Chapter 030: Journey Back

We began our journey to the temporary camp, right after we made sure that there was not a single thing remaining on the road. Nothing that could suggest that there was a fight. Nothing that could lead investigators to us.

I had enough practice of using a phone midwalk, that talking through Nexus while walking wasn’t a problem.

Avhar Khan [P]: … Uhm… How should I say this...

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: Don’t worry. We all make mistake and suffer failures.

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: So, what’s the plan B?

Avhar Khan [P]: … actually we succeeded xD

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: …

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: You wiped out Randal’s entire party? o_o

Avhar Khan [P]: Yes xD

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: You save that player?

Avhar Khan [P]: Yes xD Without a scratch.

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: … Holy shit.

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: You are a magnificent bastard, you know that?

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: I’ll give you a call when I have another job for you.

Vasyr Mirenir [P]: Keep up the good work.

I guess someone is really happy that he choose us as a co-workers in a Conquer The World scheme.

Well, we might have quality (and a shitload of luck), but Crimson Blades still have quantity. We need to grow strong enough to win the battle that will happen when they eventually realize that we’re not going to play along anymore.

***

When we reached the camp, the Moment of Revelation had already finished. Both former slaves were already wearing much more decent clothing we prepared beforehand (somehow the size fit them, more or less). Player was still rather withdrawn, but no longer trembled.

Catgirl in the meantime was very busy trying to communicate something to Leria, while Simea in the background was busy rolling up the camp. Leria had troubles trying to decrypt the meaning behind the Syna’s gestures, so I decided to give her a hand.

I had a small store of things that might be useful sometime in my Inventory. It included few sheets of paper and something to write on. After I handed it to the catgirl, she quickly wrote something.

“I want to serve the Chosen One.” I read loudly. Yeah, that wasn’t surprising at all. I mean, she was captured, enslaved and raped… and then a Chosen One, a person who was elected to commune with her God, came to save her. I would be more surprised if she didn’t offer Leria her servitude. “If she says so, I will abandon the Fylak Var and serve her.”

“What?” Leria heard this name for the first time. She probably didn’t know she could appraise the active effect. I will tell her later on.

“Basically an oath with which the Overtyrant’s worshippers abandon their life and spends the rest killing as many evil guys as they can, before passing away.” I answered. “Normally backing out of it would be an Anathema of Dishonour, but as a Chosen One you have certain… rights. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. And so on.” Last thing I expected was to quote the Gospel here… uh. “Basically, you can undo such oaths in the name of Overtyrant, when you decide that your mission demands it.”

“Oh.” Made me wonder if she knew she could marry people, make them priests, give confessions and so on. She was literally a khardism’ version of an apostle. Nobody, even if their version of pope, could argue with a person that (almost) literally spoke with their God. She didn’t even have to use official rites.

I decided to avoid telling her that, unless it was going to be needed. She might have stupid ideas. Like, suddenly patting my back and telling me that from now on Simea and I were a married couple and we were going to stop being so repressed or she would kick our asses. This would be a totally legitimate marriage according to khardism doctrine and game mechanics, meaning that doing anything sexual to anyone beside Simea would be an Anathema of Dishonour.

Overtyrant wouldn’t be happy about that. And I got used to using his magic already.

“I suggest doing it.” I moved slightly, making sure that Syna couldn’t see my lips. “She might be very useful. And I’m still curious about her invisible class.”

“Let it be, then.” Leria nodded. “Do I have to… do something specific, or is…”

“No.” I glanced at Syna’s status. Fylak Var effect was gone. “Saying ‘Let it be, then.’ was enough.” It was the least visible part of being a Chosen One. Most people focused on Transcendentals and Blessings, without noticing that part at all. Often for their own peril.

Catgirl gestured that she wanted to write something again. I handed her the sheet with her previous messages. This time she kept writing for a longer while.

One of the few of my traits that I had confidence in was my ability to read things quickly. I glanced at the paper and quickly got the gist of her writing.

“Essentially, she went on a killing spree in Ambryxis, killing many people connected to slave trade and stuff like that. She even got one magician.” Average magician was at least level 20. Difference between sorcerer and magician was that between an amateur and professional. They had education, and theoretical knowledge on how magic worked. Each of them could create new spells by modifying existing incantations and making new from scratch. Most of them could improvise spells even on the battlefield. Slaying one was no small feat. I got even more curious about her background. “But she got unlucky, and got arrested for something she she actually didn’t do while buying provisions. The judge sentenced her to enslavement and then she ended up in Lily.” In the meantime suffering enough abuse to break average person mind into pieces. But she wrote nothing about that. “Her hideout should be still there, with her entire equipment. She asks us to let her pick up stuff when we will be near the city.”

“We are going to let her do that?” Leria asked me.

“Of course we will.” This could shed some light on who she really was. Definitely not a simple vigilante. I seriously wanted to know how she killed a mage.

I was still going to have someone accompany her just in case.

“Are you done talking already?” Vaera’s voice tore me out of my thoughts. Oh. Together with Simea he packed entire camp and was now waiting impatiently for us to wrap our little debate.

I sighed.

“Yes. We should move. We are going to make a detour, let’s not make other people see us on the same road as the group of adventurers that mysteriously vanished.” The last thing we wanted was getting connected to a mysterious disappearances. There were going to be more of them in the future.

***

We walked through the less used roads surrounding the one that connected Ambryxis with Starfall Tower. We passed through several villages that supplied the city with food. Each and every one of them with a palisade and a small guardian deity enshrined in the middle that covered the entire settlement with defensive aura similar to one that kept scary things away from Ambryxis.

This was merely one part of their defense. Elder adventurers that decided to retire from hunting things and raiding anomalies and dungeons, most of them at least level 20. All villagers were at least level 10 and could use spears and bows, the cheapest weapons possible.

Where civilization ended, scary things started. Villages were a frontline in the perpetual war, of which few people in the cities knew.

We walked openly, without trying to hide. It would be much too suspicious. Besides, locals were bound to discover us sooner or later. They were ever vigilant. Probably also had good relationships with wild daemons living in the meadows and forests surrounding them. Nymphs would warn them if they saw armed people sneaking around on their turf. Avoiding their gaze while on their territory was impossible.

Instead we marched through the village, pretending to look for work. Adventurers looking for job were a common sight for villagers. We were so unoriginal and boring that they were going to forget us before the nightfall.

We reached Ambryxis without further troubles.

***

Persuading Syna to let Simea accompany her was easy. Leria simply gave her an order. She complied without a word of criticism. Having a divine authority behind our words was useful.

We told them to meet us outside of the city. Behind the gate that led to the Hold. We waited by the road, close to the place where you had to abandon it to reach our headquarters while trekking through the wilds. Maybe two hours later they catched up to us.

Holy shit.

Syna wore a sort of… armour, that looked like taken straight out of a postnuclear FPS. A weird one. Chest and shoulders were protected by something that looked like a breastplate together with some shoulderguards. But beneath it was essentially a Second World war or Cold War-era military uniform in dark green colour, with several pouches attached to it. There was also something like a gasmask hanging there.

Also, high leather boots… and a rifle. Looked like German Mauser from Second World War. DFI must have modeled it upon a K98k. With a scope. Sniper? She probably suffered sanity damage every time she looked through it. Added additional degree of determination to her vigilantism.

Of course there was also a helmet. One modeled in a way that allowed her cat ears to stick out. And what looked like a bayonet sheathed on her belt.

I remembered such an equipment from World’s Requiem.

I whistled loudly. “Well, talk about luck. Overtyrant must have invested a lot of attention to his newest Chosen One.”

“What is that armour?!” Leria gawked. Yeah, no wonder such country bumpkins knew nothing about it. This wasn’t a common knowledge.

“Standard equipment of Imperial 101st. Infantry Division.” I answered. “An elite formation of Imperial Army dedicated to operations that require... a more special approach.” I shook my head. “Deep raids into anomalies, eliminating magicians that went renegade, subjugating powerful daemons and daemon lords… this sort of stuff. They also have simple melee warriors and magicians, but they are known to have an unnaturally large number of gunners and snipers.” Judging from the scope attached to the gun, she was the latter. No wonder she scored a kill on a magician. It’s hard to defend yourself from a bullet you have no idea is coming for you. One of the reasons why Imperium never changed into a magocracy, despite the power and influence magicians wielded.

I appraised Syna again. She no longer hid her real allegiance, so she was now marked as Commando. So she wasn’t a simple sniper, but probably also a hand-to-hand combat specialist, proficient in killing people with bayonette… and her own natural weapons, that she used so successfully against the fire sorcerer.

Too bad the moon fever crippled her. She must have been a true artist in killing people. At least Leria got a competent sidekick.

They finally came close. Syna saluted, obviously to Leria. Then she showed us that she had a small… blackboard of sorts attached to a bracelet. She quickly wrote something on it, before showing me. With a wide smile on her face.

“I have returned. And I’m ready to serve the Chosen.” I read to Leria. Is Syna using me to read her messages because she considers herself unworthy to speak directly to Leria, or is it because she knows I’m the one making decisions here?

“Great. Now let’s go to Hold. I’m seriously hungry.” Well, it wasn’t really Chosen-like, but I had to say I agreed with Leria there.

***

An hour later we were already in the Hold, finishing our welcoming feast. Kytar was rather generous when it came to our stockpiles of food.

“There is one thing I don’t get.” Lena said to me during the feast.”If they have weapons like sniper rifles, why do they have swords and so on.”

Eh. So now they started to ask me about lore. Uh. Let’s finish this quickly.

“Yes, well, they work slightly different than in our world.” I answered. I could see Simea listening to me as well. “They are powered by aetherite powder rather than gunpowder. Properly protected with magic from magic that could suppress fire and embers in the whole areas.”

According to lore several early gunpowder-based armies were completely curbstombed when their enemies simply shutdown fire (and, thus, ignition) throughout the battlefield. According to DFI suggestions, Gods didn’t like the idea of mortals switching over to guns and cannons. Their estimates of the characters of their worshippers were rather low. The whole post-death judgment part was so that mortals could have doubts about their post-death fate, so that they would value their lives at least slightly more. Instead of acting like idiots, that they seemed to love so much.

Slashing your opponent’s face with a sword was much more personal than firing a cannon from the distance. Nothing better than a good bit of PTSD to make people act more civil to each other.

“Aetherite has less power so the initial velocity is lower and the accuracy is much worse. Unless you use Aura to improve the latter. But the lower velocity also means lower damage. Normally it’s just another ranged weapon like crossbows, only one that shoots faster for much lower damage and has less specialized ammunition. Like rifles. Or shoots slower but causes much more damage. Like muskets and handcannons.” That dwarven cannoneer from Randal’s group could probably insta-kill Watcher, but after doing it would be almost harmless for a longer period of time. He still had several different skills to use in the meantime, but chances for a successful reload during the battle were nil. “Also bullets cost a lot, which makes wasting them a horrible idea.”

Lena nodded after a while of thinking. Yeah. This explanation was much better than Robinson’s (or the Founding Fathers that created the company before Robinson took over) decision to add rifles to broaden the choice of weapons in their games. No matter the cost.

***

After the feast we assigned beds to our two new members. Elf accepted becoming a part of the group after she heard what it was about. Another case of “I want to get laid” going horribly right. And another case of person staring into the abyss and making a face heel turn. I was still going to watch her for a while, just in case the numerous rapes she suffered failed to beat the stupid out of her.

You can never be too careful. Especially when everything around you wants to kill you. Or worse.

Let’s hope that selling Randal’s stuff was going to earn us enough money to buy basic equipment for a blacksmith AND an enchanter. We need more money for real. As a classic once said, to prosecute a war you need three things. Money, money, and more money.

Last few days were stressing beyond belief so I decided to excuse myself from the improvised party and retreat to my bed earlier. Read something, drink, generally be lazy.

Few minutes after I hid in the safety of my bed, I heard knocking to my bedroom door.

What is it now?

It was Simea. She came in and closed the door behind her. Strangely, she wore her normal clothing, rather than the nightgown.

“What is it?” She obviously didn’t come her with an intention of sleeping.

“I know your secret.” She turned her face towards me and leaned her back on the door. “I know what you are trying to hide from us.”

No way.

I remained calm on the outside, but in the inside… inside there was a pandaemonium of screams and mutual accusations. I have an interesting personality.

“What are you talking about?” She couldn’t possibly…

“Leria’s Sense Evil told her you were hiding something. Something important. Probably something for your own gain.” I know that much. “She told me to investigate. That’s why I followed you to the Lily.” Shit, shit, shit, this isn’t happening.

“And what exactly have you discovered?” I pretended to be calm and interested. But internally, I was shaking. She was getting closer and closer to it.

“Normally I can only sense sex and stuff like that… but when I remain close to someone, I can analyze him closer.” She continued speaking… while ‘accidentally’ blocking the only escape route from the room. “I can feel when this person encounters something arousing, even if there is no e...erection or anything.” She stumbled there, but I was too terrified to make fun of it.

Ah, fuck it. “So, you dug out the shameful secret of mine.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “I guess this was going to happen sooner or later.” If I were going to go down, I could at least do that in a manly way.

“Mhh.” She looked at me weird. “You… you... “

“Let me help you there, since you seem to lack proper words to describe it.” I sighed. Innocent to the end. “I’ve spent much too many years alone, delving deeper and deeper into forbidden parts of the internet. Soon growing tired of conventional stimuli, being able to achieve… gratification from only the most abusive and degrading pieces of… well, I can’t exactly call it art, right?” There was a short silence. Awkward, obviously.

“So when you spoke about people that grow to hate themselves due to Doomplaces…” She started again.

“Yes. I also spoke of myself.” I shook my head. “There was a moment when I looked at people surrounding me and understood that I don’t want to be like that. So I abandoned Glorastia, the local Doomplace, and joined the Treaty. Spending the rest of my playthrough on annihilating my former country.”

Great times. First time in a while when I felt genuinely proud of myself. That was a pretty important turning point in my life. Betraying the Empire was the tip of the iceberg.

Fun fact - a person that came to understand he was genuine human trash is very susceptible to religions that openly say that all humans are trashes of various level of trashiness, but God accepts them all as long as they genuinely try to fix themselves.

I also went to a therapist, but if I’m to be honest the former thing helped me much more than the latter in the end. Who might have guess?

“One of the many reasons while I hate being here.” I said after another short while of awkward silence. “I’m like a former drug addict that discovers that his neighbours give out free samples of drugs.” I shook my head. “You know now why I wasn’t exactly comfortable with being open about that part?” This wasn’t something I wanted people to know about.

“I... “ I guess my sudden openness caught her off guard. She didn’t expect it. “I… guess I understand it now.” Yeah, that must have been pretty underwhelming. Together with Leria she expected who-knows-what on my part. Instead, she discovered I was simply a pervert who didn’t like the truth to be made public.

There was a long period of really awkward silence.

“So this is why…” She interrupted it finally. “So this is why… you… uhm... “ What is it now, Simea?” You know… “She looked away, visibly ashamed. Then understanding dawned on me.

“So, I guessed correctly that you developed feelings on me, hmm?” She nodded, still not looking at me. “And you are curious if this is the reason why I don’t respond in any way to your signals?” I might have next to no experience in this, but I wasn’t an average manga protagonist. I wasn’t dumb, so I at least suspected this. I refused to act for other reasons. “Yes. It’s precisely because of that.”

It was also because part of me believed her feelings were clearly caused by Stockholm Syndrome due to our forced… cohabitation. There was one more reason, though.

“Listen, it will be the best for us all if you just… search for someone else.” I said. Just… how did it come to this?! Few minutes ago I was almost trembling because she cornered me by discovering my secret. And now?! “I’m a broken person. My stupid brain doesn’t want a girlfriend, but a sex slave.” I sighed. “Don’t even try to imagine what I pictured when I had to keep myself hard. You know, before you got healed by a miracle.”

Seriously, just get lost already. It’s not that I don’t return your feelings. I quite obviously fell for Simea. She was so innocent that it was cute, pretty, and actually seemed to like spending her time with me. Plus she was smart enough for me to not feel triggered by her stupidity while not being smarter than me. I wouldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand people smarter than me as a whole.

Which was precisely why I tried to push her away. I felt like a stereotypical tsundere, but I at least her a valid reason for acting like that.

Simea looked up and eyes met. “And what if I’m fine with it?” Excuse me? “I’m a fucking night elf. Break my finger during sex for few days in a row and I’m gonna get aroused from having my fingers broken. This stupid body of mine could be useful for once.”

…

…

I didn’t see that coming.

“That’s a terrible idea.” Let’s be stalwart, despite Simea losing her mind. And despite my retarded brain screaming at me to accept it. “You don’t try to compromise with evil. It’s either yes or no. Trying to take a middle way always ends badly. Even if I promise to limit myself to least… abusive stuff, we are overtime going to get bored with it and go further. Ending who knows where. No. It’s already behind me. Completely. I’m really sorry, but… find someone else."

What a pitiful person I was. Running away like that. After trying to act like a proper man whenever I could, I was escaping rather than facing this like a man should.

“What if we…”

“What is it now, Simea? You aren’t one to resign easily, hmm? Even after finding out what a trash of a person I was?”

“What if we make a contract? About what could be done and what couldn’t? Gods around here are pretty real, if Leria signs it in the name of Overtyrant, wouldn’t he act when we breached it?”

…

…

She really is stubborn, isn’t it? A maiden in love, huh. This whole affair slowly changed into a love comedy. One perfectly fitting the Doomplace.

I laughed loudly. “You aren’t aware of what you just did, are you?” Seeing her confused expression I continued. “Khardism has different approach to marriages than those on Earth. It originates from the beastmen society that was quite complicated in that matter. Some tribes and clans were staunch monogamists, in others polygamy was the basis. There were also few that were pretty communal and it was free sex with anyone that wanted it.”

Which only showed how backward they were. Something like that couldn’t work in a civilized society, because for a society to be civilized it had to be based on independent families. Meaning parents and children. All backwards lands on Earth had strong positions of clans and much larger families.

“And?” Simea seemed interested but was still rather lost.

“Well. Because of that there is no centralized marriage ceremony in khardism. Rather than it there is a custom of signing a marriage contracts, normally either for twenty years or for life. Mostly between pairs that decide to settle up and have children. But there are also different situations.” I saw an understanding dawning on her face. “Yes. According to tenets of khardism you just proposed to me. Bold move.”

She went red. Mumbled something I couldn’t understand. Then she turned her back, opened the door, and fled.

Uh huh. Seems like she accidentally went a bit too far then. On the other hand, she did have an interesting idea. Overtyrant obviously invested some attention in our group, if we used him as a… warranter of sort… he is either a real God or a semi-omnipotent and omniscient AI; he of all people can’t possible be fooled, right? Normally it wouldn’t be possible, but we had a Chosen One around.

Something to think about. Of course when I stop being terrified of the future, now that Simea (and probably Leria) knows truth about me.

Of course the part of it that I decided to share. Let’s hope they won’t dig deeper.