Edited by: Flubbykin

My headache appeared to be much worse than I have thought. The backlash from overburdening my mind and body that I expected were an hour or less of unconsciousness and some small debuff to spell power and mana regeneration for a day or two, yet I could have said by my body that I "slept" a little bit longer. How could I tell?

Your [Party Member] [Blanka XXXXXX] has slain [Scor'ver-ling Guardian]

[Blanka XXXXXX] has obtained [60 exp]

You have obtained [40 exp]

Your [Party Member] [Blanka XXXXXX] has slain [Scor'ver-ling Spitter] Blanka XXXXXX] has obtained [80exp]

You have obtained [53 exp] Your [Party Member]...

The wall of text was rather long. That plus the sweet smell of death echoing to me from corridors not so far away forced my heart to speed up a little.

- "Already up, you idiot?" I heard the voice of my so-called companion "...you surely are a moron! Great alchemist my-ass. What kind of retard abuses his powers till the point of passing out and then decides to have an unprotected nap in the middle of a dungeon without telling his friends?" black-haired woman was yelling her guts out.

- "One. You are not my friend, just an annoying ballast that is glued to me like a butt to a dog's tail, two, the only reason I ended in this condition is that someone lowered her guard and was about to have her head snapped off, three, I was not unprotected, I managed to cast fire rune around me plus had my familiars protecting me. Sebastian and Kaito were more than enough to fight off a few bugs."

- "A mere would be enough, but I will take this as your apology too."

... What a full-of-herself cunt. I like her.

- "Want some appreciation?" I tilted my head to the side.

- "I am doing what I consider as righteous and just, still hearing nice words from an asshole like you? I can't let this opportunity to pass. Go on." silly woman had no idea what she just asked for.

- "Aww, who's my good little girl? Who did a very good job? Yes, you did! You did!" I got up from the floor and gave her few pats on the head.

- "I have no idea what I even expected from you. No, wait - I expected nothing, yet you still disappointed me. Seriously, that wouldn't hurt you to just once act like a man and show real gratitude and concern."

She rolled her eyes.

- "Quite the opposite, your disappointment comes from expectation, and your expectations are forcing you to believe that other people are somehow bound to fulfill them. And I? I give a damn for an opinion of very few people, I can count them on one hand. Last time I checked you were not on the list."

- "I only pity you."

- "I beg your pardon?"

- "People very rarely cause evil just like that, unprovoked and without a purpose. Evil warlocks that appear out of thin air with a desire to destroy the world appears only in fairy tales. Bandits rarely like to live in the forests attacking travelers - they do this because they want to eat, people are not regularly joining the army just to kill without repercussions, they do that because they wish to support their country or because they are afraid that the villages they come from being threatened. There must also but at least one reason why you are such a dick."

She indeed said that with a hint of true sadness in her tone.

- "Sounded almost as if you are sympathizing with bandits. You? The executioner?"

- "To understand the reason does not mean to support it... if you would understand how criminals think it would get easier to hunt them down."

- "That's rather dangerous thinking here, Blanka..." her eyes widened as I addressed her by her name for the very first time "... gazing into the abyss you make the abyss gaze into you. Try not crossing the subtle line between hunting criminals and becoming one yourself."

- "That will never happen."

- "And that's a line I have heard too many bloody times. Magicians and alchemist that were so obsessed with their creation that they would slowly start their experiments on human, city guards slowly turning thief's interrogation into tortures, hunters tracking beasts for so many days, months and years that they have lost their humanity themselves..." I stopped and gazed her in the eyes "... You have no idea how subtle the changes are. These will never be spotted by neither you nor your closest friends. Will start innocently, will end up tragically. This always happens."

- "Not to me, for I am not doing that for myself, I take no pleasure from taking life away. I have my purpose, I have my codex and law, and as long as I stick to the creed, I shall not be corrupted."

Law is freely shaped by people in power. One move of a pen is all it takes to make an innocent man a criminalist. What if law already was corrupted, to begin with? No. It's pointless because... what she said about people having reasons for their actions was more about herself than me, wasn't it?

- "Suit yourself."

I inspected my status

[Mana Fever - medium/low]

- Effects of your spells are 20% weaker

- Your mana regeneration is 20% slower

Duration remaining:

03h21m22s

I can live with that.

- "Fine. We can continue our journey onward, I mean, I can, you can suit yourself and follow me if you want..."

I took two or three steps away.

- "W-wait!" she almost whimpered.

- "What do you want now."

- "I-i-if we are already staying here we can use this time to get to know each other better! B-b-because you were sitting for quite few hours your body must be stiff! Y-y-you should take it easy and warm up a little..."

She didn't act like her usual self, she was lying and damn, she was terrible at it - the kind of person that simply can't lie. Too honest type.

This time I inspected her status.

[Paralyze - medium] Caused by [Toxin of Scor'ver-ling Spitter]

- "Didn't you rebuked me like two minutes ago about hiding your condition from your team members?"

- "I-I-I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”

- "No? Great. In that case, let's keep going."

- "W-wa-wa-waaa..." she didn't quite , no - blush means that one's cheek is slightly reddened, while her whole head was a ripe tomato.

- "Something wrong?"

- "W-w-would you mind... staying with me till the effects would wear off?"

She really thought that I would leave her alone in a monster-filled dungeon?

Well, normally I would, but one - her death would cause quite a few serious headaches; two - she got poisoned covering my dead-passed-out ass.

And I hate owing anything to anyone.

- "You scratch my back I scratch yours..." I rolled my eyes "... but I won't give you another potion!"

Mostly because her condition wasn't life-threatening and the effect of poison was about to perish soon.

- "D-d-definitely I was not e-e-expecting it!"

She was.

- "A-a-also! It was obvious that you wouldn't leave me! I just didn't want to show you this pathetic side of me!"

She was definitely thinking I would abandon her.

- "IDIOT! Moron!"

At least here she was honest with herself.

A single kid with a small backpack was walking toward the village humming quick song under his nose. He heard that in one of those so-called inns he stayed in overnight.

Inn - a funny place - serves as both place where people get food and a warm place to sleep - which was wise as even weaker individuals could group for safety, but then again, they kept drinking this weird liquid after which they acted strangely. It's like despite the original purpose of that ... "inn" they decided to poison themselves, lower quality of every aspect of life.

After drinking it, they were weaker, dumber, clumsier, slower and even though their desire to breed skyrocketed - the more they drank, the less likely it was for their body to react accordingly to the desires.

Humans are crazy - that was the only conclusion that Kim reached after his investigation.

And maybe that was the reason behind their success? When every animal would run, they would fight, when every animal would fight, they would hide - it helped them to dominate the other species because they couldn't react accordingly?

As if the saying he heard in that inn was true: if you have no idea what you are about to do, then how the hell would your enemy be able to predict that?!

Insanity. Madness.

Especially when every aspect of Kim's life was planned. He knew when he would become hungry, he knew when and where he was about to set trap and he could more or less tell when some animal would foolishly enter it.

But not humans.

Let's say intimidation - you do that to empower your position in a group - you would try to intimidate those which are either stronger to reach a higher position in rank, or those barely below you to ensure that they would not overtake you... but what's the reason in bullying the weakest? You can’t get anything! Even more! It can be a signal to your rivals that you grow weaker!

Kim in his child form was supposed to be lowest in rank - not even considered threat. Yet there was that drunk man in the inn that kept yelling at him, something along the line it's not place for kids, he would pour a glass of that disgusting liquid called over his head and forced him into being his errand boy.

For a moment, he was afraid that the man somehow managed to see past his trickery and knew what he really is... yet he did the same to the waitress - considered on human's standard as young and pretty. He would put his hands all over her groping with that disgusting smile.

He looked at the sun that started appearing on the horizon. Guessing by the rhythm-of-living of those humans he still should have an hour or two before they would find a body of the man.... or at least what remained off him.

Kim left very few wastes behind.

The man’s taste was awful, his bloodstream was still full of the poison they drank with such delight. For a moment or two he was actually wondering if he should adopt the traits of chubby male. He was very picky in selection to take what is good and cast aside everything wrong.

But, in the end, the position of humans is measured in money. To have money means to have a strong position - having a job or unique bloodline that determined someone's skill. That man was wealthiest in the tavern which means that he was doing something that nobody else could do. And that meant a unique set of skills.

The man was "accountant". He was calculating. Oh, Kim already could do that - he could measure the power of enemies depending on how many individuals the pack involved... but what he gained now... Calculation formulas! Valuation! The connection between different branches of the economy and weather

- "In the easter regions of Neira country a very strong hailstorm has been reported, that means that the wheat field took serious damages and the prices of bread shall be increased by approximately 15-25%. It may be necessary to import wheat from region laying further, maybe even in a different country to keep the production. That would influence the prices of caravans. Maybe instead of producing bread it would be better to find a substitute for bread? No, bread is cheap to produce and the damages caused by hailstorms is only a periodical problem. It occurs once every few years. Spending money to look for new ingredients, production methods and later advertising your product would be highly thoughtless taking in consideration that in the next season the bread production shall reach previous state on the market..."

IT WAS SO OBVIOUS! Words that made no sense to him yesterday today were as clear as day!

A fragile web appeared in his mind, every string joining multiple knots. The knot was an institution, country, facility, group and strings were actions. If we would pull the string called weather it would start vibrating setting the knot called "bread market" throbbing, that would set few more strings into dance which would case the "country" and "merchant guild" to shake.

War and peace.

Famine and plague.

Prosperity and progress.

They were all bound together!!!

For the first time, despite the madness in their actions, Kim noticed how perfectly balanced this chaos is! What a clean mess! Peaceful storm!

Paradoxes that yesterday would cause him to flinch and doubt the sanity of the person saying those words today appeared to be such a basic, fundamental truth!

But, there was one more thing in the web inside of his head.

A single knot- Whiteraven Apothecary. So many strings were stretching out from this single knot binding so many institutions together!

The Kingdom of Neira! Adventurers! Mages! Syndicate! Alchemist!

In Kim's head, it appeared to be center of the World.

Eventually, he entered the village under the bald mountains. Aura of Za'ia'a'el was extremely dense here, as if he spend here many, many days or if he left this place not-so-long ago, this thick aura of his presence caused body of young monster shiver and goosebumps to cover his arms.

- "So close... I am so very close... Wait for me, brother... I am coming to you."

He licked his lips in anticipation and showing a wolfish smile. Literally - for a moment there he lost his temper making his teeth to turn into set of razor sharp needles.

He shook his head to the side trying to once again focus on pretending, put on his lips his most innocent smile and entered the village.