August Intruder- Chapter 51- Bless Your Kindness (Patreon)

On day eleven Melmarc was tired.

He had relegated himself to the safer parts of the meadows, ruined buildings already cleared out previously, plateaus that possessed no sign of life. Simple things like that. The ruins of Caldath was yet to run out of [Damned], though. There was always one somewhere, mostly they were usually in a group.

Melmarc was also, to his greatest annoyance these days, still very far from the castle ruins that reached up to pierce the sky. It was almost as if the closer he got to it the farther it got. But there was one positive to the entire situation, and it was that he was making progress.

Just yesterday he had stumbled upon an actual gated wall. Well, gated wasn’t really the word. It was a ruined wall with a large and empty space in it where Melmarc was more than certain a gate would’ve been before it had gone to ruin.

It meant progress.

The downside, however, was that it was heavily guarded. Protected by at least eight [Damned]. And unlike the ones Melmarc was used to, these ones didn’t carry farming implements attached to their arms or baking implement or some domestic implement or the other. They had actual weapons attached to their arms. Swords, shields, spears, halberds, whips.

From the little he’d seen past them, there were more creatures like them within the walls, loitering about it eerie monotony. But their monotony couldn’t fool Melmarc. Their jerky and slow façade of motion was the falsehood that hid how quickly they could kill.

So Melmarc had noted the location and given them a significant distance. As much as he would’ve liked to claim that he wanted to clear the portal, he knew that he didn’t want to.

Delvers cleared portals. High schoolers who recently turned Gifted did their government mentorship program, went to a school for the Gifted, then proceeded to either become simple but productive members of the society or Delvers.

Melmarc was only in stage one of the Gifted high schooler guide.

Melmarc spent his waking moments searching for Naymond whenever he could. With the passing days his efforts slowly started to dwindle. He hadn’t stopped, and didn’t think he ever would, but he knew for a fact that he no longer put in as much desperate effort as he used to.

These days, he mostly looked for Naymond because he had already been looking for Naymond. If Veebee hadn’t already confirmed that Naymond had gone through the same portal, Melmarc was certain his time spent looking for Naymond would’ve dwindled to nonexistence.

Being safe gave an entirely new feeling to being in a portal, at least being relatively safe. The bruise on Melmarc’s chest remained a sore purple and he’d already accepted the fact that it would not be healing any time soon. If he was being honest with himself, he was beginning to fear that it would never heal.

It was always there, a bearable discomfort reminding him not to venture too close to the [Damned] and not to put his entire trust in [Knowledge is Power] for defense. These days he learned to run and hide and attack from a distance.

[Rings of Saturn] had slowly taken up a snail’s pace when it came to its mastery so Melmarc was stuck with it just a step below ten percent.

Another new thing he’d learnt was how the days and nights worked inside the ruins of Caldath. In the simplest realization gotten from spending his first successful night without sleeping, he’d discovered that while there was a sunset that he never saw, there was no sunrise.

It was probably the most discomfitting part of being in the portal, not the [Damned] or their little helpers that kept their prey unable to run from certain death.

Even now, as Melmarc sat down, hidden in what seemed like a secret room of one of the larger ruined buildings, he worried at the experience.

The night was dark and he had been in it long enough to know that morning was likely just around the corner. The problem he was experiencing was in the fact that morning did not come the way morning should. In fact, there was no morning.

Just this place playing tricks on me.

He blinked quickly, then kept his eyes wide open. On more than one occasion he’d contemplated the fact that he was wrong about the mornings and that sleeping within the ruins of Caldath was an inevitable part of the ruins’ nights.

You’re not going crazy, he assured himself as he rushed his next blink, refusing to allow any blink last longer than a blink was ever allowed to.

Another worry he had as he stared up at the starry night sky was food. He’d gone eleven days without it, and quite frankly he was beginning to worry. Not about his physical health but his mental.

He’d had no food or water for eleven days. While he hadn’t felt it the first few days, he’d been getting the cravings since he’d gotten the bruise on his chest. He was always hungry but never starving. He wouldn’t call it hunger, though. It was more of the urge to eat because he was supposed to.

Like someone who always ate breakfast, lunch and dinner without missing a beat. Their stomachs were already programmed to want lunch when it was lunch time and want dinner when it was dinner time. Or someone holding their breath under water. They could go on longer but there was always that part of their brain that told them they were supposed to be breathing.

That was the feeling Melmarc had been contending with for a while now. That annoying feeling of not having food to eat when it was time to eat. It was the same thing for water. Sometimes his mouth felt parched, only for him to lick his lips and realize that there was nothing parched about his mouth.

That part of his current life was what was really taking a toll on him.

With the bright afternoon light streaming in through a few cracks and holes in the building, he looked down at his shoes. They weren’t worn yet, surviving all the journeys he’d had and all the running. His current situation and their determined survival would’ve made a good ad—

Melmarc frowned and his mind sunk a step deeper into what he was now beginning to realize was growing paranoia.

Once again, he’d missed the arrival of daylight.

The sky was bright and it was already midday. Again, Melmarc didn’t know if he’d somehow drifted off to sleep during his thoughts or if the weather somehow took advantage of a moment when he blinked to change.

One thing he was certain of was that it didn’t make sense. If the weather changed when he blinked, then how was Naymond experiencing it? Did he view it as something instantaneous like the flashing light of a camera once a picture was taken?

Even that line of thought felt off to Melmarc. He genuinely didn’t believe the weather was waiting on good ol him to blink so that it could change. There was no way he was that special. Which meant there was something happening with the weather.

Mind magic? He thought, terrified at the idea.

There was a reason people were very guarded in the presence of telepathic classes, even other Gifted. You didn’t want to have to face someone that could be attacking you and you didn’t even know it.

It was worse to think that an entire portal world was messing with his mind when it had inhabitants that were already there to mess with his body.

Maybe it wasn’t that serious. Maybe the hunger and thirst that were there and yet weren’t there was what were messing with his mind. Maybe the issue wasn’t the ruins of Caldath but his own mind.

Eleven days inside a portal with no food and water and nobody to talk to was most likely getting to him.

Melmarc hated to admit it as he got up from the ground to begin the new day that had quite literally snuck up him, but for someone who always thought of himself as an introvert, he was really missing the company of another human being.

He walked out of the ruined building with sluggish and unmotivated steps.

I miss Ark.

…

Four hours of searching led Melmarc to no positive outcome. There was no Naymond in any of the buildings he searched and he ran into no [Damned].

Once more, his mind went to the entrance that had no gate, guarded by the [Damned]. He knew the right thing to do was to wait things out in the portal. Naymond was a consultant and he was just a kid, which meant the portal, by all ramifications, had not been claimed yet.

If he could survive longer, it would only be a matter of time before Delvers from one of the companies came in. It could also be Delvers from the government.

Melmarc knew it but there was just a part of him that kept on trying to ignore it. A part of him that wanted to know just how much he could do as a Delver. He was already in a portal, reasons aside, and he’d already survived for eleven days, alone.

What if he could do more than survive? What if he could thrive?

It was a C-rank dungeon and he was a B-rank Gifted. By all accounts he was supposed to be able to survive it.

Maybe if he could…

Melmarc shook his head as he walked down the meadows to the next ruin. There was no maybe. No what ifs. The last thing he needed was for the Delvers to come in and find his body and not him.

He couldn’t do that to his parents.

Melmarc was a thinker, cautious to a level of annoyance as Delano had once said. He took an idea and spun it around until there was no more spinning to be done and the deadline to make a decision was gone. It was who he was.

Being a B-rank Gifted had nothing to do with a C-rank portal. People often made the mistake of thinking the ranks meant just how powerful you were. They did not necessarily mean that. There were A-rank Gifted on the ranking list that were placed higher than some S-rank Gifted. The ranks simply meant how powerful your skills were, now how good at executing them you were.

Also, there was a reason Delvers worked in teams. It would take a team of C-rank Delvers and at least one B-rank to clear a dungeon like this. And sometimes there were casualties in the end.

A B-rank wouldn’t be able to take on a team of C-ranks without risking defeat so what made him think he could clear a portal just because it was C-rank?

The answer was simple, he didn’t. Melmarc knew what was making his mind consider clearing the portal and it had nothing to do with clearing the portal.

It ws the [EP].

Right now, he had a measely [732]. It wasn’t necessarily measely when he considered the fact that a [Damned] gave roughly around fifty points when he killed it, but it was measely in the wider scope of things.

Melmarc knew there were vastly more [Damned] roaming around the portal and he wasn’t even talking about the ones armed with swords and shields.

If he kept finding them, he could keep increasing his [EP]. He wasn’t sure what exactly [EP] was, but there was a part of him that thought it could be important. Why else would his interface be collecting them, and quantifying them.

One of the missions within a portal was defeating the enemy. Melmarc had never heard of [EP] anywhere before, but if defeating the enemy gave them, then why not? Maybe it would even be useful.

Maybe I can use it to upgrade my skills.

It was a far stretch, a dream, but it didn’t sound impossible. Unknown things were already happening to him after all. He’d met Veebee, a creature no one had ever spoken about meeting as far as he knew. Common knowledge of portals was that you entered and turned up on the other side, there was no mention of a creature waiting inside.

He’d also never heard anything about an [August Intruder] and he was one. In the flesh. So it was possible that [EP] was also very important.

Melmarc thought about it as he stared at the castle in the far distance. In the end, he settled on one thing. He wanted to get more [EP].

He wasn’t entirely sure why, but there was just something about watching the numbers go up.

But for that, he couldn’t keep attacking the [Damned] the way he had been going about it so far. If he kept going at it the way he’d been going at it, it was only a matter of time before he ran into a group and didn’t survive.

Melmarc’s heart beat faster in his chest as he made his decision. It was stupid and dangerous. It was also completely chaotic. It was more Ark than him.

But today it’s me, he thought as he started making his way for a ruined building he knew was empty.

If he was going to become a hunter in a portal, then there was one thing that was extremely important. His skills. Knowing how to use them wasn’t enough anymore. Now, he needed to know how to use all of them together, and he needed to know how to do so with the single purpose of defeating an opponent.

For that, he needed to practice.

…

Melmarc stood in the middle of a ruin that had once been a single storey building. The ceiling that separated the top floor from the bottom floor had since crumbled so that there was no top floor anymore, and the walls that demarcated the rooms were in shambles. But there were still enough walls to do what he wanted to do.

After reconfirming that there were no monsters to take him by surprise anywhere nearby, he picked up a small piece of broken wall and made X marks on different walls. He made them as clear as possible and as clean as possible so that even from a distance he could see them.

Then he picked a random spot in the building and stood there.

This should work, he thought as he looked at the walls around him. Just to be sure, to assuage the fear of being ambushed that constantly lurked at the back of his mind, he activated [Knowledge is Power].

Melmarc frowned at the increase in weight he experienced from the skill, wondering if it had always been like this. As the blast of mana left him, he remembered how the upgraded version was supposed to allow him use his extremeties.

It begged the question of if he had never been able to move anytime he used the skill. He frowned at the difficulty of remembering. When he’d chased David Swan he had been stopping to blast the skill but that felt more like his own personal limitation.

The skill hadn’t been stopping him, he had been stopping himself.

What of when I fought those guys?

He frowned, thinking of Jake and the two kids that had come at him with a plank. He couldn’t remember stopping when he was fighting them. Yes, he hadn’t moved when the speedster had attacked him but that was because he was bracing for the impact. Knowing he would come out of the attack unscathed didn’t suddenly render him unafraid of the attack.

He still felt the pain, after all.

Melmarc was still contemplating when his mana returned to him, telling him what he already knew. He was alone.

He looked down at the ground around him. There were no red indicators. His time in the portal had taught him one thing. Red indicators on the ground were sure signs that the [Damned] were nearby. Because unless the critters were attached to something taking them away, they never ventured far from the [Damned].

Melmarc’s hand twitched in a barely restrained need to act and he sighed. He’d intended on beginning his practice the moment [Knowledge is Power] was terminated but his thoughts had carried him away.

Now he had to wait for the skill to cool down before he could start again. He had something in mind and wanted to follow it. It was good to know how to fight off the bat, but as his teacher in his self defense classes had taught him, it was always good to have a set of moves, combinations that built a pattern in his mind. Once he had those, he could start working on attacking without combinations.

What Melmarc really wanted to know now, however, was if he really couldn’t move once [Knowledge is Power] was activated. After all, it only said he couldn’t deal damage. It never said anything about being unable to move.

Then why did the upgrade say I have partial control?

Melmarc paused. It said partial control. What if that wasn’t a positive but a negative. No one ever said an upgraded skill came with only positives, it was completely possible for there to be side effects, right?

But if that was the case, wasn’t that going to dissuade him from upgrading the skill?

Melmarc waited, patiently contemplating until [Knowledge is Power] was available once more.

Moment of truth, he thought as he prepared himself for what would happen.

He picked up a small rock, tossed it and caught it twice.

“Here goes nothing.”

[You have activated skill Knowledge is Power]

Melmarc’s mana blasted out of him, traveled out in a static white. He took a deep breath and commanded his arm to move.

He threw the rock.

“YES!”

Melmarc sighed in relief. He could move, which made the upgrade pointing out the fact that he would have partial control of his extremities more confusing.

Wait…

Something wasn’t right. He didn’t think it was a negative. At least not the way he was looking at it.

“Extremities,” he muttered to himself, then groaned in annoyance when the pulse of mana came back, giving him information he already knew.

Suddenly, everything clicked into place, it was as if he suddenly had a better understanding of things in this very moment.

“Extremities,” he realized as if going through an epiphany. “Not limbs.”

When you spoke to someone about extremities they automatically assumed their own body parts such as their limbs. But what if the skill wasn’t talking about extremities in relation to his body? What if it was talking about the extremities of the skill?

By that concept, what would the extremities of the skill be? Also, what would happen if he wasn’t at the center of the blast when he activated [Knowledge is Power]? Would it all come back to him wherever he was?

You’re supposed to be practicing combat use of all your skills, he told himself as he checked the cool down for [Knowledge is power], not learning more about the skill.

Melmarc ignored his own thoughts. He still had time. He might’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking for Naymond today, but there was still enough time before the sun began its descent.

He could learn about the skill and still practice combat use.

“Alright,” Melmarc rubbed his hands together. “Let’s see what happens when I move too far from the center.”

He prepared himself to activate the skill and paused.

Hold up. He looked around. When he’d gotten his skills, he’d practiced them with uncle Dorthna and the others, then the extra things he’d learned about the skill were from listening to Naymond.

Melmarc was a thinker, always fretting over almost everything, but he’d never thought of himself as a genius. He was more of a worrier than anything else. He wasn’t stupid, though, nowhere near that, but this level of thinking wasn’t necessarily his level of thinking.

He usually thought more in the direction of how safe was something and what were the risks associated in doing them and not doing them.

But this… this was him thinking in the direction taking risks and how he could take them. It was as if his mind had run out of worries to worry about and he was now worrying in a completely different direction, a direction that was given him answers in a way that was different from what was his norm.

Melmarc’s brows furrowed at the thought of something else. [Knowledge is Power] gave stat buffs not because of itself but because of [Bless Your Kindness]. [Bless Your Kindness] was currently over 10% which meant it was giving him +1.5 increase to all stats…

That right there was where Melmarc’s mind was going. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it. 1.5 to all stats.

He pulled up his details to confirm what he was thinking and smiled when he saw it.

[Name: Melmarc Jay Lockwood]

[Class: Faker – World of Insight (Mastery -49.19%)]

[Rank: B]

[Growth Potential: Unranked]

[Existential Designation: August Intruder +3% mastery to all skills]

Stats

Agility 4 (+3), Balance 6 (+3), Mental 3 (+3), Mana 5 (+3), Strength 3 (+3), Dexterity 3, (+3), Accuracy 3 (+3), Perception (+3), Intelligence (+3), Speed (+3), Vitality (+3), Mind (+3), Constitution (+3) ...

Melmarc almost laughed as he stared at it.

He’d gotten [Bless Your Kindness] all wrong since the very beginning. It was no wonder he’d almost run David Swan over when he’d chased him down.

[Bless Your Kindness] quite literally added the stat bonus to all stats. It didn’t matter if he had a point in them or not. All that mattered was that it was a stat.

And when he put all the stat together it had a different result. If his speed allowed him, at his current strength, run at twenty miles per hour, that was fast. But what happened if he ran at that speed with an increase to his base strength?

It meant his legs would have more power to push him faster in a sprint, add that to increased Agility as well as Balance, then that would shave off some speed that would be lost due to variables such as poor form and staggering. You didn’t just suddenly develop the power to run significantly faster than normal and still retain your balance at new speed, yet he had when he’d been chasing down David Swan.

Why hadn’t he even asked these questions back then? Why hadn’t they bothered him?

At this rate, [Bless Your Kindness] makes me…

“…Unstoppable,” Melmarc muttered before he could stop himself.

It was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

He was basically a close combat monster.