Chapter 125: Warning
We continued traveling throughout the day. Thankfully, due to everyone’s raised Stats, we didn’t need to take many breaks anymore. Our Stamina/Minute values were all high enough to significantly lower how much Stamina we actually lost in an hour of travel, not to mention the fact that we all started out with a much higher bank of Stamina in the morning.
I also continued practicing Noxious Grasp, which Ranked up yet again over the course of our journey.
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 1.03k.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 14.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 14, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 5.06 to 5.19
Health Drain: From 18.9 to 19.8
Stamina Drain: From 9.44 to 9.91
My confidence was slowly climbing higher and higher as time passed and we kept making progress. The only monsters we really encountered were more Shadow Panthers, which were easy to deal with. Since we weren’t climbing into the mountains themselves, we didn’t see many Drakes defending their territories, and it didn’t seem like we’d stumbled into any Dragons yet, so it was possible we’d overestimated the trouble Kingdom’s Edge would give us.
Well, we’d obviously been given quite a bit of trouble from this place, but that was from the Demons, not from the actual wildlife. So maybe we could make it through without much more danger.
I still had two uses of Time Loop as the sun began to set in the distance, meaning we were quite safe from any danger that we did end up encountering. Though we still had a good ways to go, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up passing through the territories of two or three more Dragons before we did.
So we’d made a general plan for interacting with Dragons, just in case. If we ever saw one flying around in the distance, we’d continue approaching until we were generally within the monster’s sphere of influence, and wait there all day. If it saw us and attacked, I’d use Time Loop, go back, and we’d move backwards outside of the Dragon’s territory, and from there we’d be able to figure out a plan. Maybe we could quickly rush through, or try to hide somewhere. If the Dragon didn’t attack us by the end of the day, we’d just continue moving.
But so far, we hadn’t needed to put that plan into motion. Mainly just Shadow Panthers and the occasional Drake’s fly-by. In total, I’d ended up getting around 400 additional XP over the course of the day from the monster attacks, putting me up to 953. I was already at Level 18, meaning that I was just two Level-ups away from 20, getting me an additional Talent, Time Loop use, and an Upgrade for it, too! So I was pretty eager to get to such a massive boost in power.
But for the time being, we just continued moving through the mountains.
“Hey,” I said to Erani as we chatted to pass the time, “so what’s your plan, once we get to Barinruth?”
She looked over at me. “What do you mean? I thought we already had a general plan of action once we got there.”
“No, no, not like that,” I said. “I mean more of a personal plan. Like, ignoring the Demon threat, what do you want to do once you get there?”
“I don’t think it’s really possible for us to ignore the Demons,” she chuckled.
“Right, I get that, I guess I was just thinking. Like, I’d always planned on getting out of my small village at some point after getting my Class. Sure, I hadn’t wanted to leave the kingdom, and I definitely hadn’t anticipated leaving so soon, but heading out and finding a new home was always something I’d wanted to do. This just accelerated things a bit. But you’d already kind of made a life, back in Ordensville. I mean, you had a home, an income…a family. Do you know what you’re going to do now?”
She sighed and shook her head. “To be honest, I haven’t really thought about it. Purposefully. I don’t want to think about it. At least for now, I’m kind of just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, ensuring I don’t die tomorrow. Maybe I took your advice to focus on survival, what you said to me right when all of this started, a bit too seriously. Maybe I just hoped that things would magically return to relative normalcy after the Demons weren’t a threat anymore.”
“Yeah.” I gripped her hand. “I get what you mean. I know what I want my life to end up as, but I’m not sure that I know how I’ll actually get there.”
“I guess, lately, I’ve been trying to think about us three—you, me, Ainash—as a unit. I don’t have to figure something out, we can figure something out. Unless, um, you…”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s probably a good way to think of things,” I said. “At the very least, I don’t think there are many people out there that any of us will be able to fully trust. Not for a long time. So it’s a good idea to stick together.”
Erani nodded.
“Besides,” I said, giving a halfhearted laugh, “we’ve got a kid to worry about now. Can’t split up and leave her hanging. I’m sure she would be very sad if mother and father got a divorce.”
Erani laughed, too. “Oh? I wasn’t aware we’d gotten married.”
“We may as well be in Ainash’s eyes. I don’t think she’d let us split apart, even if we wanted to.”
“I would not,” Ainash cut in, no hint of humor in her tone.
I laughed and shook my head, giving Erani’s hand a squeeze. “I don’t think we’re the most functional family unit.”
“To be fair, I think that’s been the case ever since we became national outlaws together.”
“I would’ve thought that would just bring the family closer together. A nice little bonding moment.”
“Of course,” Erani rolled her eyes.
I started to say something else, but suddenly stopped, seeing movement up in the mountain ridge above us.
Erani, seeing my expression, furrowed her brows. “What is it?”
I kept staring up at where I’d seen the movement. “Not sure. I thought I saw something up there.”
She looked up, too. “Panther?’
“No, it wasn’t dark enough to be one of those.”
“Drake? Or a Dragon?”
“No, too small.” It’d disappeared right when I looked up at it, so I didn’t get much of a good look. “Maybe it was just a Shadow Panther, though. I wouldn’t expect it to be up there in the sun in the first place, but who knows. Index, was that in your range to see?”
“No, too far away,” it said.
“Hm. Index says it didn’t see anything, either.”
Erani nodded. “Let’s just keep moving. Whatever it was, it probably wouldn’t hurt to put a little distance between us and it.”
Another hour passed uneventfully, and I continued training Noxious Grasp until its Spell XP reached around 300. The next requirement was 1486, so I was at around a fifth of the total, at this point. Erani also apparently Ranked her Firebolt up, with it reaching Rank 18 now.
But despite the progress, I couldn’t get my mind off of what I’d seen up in the stone walls before. Was it really nothing? Maybe I was just getting paranoid, anticipating the next fight in fear since we were in such a dangerous area. It was completely possible I’d seen nothing. Just a trick of the light, or some Panther walking along the edge of the cliffs.
But then, as we walked, I saw movement up in the cliffs again. And this time, the figure didn’t disappear when I looked up at it. Instead, it vaulted right over the cliff face, falling straight downward dozens of paces into the ravine with us, slamming into the ground with a metallic thud.
When the dust settled, I saw who it was.
“Ripley,” I called out at the woman in the royal guard’s plate armor. Though she wasn’t technically a royal guard anymore. “What are you here for?”
The moment we saw something approaching, we’d all gotten ready for combat, Ainash with her whip drawn, Erani with her hands out, ready to blast off a series of Firebolts, and me readying my slew of curses to cast on our opponent. But Ripley herself didn’t seem like she was looking for a fight. Her axe was on her back, and she stood in a relaxed stance. That didn’t quite relax any of us, though.
“I’m just here to talk,” she said.
“Why’d you run away from us before?”
“Like I said back then, being a prisoner isn’t my thing. But just because I wanted to be released from your custody doesn’t mean I’m against you.”
I hesitantly let out my bated breath, and Erani put down her hand. Ainash still held her whip, though.
“Listen, I’m just here to give you some information. Free of charge.”
“What kind of information?”
“About the Demons. I think they’re planning something.”
I frowned. “Why wouldn’t you have told us about this plan before? You said they wouldn’t be entering Kingdom’s Edge.”
“That’s what I’d thought. But I’ve got some new info now.”
“From what source?”
“I had a few Enchanted items the kingdom had given me to keep in contact with them. One of them was called a Communication Crystal. Seems like they’d forgotten to disconnect themselves from mine, since it allowed me to listen in on their conversations for a while. By now they’ve cut me out, but I could hear them talking for long enough to figure out that they’re at least going to try something. I figured that I’d at least give you some notice.”
“Alright. What’d you hear?”
“Well, the kingdom’s Demon contact, he’s this nasty Demon named Xhag’duul’ini-something. Long-ass name. But he’s pretty much the only Demon I’ve ever seen actually making decisions. In fact, I have a feeling that he’s directly in charge of Koinkar. Whatever they did to make the king listen, he reports directly to that Demon.”
“Okay, so what, you heard him saying something?”
“Just the opposite. I heard the voice of another Demon. Her name was something totally different, Quinmorada-something. Dunno. But when she called in and I listened to the conversation, she said that the previous Demon had been ‘dealt with.’ She’d be running the show now, apparently. No idea why.”
“And what, she’s making changes in how they deal with things?”
“Not sure. But I know she did say she’d be sending in some sort of special agent. Some Demon, seems like. Said they had… What was it? Right, it was something like ‘we have an underling being disposed of, and have decided to make one final use of him.’”
“I mean, if it’s just one Demon, how bad could it be?”
Ripley shook her head. “Seems like you don’t know what those Demons are capable of. Those Infernals? They’re child’s play. Nothing, compared to what the higher-ups can do. One of ‘em came in and killed Camilla in one hit.”
I blinked, shocked at the sudden revelation. “Camilla? The woman who leads the royal guard squad?”
“Yeah. Died pretty soon after she let you go. That Xhag’duul Demon that’s being replaced, he’s the one that killed her. Just marched right in and hit her, faster than I could see. You’d better hope they don’t use something that’s as powerful as he was.”
I set my jaw. “Yeah, alright. I’ll be on the lookout. Thanks for the information.”
Ripley nodded, and turned to leave. As she did so, Ainash spoke to me. “Tell the Human I want to fight her.”
“What, now? Why?”
“She is a bad guy. Want to see if I am better than powerful bad guy.”
“Well, she isn’t a bad guy anymore, is she?”
“Will not be death fight. Just practice fight. To see who is better.”
“Hm.” I supposed a little spar couldn’t hurt at some point. At least, maybe Ainash could learn some restraint if she actually had to fight someone without killing them. “I’ll let her know. But not right now, alright? I don’t want you to be tired only for us to get ambushed by some special, powerful Demon.”
“Fine,” Ainash pouted.
“Hey,” I called out to Ripley.
She stopped and turned back to look at me.
“Uh, my companion, Ainash,” I gestured over to her, “wants to spar against you sometime.”
“That thing can talk?”
“She’s not a thing.” I scowled. “We have our methods of communication. Just wanted to let you know, in case you ever wanted to take her up on her offer.”
Ripley grinned. “I dunno, I wouldn’t want to snap her in half.”
Since I was relaying the conversation to Ainash, I instantly got something from her when Ripley said that. It wasn’t so much words as it was an intense feeling of competitiveness. She wanted to prove Ripley wrong.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about that. I beat you, didn’t I?”
“Hey, our fight was interfered with before I could finish you off. Besides, I wasn’t in my top fighting shape. Wasn’t a fair, one-on-one fight at all.”
“Real life rarely offers you the opportunity to fight fair,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe you’ve lived a bit too sanitized a life.”
She just chuckled and shook her head. “Tell your pet that I’ll gladly take her on someday. But don’t think I’ll go easy on her.”
“And you don’t think she’ll go easy on you. Honestly, I’d say watch out for your life. She’s known to be a bit careless with those of her enemies.”
“We’ll have to see.”
And with that, Ripley walked over to the cliff face she jumped down, and, using her likely massively-inflated Stats, leapt and climbed up, quickly reaching the top. Just before disappearing over the edge, she flashed a wave goodbye.
“Well,” I said, letting out a breath, “apparently the Demons are giving it one last effort. Who knows what they’re actually sending, though.”
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