∼ Day 52 ∼

Landing on the ground, I let the majestic wings of shadows dissipate. I had thoroughly enjoyed some time flitting about the sky. While the city, Maldrak, could still be seen far in the distance as I hadn't traveled far to evolve, I didn't worry about any retaliation coming my way since most of the cities powerhouses had already been killed and I've also gained an incredible amount of power myself.

The last thing I wanted to do before I went on my way home to Mia and Bob was to check out my last skill; Stygian Transformation. Its skill description was vague, to say the least, but I had to find out what it did sooner or later. It wouldn't be all that optimal to try out unknown skills in life and death battles after all.

Touching upon the skill, I immediately felt my body starting to change and warp. My limbs elongated and my stature grew even taller. With my mental sense, I could easily see all the changes, and I was horrified at what I saw. My eyes had now gained the same swirls of shadow and crimson that they did whenever I used mana, however, they've also turned utterly predatory and sinister with what almost seemed to be instinctive malice.

My now long limbs also sprouted ghastly long fingers that turned into even longer claws that literally dripped with vicious darkness. While my ears had been like those of short and pointy elven ears before, they had now grown to mirror those of Mia's elongated ears. The mane of silky and silver hair that ran down to my shoulder had also had an immense growth spurt as it now reached all the way to my hips.

All those changes were eyecatching on their own, however, not as eye-catching as the now giant bat-like wings that sprouted from my back. They were so large that they dragged across the ground, even though I had now grown to almost three meters in height. In my now sinister and menacing appearance, I could also see that my body seemed to be wreathed in shadows as they spilled off me in every direction, causing the surroundings to slightly dim as if it had suddenly started to become dusk. I had become a horrifying aberration of darkness.

With the transformation, however, an immense surge of power flooded every cell of my body.

But while the changes only took around a second to complete, it was only after two more seconds elapsed that the transformation suddenly reversed and I was hit by a wave of fatigue that had me stumbling towards the trunk of a nearby tree. With my wobbly legs and sudden vertigo, I could barely hold myself upright against the rough surface of the trunk's bark.

Pulling up my status, I realized that using the skill had consumed more than half of both my stamina and mana in merely only three seconds of activation.

I was utterly baffled by this revelation.

While I knew this skill could boost my powers by a crazy amount for a small amount of time, I also knew that this would definitely be a trump card for last-ditch situations since if I activated this in a fight and failed to accomplish what I needed to, I could possibly be shooting myself in the foot due to the debilitating backlash and fatigue that came with using the skill.

It wasn't hard to guess that the skill should have a longer duration if I managed to level it up, but when I probed the skill again I was a bit irritated to see that it also apparently had a cooldown that hadn't been stated in the description. I didn't know when the skill would become available again since no timer was given by the system, so I could only find out by myself.

Sighing somewhat dejectedly at the lack of information that the system gave, I could only turn my attention towards going home. Conjuring the wings of shadow once again after stabilizing my mind and body, I took to the air and began flying in the direction in which my connection between Mia and me told me where she was.

But after only flying for ten or fifteen minutes, my presence suddenly found the lifeforms of twenty strong humans moving through the sparse forest beneath. I originally didn't want to get distracted by anything else since I just wanted to get home, however, once my inhuman senses picked up on the humans' talking I was halted in my steps.

First of all, just seeing humans all the way out here in the wastelands had been enough the rouse my curiosity, but once I realized that I couldn't actually understand their words since they weren't speaking Mordrian, my interest was peaked.

‹ Adran ›

"Boss-man, we've been waiting for days now, maybe the caravan from Ebongrave will actually not return... -I mean, we're running out of provisions, so we might just call this mission a dud and go to the city..." - Oren

"Y-yeah, my little sister is still waiting at home. I can't keep her waiting for much longer." - Ireli

Sighing exasperatedly, I looked at the weathered faces of the entire caravan.

"I know - I know, it's just that the merchant escort from Ebongrave could bring our mercenary group massive benefits. Those monsters have basically unlimited access to ore mines and resources, and these caravans moving between the monster cities almost always contain enormous amounts of wealth..." - Me

Once again mentioning the promise of wealth and gold, a collective glint of greed could be seen in the eyes of everyone. But since everyone here was a mercenary, it was no surprise that they reacted as such. Even though those monster caravans from the major monster cities like Ebongrave were veritable goldmines on wheels, they were equally as risky and dangerous.

Not only were the caravans usually protected by both high-leveled and tiered monsters, but the need to dive so deep into the monster-filled wastelands was also a risk in itself.

"We will wait for two more days, if the caravan is a no-show, then we return." - Me

Hearing my words, everybody collectively nodded in agreement, although many were still grumbling dissatisfied at not being able to return home earlier to rest. Seeing that everything was in order, we started moving again towards our next camp location. Since we had been discovered by a small scouting party of orcs, we had to change locations in order not to incur an excursion from the greenskin city.

Everybody was in relatively somber moods as the caravan slowly moved through the sparse forest, however, the voice of one of our scouts suddenly sounded out from ahead.

"Hey, boss! -Umm, we've found someone..." - Kal

Frowning upon hearing the scout's words, I wondered what the hell he meant.

Found 'someone' not 'something' meaning they've found another human? All the way out here?

Signaling the group's officers to follow me, we all walked up to the scout who had was awkwardly glancing between me and something at his side. I was rather confused at what odd expression on the scout's face, however, once I crested a small hill and looked towards the place he kept glancing at, I finally realized why he looked as such.

Propped against a large and mossy tree was a buck-naked young and handsome man. His auburn hair ran down to his shoulder, and his features were oddly masculine while having a slight feminine charm. But that wasn't all, his body was quite well-toned and had a defined athletic structure to it.

All in all, he put even my handsome looks to shame, which even I couldn't help but feel some innate jealousy towards. Unconsciously, a frown had appeared on my face, but once I realized it, I quickly erased it and cursed myself for such petty emotions.

Approaching the scout and the seemingly unconscious naked man, I looked at the awkward-looking scout with an asking and slightly confused expression.

"I don't know anything, I just found him lying here. I've tried calling out to him, but he isn't responding. Probably unconscious if I had to guess, but I waited for you to come here and evaluate before I did anything." - Kal

"That's good, I'll take it from here." - Me

Crouching in front of the unconscious man after checking for any possible concealed weapons, I was about the shake him awake when a salacious voice sounded out from over my shoulder.

"Holy shit, this guy is packing!" - Elora

Throwing an annoyed look over my shoulder, I saw Elora emphatically scanning the unconscious man up and down with hungry eyes. Elora had always been known to be a woman without restraints and minimal feminine etiquette, however, her strength and sexy beauty allowed her to act as such without much criticism.

"Hey look Ireli, this is how a real man looks like." - Elora

Standing beside Elora, was the mercenary group's healer, Ireli. She was trying to shyly hide herself behind Elora, as if to shield her eyes from the sight of the naked man, however, the furious blush on her cheeks was unmistakable. Seeing this, I couldn't help but grow a natural hate for this handsome man.

Although I liked to think I was a man better than to succumb to jealousy. But seeing the woman, who had captured a no small part of my heart, blushing upon the sight of another man's nude figure was too much even for me. So instead of shaking the man awake as I had originally intended, I instead gave him a slightly rough slap on the cheek.

For barely even a split second I felt like my heart had suddenly gotten dropped in a tub of ice just before my hand landed on the man's face, but it disappeared before I could really register it.

Jolting awake, the young sputtered upon seeing the many faces all around him. I had no idea if the dread I had just felt was a figment of my imagination or not, so I simply put it in the back of my mind after glancing wearily at the surroundings.

"Who are you, and what the hell are you doing out here?" - Me

I couldn't help but let some ire seep into my voice as I spoke, which just caused the man to look surprised and slightly startled. As if confused upon hearing my words, he took a moment to think before the light realization flashed in his eyes and he opened his mouth.

"I lost, please help. Clothes need." - ???

The words the man spoke was obviously Cealish, however, his speech was very broken as if he only had a basic understanding of the language.

"What country are you from?" - Me

"Mordria." - ???

Finding out that somebody from Mordria was all the way out here with no clothes at all just caused even more confusion. Looking over my shoulder, I looked at Oren.

"You spoke Mordrian right?" - Me

"Yeah, you want me to speak with him, boss?" - Oren

Giving the nervous-looking man one more scrutinizing glance, I let myself swap places with Oren.