(TPOR) Chapter 174: Puppy (Patreon)

Babajide looked like a dying husk on his chair. The only sign of life in him was in the slow and painful rise and fall of his chest. His eyes stared ahead, empty.

“Uhhh…” Zed looked from him to the others. “Are we helping the bad guy or…”

He left the sentence open ended. Was it even going to help them in anyway?

“Daniel, what happens if we shoot him?” Eitri asked.

“If we do that—”

Daniel stepped out into the open and fired a few shots. The sound of gunfire shut Kid up. He ducked back behind cover almost immediately.

The whips of the lance spun into a shield, deflecting the gunfire then one shot out spearing though the air where Daniel had been standing previously.

Ronda sighed. “That happens.”

“And I’m guessing the Lance is whats sucking our bad guy dry,” Zed said,

He wondered what the other aura he’d felt was doing. It itched him not knowing. Flaring out his aura kept crossing his mind, but he couldn’t risk angering the Devil’s lance.

What the hell? It’s like I’m in some useless shrine.

“What happens if Babajide dies?” he asked.

“Then the lance stops being powered.” Kid stood casually now. The knife swung carefully in his hand.

They’re not going to help, Zed realized.

He looked at Babajide and wasn’t sure how to feel about it. The man looked like he was suffering, unable to voice it out his pain simply because he couldn’t.

“Zed? Zed?”

Zed looked up. “Huh.”

“What’s up?” Ronda asked. “You look lost.”

Zed shrugged. He gestured helplessly at Babajide. “He… he just looks bad. Really bad. Like that dying king from The Lord of the Rings book.”

“Nothing we can do for him,” Kid said. “Even if we save him now, he won’t get better. No potion can help him, and a healing mage can’t fix him.”

“At this point, letting the devil run it’s course sounds like a better peace for him than saving him,” Eitri said.

“Letting the devil run its course,” Zed muttered. “Now that’s a sentence my mum would pull the bible out for if she heard.”

Zed looked around. They were still surrounded by the unconscious bodies of the Awakened his aura had knocked out.

“I’ve got to check something,” he said suddenly, then started towards the exit.

“Where are you going?” Daniel asked as he passed him.

Zed shrugged. “I want to say I’m going to look for Jennifer but that would be a lie. I’m actually going to look for that dude’s friend.”

“Friend?”

“Yea, I think there’s a really powerful mana beast around here somewhere.”

“Certain?”

“I felt its aura and everything.” Zed stepped on the broken door on the floor. “I think it might be a bit intelligent if it still hasn’t come out. Or chained. So it’s either a boss fight or a party companion.”

Daniel offered him his weapon. “I would come with you but I have to ensure that the Devil’s lance ends up being properly taken care of in the end. It’s kind of part of what we do in the VHF.”

Zed paused, looked down at the weapon. “Keep it. Ollie and the rest are just outside. I’ll do the boss run with them.”

“You might still need a gun.”

“Oh, gods no. Hate those things. Wouldn’t shoot one to save your life.”

Daniel frowned. “Don’t you mean to save your life?”

“I said what I said.”

With that, he stepped out of the door.

In front of him was a familiar notification.

New Quest: Purchase Order 001

You have ruffled a few feathers. Purchase what you require and make your exit before the time runs out.

· Objective: Acquire map: 0/2

· Objective: Acquire battery: 0/1

· Reward: mana stone x1.

Time remaining: 00:00:01.

The timer had been stuck at one second ever since they’d been captured. Which meant the quest was not over yet.

Do we have to wait for the Lance to tire out or kill the monster?

“Oh, hi, Ollie.” He waved amiably.

Oliver stood with Ash, Chris and Shanine. Oliver stared at him with a strange expression. “What’s that on your chest?”

Zed looked down instinctively. The black spot from the injury was almost nonexistent now.

“Oh, this.” Zed waved a dismissive hand. “Just a lover’s spat. You should see the other guy.”

He walked up to them, and outside the building. Like most of the town, it was covered in sand and dust. Zed looked down at himself. Shirt and pants tattered. It was a miracle they still stayed on.

He needed a change of clothes.

“So,” he said. “I can see that you’ve all got guns. I take it you knocked the owners out and took their guns.”

Shanine made a face while Chris shrugged.

“We won the fight,” Chris said. “And took the loot.”

Something about how she said it didn’t sit right with him. But it wasn’t his problem. He’d just left a man to die from having his weapon suck the life out of him. Now that he thought about it, nobody had told him what exactly a Devil Set was.

I’ll have to remember to be more adamant when we get back.

“Ollie,” he said, turning down the side of the building. “There’s something behind this place that we need to check, and I need at least two Rukh mages with me.”

He looked at Chris.

“What?” she asked.

He shook his head and turned to Oliver. “Also, I told Daniel I’d take your gun if I need it, but I really won’t.”

“Why?” Oliver asked, as they followed him down the side of the building.

“Because I hate the damned things,” Zed answered. “They are nothing but loud and obnoxious.”

“Did you just call a gun obnoxious?” Shanine asked.

Zed stopped, looked at her.

“What?” she asked. “You have your thinking face on.”

Chris looked between the both of them.

“Bloodbath has a thinking face?” she asked, confused, then shook her head. “What the hell am I even asking? Bloodbath thinks?”

Oliver shook his head at her.

“What did we say?” he asked.

Chris looked away, chastised. “That we should be nicer to people.”

Zed frowned. What the hell?

What was that about? How was Oliver chiding Chris? And how was it working? No matter how he thought about it, it didn’t make sense to him.

His jaw dropped. “I know it’s not the time, since we might soon be risking our lives once more, but are two of you….”

He wiggled his brow.

Shanine smacked her forehead with an open palm and shook her head. Ash shook her head, too.

Zed looked at them.

“What?” he asked. “It’s a legitimate question.”

Oliver let out a sigh. “Let’s just go see this thing you’re making a fuss about.”

The walk around the building let them behind it. The walk was short, and after Zed’s unreplied comment, there were no more words exchanged.

When they got to the back of the building, Zed was stuck just staring.

“Is that a barnhouse?”

In front of them with a walkable distance of sandy ground littered by a few stones, was a brown barn-house. It looked very shabby, but stood like it refused to fall by nothing but it’s own sheer will.

“We’re checking it out, right?” Oliver asked.

Zed looked at him. “I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting you to be the one to ask us to check the ominous rundown barnhouse.”

Oliver’s brows furrowed. “Why not?”

“No reason.” Zed shrugged. “But yes, we are checking it out. I’m almost certain the creature’s in there.”

“And why aren’t we just turning back and leaving it alone?” Shanine asked.

Zed pointed at her. “Now that’s more along the lines of what I expected you to say, Ollie.”

Oliver sighed. “I think I follow what you’re on about. And if what I think you’re doing is what I think you’re doing, just remember that I know where you sleep.”

Zed shook his head. “Dude, we sleep in the same place… well, we will, once we find a place to be sleeping.”

They approached the barnhouse. Oliver held his rifle up in a steady aim, so did Chris and Ash. Zed walked ahead of them and Shanine stayed at the back.

When they got to the shed, no sound welcomed them. Zed stood with his hand on the door knob. He didn’t think he even needed to turn the knob to open it. The door was as much a mess as the rest of the building.

“Now, we all need to be careful, not you Ollie. You can probably survive a swipe or two from whatever’s behind this door. Shanine, count to thirty before you follow us inside. When I say thirty, I mean a really slow thirty. Like a five-year-old counting to thirty.”

“Zed!” Ash hissed. “Open the door.”

Zed pushed the door open and stepped out of it’s path. He wasn’t sure what the creature was or what it was capable of. All he knew was that there was a high chance a fight against a category three Rukh rank monster was going to be something to deal with.

When nothing happened, he looked at the others. They stood away from the door, looking back at him.

“Okay,” he said in a low whisper. “That’s a good sign.”

It meant the creature, whatever it was, likely didn’t have any ranged attacks. That was good. It meant there was less for them to worry about.

He walked into the room cautiously, his core active and runes ready to be pulled up at anytime.

Inside the the place was as bad as the outside. The ground was covered in dry hay. The wooden walls had cracks and outright breaks in them that let in steady streams of sunlight from outside. There was small wooden staircase that led up to an elevated platform. Each step was broken and some were even completely gone.

The others followed behind him after a moment.

Oliver kept his rifle aiming from side to side.

“I thought there was supposed to be something in here,” he said.

“There’s supposed to be.” Zed was sure of it.

He called up his notification and looked at the quest still stuck at one second.

New Quest: Purchase Order 001

You have ruffled a few feathers. Purchase what you require and make your exit before the time runs out.

· Objective: Acquire map: 2/2

· Objective: Acquire battery: 1/1

· Reward: mana stone x1.

Time remaining: 00:00:01.

He frowned at it. Now that he thought about it, it wasn’t making sense. Maybe he had misinterpreted it somehow.

It didn’t say anything about a mana beast or slaying one. All it had said was that he would be rewarded with a mana stone.

Which means I could probably just find one lying around.

Also, when he was leaving Daniel and the others, the other objectives were still unaccomplished. So why were they suddenly filled up.

And why isn’t it saying they are accomplished.

His frown deepend. Was something wrong with his notification?

What changed? He hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, and he couldn’t say anything out of the ordinary had been done to him recently. Unless…

He looked down at his chest. The black spot was nothing more than a small dot now. Could it be the reason?

“Everybody get ready,” he said. “Shanine, back out of the room. I’ve seen ten-year-olds count slower than you did, and I asked for the speed of a five-year-old.”

He heard Shanine walk back out.

The others were more alert now.

“Is it coming?” Ash asked.

“Not yet,” Zed answered. “But I’m about to release my aura again and it might react to it.”

Chris groaned. “Isn’t there another way? Your aura’s really annoying to be around.”

“Would you like to release yours, then?” he asked. “Seeing as you’re a rukh, it might react as well.”

Chris sighed, then motioned with her hand. “Go ahead. You’ve just got an annoying aura. That’s all.”

Zed wasn’t sure he liked the new Chris. Oliver was definitely having an influence on her. And while she was not nice, she was less rude and cruel. Still, he had grown accustomed to the rude version of her. This version just felt like something that would be short-lived.

Zed pulled his thoughts from the irrelevant and released his aura.

He let it trickle out of him slowly until it filled the room. Chris made a disgusted face as he stretched it as far as he could.

“It’s like standing in a field of blood,” she complained.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Zed said. “It’s more of a tub of blood.”

There was a quick sound of scuttling on the elevated platform with the broken stairs. It was sharp and fast. In a hurry.

Gotcha.

Whatever it was darted for one of the cracks in the wall. Oliver’s aim was already set and he shot the creature out of the air. The shot threw it into one of the walls, the impact letting out a sound like ringing metal.

The creature came down with a thud, burying itself under a small pile of hay. All the available guns were trained on it now, but nobody advanced.

“You sure that’s what we’re after?” Ash asked, skeptical. “I’m not feeling the hostility.”

Neither was Zed.

It brought him back to the quest. What if the timer wasn’t stuck at one second for the same reason it had been fluctuating for so long? What if something was actually wrong?

It said nothing about a mana beast, he reminded himself. Just that there would be a mana stone.

A new realization dawned on Zed. Not only had he been allowing the notifications guide his actions for so long now, but he’d also been allowing his interpretation of them guide him now. It wasn’t as if there were consequences for failing quests. At least none that was stated by the notifications.

The creature twitched under the pile of hay.

Chris took a step forward.

“Wait!” Oliver stopped her with a hand held to the side.

Chris looked at him, then quickly back at the hay that continued to twitch.

“What?” she asked.

“What if it’s not dangerous?”

“It is a mana beast,” Chris pointed out. “I don’t remember ever meeting a mana beast that wasn’t dangerous.”

“But there are,” he said. “Some mages tame them.”

“And none of us are tamers,” Chris replied. “Unless bloodbath over here learnt how to tame mana beasts when he turned his aura into whatever it is.”

Zed shrugged. “Only animal I ever tamed was a wild ferret when I was nine. Pesky little thing almost bit my brother’s finger off. He was fun, though.”

“What if it’s not a mana beast?” Shanine asked from the door.

“We shot it and it’s still very much alive,” Ash said. “Trust us, it’s definitely a mana beast.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for a conclusion. During the silence, the creature shook its way out from under the hay.

Out in plain sight, Chris lowered her gun.

“Is that a puppy?”

It looked like a brown puppy with a lot of fur and the deepest blue eyes Zed had ever seen on anything. It was also clearly a rukh rank monster from the feel of it’s aura.

The creature stood on all fours, small and cute. It watched them cautiously, its eyes carrying a touch of fear in them. Then it’s tail moved in front of it in a protective manner.

Zed saw it and paused.

“I don’t think that’s a puppy.”