“Is that a baby?” The moment I asked that question, I wanted to smack myself for its sheer stupidity.

“Blood Rain, a pleasure as always. Come in before you cause a calamity.” Tor’s voice was cold and she was giving me a glare. I entered her house. The click on the stone floor from my pronged foot sounded exceptionally loud in the silence between us. I followed Tor into the kitchen and we both took a seat at the table.

I looked at the baby but all I could tell was that it was a baby. “Why are you here?” Tor asked.

“Um…I kind of wanted to see you again. You were fun to have along with me. We kicked ass.” I said with a smile.

“I left because you are incredibly reckless, and I didn’t want to be caught up in that. Then…then you go and burn down a wedding, lose your arm, get a bonus quest centered on yourself, burn thousands of players, and now you are trolling the scariest player out there next to you.” She finished her rant and let out a huff. The smile at seeing her again had fallen off my face.

“Alright. Can we chat a bit?” I asked. “You never responded to my messages from my atrium.”

“I have moved on. You may stay for a day, but I swear if something happens while you are here, I am going to take your horse sized dick and beat you to death with it. Understand?” I didn’t doubt she would do that.

“Yeah. No trouble, got it. So a baby?” Something about a baby was making me say stupid questions.

“Yes a baby.” Well at least it wasn’t a monster in disguise.

“Is it yours?” She gave me a glare. “Oh, um. I didn’t think players could have children in game. With the age rules and everything.”

“This is Freddrick.” He wiggled around a bit. I noted that she had avoided the last question and tried to change the topic to something safer.

“Hello Freddrick. So do you know who the father is?” I asked. Tor looked away. “Wait, just wait a second. Am I the father of…that?”

“It is not a that, it is a baby named Freddrick.” This conversation was not going at all the way I had expected.

“Am I the father?” I asked. I didn’t dare to breathe while I kept my eyes pinned on Tor. She turned to look at me.

“Yes.” I acted immediately not caring for the fall out.

“Observe.”

???

“If you use another skill, I am kicking you out.” Tor said with a growl.

“Shut up. You created a…child with me. How is that even possible?”

“Well when a man and woman love each other-“

“You know what I mean. Did you give birth to an NPC?”

“His name is Freddrick.” The baby was making her irrational.

“Tor, explain this to me right now. I never had sex with you in the first place. How is this even possible? Magic?”

“It was an option. I asked if I could have children in the game. It was the boon in exchange for monthly…penalties. Freddrick is my child and I will do anything to protect him. He is yours. We conceived the night you were drunk at the dungeon.” I thought back and it hit me.

“You…you raped me!” I shouted.

“Pffft, like you didn’t enjoy my attentions.”

“That doesn’t make it right.”

“Like you are one to talk. Also the game system didn’t think so.”

“You had a child without asking me.”

“So, you don’t care. Just leave and go do your own thing somewhere else.”

“I am not leaving my child. I won’t be a shitty father.” I blinked after I had said that. I was so caught in the moment I had just spoken without thinking.

“The moment people know you have a child in game, they will all come after him. You can’t protect a child from that.”

“I don’t care, I am staying.”

“You can stay for a day but after that you are leaving.”

“I am taking him with me.”

“How are you going to care for a baby? Feed it blood and throw him at enemies? You are a disaster waiting to happen. You can’t even protect your arm, how will you protect a baby?” That last line was a low blow.

“You want to taste my full power Tor? You think I won’t kill you out of some misguided notion of love?”

“No, but I will kill us all before I let you take Freddrick away.”

“You aren’t that strong.”

“I have been studying quite a bit. Amazing what one can accomplish when they aren’t running around killing people. Now will you behave?” I could tell she wasn’t bluffing. She had a trump card to counter me. Probably a general purpose one in case of an attack, but there was a trump card nonetheless.

“So this is our child, Freddrick. What am I even going to tell my mother, that I had a child in game?” I looked at the baby and felt tired. Not physically or even mentally, but emotionally. “This is pointless. The child is yours. I would like to stay in touch.”

“Very well, but you can’t stay here long. You really know how to make a mess.”

“Making a mess is my specialty.”

“Not calamities?”

“That is a side effect. I did want to ask you a favor.”

“Yes?”

“Can you heal my arm?” My hopes slightly rose because she might be able to do something.

“Do you have the arm, or what is left of it?”

“No, it was left behind in Breckley.”

“That is…not good.”

“What do you mean not good?” I was really worried at that. Why would my lost arm even matter?

“The darker aspects of the Church of Eight require body parts. They could forge a homunculus linked to you.” Tor looked very grim at this.

“A what?!” Just the term homunculus was concerning.

“It will be a being that is linked to you and will possess all your stats.” That didn’t sound that bad.

“So evil twin? I can beat my evil twin.”

“Depends on what magics are used and what the rest of the body is forged out of. If I was going to do something like that and had an insane amount of MP I would compress the arm to a small sphere and embed it in an iron golem carved with runes to enhance it. It could draw your stats as part of you but at the same time have a different body.” That did not sound good. My imagination drifted to an evil me looking like the Encasement with nothing under the armor.

“Any way to prevent that from happening?”

“To regrow your arm would require pulling that flesh back to you from where ever it is.”

“What about my foot?” That was something completely different.

“We had the piece, and the ichor was mixed in when it healed. Your open wound was also plunged into the bug guts, so there is that.”

“Could you do it?”

“That is tier nine, the highest level of Onciontituts magic.”

“Tier nine?”

“The magic system is completely bonkers. There are no clear skills. It is all by intuition, chants, and knowledge. You can’t just make up a god that easily and call upon its powers. There is a skill to sense out the cost of a spell without casting. I have been mapping quite a large number of spells. I divided them up into tiers, with each level being more costly. After you lost a limb I checked the cost and it is insane. I am talking a ten thousand MP cost minimum. I only have five thousand at max.”

“Is there any way to spread out the cost?”

“Yes, but then there is MP loss and probably increase the cost up to fifteen thousand. You are talking a month of constant Meditation in order to get that much MP.” I bowed my head at Tor.

“Would-“

“No. I run a healing business here. If I am not healing for a month people will ask questions. You will be discovered and then I will hunted down. I am lucky that no one has come after me for knowing you.”

“What about my MP, could I chip in?”

“You have only a couple hundred if I remember. That wouldn’t dent the cost and even then MP can’t be transferred without special skills, which I don’t have.”

I let out a sigh. I guess there was nothing that could be done. “What about purification for the demonic and ichor corruption?”

“Blood corruption is viewed very darkly.” She gave me a look. “You think making a homunculus is bad, that is nothing compared to blood corruption. The first time I asked, I was almost killed by the NPCs.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh, is right. Monsters are not viewed in a good light and human monster combos are deeply distrusted. If there is any way to remove blood corruption it would require at least a tenth tier spell across multiple disciplines. It is intertwined in your fate, which makes it near impossible to deal with.”

“There is fate magic?”

“No, but monsters are viewed as the magical incarnation of fate type magic. The fact that we saw Tafe is incredibly rare. She is like the boogey man. Parents tell their kids, behave or Tafe will send monsters after you. They don’t like saying her name either. After seeing her I get that. Now you are her champion.”

“Yeah, I called on her in desperation. She didn’t help of course. Then she wanted the cube and I made a deal that I kind of did some aggressive negotiations…”

“You tried to kill her?”

“I felt the answer to the question I asked was bull shit and told her off and kept the cube. She declared me her champion in response.”

“Only you could cause such a disaster.”

“There is one benefit, monsters ignore me and I can kind of communicate with them.” Tor’s face tensed up and she clutched the baby tighter. “What?”

“I looked into the local stories. A person ignored by monsters is considered this world’s Antichrist.”

“How, I mean, monsters aren’t that bad. Just like NPCs.”

“You don’t get it. You look for all the exploits and loop holes but not the history of this place. The Church of Eight is the church. They empower people to protect them from fate and Tafe herself. This is done by creating a panel they can use like players.”

“What…really?”

“How do you not know this?”

“I kind of suspected but it never seemed that important and it never came up.” Tor shook her head and continued.

“Anyways, this is seen as a way to separate one’s self from Tafe. Monsters have a very high fate. Now the Church believes that the hero of legend saved the world from Tafe and was the embodiment of the Eight. Their mythos speaks about a time when the final battle will occur with the hero re-born and Tafe for the fate of this world.”

“So where does this Antichrist thing come in?”

“Tafe will call upon all manner of monsters for the final battle including the Endolgon. There is mention of a person who fell to Tafe and will become the one to fight the hero and send the world into total destruction.”

“So I am this person? I don’t even get along with Tafe. I tell her off all the time.”

“Have you completed a task for her or accepted gifts in her name?” My mind drifted to the sword on my hip and the old man.

“The passage from the Book of Tears reads as follows.”

“So in the end the champion of the people and the Church will stand against the forces arrayed against him. There opposing him stands his counterpart shrouded in darkness and despair. Having received gifts from the darkness, carried out the unmentionable deeds, and casting aside the future will be the champion of darkness.”

That didn’t sound good. “So?” She asked.

“I did get a gift. This blade, the Endolgon gave it to me. It is called the Slice of Life and any wound cannot be healed.”

“A blade that counters the other powers of the world. It is most likely a blade forged using fate magic. I can’t even begin to work out how that is possible….”

“I also completed a task.” Tor stilled and looked at me intensely.

“What task?”

“The old man from Bug Island caught up with me. Tafe wanted him killed before he spoke her true name.”

“True name? I never heard about something like that.”

“I cut off his head with the blade and Tafe took his head with her.”

“She took the head, are you sure?”

“Yes, why?”

“She isn’t supposed to be able to act on the world like that. Her powers of direct action should be cut off. That blade….if I had to guess I would say it contains a link to her power. You got it from the Endolgon?”

“Yeah. I went deep into the cave. I didn’t see it but the mental pressure was incredible. Apparently it can melt people’s brains and then control them. It spoke in single words and then gave me this blade.”

“All that is left is to ‘cast aside the future’. Most have thought meant killing others, but there is the possibility it means killing your child.” Tor stared at me. “Think very carefully what you say next.” I saw her free up a hand and have it poised to act.

“I will leave you two alone and not bring trouble.”

“I will accept that for now. No one is touching Freddrick.” She gave me a glare.

I raised my hand. “Got it. Really.”

“Good. My advice is to get your arm back. You won’t be able to heal it normally. As Tafe’s champion you are probably resistant to the magics of others.”

“I have a quest for the arm.”

“The temptations of evil is what the Church calls quests. A path to power other than slaying monsters.”

“What about killing humans?”

“Evil but as long as people don’t make a point of it, the Church doesn’t get involved.” She looked at me. “They have methods of knowing when someone engages in wanton killing to stop an Antichrist or super monster from rising up. Congratulations you have fulfilled the dream of every cultist everywhere since the dawn of time.” Her sarcastic tone clearly showed how little she thought of this.

“We would have made a kick ass team and beaten this game.”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The last level of quests. I thought you would have hit level one hundred by now.”

“You are level one hundred?” I asked surprised.

“No, but I did heal a player who had reached level one hundred recently. He was incredibly depressed and only said winning was impossible from the final quest.”

“I wonder what it is.” Killing Tafe or something insane.

“I wasn’t able to find out. But if it is a quest that means Tafe is in charge of it.” That automatically made it a hundred times more miserable. We sat there in silence as we thought about what the quest could be.

“I guess I have an arm to get back.”

“It is a trap.”

“Has that ever stopped me?”

“Don’t be an idiot. Travel elsewhere and kill some monsters to level up.”

“Maybe, but the quests-“

“Just live your life!” She shouted.

“Like you are? Having a baby, giving up on winning?”

“Why care so much? There is enough pain and death, just enjoy things.”

“I have come too far to give up now.”

“That is bull shit. Just kill yourself and live a quiet life.”

“What happened to the Tor who lived life to the fullest and never gave up?”

Tor looked to the side. “How old do you think I am?”

“Um, in your twenties or thirties?” I replied hesitantly.

“I am hundred and seven. I was never able to have a child and now my life is coming to a close. I never thought I would have a chance like this. I won’t give it up for anything.”

“But why travel and fight? Why not just settle down?”

“Galmore hunted players to start off with and I was looking for a city when I ran into you. Growing up I always liked the bad boys but was too shy. This time I decided to take a chance.” She looked at the baby still quietly resting in her arms. “I just went with the flow and the excitement. When I realized I was pregnant and the desert disaster happened, that was it. I want a chance to live my life and raise my child.”

I took a couple of breaths to calm down before replying. “You were always the best Tor. I will miss you.”

“Don’t worry, I am sure you will find the right woman for you. I heard The Encasement is in need of a man to teach her how to use really use balls.” I let out a small cough.

“Um, that was just me trolling.”

“Hmmm, well I think you really would make a cute couple.” I just stared at her and she grinned back.

“Don’t make me call you granny.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You do realize who you are talking to.”

“Point.” We had been chatting for a while and I would need to leave if I was getting out of the city undetected.

“Time for me to go. It has been fun Tor. Stay safe and Freddrick better be able to kick his old man’s ass when he grows up.”

“Take care yourself. Try and not to become the Antichrist that destroys the world and sends everyone to pits of eternal darkness, monsters, and suffering.”

“I will make sure to push that back past the tea party with Tafe.” I reached the front door. “Good bye.”

“Bye, Blood Rain.” I exited the house and began making my way make to the land ship. My thoughts were troubled. Tor was staying here in Yaxel and all the other stuff we had talked about. I was troubled, what was the quest at level one hundred? I had not even had a feeler from any of the info brokers either.

“So what do you think of all that…I need to name you. How about Slimey? Um, squeeze my left shoulder for no and my right for yes.” My left shoulder was squeezed slightly. “Guess it was too generic. What about Godhaxlol as a name?” My left shoulder was squeezed three times in rapid succession. “I was only joking, go easy.”

“Well I did some research. I think Kek the Egyptian god of darkness.” The black slime squeezed my right shoulder.

“Kek it is. So, am I really going to destroy the world on behalf of Tafe?” Both shoulders were squeezed.

“So unclear. Well better than a yes. Well time to get my arm back. What do you say?” Kek squeezed my right shoulder. “I guess we will cruise north and then find a boat to sail across the Sea of Storms. We can then land and walk to Angal. Simple.”

Kek did not respond. “You need to learn how to speak.” My left shoulder was squeezed. “I am guessing you can’t?” My right shoulder this time. I was exhausted by the time I got back to the Wish.

I slept for almost an entire day, waking up the following morning. I had a fair amount of food. I refilled the barrel with water and my canteens. With that taken care of I set off north. It would take all day to reach the north end of the Durrunian Desert and the Wild Lands. I could probably coast along the edge of the desert for a while.

I had looked over my map again and decided I would head east and find a ship east of the Roaring Strait and depart directly from the edge of the Sea of Storms. I could try and go most of the way on the land ship and I was seriously considering it. The thing was insanely fast and cut down travel time massively. Especially with the plains and the desert being flat enough to cruise along.

I needed a real plan to get my arm back from a horde of fanatical priests who thought I was their version of the Antichrist, Just Han with his powerful charisma attacks, and finally whatever homunculus they had built my arm into, to make a super evil twin. Would it be the good twin, since I was now considered the abomination on the face of the world?

“What do you think Kek? Do I have a shot with you at my side?” Both shoulders were squeezed. “Yeah, everything is probably going to go to shit. So you can understand me, can you read or write?” My left shoulder was squeezed. “Alright then, I need to teach you.”

I took off my arm guard. “Can you form a thin layer on my skin. I will write the letters onto you with my… and I don’t have another hand to use. I guess I can use my nose and you can listen to my instructions.” Part of Kek spread out on top of my arm in a thin layer.

“This is ‘A’.” I etched the letter onto my arm with my nose. I had thought about using other ways of communication, but my sense of touch wasn’t that good. If I used something like Morse code it would take a lot more work to interpret what Kek was saying rather than just teaching him how to write out what he wanted to say.

I had mentally classified Kek as a boy. He was dark, broody, and got his fluids everywhere. Girl slimes were pink and boy ones were black. I was not going to think about The Encasement, she was the exception that proved the rule.

“’A’ is shaped like a triangle with two sides and a line in the middle. Just make the lines thinner so they are easier to read.” I kept giving instructions as the Wish cruised into the desert on its way north. I had no clue how I was going to defeat an army of priests still.

My resistances were high, but they wouldn’t hold up to a serious blow. Damage reduction on a percentage wasn’t damage negation. I could still get my head cut off or a critical injury that would deal so much damage, that percentage resistance wouldn’t be able to counter it.

I was a man with an incredibly kick ass blade, black slime, and that was about it. I had no super weapons or a way to recharge myself. I wasn’t worried about fighting but it would be the battle after battle that would end me. The sheer attrition would wear me down. I had no doubt that the church was preparing for my attack. With the way things usually went, Tafe was probably giving them a warning.

I needed more levels and stat points. I needed a lot of stat points. There was a small bump that shook the land ship and broke my concentration. A resounding roar came from behind me. I looked back and immediately cursed myself for asking for lots of stat points. A massive yellow dragon burst out of the sand and began floating in the air behind me. It was the same dragon that had taken out the tower and the worms.

“Observe.” I said before I got too far away.

The Yellow Dragon RalothaniLvL: 2375Strongest Stat: ?HP: 789232MP: 98123SP: 1987033Strongest Skill: Fire Beam

It was following me in that weird frozen way it had moved before without moving its wings. “Really Tafe! Really!” There was no response. “Go away dragon.” I shouted. “I don’t want to fight you.” Its face didn’t even flinch or make any sign of recognition. It began to open its mouth.

“Kek, any ideas?” It just squeezed my left shoulder and that was it. I swerved the land ship to the side the moment the dragon stopped moving and a glow began emitting from its mouth. A combination of factors saved me. First the dragon had not gained that much altitude. The second was that I had been on top of a hill when it froze to aim.

As the Wish coasted off to the side it received a massive blast of hot air as a beam of fire and light lanced where the land ship had been before and hit the next hill. The hill immediately erupted into a ball of fire and debris, turning into a molten crater.

I kept heading away and let out my breath since the dragon was not pursuing. That was good. It was either dumb, or not really trying. I was going with the second since it wasn’t even chasing after me. I had probably hit it with the land ship and it was just annoyed. That power level was totally insane, killing one would be a challenge, the work of a lifetime.

***

Author’s Note: I tried not to make this chapter an info dump. Some long time questions are answered and Blood Rain sets off again to retrieve his lost arm. A Dragon put in an appearance, but that was just a yawn.

So the next few chapter will be the journey to Angal and then the next arc will be Arm Retrieval. I am currently in the process of moving so don’t be alarmed if there is a gap of a day between chapters. Things should go back to daily posting by next weekend.