RD 2 Ch 20 (Patreon)

Chapter 20

Galen drew his scythe as quietly as he could, approaching the other group. He could have gone for the others, but there was no reason for the dispute between Zane and him to spill out to the rest.

Jumping out of the trees, he brandished the scythe. “Zane. I’m right here.”

“Galen, there you are!” Zane had the smile that only a golden boy or a household’s favorite dog could mimic.

“Glad you are so excited to see me.” Galen flashed a smile. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t go both ways. Today, you’re going to die.”

The others around Zane gasped.

“Don’t give me that.” Galen scowled at all of them. “Golden boy here gets to be all happy and peppy because he’s had it easy. I bet you all don’t even realize the treasures he has in that ring.”

“Galen,” Zane warned. “Those are for emergencies.”

“Yeah. Well, the rest of us would love to have such emergency aid. Let’s not forget your family has been training you in the sword since you could walk. You’ve been the favorite of the clan for as long as you’ve breathed.” Galen was done talking.

His entire life, he’d been compared to Zane. Zane scored higher on a test. Zane learned a new weapon. This and that always compared to Zane as the gold standard.

Galen was sick of it. His scythe ghosted through the world and through Zane’s sword before striking at the man’s soul.

Zane gasped and staggered back. “Galen!” He pulled a bead from his spatial ring.

“Retreat!” Galen pushed off the ground as hard as he could before the Eye of Apollo torched the surrounding trees into ash.

“What was that?” Beats and Katie asked.

“One of the many trinkets he was given as he entered and was keeping inside his ring.” Galen stalked into the trees as he shouted: “You won’t win that easily!”

***

I woke up with a yawn.

Our haul from yesterday had been pretty good, not to mention we actually got a level out of the farming. The swarm wasn’t half-bad experience it would seem.

Nyx rolled against me in her sleeping bag.

I chuckled. When it was time to sleep, she had blushed furiously while asking to sleep near me. But I had to remember that she was eighteen and in her first instance. It was probably a little terrifying for her to be all on her own for sleep.

On the other hand, I slept like a baby in the sanctuary with those birds guarding the entrance. It was a pretty sweet set up in my opinion.

“Wake up. We have more farming to do.” I shook Nyx lightly.

She groaned and blinked open bleary eyes. They were a captivating green. “How many days are we going to farm?”

“As long as we have left?” I grinned.

Nyx wiggled in her sleeping bag, and her eyes lost all the sleepiness as she wiggled again. “Something’s wrong, Bran.” She unzipped her sleeping bag and threw it to the side.

I looked away, worried about what she was wearing—or rather, not wearing—under that bag.

“My legs!”

That made me look back.

All thoughts of impropriety were gone, replaced by a wince.

The skin on her thighs down to her calves had fused and taken on a few new scales.

“That’s going to take some getting used to,” I commented dryly.

“What do you mean getting used to? I want my legs back!” She pulled at them, but they weren’t coming apart, at least not easily.

When she pulled out one of her arrows, I grabbed her arm. “Don’t do it. Nyx. We talked about this before. You’re going to change.”

“Am I even fucking human if I don’t have legs?”

“None of us are very human after we’re initiated,” I added.

She pulled her arm out of mine and dropped the arrow before she put her head in her hands and started crying.

“There, there.” I did the best move I knew and started to rub her back, feeling uncomfortable. “Look on the positive side. You won’t really trip anymore after you get a tail.”

She peeked between two of her fingers to glare at me. “That’s not helping, Bran.”

“There’ll be some guy who fawns over the whole serpent body thing. I promise. This isn’t the end of the world.”

“This is the end of my world.” Nyx looked at her legs again and started crying.

I hated it when women cried. There was nothing I could punch to solve it, most of the time. “Want some food?” I pulled out some of Simone’s guilty pleasure, hoping she’d forgive me for sharing the cinnamon rolls with someone else.

Nyx’s nose wiggled amid her crying, and she looked at the pastry.

They were Simone’s favorite and absolutely drenched in icing, with more cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top. There were normal cinnamon rolls, then there were the kind that were enough calories to survive a week on like these ones.

“You’ll feel better with food in your stomach.” I waved it in front of her.

Nyx snatched it up and took a bite, still crying as she ate, but the cries were far quieter because she was stuffing her mouth with something else.

I let out a sigh of relief and pulled out some sandwiches for myself.

Nyx quieted down as she ate the cinnamon roll and looked towards me when she finished licking the icing off her fingers. “Do you have another of those? I’m actually really hungry.”

“Probably have some weird changes happening in your body.” I apologized to Simone in my head. I needed these more now than she needed them later. “Can’t hurt to fuel it.”

“Right.” Nyx latched onto the excuse for another.

We ate in silence for a few minutes before I finished up, and Nyx had already destroyed another of the rolls and was trying, unsuccessfully, to get all of the icing off her face.

“Here.” I even had wet wipes in my ring and helped her clean up. “So. It looks like you’re going to be out of commission for a little while until that finishes.” I pointed to her legs.

“Yeah.” She sniffled. “At the very least, I’m going to need help up. Might be able to hop around for a little.”

I had an idea and found a spear in my spatial ring before handing it to her.

She looked at it like she had no idea what it was for.

“To help you hop around. Otherwise, you are absolutely going to fall over.” I smiled at her. “As for the birds, you only need to be able to move over the line that separates the sanctuary. Think you can move that much?”

Nyx gritted her teeth and set her face in determination with a nod. “I can manage that much.”

“Good.” I got to my feet and held a hand out for her. “Let’s get you into position.”

Nyx took my hand, and I lifted her to her feet before she wiggled out of my hands, and using the spear, she hopped towards the sanctuary entrance without complaint.

I kept a slow pace next to her, worried I’d have to catch her at least once, but she proved agile enough to stay balanced through the whole trip over there.

“I wonder if… when I get the tail… if it will come with instructions. Not sure I know how to move like a snake,” she mused.

“Usually, people adapt pretty quickly to the body changes. Like I knew— heard about a guy with wings, and he learned to fly in an hour.” I corrected myself, but Nyx still noticed and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t. Just you seem to have been really involved in all of this before.” Nyx paused at the line we’d made for the sanctuary before hopping over it. “Just keep farming these birds, I guess.”

“That’s the spirit!” I grinned and hefted the femur. “Today, we farm!” The murder birds made themselves known, honking and screaming as they flew into the air.

***

By midday, Nyx seemed to be doing far better. The farming had given her a purpose. “What are you going to do with all these feathers?” she asked.

I had taken to making a pile of them, while I kept onto the precious, poisonous droppings. I mean, they weren’t really poop. It was just something simulated by the system. Plus, they could be purified to SS rank by extracting just the poison.

“Not sure yet. But they are S rank metal at the very least. There’s plenty that can be done with them.” I grinned. She probably didn’t realize how valuable those were. “That pile there could probably buy you a whole fleet of private jets. Nice ones, too.”

“Wait! What?!” Nyx’s head shot between the pile and back to me. “They are worth that much?”

“Each of those feathers probably sells for… ten to twenty million. Probably ten because we have so many. However, you don’t want normal currency for them. We’ll do our best to trade them for gold.” I held up one of the system coins. “Have you realized you can spend this gold to upgrade your stats?”

Nyx opened her menu and was playing with the air in front of her, touching her spatial ring to it before she gasped. “Wow.”

“Yep. Which, while I know this farming has been boring for you…” I trailed off as I saw the glimmer of understanding shine in her eyes when she looked back at the pile.

“We got tons of stats from this.” She began to catch up.

“It gets more expensive as you use the gold to level, but yes. We’ve probably earned hundreds, or if used optimally, a thousand stats each from the farming of just one day.” I took the last bite of my sandwich. “Ready to keep going now?”

“Absolutely!” Nyx had a new fire in her eyes.

But before I could get us going for another round, a system message popped up.

[Black Dragon Bloodline is in critical condition]

[Black Dragon Bloodline has been restored]

“Shit.” I spat. “Zane just almost died.”

“How?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I frowned.

“No. How do you even know that he almost died?” she asked.

I scratched the back of my head. “Because he gave me some of his blood. I can’t do much with that, but it warns me when a person is hurt.”

“So… if I were to get severely injured, you’d know?” Nyx asked.

I nodded. “If that happened, I’d come running. Though, I don’t know if I can get you out of here.” I glanced at her legs. She wasn’t going to be able to hop her way fast enough, and I wasn’t sure that carrying her was going to work in either of our favor.

She nudged the dirt around with her toes. “Then you have to go save Zane.” There was a resolution in her voice. “Just promise you’ll come back and get me?”

“Of course.” Going to save Zane would be important. He and Galen must finally be coming to blows. “Right. Food.” I took a crate of sandwiches out. “Put this in your ring. They’ll stay fresh there. The water here is clean to drink. Are you going to be okay on your own?”

She nodded. “I can manage.” She used the spear to pull herself up. “I’m going to distract the birds and give you a head start.”

I was surprised. So far she had done everything she could to avoid being the focus of the honking terrors. Even though she’d been one hop from safety the whole time. “You sure?”

“Stop asking that. Of course, I’m sure. Zane is probably doing something noble and stupid while Galen beats the shit out of him. It would be best if nothing happened to either of them, though.” She held her head high with determination.

I had to agree. Galen had a strong class, especially for the first demon wave. It was hard to imagine Zane doing anything to deserve being attacked.

“Alright. Let me get up to the starting line.” I found the marker for when they came at me in the past. Nyx moved up there with me using the spear and hopping.

“Go.” Nyx hopped past the line and started firing arrows at the trees where the birds usually emerged.

Looking back would only waste the effort she was putting into helping me.

I ducked my head and sprinted away from the direction of the birds. I couldn’t help it, but I glanced back.

Nyx was hobbling away with her spear while firing petrifying arrows over her shoulder.

A tightness gripped my throat as she stumbled and used the spear to catch herself.

She glanced over and caught me staring. A smile shined on her face, and she threw herself bodily into the cave entrance.

There wasn’t time to worry about her.

The monsters had gained even more levels, increasing their agility further. I needed to move.

The honking faded for a moment before it came back with a vengeance as the swarm took to the sky again.

Please don’t come after me, I prayed.

My prayers weren’t answered by anything other than an obnoxious honk and the beating of wings growing louder behind me.