, looking to pillage the continent for everything it’s worth. As I said, go talk to a general, they’ll be able to explain the situation a whole lot better than me. The adventurer’s guild had a strict neutrality policy in cases such as these, we neither reward, nor punish, adventurers for joining the war, you’re free to act as you wish, but without our backing,” Shera said.

She took Sylver’s adventurer’s tag from him and tapped it onto the three sheets of paper before giving the tag, along with the papers, back to him.

“Before I go, I’d like 3,700 gold to be transferred to a Shawn Bitzer,” Sylver said.

Shera still looked tired but the smallest of smiles tugged at the edge of Shera’s lips. She forced her face back into its regular polite and neutral expression before it could even be called a smile. Sylver could have sworn he heard a suppressed squeal as he walked away and left the guild building.

*

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“Wouldn’t wooden golems imply a druid?” Spring asked.

Sylver sat opposite the shade and picked his nails with the edge of a dart, while Will adjusted his wings to take advantage of the warm updraft.

“Not necessarily. Golems aren’t inherently difficult to make, they’re just expensive and time-consuming. But assuming the kidnapping wasn’t done for personal, or money-related reasons, a shaman is a more likely answer than druid,” Sylver explained, as he moved onto the next nail.

“Shamans implies gods thought, I thought you did everything you could to stay away from them?” Spring asked.

“Not gods, deities. Lesser gods, kind of. Gods, at least the big ones, are born from the merging of dead souls, their interaction with the living world, and are heavily restricted and limited. When they do decide to interact with it, they can sink an island on a whim. But generally, they have their priests or agents handle things,” Sylver said.

It amazed him how much dried blood there was under his nails, despite how careful he always was, and how often he washed his hands.

“And deities?”

“Unlike gods, they’re limited by the Gellmann constant, as well as a bunch of self-imposed restrictions. They can use the equivalent of 10th tier magic, maybe, but that’s their limit. More often than not they’re harmless. Something like demons, but weaker and much less violent, they can bend the rules of magic, but can’t break them. Some circles call them “spirits” in the same sense that fairies or djinns are. Shamans are essentially more powerful sorcerers, but with more rules,” Sylver said.

Spring sat quietly for a while and double-checked the map against the river below. They were nearing the village, and Spring made Will fly closer to the ground.

“2 days though… They’re probably dead by now, aren’t they?” Spring asked.

“Who knows? Some rituals require the sacrifice to be prepared in a certain way. Either filled up with drugs, tortured to a breaking point, or something deity specific, like forcing her to mutilate herself by threatening the child. It’s hard to guess with these things, we can only hope it’s one of the tamer types. If we’re lucky she’s unharmed and merely forced to starve until she’s willing to eat human flesh or something of the like. People can go up to 3 months without food, assuming their mana core isn’t defective,” Sylver explained.

He finished cleaning his nails and lay back on the wyvern. The sky was almost completely clear, it was a beautiful day, in a certain sense.

Then again the greatest tragedies tended to occur on beautiful days such as this.

*

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Sylver could have been honest with the villagers, could have explained that blood magic wasn’t inherently evil, could have asked them if the lives of their 2 people were less important than remaining untainted by dark magic. That would have taken time, he would very likely need to convince them, and there would be a chance they really did care about their beliefs more than they cared about the woman and her kid.

Or…

Sylver could just distract everyone while Spring searched the kidnapped woman’s house and found old bandages from the woman’s hand injury, and brought them to Sylver once he left the village.

Suffice to say, Sylver chose the second option. He’d be honest with them when he wasn’t in a rush, and when he didn’t get the feeling these people were likely to lynch him if they ever found out he was a necromancer.

*

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“What’s the point of having a hidden lair, if you’re going to surround it with guards? I mean, really? What’s going through his mind?” Sylver asked as he continued to walk towards the aforementioned ‘secret’ lair.

Instead of stepping over it, Sylver purposely kicked his way through the tripwire and activated the trap. Two giant wooden logs came from either side and shattered against one another as they met in the middle, right on Sylver’s torso.

Sylver’s legs continued to walk, unimpeded by the fact that his top half had turned into smoke. Sylver’s torso and arms reformed perfectly fine a moment later, and Sylver adjusted the mask on his face as poison-tipped darts flew through his body, and embedded themselves into the tree trunks on the other side.

“He probably didn’t think there was a chance anyone would be able to get a bird’s eye view of the area. The distortion field is relatively strong, and we only saw it on our third flyover. Plus, I’m fairly certain the golems activated after we landed,” Spring countered.

Sylver nodded as a giant piece of wood, riddled with metallic spikes, harmlessly swung through him.

“I do like that he’s stopping people from teleporting. It likely means he can’t teleport,” Sylver said, as a string released in the distance and a razor-sharp wire passed through Sylver’s torso as if he were made of soft cheese. The floor disappeared beneath Sylver’s feet and a deep dark hole threatened to swallow him up.

He continued to walk unimpeded as if it wasn’t there and didn’t even glance down at the snakes lying in wait below.

Sylver triggered two more traps at a leisurely pace before he replaced himself with a shade and turned into smoke. Sylver left Spring with the sacrificial shades and moved through the dense branches towards the entrance.

Sylver heard another crash behind him, and felt the same weak wave of mana move from the trap, towards the area he was going towards. Sylver slowed down slightly as he approached the area, and made a small hole in the earth below. He extended the hole towards the cave entrance and funneled himself through it.

Two large wooden golems were hidden in two holes in the cave’s ceiling. They were in the fetal position, their arms and legs folded up against their bodies to take up as little space as possible. Sylver checked how much mana he had left after digging a hole to get here, and decided he had enough for this.

The stone around the two golems compressed and kept compressing until their small hiding spot became too small to drop out of or move. Sylver materialized, and the two holes closed up entirely. Something dripped down from the ceiling, as Spring set off another trap, and another message was sent towards the person inside the cave.

The cave was wonderfully made, it was clean, the flooring was coarse and not slippery, and there was a strange smell of lavender in the air. The light that came from the entrance bounced off the shiny walls and illuminated the whole thing quite well.

Sylver’s boots didn’t make any sound as he silently walked through the cave. He felt another wave pass through him, as Spring set off another trap. Sylver continued to walk and smiled ever so slightly as he heard the sound of wood hitting wood, and someone muttering to himself in a panicked tone. Sylver waited for Spring to spring another trap.

As Sylver felt the wave pass over him, he smashed the door and ran inside the room. Sylver’s feet were already running towards the man in the process of enchanting an extra-large wooden golem when the man looked up at him. Sylver snapped his fingers, and the entire room was illuminated by a blinding white light.

The man screamed, and the giant golem swung at Sylver.

Sylver moved out of the way, and jumped into the air, as the golem swung again and missed. Sylver ignored it and jumped off its arm to close the distance. He reached the man and managed to place his hand onto his forehead.

The man’s robe tore open, as hundreds of barely visible metallic strings exploded out of it and wrapped themselves around Sylver. The man continued to scream, even as the strings tightened around Sylver’s body and cut deep into his robe.

Sylver stepped out from behind the broken-down door and ran past the tied-up Reg. He turned into smoke for a moment and appeared behind the still screaming man. Sylver kicked the back of the man’s knee and forced him to the ground in a tight chokehold. The strings that were wrapped around Reg starved to unravel, but before they could retract or curl away, more shades appeared next to Reg and were caught by the strings.

Sylver stabbed a finger into the screaming shaman’s eye and sent a pulse of mana through the man’s head. He stopped screaming and became completely limp almost instantly.

Sylver rolled the man’s body off him and used his robe to help him stand up. The giant wooden golem, the strings, and according to Spring, the wooden golems that had gathered at the entrance, all went limp simultaneously. Spring took the destroyed shades with him and appeared inside the cave along with Sylver.

“You’ll have to replace that eye,” Spring said, as Sylver walked over to the mother and child, and rusted the lock before ripping it off.

“I’ll need to replace a lot, the man is missing his right leg, left shoulder, and his organs don’t feel all that healthy either,” Sylver said, as he inspected the two of them and was surprised to find they were largely unharmed. Although both of their heads were recently shaved.

Dai and Sho both helped Sylver gently pull them out of the cage, and carried them outside, while Sylver looked around the place. Half-finished wooden golems littered the walls and table space, along with various wooden body parts in various stages of completion.

Sylver picked up one of the half-finished heads to inspect and didn’t like what he felt when he sent a pulse of mana through it. Sylver put the head down gently and placed a hand on the giant wooden golem.

“Gather all the golems, and make a pile in that corner,” Sylver ordered, as he pointed towards one of the walls.

Sylver stabbed the giant wooden golem in the chest and wiggled the dagger back and forth until the wood cracked open. Sylver shoved his hands into the crack, and nearly pulled a muscle as he forced it open.

A lavender-scented liquid spilled out of the empty shell, followed along by stitched-up hearts, lungs, and intestines. The organs spread out on the coarse floor and floated away from the giant immobile golem. Sylver coated his hand in darkness and pulled more of the organs out, as he carefully placed his head inside the thing.

“Technically speaking, this is a very rudimentary form of necromancy,” Sylver said. His voice echoed as it bounced around the giant golems empty torso.

Spring silently carried on moving the surprisingly heavy wooden golems towards the corner. They sloshed as they were lifted and moved.

“I was wrong. He’s just a sorcerer, not a shaman. A shaman wouldn’t be this inefficient,” Sylver said.

Sylver walked over to the unconscious sorcerer and used [Identify] on him.

[Human (Dark Sorcerer + ??? ) – 61]
[HP-1,700]
[MP-593]

“Did you find any notes?” Sylver asked. Spring shook his head.

“Figures. What a classic sorcerer thing to do. I bet he built all of these on pure instinct… Find the most intact one you can, and move it outside,” Sylver said. Spring nodded and did just that.

“With mages, at least they keep a record of what they found and what they’re doing. Sorcerers are worthless in that regard, they know things they shouldn’t and use magic that shouldn’t work, it’s such a waste of time fighting them,” Sylver complained. Spring perked up at this.

“Is Bones going to be a sorcerer then?” Spring asked.

“What? No, why would he? He’s a mage, I checked. Sorcerers and mages are the same on a biological level, it’s their mana that’s different. Since Bones’s core will be his, he’ll be a mage, albeit a very weak one,” Sylver said.

“Why are we giving him a magically capable body? Wouldn’t we want him as defenseless as possible, in the event he tries something?” Spring asked.

“I trust him… And he’s an extra layer of defense for Lola once he gains a bit more power. Worst case scenario, I snap my fingers and his soul is disconnected from his body and snaps back to his real body trapped inside the crypt,” Sylver explained.

“And if he undoes whatever you do?” Spring asked. He found a wooden golem that was completely intact and sent it away to be moved to the entrance.

“I want to say he can’t, but I’ve lived long enough to know nothing is impossible. It would take him a long time to do it without me noticing. But I’m giving the two of them the benefit of the doubt right now. It’s worth the risk if I can figure out how the traitor managed to reincarnate so many times. Who knows? Maybe the two of them have the secret to time travel hidden somewhere inside their curse?” Sylver said.

Spring nodded and continued to pile up the wooden golems, while Sylver looked around the room and checked if there was anything worth taking from here. It was amazing how much a man could achieve using a woodworker’s tools and some specialized surgical equipment. Sylver threw everything onto the pile of golems and didn’t take a thing.

*

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*

Sylver waited until the fire spread everywhere, before blocking up the cave and sealing it inside. The wooden golems were very flammable, as was the liquid the organs inside of them were suspended in. He normally would have waited for them to burn all the way through, but he didn’t have the time right now.

The sorcerer’s body was gently wrapped up and hidden inside a makeshift casket. Sylver performed very minor surgery on the back of the sorcerer’s head and ensured that there wouldn’t be any brain damage. The man was effectively in a coma and would remain so until Sylver replaced his soul with Bones’s. Despite very likely deserving some sort of torture and punishment for the methods through which he created his golems, Sylver didn’t see the point of it.

They were all dead and now burned, any torture inflicted on him wouldn’t change anything. It would just be a waste of time and effort and would run the risk of the man doing something that ended up with him escaping. Keeping him in a coma and blissfully unaware of his fate was better, and easier.

The woman was named Nika. And her daughter was called Tesa. There was a great deal of crying on their parts, that Sylver understood but wasn’t prepared to deal with. When they asked about the ‘others’ Sylver lied and said they were the only ones there. He told the same lie to the village chief, and only later told Shera what he’d actually found. He kept the details brief and short, but Shera’s face turned pale regardless.

Apparently, the number of golems the sorcerer had in his lair that Sylver burned matched closely to the 39 women and children that had been kidnapped in that area over the several months. Sylver accepted 400 gold for the quest, given that the sorcerer was caught in an explosion and Sylver hadn’t managed to touch his body with his tag to confirm his death.

The weather was beautiful for flying thought.

*

*

*

With the level being unknown, the bounty was a gamble. The warrior apparently entered the store by punching his way through the reinforced door and was able to outrun the guards and disappear into the sewer systems. Sylver spoke to the merchant and was given two metallic rods with the numbers N177 on one, and H013 on the other.

Placing the two on a string, Sylver watched them pull ever so slightly towards one direction. He took the two rods and said he would be back with the stolen gauntlets and boots. When Sylver asked if they needed the thief’s body, he got a very strange look from the merchant, until Sylver explained that his magic didn’t leave traces if he had to fight seriously.

The merchant answered that as long as the items were returned, he didn’t particularly care about the thief.

Sylver found the main entrance into the sewers easily enough. He’d been here before when Nameless’s group had originally kidnapped him. Although they showed him a deserted area he could enter and exit from, Sylver decided there wasn’t any point in being covert about this. With Ron’s ability to create a door directly into Sylver’s workshop, Sylver left the sorcerer's body inside and would do the same once he found the thief and incapacitated him.

Apparently, Ron had a very large number of “doors” hidden all over Arda, and it somewhat explained why he was affiliated with the Cord and the cats and just about everyone and everything. Sneaking contraband inside with this ability was probably so easy, it felt like cheating.

Sylver had planned to sneak up on the thief, he was prepared to chase after him, but what he wasn’t prepared for was a half-naked man wearing nothing but steel gauntlets and steel boots waiting for him. Other than that, he had a loincloth that was tied far too tightly around the things it was meant to hide

[??? (Warrior + Warrior + Warrior) – 44]
[HP- 9,999]
[MP-0]

There was something strange about the man, that Sylver couldn’t put his finger on. The man just stood there, as Sylver calmly approached him. It was only when Sylver looked at him with his [Mana Perception] did he realize what he was seeing.

“Ah… You know, I sometimes have a hard time not believing in fate,” Sylver said, as he continued to walk towards the half-naked man.

“Why?” The man asked. Boy by the pitch of his voice. Sylver approached the half-naked boy.

“Because I was hoping to meet a cultivator, but I didn’t plan on it. You being here makes my life about 10 times easier,” Sylver answered. Sylver stopped walking.

“I think you’re going to find your life is about to get a whole lot more difficult with me being a cultivator. For one, I can hurt you even mid teleportation. For two, I’m immune to magic. For three, I’m faster, stronger, and smarter than you. And for four, I’m-”

“You’re not immune to magic,” Sylver corrected. The boy laughed slightly, but it sounded more like a giggle with his voice.

“I am. I walked right through their barrier, and it didn’t so much as touch me,” the boy argued.

“Fair enough, let me rephrase. You’re not immune to dark magic,” Sylver said. The boy raised an eyebrow as he puffed out his chest.

“How about a wager? If you can’t take me down with one hit, you hand over those two plates, and let me go? And if you do, then you may do with me as you wish,” the boy offered.

Sylver cautiously raised an eyebrow at this but realized that with the temple of Ra around, the chances this kid had ever met anyone who could use enough dark magic to harm him was close to zero. Just because people call something dark magic, doesn’t necessarily mean it was dark magic.

A better man might have spared the kid and listened to his story and the reason as to why he decided to steal armor when he very likely could have easily earned the amount the two pieces cost. Sylver could have told him that this isn’t how a martial artist, or a cultivator, should act and offered him guidance and the like.

But Sylver hadn’t had a chance to sleep on something that wasn’t flying at a breakneck speed for over a week and wasn’t as good of a man as people something considered him to be.

And more honestly, this type of arrogant bullshit gave cultivators a bad name, and Sylver didn’t like that.

“Sure,” Sylver said. He reached to his left and pitch-black smoke escaped from his sleeve. It floated aimlessly around his hand and snapped into a familiar shape in a single motion.

“Since you’re putting your life on the line, I’ll answer you in kind. This is called the Forbidden Unholy Scythe of Life, Loss, and Love. I can only use it once every 20 years, and you should consider yourself fortunate to meet your end by such a legendary weapon only available to those who have mastered the art of death,” Sylver said with a shuddering voice.

Sylver didn’t know what irked him more. That the boy looked slightly scared, or that he looked slightly excited.

“Ready?” Sylver asked. A stupid question, but then again this worked better if the opponent was ready for it and focused on the scythe. Sylver’s other hand held a dagger that was hidden inside his sleeve.

The boy took a deep breath before he nodded.

A small piece of Sylver was skeptical. The kid was too sure, there was something he was missing. As a precaution, Sylver spread his shades around the place to check for anything suspicious.

Sylver took the proper stance when attacking with a scythe, and took a deep breath before he started to run. The bricks crackled beneath Sylver’s feet as he ran, right up until the point that the wall to his left exploded and sent Sylver’s body flying to the other side.

Sylver heard a shrill laugh, followed by a gargled scream as Spring’s garrote tightened around the kid’s neck and he was punched in the chest and stomach until he passed out.

Sylver lay beneath the smoldering rubble, while he reflected on himself.

I really need a break, a god damn child outsmarted me.

Sylver turned into smoke and limped over towards the blue-faced boy. He had Spring flip him over, and used the hand that wasn’t bent the wrong way to gently stop the brain from functioning, without causing irreversible brain damage.

[Human (Rogue + Rogue) – 31]
[HP- 620]
[MP-410]

“How much of what he said do you think was a bluff?” Sylver asked. He had been too far away to feel the boy’s soul and felt embarrassed more than anything.

“I don’t know… Half? Maybe?” Spring offered. He was about to say something when Sylver nearly fell down and had to be propped up to stay upright.

“I think my pelvis is broken,” Sylver said. He made the robe part to see the damage and saw a chunk of metal sticking out of his side. He ripped it out and used his hand to inspect further down and breathed a sigh of relief when everything important was still in one piece.

Sylver sent a pulse of mana through his own body, and just about every bone on his left side was either fractured or broken.

“So he pretended to be a warrior to lure people down here? Trap-based class? He didn’t use so much as a drop of magic, and I don’t see a trigger or anything on him. Timed or motion sensor?” Sylver hypothesized.

“Does it really matter? You won, he lost,” Spring said.

Sylver ran his tongue over his teeth and found several missing.

“Doesn’t feel like a victory. But you’re right, any fight you can walk away from is a victory… There are undead in Ron’s place, one of them is bound to have an undead healing skill or something,” Sylver said.

“Think of it like this. You were overconfident and paid the price. Now you’ll be more careful in the future,” Spring offered.

Sylver tightened his robe around himself to stop the bone fragments from moving around too much. Several had pierced through the skin, but Sylver had already numbed his entire body.

“This wasn’t an overconfidence issue; this was plain stupid. The system said he was a [Warrior] and I didn’t even consider the possibility he wasn’t. I fucked up, it is what it is. You would think there would come a point in life when I’m past learning anything, and yet here we are,” Sylver said. He reached up to scratch his left ear and found it hanging on by a very thin thread. Sylver used some darkness to force it back in place.

“What did you learn?” Sprint asked. The question was genuine, but Sylver couldn’t help but hear it as mocking.

“That I make stupid mistakes when I’m in a rush and I shouldn’t trust the system so much. Look, I’m fine, pack him up, give me a second to fix my leg, and we’ll go hand in this stupid quest. Then I’ll either get healed, or I’ll need to wait until I can walk without having to move my feet like a puppet. And then I’ll go check if the army would be willing to tell me where there’s a camp of enemy soldiers and would let me deal with them completely alone,” Sylver said.

Spring did as he was told and wrapped up the comatose boy into an easy-to-carry bundle. Dai carried him in his hands, and Sylver considered adding spending a day asleep into his schedule.

But there would be time for that later. It was anyone’s guess as to how long Flesh’s and Bones’s temporary bodies would hold, and the sooner they were in permanent physical vessels, the better.

“What about Ron’s Shuba quest?” Spring asked.

“Fuck me, I forgot about it!” Sylver said.

“And you still haven’t chosen a perk for reaching level 60,” Spring reminded in a quiet voice.

Sylver glared at the shade while he looked through the list one more time. There were 2 new ones that weren’t there before. 1 would help immensely with preventing the kind of mistake Sylver had just made.

And the other was exactly what Sylver had been hoping for.

Injuries, mistakes and other nonsense aside, today was a good day.