Royal Blood : Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Chapter 10: The Demon Lords

“Oh hey.” I bent down, picking up a copper slug off the cobbles. “Lucky.”

I paused at that. My luck stat was getting pretty high. On one hand, this could just be a normal coin on the road.

On the other, it would be nice if the only stat I could put points into started paying dividends. It was more than twice my next highest stat, after all. After a moment, I shrugged, slipping the coin into my pocket. A little bit more money didn’t hurt, and the boss hadn’t shown back up yet.

Knowing him, he only left enough money to last until he showed back up again.

Whistling, I continued my way down the street. It was the middle of the morning, and I’d just finished my morning workout. It wasn’t as effective without Boss breathing down my neck, but I still managed to get another point of Strength this morning, to go with the point of Dex from yesterday, and two points in Int over the past week.

I’d had a good idea or two, see.

“Alex! Alex!”

Case in point.

I grinned as Nezza slid to a stop next to me. She was still a street rat, but I’d gotten her a better cloak and a newer set of clothes. And, of course, once she took a bath, she turned out to be anime pretty, with puffy cheeks that sat adorably at odds with her bright red eyes and sharp teeth. Given how slow demonkin aged, she was gonna be one of those girls who people thought was sixteen well into her thirties or something, but for now she just looked extra cute.

“Did I get ‘em?” She puffed up, placing her hands on her hips. “Course I got ‘em.” Reaching into her cloak, she pulled out a bundle of cloth.

I grinned. “Good work. Here.” Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out the copper slug I’d just picked up. Maybe it was a lucky find after all.

Her eyes narrowed, turning from happy-go-lucky orbs to narrow, demonic slits in half a heartbeat. Course, they didn’t really fit the rest of her face, so the effect wasn’t all that intimidating, but I’d give it a solid A for effort.

“Half a silver?” She shook her head, white hair swirling around her. “Do you know how much…trouble I went through to get these?”

I rolled my eyes. “Nez, it’s for your quest. Save it for the merchant.”

She huffed. “But yer the one who said ta practise my—my bargaining skills.”

I reached up, poking her in the forehead. “Yes, and it was a good attempt.” I waved the copper slug back and forth in front of her nose. “But don’t you want to see what your new class looks like?”

Her eyes tracked the thumb-sized coin with frightening intensity. Then she growled, snatching it from my fingers. “Fine. Here.” She shoved the still-warm bundle into my hands, then waited expectantly.

“Well?” I asked.

She blinked once, before her eyes unfocused. “I did it!” She jumped. “I got the Thi—”

I clapped my hand over her mouth before she could yell ‘Thief class’ out loud. “Not in the middle of town, dummy.” I pulled her over to a side street. Everyone was busy at this time of day, but really, as long as you weren’t in the way, no one had time to spare for two kids loitering on the street corner.

That much hadn’t changed between worlds.

“So? Are you gonna change your class yet?”

She grinned. “Already did!” She placed her hands on her hips.

I chuckled. It had taken the better part of a week to convince her to try to change her class. Before, she had ‘Urchin’, which was an abysmal class. Not only did it have 5 times the base exp requirements of a class like Prince, but it didn’t provide any useful abilities either.

Well, apparently it was pretty useful when you were living on the streets, but so was Thief. Fortunately, I remembered the requirements for unlocking the Thief class from my time in the library. It was one of the easiest classes to unlock: you just had to steal five things and get paid for them. With me here to ‘fence’ Nezza’s stolen goods, it was just a matter of picking out the best targets.

We’d both unlocked the Sneak skill after casing a few food stands and small stores. I left Martin alone, of course. It was hard enough to get hot food in the city in the first place.

“What’s the exp requirements look like?” I asked.

“Huh?” Nezza cocked her head at me, before she jumped. “Huh? That’s really low!”

“I mean, I told you it was a much better class.” That’s just how geometric scaling worked. 25 doubled was 50, but 200 doubled was 400. Granted, Thief wasn’t anywhere near as good as Prince, but it had a much lower starting point than Urchin.

Nezza had managed to creep up to level eleven, where level up exp switched from geometric to a more linear scale, but that just meant she was seeing a big drop from her ‘exp cap’ when switching to a much better class.

I grinned at her as Nezza slowly worked out the differences herself. Really, it was a wonder that she’d been stuck with such a shit class for so long, but I guess there wasn’t anyone willing to show her the ropes. Joke’s on them, now I had access to both the Assassins’ Guild and Thieves’ Brotherhood questlines, mwahaha!

Sneak bow here I come.

I set aside fond memories of my old Rim of the Sky playthroughs for another time. Right now, it was time to minmax. “What about your quests? From what I read, they should be updated too.”

“Read? Where?”

I opened my mouth, then paused. I couldn’t exactly say I was a kidnapped prince, now could I? In the past week I hadn’t seen any of the people Boss said were watching me. He could always be messing with me, but there was no reason to take that risk right now.

Better save it. Let them think I was nice and complacent.

“There’s a Library in the city.” I shrugged. “It takes a bit of coin to get in, but my master gives me some, and I can save it if I barter well.”

“Huh.” Nezza crossed her arms, looking at me more closely. “What is your class, anyway?”

“Can’t you tell?” I grinned cheekily.

“Nuh uh.” She shook her head. “I can see yer level; that’s still too low!”

I shrugged. “I told you, I don’t get quests. Gotta grind up my levels the hard way.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Or jus’ start killin’ people.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, well, if I start going Jack the Ripper on people, I’m sure the guards would stop me. Most of them are level thirty and up, after all.”

“Jack the who?”

I waved my hand. “Don’t worry about it. So, any other cool tricks?”

“Nope.” She shook her head again, before blinking. “Wait, I gots a new quest…because I’m—hey!”

I looked around. “What?” Nobody was even looking our way, too busy leading their trade carts down the main avenue, or else rushing to and from wherever.

Iduneth was a busy city.

“My quest said it’s cause I’m no longer a ‘speck of dirt’!”

“That’s weird, wait.” I paused, putting my hand on Nezza’s shoulder. “Nez, how many quests do you have right now? What color is the weird one?”

“Uh…four? And the mean one is in red?”

A grin broke out across my face. “That’s so lucky! You’ve got a…heritage quest, I think they’re called? Humans don’t get them. Basically, it’s something that lets you reclaim part of your ancestral abilities. It must be from your demon blood, or—”

Nezza jerked out of my grip, glaring. I paused.

“Nezz?”

“I’m not a demon,” she spat.

I blinked. “Of course not.” I tilted my head. “Otherwise you’d…oh.” I paused for longer, remembering how the other two boys that…used to run with Nezza called her a demon bitch or something. If I was actually ten years old, this would have been a perfect time to put my foot in my mouth and then next thing I knew Nezza would be running away from me crying and swearing to never talk to me again, and then I’d have to go through some chuuni ‘friendship’ arc to get her back, no doubt confronting the many seedy elements of the city that now had a use for my friend now that she was no longer just an urchin.

Yeah, let’s skip that. I had a better idea.

“Of course you’re not,” I said again. Reaching out, I squeezed Nezza’s hand, lifting the cloth wrapped bundle with my other. “Hey, since you got this stuff, wanna share it on the bridge?”

Nezza gave me a sharp look, but the smell wafting from the bundle was too much to ignore. She gave a short nod and I grinned, tugging her along after me.

‘The Bridge’ was just one of the main bridges that went over the great canal. One of the tributaries of the Kandrek ran through Iduneth, and while it was nowhere near as big as the river itself, it was used to ship things up and down the river, and through the city itself.

The bridge we picked was a smaller one, but it had a nice stone railing to sit on and less foot traffic. I hopped onto the worn stone rail next to one of the old mage lamps. The stone was weathered, pagoda-like top worn smooth by the years, but the magelight set within still gave off a soft blue glow as it absorbed ambient mana.

Nezza sat next to me, and I handed her half of the spoils.

Neither of us spoke as we ate into the flaky cheese pastry she’d swiped. It was good, still warm, and the melted cheese was divine.

I waited until Nezza started making noises of contentment before I set my meal down on my lap.

“What do you know about the southern continent?”

“Mmph?” Nessa looked over at me, face buried in her own cheese bread. “Wazz a conphineph?”

I laughed. “A continent. Big piece of land. Norvusk is one continent. Then there’s the sea, and a bunch of islands. Then far to the south there’s the southern continent.”

“Oo.” She swallowed. “Okay.”

“Anyway, on the southern continent there are a lot of kingdoms.” I shrugged. “One of them is actually a nation of full blooded demons.” Nezza stiffened again, but I continued. “They’re actually pretty isolationist, I’ve heard people say that demons just see the world a little differently than humans do, but they’re renown as powerful warriors, and have lineages that stretch back longer than the Empire of Norvusk has existed.”

Nezza just looked at me silently, but I could see the interest growing in her eyes.

“Sometimes, young lords will travel the rest of the kingdoms for…well a ton of reasons, actually.” I shrugged. “The last demon lord to come to Norvusk was some eighty five years ago, and he came with his retinue to learn war from the Empire.” I laughed. “I heard he kicked the last Emperor’s ass in a duel; he’s still talked about in stories to this day.”

As she was still processing that, I reached out, brushing my hand through her hair. “Of course, it’s only natural that such a peerless warrior would have a lot of female attention.”

It took Nezza a second to process that, but when she did her face went the same shade as her eyes. “S-so…he was my da?”

I shrugged. “Probably your grandfather, or great-grandfather, actually. But yeah, he had a lot of kids. It was kind of what he was most well known for.” I grinned. “Even stole away one of the concubines of the Emperor’s harem and took her back to the southern continent. You can imagine that didn’t go over so well.” Nezza giggled, and I nodded. “So, when I say that you have demon blood, that isn’t a bad thing. It just means that you have the lineage of a conqueror in your veins, to go along with those pretty red eyes of yours.” I reached out and ruffled her hair. “Now you just have a chance to get some of that heritage back.”

Nezza blinked. “You think my eyes are pretty.”

Ah, crud, I raised a flag didn’t I?

Outwardly I just sighed. “Of course that’s what you took from my speech.”

She leaned forward. “Alex. Ya think my eyes are pretty?”

For obvious reasons, you’ve gained one point of Charisma!

+64 exp

Yep, definitely raised a flag.

And the hell do you mean for obvious reasons!