Chapter 167 - Forgotten Blood

Boris’ body went through a series of seemingly impossible contortions as the very core of his being was altered and rebuilt. No one knew what shape he would take—even the ikarett himself was blind to the end result. Because there were no divines to aid him.

He was just another one of the thousands of monsters that his dungeon spat out every morning; his life was only expected to last as long as it took for him to come across a party of adventurers, or perhaps two if he was fortunate enough to catch his first group off guard. There was no time for him to dedicate himself to any sort of creed, nor any reason for him to swear his allegiance to any of the pantheon’s members. And while he was certainly an abnormal variant, he was by no means peculiar enough to draw the eyes of the busy deities above. So the system took over, as it did for most.

It imprinted in his mind a base level of knowledge and provided a brief explanation of the choices laid out before him. But while he was aware of the powers associated with each, he was given no preview of his form. And in his mind, that was not a problem. Like most other monsters, he saw his body as just another tool; he lacked the sense of aesthetic with which his master was obsessed.

The choice he made was the one that had pertained best to the circumstances at hand. He had never expected to be tamed or used as a weapon, but life had decided his lot and he saw no reason to resist or complain. He was confident that sticking with his new master provided him with the best chance at survival and further ascension. That was why he doubled down on his path and selected the only race that would serve his new purpose.

In doing so, the ikarett saw himself completely remade. His size was unchanged by the transformation, but his body grew sharper and more geometric. His tail lost the many spines that ran along its edge, so that it was better used as a handle, his skull thickened to make it less susceptible to trauma, and teeth grew from places where they shouldn’t. Like the top of his head. The most notable addition was the large metal sail sprouting from his back. At a glance, it made him appear unwieldy—it was more than three times his height, but it soon folded back into his flesh and vanished. Like many of the new structures built in and out of his body, it was meant to be used only in battle.

Officially, his race was dubbed Ikarett Type Arms. His rank was unique, and his title The Wrong Type of Living Weapon. He was confident that he had become better suited to his master’s purposes. When he opened his eyes, following the processes’ completion, he expected to be praised, or perhaps even scratched like his master’s hat, but he was met instead with a suspicious glare.

He was so confused by the unexpected circumstances that he froze and stood stock still, as any lizard in his scales would.

“What are you doing, Claire?” asked Lia. The catgirl was seated atop a nearby rock, mending her damaged outerwear with a needle and a spool of thread. The outfit’s right side was still almost perfectly intact, but its other half was marred with cuts, evidence that she had decided to take the monster’s attacks head on.

“Being cautious,” replied the halfbreed. “The log said his behaviour might change.”

Smiling awkwardly, the catgirl set down her jacket, walked over to the lizard, and crouched down next to him. “He still seems harmless to me. Boris is a good boy. Right, Boris?”

The weapon started bobbing his head after taking a moment to process the Marish into a series of lizard-thoughts. Each nod came with an increase in both his speed and his vigour, as if to insist that the catgirl was completely and entirely correct.

“I’m pretty sure that log’s only there ‘cause sometimes the monsters you tame can turn into completely different monsters,” said Sylvia. “And that kinda makes them like different food and stuff.”

“...Oh.” Averting her eyes, Claire took her hands off her weapons, sat down, and breathed a tired sigh.

Like the events that had come before it, the ikarett steelclaw’s ascension had only served to compound her frustration. His body language had been submissive, and his eyes had been devoid of even the slightest hint of aggression. She should have been able to read him with a single look, but she failed to discern his intentions. Just as how she had failed to guide the battle to its rightful conclusion.

Her decisions had been rushed, spurred on by pride and misplaced by haste. Only in looking back did she realise that there was no need for them to prevent the monster’s revival. She very well could have used it as a stepping stone; killing it just one more time would have provided her with all the experience she needed to reach level 250.

The decision she made instead would only have ended poorly if not for a stroke of dumb luck. Farenlight would have butchered her the moment it gained the ability to move. Worse yet, she had attempted to murder the hydra without first considering the method of its demise.

There was no reason to assume that she could hurt it; it had already proven that her attacks lacked the power to circumvent its defenses. At the very least, she should have spent her ability points before running in. Putting them all into strength or wisdom would likely have given her the edge she needed. And that too stemmed from another bad habit, albeit one she had no intention of remedying. The fewer points she spent, the higher the risk, and the faster she would grow.

“Alright, Boris, want a treat? Then roll over!”

Claire was the only member of the group so fixated on her failures. Lia and Boris had already started to play around, with the cat offering pieces of meat and the lizard behaving like a misshapen dog. Sylvia, however, remained by her side. The fox had taken her usual position on top of her head and displaced the angry ghost of Farenlight past. Though no words were exchanged between them, the half-fairy seemed to know exactly what weighed down on the lyrkress’ mind. She was actively rubbing her cheeks against the larger halfbreed’s hair, instead of just lazing around as usual.

“I’ll do better next time,” mumbled the moose.

“Mhm! I know you will.”

Claire grabbed the fuzzy critter off her head and silently pulled her into an embrace. Still saying nothing, she started running her hands through her fur, petting and patting until the frustration started to fade. The moment of silence continued until the centaur finally decided to get to her feet. Setting the fox down, she walked over to the two idiots playing around with Farenlight’s flesh and poked the less metallic fool in the face with her tail.

“Let’s go. Back into the dungeon.”

“Back into the dungeon?” said Natalya, with an awkward smile. “I’m not really sure that’s the best idea.” She set Boris’ front limbs back down on the ground and craned her neck towards the outpost.

Following the catgirl’s eyes, Claire cast her usual cold gaze on the half-destroyed town. The inn that they had stayed at, during their first night, had turned into a pile of rubble. Many of the other buildings had followed the same fate. The streets were lined with corpses, belonging both to the many monsters that had fallen in battle and the brave souls that had confronted them.

The tiny dungeon village was done for. There was not enough of it left to justify the insanity that was its rebuilding. A fresh start had been off the cards since the first monster ventured out from within the well; the core premise that the settlement was built on was already proven an assumption backed only by hubris.

In the following days, there was sure to be an exodus. Its inhabitants would leave, and many of the adventurers were sure to go with them. But Claire did not want to be one of them. Her next ascension was right around the corner. It was so close she could feel it on the tips of her fingers.

“I only need a few more levels to ascend. And I want to test him.”

She grabbed the tip of Boris’ tail and lifted him into the air. His body responded to her touch, with his limbs almost seeming to vanish as they retracted back into his sides. They fit the engraved slots so perfectly that she found it impossible to pinpoint them; she would never have been able to guess that they had even existed, had she not watched him transform. His face was also gone. All the orifices had closed themselves shut as he took on a form better suited to her abuse.

He had clearly become a sort of living weapon, albeit one completely unlike any of the others that the term so often suggested. Typically, intelligent weapons were meant to be blades with souls dwelling inside them, items blessed by the gods or painstakingly forged by master smiths. There was little sense to be made of the opposite process, and the lizard mastery requisite for his use was not the sort of skill that happened to exist.

Glancing at the town again, Lia took a breath and brushed her hair out of her face. “We’ve already killed all the monsters here. I don’t think you’ll get much experience from them anymore.”

“It’s the only place with high level monsters.”

“It shouldn’t be.” Lia retrieved their map and began looking it over. She quickly scanned the various dungeons and cross-referenced them with the book she always kept on her person. “One second…”

In the meantime, Claire wandered around and sorted through Headhydra’s remains. Most of the stray scraps had already vanished down Boris’ throat. The only parts that looked like they could be repurposed were the monster’s heads. Each was topped with a trio of crystalline horns, lustrous as jewels and sharp as daggers.

They were perfect.

The light blue hue was a one to one match for her own aesthetic. They were durable enough to last her through a tough battle and just the right size to be hidden on her person.

Or at least they would have been perfect, had she been able to remove them. They were stuck to the dead ikarett’s head, and her shard was the only thing that could get past its scales. She could have easily trimmed them had she any divinity remaining, but the lackluster length of her own crystalline appendage made it impossible for her to detach the horns without stabbing herself in the chest.

“There are quite a few decent dungeons, but we’ll have to move towards Vel’khagan.” The cat interrupted Claire’s thoughts by raising the map to her face. “These three are all restricted access,” she pointed at a small cluster of symbols, “but if you don’t mind waiting a tiny bit longer, we can go even further east and explore one of the more famous underwater ones.” Her hand slid across the map and fell on another similarly shaped gate. Unlike all the others, which were coloured in various shades of orange, the symbol just off the coast was marked with a bright, eye-catching red.

“How far is it?”

“It’ll be about a week on foot, but we should be able to cut that down to two or three days if we stop by Vel’dimure,” said the cat. “We’ll just have to buy a few tickets and get on the turberus express.”

Because turberi were so docile, it was rare for them to ascend, but those that did would grow to fifty times their previous size and sprout large wings from their shelled backs. Though too slow to be used in times of war, the massive flying vegetarians made for excellent air transport.

“Three days?” Claire opened up her quest menu, eyed the most important entry, and confirmed that she would have to wait another 77 hours regardless. The timing would line up perfectly if they flew to Vel’khagan; she would be allowed to ascend soon after they arrived. “Fine.”

Taking the map out of the cat’s hands, the lyrkress traced her finger between their location and their destination before looking straight up through the broken canopy. The rainclouds she had grabbed had already run out of excess moisture, but the wind was too gentle to see them blown away.

“But we won’t need tickets.” A small smile spread its way across Claire’s lips.

Lia gulped. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

“No reason.”

“S-Sylvia? B-Boris? G-guys? Am I the only one that thinks that she’s up to no good?” She tried to slink away when the lyrkress stepped forward, but her back was against a tree and none of the supposed friends she called on came to her aid. The fox was rolling around on the ground, laughing her heart out, whilst the lizard kept his gaze averted. He had outright abandoned her, even though she had fed him a dozen treats just a few minutes prior.

Lia scrambled onto all fours and tried to make a hasty retreat, but her body stopped listening to her before she could escape. The cat was frozen in place and completely exposed. She could do nothing as she was lifted like a sack of potatoes and taken up into the air.

Her stomach lurched as the ground shrunk at an alarming rate. The dirt gave way to a canopy, which was quickly replaced in turn by a layer of dark clouds. Only then did she finally regain control of her limbs. Struggling a little too hard, she accidentally broke free from Claire’s grasp, and discovered the wonder that was a fear of heights.