Chapter 14

They soon reached another clearing where some sort of wooden house stood. It was very weirdly constructed. "Who built this?" Emilia proudly puffed her chest and proclaimed "This is my castle, my friends and I built it a while ago!" Gwenith couldn't help but let a smile escape as she looked at the poorly thrown together logs with claw marks. 'Yep, that's a castle alright...a castle build by werewolves under supervision by a nine or so year old girl.' she looked at Emilia with admiration and asked "So Emilia, how old are you and how did you get here...do you want to tell me the story of the little shadowprincess?" Emilia blushed at her new title and eagerly dragged her new friend into her castle.

It turns out Emilia was born in Dawn. About two years after the bombs fell. She never knew any other world. Her parents lived in a small village that was overrun by beasts at some point because some careless guards left the gate open in the night or at least that's what Gwenith assumed happened. Emilia didn't know much about that time. She was four years old when it happened. Her parents and her were separated as they fled from the monsters. They found a little cave where only Emilia could get in due to her small stature. She heard her parents getting killed outside and in her fear conjured her first shadowbeast. It was a werewolf, resembling the bests that attacked her village. It held her the whole night while she was crying.

The family had fled the village for more than a day so Emilia couldn't find her way back. She liked the lake she found and her friend said he liked the fish. They ate the raw food together and Emilia soon learned how to live in the wild. She could conjure five beasts at the time and slowly increased her mana capacity and general stats. She nearly died countless times from beastattacks, food poisoning from eating raw meat, the cold and even because of her own shadow beasts from time to time. They would sometimes injure her on accident because they were so much bigger than her. Luckily their claws couldn't harm her because they were conjured by her but more than one unlucky traveler were mangled by a well meaning beast trying to play catch.

'It's a wonder she survived all this time.' Gwenith was astonished for the whole story. 'That means she's eight now. She knows surprisingly much for only living with humans in her first four years.' she suddenly hugged Emilia tightly after she finished who tensed up at first but soon returned the hug. When Gwenith let her go she said "You're a very strong shadowprincess Emilia, with many strong friends." she wasn't sure what to say to accomplish her goal but Emilia solved it for her "Gwen..c...can you..." she blushed and looked to the ground while fidgeting with her hands. "Yes?" Gwenith took Emilia's hands into hers and tried to look in her eyes. "C...can y...you STAY HERE WITH ME" she burst out and looked at Gwenith with determined purple eyes.

"Sadly that's not possible Emilia" the girl already seemed to start crying when Gwenith continued "BUT if you want to come, I'll take you with me...I'm going to the capital next...how does that sound?" the girl blinked back tears and started to smile from ear to ear "The capital, Gwen how many people are there in the capital??" smiling Gwenith answered "There are many many many, do you know what a Million is?" Emilia was confused by what the word meant so Gwenith changed her approach "What's the biggest number you know Emilia?" the girl thought hard and said "One hundred, I counted one hundred fish in the lake...that is all the fish!" her logic was flawless "Hahaha, now think of one hundred lakes with all those fish in them...then you start to see how many people there are in the capital." the girl made big eyes "That's a lot of people...will they like me?" Gwenith hugged her again "Some will and some won't but I'll always be with you so you don't have to worry about that!"

"Then I will come with you Gwen!" her expression suddenly darkened "Can my friends come too?" Gwenith anticipated the question "Of course they can, but some people might be afraid of them so they can only come out when we're outside...is that ok for them?" Emilia was lost in thought for a while "They say it's ok if you sometimes help them hunt." Gwenith acted as if she had to think hard about the answer "That's a deal then, they can come. Emilia how many are there?" the girl smiled "Fifteen right now" Gwenith made a pokerface 'Well let's hope she keeps her promise...fifteen werewolves in New Sydney might attract some attention.'

She stayed with Emilia for another hour when she went to sleep because of mental exhaustion. 'Alright, let's see what we can get from the others.' She had informed Emilia that she was going to check on the men that had attacked her. Gwenith left the wooden castle and soon found the area where they had fought. Regan was still lying on the same spot but there was now a dead spider next to him 'Even in this state...he's a tough one for sure.' She checked all their bags and found a lot of food, medical supplies and over 1500 gold from the dead ones. "Y..you...b..bitch!" she heard Noah cursing the whole time she was there. His injuries would need even longer to heal than Regan's. When she got everything she needed she stepped next to Noah. "Let's end this." before Noah even processed what she had said one of her swords beheaded him with ease. 'Nice, another 500 gold.' she even found some suitable cloth from Wade to make clothes for Emilia. Healers or mages in general sometimes preferred robes because of their low strength and endurance. Most of them try to at least wear leather armor to have a bare minimum of protection. Wade seemed to feel pretty safe in his party though.

Gwenith used some of the herbs and bandages she found to treat Regan's worst wounds. He was in a fever dream the whole time she was there. "You're not a bad man Regan." she put the sword back in his hand that still stuck inside the dead spider. "Maybe you'll survive and you might even change your order...even if only by a little." she didn't kill him that day because she believed he was sincere in what he told her about the Crusaders. She still left him there though, it would be difficult for many to survive even one night. Regan needed at least a week to heal his worst injuries. 'He'll survive.' she left a flask of water next to him and some bread from his dead friends and returned to Emilia.

Gwenith slept in the castle and was woken up by something sharp pressing to her torso. She slowly opened her eyes and smiled "Bobo watch your claws." the beast immediately removed his claws from her and seemed to apologize. "Good morning to you too." she stood up and stopped the light bleeding on her stomach caused by what she presumed Bobo trying to wake her up. It wasn't a bad wound, as she didn't even feel it. This meant that her vitality hadn't been drained by even 5%. She made her way to the main room of the castle where Emilia was waiting with Bobo...or so she assumed 'They do all look the same...maybe they're all Bobo?' sadly she was wrong. Emilia conjured each beast up one by one and introduced it. She could conjure 15 beasts at the moment. 'That's fifteen names I'll have forgotten in two minutes top.'

Gwenith asked Emilia to read her her status window but unfortunately Emilia couldn't read. They did find another solution as she wrote everything on the ground with a stick. It took several hours as Emilia was basically painting the letters and Gwenith had to ask for a redraw more than once. She slowly put together Emilias status window though:

Name: Emilia Lucila

Level: 136

Class: Shadow Conjurer

Vitality 350

Endurance 130

Strength 68

Dexterity 160

Intelligence 721

Wisdom 689

Resistance: 589

Special Stats:

None

Skills:

Shadow

Conjure a shadow that fights by your side. Attack power and vitality are based on mana used and Intelligence stat. Fighting style and stat distribution are determined by the type of Shadow you conjure.

Minimum mana used: 100

Maximum shadows conjured at a time: 15 (Tier 3)

Each tier gives 5 more.

Shadow transformation

Become a Shadow yourself. Stats are redistributed according to the type of shadow you become.

Must be level 100 to use.

5 mana or stamina per second depending on the type of shadow you become.

Shadow Binding

Control the movement of a lesser foe with your shadow. Stronger enemies will only be restricted in their movement or could even break out of your spell.

100 mana to activate.

Consumption dependent on the foe attacked (Min. 10 Mana per second).

Shadow Curse

Fear the enemy with your shadow causing perception and movement speed to decrease greatly (depending on foe's level). Lesser foe's are confused.

150 mana to activate

Shadow Step

Envelop both yourself and up to 10 (Tier 2) allies in shadows reducing your chance to be seen by 50% and removing any sounds your movement would normally generate.

10 mana per second

Once spotted the spell dissipates

It turned out that Emilia had pretty high stats for level 136. 'She's been living in the forest for four years alright.' Emilia's magical stats were so high because she used her Shadow skill nearly all the time to have her friends with her. It took a toll on a person to keep a conjured beast alive for long periods of time. Not enough to warrant an actual mana loss notification in the skills but keeping five to fifteen shadows alive at the time for sometimes whole days certainly drained Emilia. She never used any other skills besides Shadow and Shadow transformation because she couldn't read the menu. 'She's going to learn soon enough. First comes reading though.'

Gwenith cut Wade's robe down so that it somewhat fit Emilia. She obviously cleaned off the blood first. When Emilia wore the dress she looked like a little monk, except of course for her long black hair. 'I think she can stay barefoot though, her resistance is high enough anyway and she's been running around like that for four years.' the clothing was mostly due to other people reacting negatively. High resistance was certainly enough to stay warm in a cold winter night and the protection light armor provided wasn't that high anyway...at least the bad quality items Gwenith had. Even she sometimes returned nearly naked to Valaan with her clothes all torn from dozens of fights with beasts. She was never spotted though and even if, after the person rubbed their eyes she would already be gone.

Emilia didn't have many belongings because the forest didn't provide much and she never took from the dead travelers because she felt it was wrong to steal even from the dead. 'She's such a sweet little girl with 15 possibly murderous beasts under her control.' They made their way back to the road westwards or rather marked trees. The skeletons on the clearing Gwenith's party passed first weren't actually Emilia's or her underlings' doing. It was just one of the only places with fresh water in this part of the forest, attracting a wide variety of animals and bests. 'Still wonder how that troll got killed.' they returned the way she came and soon reached the markings again.

They were barely two days from Valaan and it was a 2000 mile journey to New Sydney. It would take them well over a month to reach it on foot. Gwenith didn't buy a horse simply because on the long run...she was faster. A horse's top speed was about 55 miles per hour. Gwenith couldn't compete there with her 30 miles per hour, which was still faster than the fastest people on Earth were...even most of the genetically improved ones. The problem is that horses can't maintain even 40 miles per hour for more than a couple miles where Gwenith had enough endurance to run for around three hours straight. Another thing that wouldn't be possible on Earth but her extremely high endurance stat allowed her that much. They'd reach New Sydney in 10 to 15 days depending on monster encounters and if they found enough food for Gwenith to run two times a day.

"Are you ready?" she lifted Emilia over her head and secured her with some spare straps. Emilia laughed as she held the straps "Hyah!" the now to a horse reduced Gwenith smirked and started to run at 25 miles per hour. Neither the heavy weapons nor the girl on top of her head reduced her speed by much. They'd reach the west very soon...