The Fractured Tower - Book 1 - Chapter 2 - The Contract (Patreon)

                                                                                                         Svemir

I stop walking to hide in a bush once I get sufficiently close to the village. On my way here, I didn’t run into any humans or monsters, surprisingly enough. But now I’m not absolutely sure how to proceed.

The soldiers on the walls and the precious few who are patrolling the outside of the wall are all glit up with blue silhouettes, meaning I can’t kill them. Meanwhile the mayor – my target – is located somewhere at the center of the village. And if my memories are to be believed, then he’s likely inside of some larger structure. A manor of sorts.

Although where these memories came from is still a mystery to me. But the memories about basic human customs and civilization are probably to help me with my contracts.

Either way, I watch the guards patrolling outside of the tower for several minutes before a thought comes to mind.

The contract only said I couldn’t kill the humans under the baron’s service.

Okay. So knocking them unconscious will be fine.

With that thought in mind, I study the guard’s patrol route for nearly five hours both to wait till the sun goes down and to make sure I have their route memorized. Fortunately, they don’t seem to have very many guards, likely due to this village being so small. At most there are only a dozen or so patrolling around the village walls at a time, with three quarters of that number manning the walls themselves. But from what I can see here, the ones on the walls don’t pay particularly close attention. Especially at night, when I even see a couple of them sleeping.

And of course I also tested my skill and physical capabilities during this time.

Now it’s time to get started.

Right after another patrol passes by, I sprint out of the bushes up to the wall before holding my hand up to it and activating spatial bolt, sending a bluish-purple light out of beneath my hands that quickly rips apart the wall in front of it for a radius of about a meter without a sound. I then jump through the hole to find myself inside of the wall.

So far so good.

I sprint through the inside of the wall, making sure not to enter the sight of any of the glowing blue silhouettes before finally reaching an exit where I crack the door open to peek through. Just to jerk my head back inside again with a frown.

Serfs. Of course there would be serfs just standing on the other side of the door.

They don’t have the blue glow to them though, so that confirms my thoughts that serfs don’t apparently count against the contract as being in service of the baron. Which kind of makes me wonder what they do count as, but that’s not a question for now.

Maybe I can ask my summoner after this?

Or not. The guy’s a bit of a narcissistic jerk.

Anyways, deciding that it’s better to continue making my way unseen, I run a bit further down the inside of the wall before creating a hole in it again to enter the village from into some sort of herb garden.

Okay. No serfs or guards here.

I jump from my position all the way to the roof of the house under the cover of the night before crawling my way across and getting a lay of the village. Most of the village is made up of poorer houses, but there appears to be another set of lower walls further in with a large building in the center of it. One that has the red silhouette in it.

With my target in sight, I take note of all of the blue silhouettes’ positions before leaping from house to house in the direction of the mayor.

Thankfully for me, most of the serfs seem to be sleeping outside of the rare few who are for some reason out and about. Meanwhile the guards assigned by the baron to this village are easy enough to avoid thanks to the contract sight. Although if I didn’t have that, then this would be another matter altogether.

I doubt I’d have much trouble with it then either though. After all, I could just massacre the guards and then the mayor.

But that would be a pain, and a waste.

Not to mention that I’d probably get injured in the process. Demons are only twice as strong as humans at the same level after all, and I only have enough mana for ten uses of spatial bolt. Eight if you count the two I’ve already used.

Put enough arrows and pointy metal objects into me and I might even die. Which would make this all a waste of time.

It only takes me a couple of minutes, along with a close call or two with the serfs and even a guard before I reach the wall and dig my way in just like the other wall. But this time I end up using just a single spatial bolt, as the radius of this one envelops both ends of the thinner wall.

Once I climb through the newly made holes in the wall, I find myself looking at a very nice manor, which looks completely different from any of the other buildings within this village. And judging by the blue silhouettes stationed around it, also the most guarded building.

I study the guard’s locations for a few seconds before coming to the decision that it would be best to just knock them all out and take care of the job instead of sneaking past this part. Because they’re too close to the mayor. Just a single scream or shout would put the guards on high alert, and they would probably then put the rest of the guards on high alert.

And then everything would get annoying.

Although at least my memories state that I’ll be teleported right back to Purgatory after killing the mayor. So I won’t have to deal with the aftermath.

With that thought in mind, I sprint across the garden under the cover of night right after seeing the guard looking this way turn around. It takes me only half a dozen seconds to clear the dozen or so meter distance between us before I grab him in a headlock while covering his mouth with my gauntleted hands and carefully making him suffocate through oxygen deprivation.

I let out a faint sigh of relief after seeing it work, because I’ve never actually done that before for obvious reasons, before I drag him into a bush next to the house and then rush after the next guard. I repeat this process over and over again, with none of the guards growing suspicious until the last one. But even that one gets silenced before he can reach the mayor to report.

Without even bothering to hide this one, I step into the room through the balcony the guard was on before navigating around the house until I find myself standing outside of the mayor’s room. From what I can tell by his silhouette, the man should be asleep.

So…

I use spatial bolt to destroy the doorknob and lock before pushing the door open and stepping into the room. But surprisingly, I immediately sense something wrong and raise my armored hand, just to catch a fist in my hand from a visibly surprised serf. The woman is wearing brown leather armor but without any shoes or anything to cover her forearms.

When I glance to the side, I find the rest of her armor at the foot of the bed.

A lover?

Obviously not a subordinate of the baron since she doesn’t have that blue glow about her, but considering that she’s a level 1… maybe not a serf after all?

The woman clicks her tongue at me and jerks her hand back out of my fist before lowering her center of gravity and sending a roundhouse kick straight for my head, but I block it with my gauntleted arm. And unsurprisingly, the woman winces at that. Considering that she just kicked metal armor with her bare feet.

I take advantage of her surprise to grab her leg before sending an elbow straight into it, causing a crack to resonate through the room, followed by a muffled scream from the woman that wakes up the mayor.

Shit. This is not going according to plan.

Deciding that I’ve had enough of this, I raise my palm to the woman, ignoring the shouts of the mayor and the woman as she tries to send a flailed punch my way to instead send a spatial bolt straight through her head. This causes it to just warp in weird ways before straight up vanishing, shocking the mayor into silence for a few seconds until I turn to him and raise my hand.

“Waaaiit!! We can talk about this, demon!” he says in a hurried and clearly panicked manner of speech, but I ignore him and send another spatial bolt straight at his chest, making it do a repeat of the woman’s head in the process.

Then silence falls over the room, with the only noise being that of the mayor’s dead corpse hitting the bed that he hadn’t even managed to get out of. Following which I hear a beep before a notice appears in front of my face.

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Class E Contract with Arthur Freitman has been completed.

Distributing reward…

You have been given 10 EXP.

Would you like to use this EXP for yourself, or your tower?

Yourself

Tower

|============================|

I quickly click on myself, following which I get another notice.

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Class E Spatial Demon, Svemir Adfail Archeron, has reached level 1!

Your physical capabilities have increased by a factor of 2.
Your mana capacity has increased by 10 mana.

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A warm feeling spreads throughout my body before eventually fading away, leaving me feeling much stronger than before. But before I can enjoy it, another notice appears and I find myself back in purgatory next to my core. Albeit in a different location again, as apparently my tower has teleported again since I was last here.

|============================|

The contract has been completed; therefore, the contract demon has been sent back to Purgatory.

|============================|

I quickly turn around as I sense monsters approaching my tower.

Seriously? Looks like my tower only teleports me away from demons and humans, and not away from monsters entirely…