《Grasping for the Heavens》Chapter Twelve
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“Right. We’ll send you onto your very first mission tomorrow, so why don’t you go sleep now. I’ll call someone to lead you to your room”. Said Father.
“I thank you for this job…”
“Ah, right, my name is Facis. From the house of Malum.” Says Father.
“I see. Thank you, my lord Malum.”
I’m still going to call you Father in my head though. I’ve already decided, and I’m not going to change what I already did.
After following the servant through the twists and turns of the mansion, I finally arrive at my room.
It’s quite luxurious. A bed in the center with a canopy with a desk right next to it. The desk has a couple of books. Flipping them open, they’re all blank. This… These are for me to write reports aren’t they…
Moving on, there is one door to the right of my new room and another door to my left.
Let’s go to the door on my left. Dragging my legs over I slowly open the door.
And am immediately blindly by a light.
This. This is a walk-in closet! It currently doesn’t have anything but I see the racks hung up neatly. Well… I have no idea if that’ll be helpful in the future…
Actually. Why do they have lights? Oh whatever.
Time for the door on my left.
Slightly excited about what will be behind this wall I rush over.
This… I saw nothing.
Moving on. Time to go to bed, I’m going to have my new assignment tomorrow. Early to bed, early to whatever the next few lines are.
What? I never bothered to remember important quotes you know…
Closing my eyes, the world slowly vanishes from me.
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Opening my eyes, I’m greeted by the birds chirping and sunlight filtering through my window into my new room.
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. Or not, cause I’ve been lazing around for the past couple of hours.
“Wake up!” shouts a voice as the pounding on my door intensifies. “There is no way that any living thing can live through the racket I’m making, so wake up!”
Ah, here’s your problem. I’m not living. Hah.
“Just give me a couple more minutes…” I murmur from beneath my bed sheets. Ah… So comfortable…
“If you don’t come out, I’ll tell my parents to fire you!” Shouts the voice.
“Hey! That’s blackmailing! Using your parent's’ position like that!” I shout as I hurriedly get out of bed.
“People need to learn how to take advantage of what they’re given to succeed in life!” The voice counters back.
That’s true… I can’t actually refute that…
Opening my door I’m greeted by a trap. Why is it a trap? Why because this person doesn’t have a gender yet, and looks like an extremely beautiful man, or a beautiful lady. Damn weird mutated humans. Why’d they have to go and get such weird mutations?
“Good morning, Trap” I say.
“Trap?”
“You’re new nickname”
“New, New nickname? Oh dear, what do I do? I’ve never had one” the Trap says as the Trap turns around while blushing.
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I hope the Trap chooses to be a girl.
“Our first target is the Duke of Aerial near the coast. Their main resource is in catching fish and the unique monsters that thrive in the sea. You are to go there and do whatever it takes to take them down. I don’t care if you destroy their economy or start a revolution, they must go down, our family does not want them to become the next king” Says the Trap as we walk down the hall towards the entrance.
“We’ll give you some money, and some equipment, but do you really need it?”
“I’ll need the money, and I do need the equipment”
“Tsk”
“What?”
“Nothing”
“Were you hoping that I didn’t need money or equipment?”
The Trap turns around while blushing and starts walking faster. It seems as though I’ve hit it.
“We’ve prepared a sum of 5,000 gold coins and standard magic armor, you are to leave the moment you are ready”
“What if I said I won’t be ready until a couple of years later?”
“Then, then we’ll deduct money from your paycheck”
“If I think about it now… We never discussed my payment…”
“That, that is true, so if you complete this job, we’ll pay 10,000 gold coins”
“Are you sure you’ll abide by this?”
“Of course I will”
“No I mean, will your parents pay this money”
“Of course they will”
“Do I have your word?”
“You have my word”
“Alright, I’m off” I say as I absorb the the magic armor, I can pick this thing apart later, and I have bio armor anyways so… Oh yeah, the gold, I’ll just absorb that as well. And the people around don’t seem surprised.
I wonder if they have inventories?
Walking out towards the gate I realise, I have no idea where this Dukedom is and I turn around and look for the nearest servant.
“Excuse me, I need a map”
The servant takes a look at me, eyes me up and down, and *harrumphs* and walks away.
I don’t think I’ll be getting my map… Perhaps I should go further in?
Walking further into the mansion, I find Father.
“Ah, excuse me my lord Malum, but I never recieved a map, so I don’t know where to go”
“I see” he says as he claps his hands.
Moments later, a man with a rough beard and slanted eyes wearing a butler outfit walks in.
“You asked, my lord?”
“Yes, would you please get a map of the continent for me?”
“Of course, my lord” the man says as he walks out while giving me a glance. Moments later he walks back in with a massive map and spreads it out on the dining table.
“Thank you, Sebastian”
(AN: Alright, I must admit, I had no idea what name to go with for Sebastian, but then I though of “Black Butler” and bam, Sebastian)
“No problem”
Great, now to integrate this with the map I already have…
Looking at the map, a prompt pops up into my vision.
Would you like to integrate this map into the established map data? Y/N
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Of course yes, focusing my mind on the yes option, it becomes highlighted and moments later another prompt pops up.
Map data updated.
Wonderful.
“Wonderful, I am ready to leave now, thank you, my lord Malum”
“No problem”
Now I can start my journey, setting a waypoint to the Dukedom Aerial, now to follow the green arrow.
Starting off with a light job I follow the path as I bring up the mental image of the standard magic armor that I absorbed.
Hmm… Interesting, the core of this armor has a magic orb that generates mana, if I incorporated this into myself… I would be able to create more mana at a faster rate… But where should I put it?
Let’s put it in a spot that isn’t really noticeable… My right eye? Why not.
Materializing the orb into the back of my mechanical right eye. Moving the eye up, no problem, down, no problem, left, right, no problem. Wonderful, it doesn’t hinder my eyesight, at this rate, I might as well slap another one into my left eye…
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And would you look at that. I’m at the border of the Dukedom of Aerial. I’m pretty sure a human can’t make this much distance in a week, but then again, I didn’t sleep or rest, and if I encountered any bandits, I just bitch slapped out of my way. Now that I think about it, didn’t I meet the same bandit group again?
Whatever, I’m here.
So to bring this place down, I’ve got a couple of options, economic crash, seems hard, a revolution, also hard but possibly more plausible if people hate their government.
Another option is to just go berserk and raze this country to the ground, but I’ll probably be subdued by a hero or something of that matter. So I think some sort of resistance group would be my best bet, or I could find some way to weasel my way into the government, make some bad decisions, piss the people off and then run away.
That might actually work but then it would require me to go into politics…
What to do…
“Mister!”
Hmmm?
“Mister, can you help?” says a voice in front of me. But there isn’t anyone in fron. Taking a glance down I see a little boy with dirt in his face tugging at my leg.
“Can you help?”
“What do you need help with” I say as I kneel down.
“I need you to give me something” he says as his head starts to stare at the ground”
“What do you need?”
“I need your life” The boy says as he looks back up with gleaming red eyes as he leaps at my throat with gleaming white fangs.
Wonderful, a vampire. Oh look, it’s a full moon.
The boys eyes light up as he sees me fall to the ground unresisting, and then he takes a bite at my neck, only to stop.
You see, my neck is made of metal, of course you can’t bite through, if you could, I wouldn’t know if you were human, no wait. This kid isn’t human.
... I’m just surprised the kid tried to kill me.
What’s wrong with this place?
Standing up, the kid continues to gnaw at my neck as I begin to walk into town.
When the townspeople begin to look at me, is it the little vampire trying to bite through my neck?
“This little guy isn’t” I begin when all of the townspeople leap at me with their fangs bared.
So they’re all vampires?
H- Hey, can’t we just talk this through?” I say as I begin to take a step back, before I activate the scythes on my shoulders bringing them up and intercepting the first vampire.
Stabbing through another vampire to my right, I pull my scythe out, leaving a gaping hole in the vampire's neck, which fills up rather quickly. The heck man.
Raising my scythes up in front of me I sweep them in front of me in a broad ark, pushing the vampires to the side as I leap into the air.
As I’m in the air, more vampires leap up, and I smack them to the side with my scythe.
“Are you sure we can’t talk this through?”
No response. Landing on the roof of a building I hand busts through and pulls me down.
Falling down I immediately grapple with the vampire who pulled me and stab him through the chest and throw him through the house leaving a gaping hole in the house.
Leaping through the hole, I’m faced with another mass of vampires. I don’t think I’ve killed a single vampire yet.
Leaping into the air, I use the blades on my arms to block two vampires who got through my scythes and use the scythes to stab through the both of them, flinging them away, when a vampire grabs me from behind.
Grunting I elbow the vampire while driving the blades on my arm into his stomach and give a little twist, when I remember that I can use magic.
“By my will, blow these enemies away” And a gust of wind blows through blasting the vampires away, before they open their wings and take to the skies. Damn.
From the skies, the vampires fly at me all at once and then they lift me into the air. They aren’t thinking of dropping me at this height right?
Yup they are.
“By my will, keep me above ground” I shout as I levitate in the air but not in time as I crash into the ground albeit it at a lower speed.
I think I’ve broken an arm, and I think one of my scythes won’t work anymore.
And my air tank is leaking.
I can’t fight for much longer. What were one of the weaknesses of a vampire again, sunlight?
How much time until the sun rises? Glancing at the clock to the upper right of my vision is tells me it’s 4:30 AM.
Great, I think the sun rises at 6:30 in this world?
Better put the mana to fixing what’s broken.
Standing up while wincing a little, I face the army of vampires in the air.
Author’s Note: Hey guys, sorry for the really really late release. I actually wrote this chapter a total of 2 times, why? I kept writing this chapter with my other stories in mind… And the concepts kept getting mixed up… -_-
Also, I’ll explain the reason as to why the vampires just attacked for no reason later.
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