Chapter 228: The Change of Surroundings
Eventually, Erani and I finally got some sleep. It was probably around midday when we actually dozed off. Part of me dreaded trying to get my sleep schedule back on track after this, but the other part of me knew it was completely fucked already, following the entire journey we’d made to get to this damned empire to begin with. So one all-nighter didn’t matter.
Besides, I got to watch the sun rise with Erani, and our delirious, sleep-deprived states were kinda like being drunk. In a way, it was almost romantic. Well, insofar as the morning after killing a man could feel ‘romantic.’ But we made it work in a weird way.
After my negotiations with the mayor, where I’d secured a heavy enough discount on teleportation that we could afford it right away, I was finally rid of my being forced to spend all my Mana on charging batteries, leaving me able to go back to practicing Noxious Grasp full-time. And because of that, it wasn’t long until I got a new Rank-up notification.
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 3.71k.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 19.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 19, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 5.73 to 5.87
Health Drain: From 24 to 25.2
Stamina Drain: From 12 to 12.6
I looked it over once we woke up—a time I almost called “the next morning,” but was already solidly into the afternoon. The next Rank would bring me to 20, and with that would come my second Upgrade for Noxious Grasp. Of course, that also meant the Spell XP cost went up tremendously for this next Rank, since it brought with it such a tremendous power-up, but I was happy to pay it.
Noxious Grasp’s 20th Rank would require 7618 Spell XP. At 112 Mana/Minute, I was looking at a few full days of straight practice to get it. Of course, I’d also need two Poison Spell Crystals, but I wasn’t as worried about that requirement as I would’ve been even one day before. Because now, I had the Spell Crystals needed to Rank up a lot more than just Noxious Grasp. In fact, every single Spell I currently had waiting on a Spell Crystal—Crippling Chill, Ray of Frost, Expedite, and Curse of Echoes—suddenly had their requirements fulfilled. Well, they were assuming I was going to exploit Time Loop to use the same Crystal more than once. Which I of course was. I even got two Fire Crystals for Erani to Upgrade Firebolt.
Though, I was going to have to wait for my Upgrades until I had a good time to do them. With all of my unused Time Loops turning into free Stats, I didn’t want to waste any when I could double-dip on a single one. If I was going to go back to kill a monster a second time or whatever, then I could use my Spell Crystals then, before I went back, and that’d save me one loop. It pained me to wait a little longer when I really wanted to blow them all right away, but I had to be a little more economic with my resources.
Today, though, I got to do something else I’d been wanting to do for a long time. And that was get the fuck out of here, and get the fuck in to the capital city of the Barinruth Empire. I didn’t even know what that city’s name was, but it was where I wanted to be. Any place that housed Emperor Etrin himself had to be the most guarded damn place this side of Kingdom’s Edge. No more fighting off invaders myself, I could just rely on the city guards for that.
I sighed, thinking of the luxurious, free life I’d be living in just a few hours.
“What’s that sigh for?” Erani asked, lifting her head from my chest, mostly under the covers of our semi-uncomfortable bed. Though, in the soft light from our room’s window, her glowing face was so gorgeous, just looking at it would make any bed feel like the clouds of heaven itself.
“Just the sigh of a job well done, I guess,” I said with a grunt, pushing myself out of bed. I was still nude from our ‘celebration activities’ the night before, so with a thought, I cast Ethereal Armor and summoned Dark Plate, putting it on. I never would’ve thought when taking the Spell that one of its main functions would be to serve as instant clothing.
“Ah, and my lover disappears from my sight once again,” Erani mock-lamented as I went through the familiar process of strapping the different pieces to my body. “Anyway, I’m not sure if last night counted as a ‘job well done.’ By my count, we demolished four buildings in that fight with Jon.”
“First off, I didn’t destroy any buildings, so my job was done perfectly well. I just cast my collateral-damage-free Curses and went about my day. You’re the one who decided to go all-in on explosions with your build.”
“So you’re accusing me of deciding to fight Jon in the middle of town?”
“It was the outskirts, not the middle. Also, no, I’m not accusing you of that, Jon would be the one who decided to come here to fight us. Also also, you didn’t let me get to my second point. My second point was that last night was a job well done because we did pretty much everything we needed to do, all in the series of a few hours. It wasn’t just about beating an enemy, we also got the teleportation ready to go, and we got free Spell Crystals on top of it all.”
“Oh, you said you got two Fires for me, right?”
I nodded and walked over to our bedside table, digging into the sack and grabbing the two reddish orbs, and then tossing them over to her. She deftly snatched them out of the air, and gazed down at the spheres in the palm of her hand with a greedy expression.
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“You know what you’re gonna take?” I asked.
“Firebolt Rank 20 was one of the choices I didn’t have planned out from the start,” Erani said, shaking her head. “Didn’t think I’d get here so fast. And even if I did have it planned out, those plans would certainly be interrupted by now”
“Well, you’re here. But I’m tired of being here, so you wanna go ahead and leave? Teleportation center’s just around the block.”
“Already? We just woke up.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I’m kinda eager to just get out of here. Being near the border after last night is getting me antsy. Don’t you feel that way, too?”
“Well, surely they wouldn’t be sending in more soldiers so soon after their previous attempt failed.”
“Never rely on your enemies being smart,” I said, stretching. “They’ll always be exactly as smart or dumb as is most inconvenient for you. I say, don’t give them a chance to be inconvenient.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Erani said. “I would’ve liked to get some more time with our friends, though. At least until we saw Aliss again. I liked her.”
“You barely talked to any of them,” I said with a frown.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t like them.”
“Well, Sylvie’s gonna apparently be traveling back and forth, if she plans on keeping contact with us. Maybe we can hitch a ride with her one day to come see the rest again. Always good to keep our options open, if we ever need more help. Though, I sure hope that’s never the case again.”
“Don’t tempt fate, saying things like that.”
“What, you think the gods will come down and smite me for daring to hope my life gets better? If they do that, fuck ‘em. I personally think I’m just as good as the gods, and that nothing bad will ever happen to me, ever again.”
“Now you’re just doing it intentionally,” Erani said, rolling her eyes. Though I could also see a twinge of nervousness in her expression.
I laughed. “Well, at least now, if anything bad ever happens, we know who to blame.”
“Yeah, you.”
We walked into the teleportation center soon after, ready to leave. Though, most of the process had already been set up when the mayor had talked to them to give us the discount. So all we really had to do was walk in and hand in the remaining money owed. It’d only take a couple minutes before we would be led out to the teleportation circle, where we would meet up with Ainash to be taken along with us.
Only, when we walked into the building, I spotted a familiar face conversing with one of the teleporters.
“It shouldn’t take long at all for me to work up the remaining money,” Ripley said to the man. Her body was covered in dirt and grime, and she looked about as exhausted as I’d been before I’d finally gotten my bit of sleep.
She glanced over in our direction as we entered, and the moment she laid eyes on me, her hand went to her battleaxe.
“Now, now,” the elderly man said, hurriedly stepping in between us, “there will be no fighting in here. If you have a dispute, feel free to settle it off of our premises.”
“No dispute between us,” I said.
“Then why’d you come here?” Ripley asked.
“I was about to ask you the same thing. But I think if we asked each other, we’d probably end up giving the same answers.”
“So you know about the moves our enemy is making, then?”
I blinked. For a second, I’d forgotten that, in this timeline, I’d never actually made contact with Ripley. She’d been left to fight on her own.
“I killed Jon,” I said.
Now it was her turn to look surprised. “He’s dead? Would’ve thought he’d have given more of a fight.”
“He definitely did.”
“Well if you killed him, he couldn't have.”
“I’m just gonna ignore that. Anyway, if you’d like to hitch a ride with us, it wouldn’t be a—”
“I’ll stop you right there and say I’m not going with you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You sure?”
“I don’t want you knowing where I’m going, or when I’m going there. The less you have the ability to come and bring your enemies to my doorstep, the better.”
“You aren’t going to have trouble paying for teleportation?”
“Thankfully, I claimed a bounty handing in my fellow prisoners. Apparently, some of Jon’s other captives were border guards who went missing, or something. Anyway, I won’t be having any money troubles.”
Oh, right. I’d forgotten that was our original goal in all this. Well, not an issue now. “So you did get captured by him, then?”
“Yep, thrown in this holding cell, guarded by a bunch of Classers, locked down with Enchanted shackles, the works. But I broke out.”
“How did you—”
“I’m sorry, did you still need me?” the elderly man standing beside us looked between us awkwardly.
“Oh, right,” I said, “I’m here to use your teleporters. My name’s Annor, you should have a note from the mayor regarding me.”
“Ah, right this way.” The man immediately walked off, leading us away.
As we followed, I heard Ripley shout from where she’d been left, “So am I just supposed to wait for someone else so I can keep talking with them, or…?”
It took a bit of time to get there, but eventually we were left standing in the middle of the teleportation circle. It was massive, dozens of paces in diameter, and placed out in the middle of the wilderness—presumably because they simply couldn’t fit something of this size in the town proper. Thankfully, that made it possible for us to bring Ainash along, despite not having a license to bring her within the town walls. So she stood alongside us without issue.
“Do you have anything to declare?” One of the teleporters said, holding a piece of paper in his hands. “Dangerous items, or items that could be perceived as dangerous? Other than the monster, of course. We’ll be sending this information through with you, for the security team on the other side.”
“Well, we’ve got some Enchanted stuff, but—”
“What Enchantments?”
“Uh, just some Spell Crystals, as well as…” I dug into my bag and grabbed the arm attachment I’d gotten from one of Jon’s soldiers. It was switched off—with no way to switch it back on, from what I could see—so it looked like a little ring of metal and not much else, currently. “This thing. Which, I have no idea what it’s Enchanted with, or what it really does, or how it does whatever mystery functions it has. It’s just Enchanted.”
He frowned. “...They may not let you keep that.”
Erani looked at me, frowning, too. “You never told me you had that. What is it?”
“One of the limb things from last night,” I answered Erani, who only looked more confused at my answer, but regardless I looked back at the teleporter. “If they don’t let me keep it, there’ll be problems.”
“...And a statement like that will only cause more problems,” the man muttered, writing something down on his paper. He looked back up at me once he was done. “Nothing else, then?”
“Just the stuff we already discussed,” I replied.
“Father, will I see Human settlement now?” Ainash telepathically asked me as the teleportation circle began to whir to life. Markings on the ground began to glow blue, and a faint magical hum could be heard growing steadily louder.
“Hopefully,” I replied.
“Will miss Goblins,” she said. “Need to come back and see them soon! Will train them good enough that they can come to Human settlement, too!”
“...Hopefully,” I replied again, with less conviction this time.
“So,” Erani said, “you ready to see the big city? It’ll probably make a place like Carth look like the boonies.”
“I’m just hoping it lives up to the hype.”
“If you’re ready!” one of the teleporters shouted over the hum.
“Ready!’ I replied.
“Ready,” Erani said.
Ainash gave an enthusiastic wave.
And then, with an explosion of sound, my surroundings disappeared before my eyes, and I was suddenly standing somewhere totally new.
“Welcome to Precipice,” a gruff voice said. “Try not to cause trouble.”
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