Chapter 21: Bargain

Chapter 21: Bargain

We finally get to our destination, the Root of the Abyssal Forest.

Purple grass, brown dirt, black leaves, brown bark with blotches of ominous white and green. Simple, small, and weak trees that look like birches fill this forest. Huge mushrooms glow a light blue and bring a little light to this darkness. Plenty of red and yellow fireflies buzzing around. Frogs croak on a lake near us. A faint weird smell on the air makes me think of "death".

The sky is filled with galaxies and nebulas, none are familiar to me. The ground is completely broken and full of holes, we can see the abyss through them just like the chimera sky lands. This place is a mishmash of sky lands clumped together.

On the distance, huge roots with the same ominous blotches can be seen clumping up and moving upwards until they disappear on a black mist.

The next levels are called Trunk of the Abyssal Forest and Crown of the Abyssal Forest. Hopefully, we will never go to these floors, the crown, more specifically.

Ciel flops down on the grass and laughs.

"That was horrible," she says with a smile.

I raise one of my eyebrows at her.

"Yes, nothing like running for our lives in the morning, a rather pleasant and fun experience," I say.

"I know you are being sarcastic but I do enjoy things like these, it's why I was born," Hana says with a satisfied grin on her face.

"Don't complain, Wolfy, you chose both of them, it was pretty obvious how they would turn out to be," Alissa says, flopping down beside me.

"Ei, you are the one who recommended them to me," I say.

She smirks.

"Anyway, we weren't really in that much danger, you can always use [Gate] to send us to a safe place," Ciel adds.

"I know you enjoyed it too, Wolfy," Roxanne grins.

"No, I did not."

"I know you enjoyed carrying Lina," she continues.

"Yes, that I did," I smile.

Lina smiles shyly.

"I... enjoyed that too, even the running," she says.

"Even you!"

It's almost mid-day but these floors are shrouded in an eternal night. After resting and cleaning our sweat we have a quick lunch.

I put an extra point into [Blessing Magic], with this we can use [Rainbow Shield], we will need it here. With this spell on every once in a while a small rainbow forms near us. I split the girls extra points between [Mental Resistance] and [Pain Resistance], thought it's not much it will help a bit.

I summon a spirit elemental and a light elemental. The spirit elemental is going to circle around us as early warning, unfortunately Alissa's [Sense Presence] is useless on this floor.

"Ah, the nostalgic and also horrible feeling of not knowing when the enemy will attack," Hana says.

"We got too used to Alissa's [Sense Presence]. It really is too convenient," Ciel says, twitching and looking around.

"Some things we only appreciate when we lose them," I say, giving a kiss to Alissa's hand.

"My ears and nose still work, you know.

"That..." I try to speak but I actually forgot she has better senses than us, I also relied too much on her [Sense Presence].

We walk surrounding Roxanne, Alissa, and the light elemental. Aoi decided to ride the light elemental, apparently her hair is very, very soft.

Roxanne is a bit happy and anxious, there's a monster here who has very valuable materials for her potions.

We move closer to the gigantic roots while being vaguely aware of our position on the map, the terrain is far too complicated. We all tie ropes to each other, better be safe than sorry when someone falls into the abyss.

The spirit elemental picks up something.

"Stop," I whisper.

I point to the direction where the signal came from. We all huddle up and look out for every direction, the signal is a trap, the attack will most likely come from the opposite direction.

Out of a bush a shadow slides out into the grass, Symbol of Darkness, a threat level 6 monster, but only if you are caught by surprise. I cast [Spirit Light] and throw it into the shadow, it slows down and I see it tremble.

Ethereal tendrils shoot out of the shadow and hit my arms. Horrible pain but it's much less than the dark bullet from the Shadow Satyrs. Lina whimpers, she must be fighting another.

I charge forward and pierce my sword into the shadow, it enters deeply into the ground. The shadow grows out of the ground and tries to engulf me, I immediately dodge back and leave my sword there, the shadow is stuck.

I draw my dagger and wait. An arrow pierces it and tendrils shoot upwards, trembling.

Lina is fighting one alongside Ciel. They are pounding and slashing it, I feel they are in quite a bit of pain. Hana is just starting to fight hers, Alissa pinned it with an arrow. Roxanne is casting a long spell, she won't be much help, these monsters are resistant to magic.

The tendrils of my monster stop trembling and they shoot out towards me, I dodge but one hits my head.

I see Alissa sprawled on the ground, tears running down her cheek, her hand clawing on her face as she goes insane. She's dying, the monster is eating her mind. A filthy man approaches her, he pulls down her pants...

FUCK YOU!

I dash forward and stab my dagger on the shadow repeatedly. Tendrils hit my chest and make me stop breathing. I win the endurance battle and the monster tries to retreat from me, it can't run further than where my sword is.

I move back and catch my breath.

"[Firestorm]!"

Roxanne casts a very contained firestorm somewhere, it burns specifically where the monster is. I can't hear shrieks but I can "feel" them, a horrible pain and darkness over my heart.

The light elemental hugs me and the pain goes away, I melt on her arms and nearly fall asleep. The sound of a fireball hitting the grass and exploding gets me back on the fight. When I got out of the way Aoi fired a few towards my monster.

Lina recovers her breath and moves to my side.

"You okay?" She asks.

"Now I am," I answer and break the elemental's hug, she really is soft.

We dash towards the shadow and repeatedly pound it down, slowly breaking apart its existence. The closer the light elemental gets the more it trembles, it desperately tries to pull out my sword from the ground but it has little physical strength.

It tries to send tendrils towards us but it misses our heads this time. I intensify my stabbing and a tendril hits my heart, I immediately feel cold and sluggish, I almost pass out. The light elemental touches my shoulder and I feel two opposite forces battling inside of me, it's not pleasant.

Lina increases her speed seeing my suffering and the ground gets littered with small craters. The shadow loses power and the elemental wins the battle for my heart.

The tendrils disappear and the shadow "cracks", light escaping from those cracks. With the sound of shattering glass the monster breaks apart repeatedly until it turns into dust and that dust turns into nothing.

"[Firestorm]!"

Roxanne casts another small storm. I look in time to see a weakened Symbol of Darkness, filled with arrows, crack and disappear amid the fire.

Mentally tired we all huddle up around the light elemental. She starts to dance and twirl, we just stare at her absentmindedly, slowly it heals our hearts.

"Did anyone get hit in the head?" Hana asks.

"I did," I answer.

"Did you get a nightmare too?

"Worse than a nightmare it was an illusion, for me it was real, it feels like a memory instead of feeling like a dream."

"Even with our resistances it's still like this," she frowns.

"This is why everyone hates these levels."

"Yeah, but I can see it's worth it, though I didn't get hit in the head. [Summon Monster] really is powerful," Ciel says.

"It will help a lot against Darean," Alissa says.

"We need trinkets like mine, they help a lot with things like these," Roxanne says, showing us her amulet.

It's a simple metal necklace with a medal in the shape of a closed fist, unremarkable.

I grab Alissa's hand and kiss it, the dance of the elemental makes us temporarily forget the oppressive forest we are in.

We move on and now I summon another spirit elemental, this one will patrol the top of the trees, we are looking for a Beholder, threat level 5. This monster lives mostly near the huge roots we are going towards. It's a small black eye with bat wings, two skinny legs with claws and a small mouth with very sharp teeth. It's even more difficult to find than the Symbol of Darkness, it's very small and it even casts a spell similar to [Ignorance] on itself. The danger is the poison, its extremely effective but very slow acting, you just need a tickle from the monster to get poisoned.

There are small groups of Eldritch Horrors, little balls of purple flesh that move similarly to the Symbol of Envy. They move rather slowly and their blood is acidic so we just use them as target practice. These are the monsters Roxanne wants. She prances towards every corpse to analyze it and prod it, then makes me carry them all. She wants even the proof of extermination, the single purple eye they have.

We reach the roots and start looking for the stairs, too much of a mess here, the map is useless. The roots smell of mold and the air is stale, this place just keeps getting worse.

Ciel stops us and looks at Alissa.

"You got poisoned."

Roxanne pulls out a small flask and gives her to drink.

"Damn, to sneak up on Alissa the little shits must be good," Hana says.

"Exactly, it's why we are here, they are too good," I say, "One must be stalking us, we stay here I will try to use my [Redirect Mana] to look for its trail. Spirit elementals, sweep the area."

I sit down and the girls surround me. I kill my senses and focus on identifying the sources of mana floating around here. Every stream of mana I sense sends me shivers down my spine and makes my heart hurt, they all seem to be coming from the roots and going upwards.

Time passes and I finally get a trickle of something foul, it makes me feel twitchy and anxious. I open my eyes and let my instincts take over, I point towards a root on top of us and cast [Lighting Bolt].

"IIIIIIIIIIH!" A high pitched scream fills our heads as a black ball falls down in the middle of us.

An arrow immediately pierces it and it's followed by a spear. It struggles for a moment and dies.

"That took a while," Ciel breathes in relief.

"How long was I out?" I ask.

"About half an hour, I think."

I have to work on my sense of time while meditating.

"Now let's get the hell out of here."

We hurry along the roots until we find the blessed stairs.

The damp air, the smell of moss and nature, the feeling of the normal ground, the familiar trees, the pitch black darkness. Finally we are out of the dungeon and into The Smirk.

We all groan, the atmosphere of that floor was really oppressive, except for Roxanne, she loved those Eldritch Horrors.

I look around, we are not anywhere near close the door to the dungeon.

"Someone is entering the dungeon," Alissa says, squinting her eyes at the direction where I believe the doors is.

"Some dungeons are dangerous because they teleport you right outside the entrance, perfect place for an ambush," Roxanne says, a little pain in her eyes.

Hana consoles her and we leave the forest. We use our dinghy and we reach home well into the night.

Today is the 30th.

Alissa is the one who eagerly wakes me. Ciel ends up cuddling with Lina and they are both still sleeping. I gotta convince Ciel to sleep naked, she's the only one who sleeps in her underwear. All I want is to wake up one day with my morning wood buried into her ass.

"How are you always awake before me?"

She smiles and swallows.

"Your breathing gets faster before you awake. I wake Hana and Roxanne when it's time."

"And you are that sensitive to my sleeping patterns?"

"Yes, I can tell when you are having a bad dream. I was trained to have light sleep in case I needed to protect my master."

There are some things I just don't know how to react to.

Good thing is that yesterday made me grow quite a bit. I increased my "Strength", "Endurance", "Speed", [Blessing Magic] and [Summoning Magic] by 1 (now 11, 12, 12, 0+15 and 7+13).

Alissa and Roxanne leveled up. Alissa increased her [Bow Use] by 1 (now 26) and gained [Enhanced Stamina] with 1 point. She now has 10 skill points left.

Roxanne increased her [Potion Brewing], [Fire Magic] and her "Endurance" by 1 (now 11, 23 and 9) and her [Poison Brewing] by 2 (now 4). She has 8 skill points left.

Hana should be the next one to level up.

With Roxanne and Ciel's success at chantless casting I believe it's time for everyone to learn a few spells, a single [Earth Bullet] is powerful when used chantless, doing it point blank to someone can send even a dragonkin flying, like I did. I put [Inspire Growth] on Ciel and Roxanne and [Increased Growth] on the other girls, hopefully it's enough to brute-force some skill learning without having to delve too much into the theory.

When the spirit griffin appeared Aoi apparently got fired up and started to push her flame breath and fire balls to the limit.

I put their extra points into [Earth Magic], except for Alissa, who wants to learn [Illusion Magic], she read the book a few times and wants to try it so I give her a single point in it. The first spell of [Illusion Magic] is [Ghost Lights], it's used to distract an enemy when it looks at you, perfect if you want to make someone incapable of dodging your arrows even if they are looking right at you. [Ghost Lights] is easy to cast but it requires good control, if you screw up your allies will be affected by it.

Leaving them to their training I focus on my training for [Summoning Magic]. Increasing that summoning to level 30 takes too many points, I'm going to put Nononya's notes to use and try to level this skill asap.

I summon 3 Symbols of Darkness and 1 Beholder, slowly of course, no need to overuse mana already. The Symbols of Darkness will now be called "Shad", Shad 1 will stay with me, Shad 2 will stay with Roxanne, Shad 3 with Lina. These monsters can easily hide in our own shadows and they will stay as a countermeasure against assassination. Unfortunately I can't summon one for everyone so this is one of the reasons why I have to train.

The Beholder will now be called "Holly". It will stay mostly on top of our house as a sentry and will follow whoever leaves the house. This one can easily hide among people but it's risky, the [Ignorance] spell isn't perfect and it would cause an uproar if a monster was found inside the town, so it will remain far away from groups of peoples. If it's revealed that I can summon monsters then it might attract too much attention, more than the annoying amount I already have.

With these monsters and the 2 clay golems all summoned at the same time my mana drops to 1/6th. It's quite massive but this is only for training. I try to keep the maximum amount of senses on but at 4 it's straining me, 5 makes my head hurt.

The Shad's don't see like we do, they have a sort of "mana infrared", they see mana in the air directly but their vision isn't that great for much else, they don't serve as scouts unless you are hunting a mage. Interestingly they can't detect each other unless they are really close.

Holly has dark vision (can see in absolute darkness) and hawk eyes, so she's(?) the perfect choice for scouting. Holly's poison doesn't work too well yet, it has a very delicate mana signature so I can't recreate it even with level 30 [Summoning Magic].

I have one of the clay golems stare at Nononya's notes while I try to meditate and practice [Earth Bullet], even though I have very little mana. Basically multi-tasking. I level [Nature Magic] to 30 so I can use [Manasynthesis], with this I can recharge mana even faster just by staying in the sun.

I can meditate with my summons out and my sense of time doesn't get too disrupted. But it feels weird, like I'm looking through a movie. If only I could talk to them telepathically I could seriously multi-task.

Time for lunch comes and after that we all leave to the hunters guild to sell our stuff. We are going shopping after this.

At the guild I get the stares like usual, I have a tendency of being dramatic and call my women goddesses but they are not that eye-catching, at least not without their dresses. It's just that the male:female ratio of our party attracts attention, specially when I'm not a charismatic 2-meters tall hunk.

I see a request to investigate the Spriggans at the Spiral Springs, it claims that they suddenly started wearing ropes with weird patterns on them. I just move away from that board.

Then I overhear a conversation about hunters complaining that they don't cut down the Sea of Trees anymore so the monsters use it as breeding grounds. This means that whatever is protecting the Sea of Trees likely made a deal with Rabanara, now what could a magical being offer a Lord that's worth so much?

When I turn around after having my fill of the conversation I see a bear like man staring at me. His eyes are bloodshot and he clearly looks drunk, I think he's the leader of Escutcheon. He doesn't look like he has been having good days, I hurry Roxanne to the dismantling area and the others to leave the guild and wait outside. I should have brought Alissa, the loss of her blessing is stressing.

"Mr. Ryder! Good to see you, how was your hunt?" Gordon asks with arms open wide, a bloody grin, and the usual shining bald head.

"Wonderful, you might want to get Sonny here and it's not just because I want to tease him."

Gordon chuckles while I pull out a male minotaur, the Kite Dragon, the 3 Shadow Satyrs, a pile of scrap metal from the Living Armors, and the Beholder. Gordon smile twitches in surprise but he tells his assistant to get Sonny. Gordon seems to be unable to decide where to start, his eyes dart between the Kite Dragon, the satyrs, and the Beholder.

"S-so many rare monsters... such 'luck'," he sniggers.

I sit down on Roxanne's lap and she runs her fingers through my hair.

Sonny comes and his body jerks twice, once to look at Roxanne and again to continue marching forward, pretending that didn't happen.

"Most scales are good, even the skull, it could be made into some wonderful plating. The satyrs are in good condition, somewhere there's a filthy potion maker that will be delightful in having their brains, eyes, and hearts. The Beholder has a considerable amount of poison on its claws and it's poison gland isn't ruptured, the damage to the eye is regrettable but there's no other way to kill them," Sonny reads his report.

He gives us 70 gold for it all. Ah, money, money, money, money. One day I want to kill the Symbol of Envy, I might get a rose coin for it, so juicy.

Roxanne takes the gold from Sonny, she deliberately touches his wand and gives him a wink. He jumps in surprise and tries to keep his body upright.

"Any, uh, if-if that's all I will come to, no, be leaving to my, my, room?" He questions his own words.

"That's all, I will see you someday, Mr. Sonny," Roxanne says with a small bow.

"Yes, uh, bye."

He awkwardly leaves. I wonder how old he is, he seems to be nearly 20.

"Is it a complete magic school?"

"It is, surprisingly."

Lina enters the room.

"Excuse me..."

I motion her to sit besides me. She trembles once but it stops, [Mental Resistance] doing work again.

"I would like to know more about this school, does it have any books written on it?"

"Only a few, they are restricted so you won't be able to get them."

"I want to submit my work on [Golemancy] and exchange it for a chair at the university, would that be enough?"

Vanea smiles.

"Certainly, make sure you don't announce it to anyone else before you get your chair, the quacks would tremble in their boots if they knew what you were searching for. But anyway, we aren't here to discuss this."

Everyone tenses up and straighten their postures. My moral support is assembled, it's time for battle.

"Yes. I assume you know what happened at the 25th," I smile a bit.

"Hard not to, seeing how much noise you made. Both during battle and the aftermath. It seems you might be requiring some help?" She smiles back.

"Help? Have you seen how we fought? No, we don't require help, we are rather fine for now," I bluff.

Vanea thinks for a second. I think it worked, her followers must not have seen the fight themselves.

"Surely you understand Darean is more than a mere position 1 adventurer," her soft and commanding tone is unchanging.

She just confirmed for me that Darean is behind the attack.

"Yes, but we aren't his main target, he's coming for us as a personal vendetta. His employer must be pretty mad from losing such an important team with absolutely nothing in return."

She thinks longer. Does she know it was a kidnapping team that attacked me?

"You don't think he will attack again?"

"Attack? No, he won't. His trap failed once and now it will never work again."

"What gives you such confidence?" Her face shows a hint of worry and skepticism.

I simply smile, the answer to that is a secret.

Vanea looks down, her eyes race about, she's rapidly thinking of something

"Do you have a Gate Scrubber?"

Blunt, but I can't just straight up admit it.

"No," I keep my face expressionless.

Vanea stares at me for a few seconds.

"I can have you searched," her tone turns stern.

Careful now.

"Yes you can, but you won't find anything. Even if you get the empire's lie detectors," I lie.

Vanea stays still, my spidey senses are tingling.

"It seems you don't want to go that far. Why are you so interested in this scrubber?"

"A Gate Scrubber was stolen sometime ago. We believe Darean tipped off a group of thieves who then sold the scrubber to the kidnappers, giving Darean his connection," Silvane confesses.

Vanea gives her a look but Silvane doesn't budge.

"Vanea, it would do well to show a bit of trust once in a while," Silvane says, no hint of unease in her voice.

Information is key here, Silvane wants our trust so she gave something for free. The empire knowing they lost a scrubber would look really bad on them. I will certainly never tell anyone about this scrubber, I look at Silvane and give a grateful nod.

"I see, but like I said, I don't need help. If I sniff a trap I can just walk away, I'm not tied to Rabanara."

Silvane's poker face twitches. I'm sorry but I don't have loyalty to either of you.

"But you won't leave yet?" Silvane asks.

"I do not wish to. The only tie I have here is the university, with my research and blessing I can enter another rather easily. I don't need help Miss Anara, you do," I smile again.

Her eye twitches.

"Since you don't have a Gate Scrubber what help can you provide us?" She asks.

Good, she fell for my bluff, she thinks we aren't afraid and that Darean is an inconvenience instead of a threat.

"Information. I can help you get someone close to Darean."

"Who?" She's fails to completely contain her eagerness, it seems she really was cornered by Darean.

"What can you give in return?"

"I don't know the value of the information if I don't know the person," she smiles.

"We can just agree in something preliminary. You will keep me updated on any move Darean makes, you knew I was being stalked and did nothing."

"I am not that heartless, I lacked a lot of information," Vanea looks a bit offended.

"I didn't mean to offend, but you knew something and never warned me."

"Fine. But you will have to provide all info that you know, everything, even whether you really have the scrubber. You can keep it as long as you keep it quiet from the empire," she slips a hint of anger in her tone.

"A fair deal," I bow lightly.

"The name?"

I slip her a piece of paper. "Farana Uiara, human, level 37. Small body, around 160cm tall, traces that resemble the elves, thin chin, small red lips, pale face and freckles, braided brown hair curled inside a hat. She doesn't have any breasts but her ass is big and her hips are wide. Her hair smells of Ranja hair products, expensive and possibly from the High Forest."

Silvane lifts an eyebrow.

"Who gave you that description?"

"A dragonkin."

"Figures..."

Vanea breath quickens for a few seconds and then she controls herself.

"That's his bitch, the little thief, she leads the thieves. We have to find her and capture her. She also has the help of someone with [Illusion Magic]. "

"Yes, she was using [Ignorance] when stalking us."

Vanea thinks for a second.

"I want you to fight for me. Help me capture her," Vanea says, moving her body closer.

"No," I answer immediately.

"You don't understand, I don't have enough reliable people that could stand against an illusion mage, if you killed those kidnappers then you are good enough to fight for me," her gaze is unwavering.

Shit. I can't tell if she's bluffing, she was being pushed into a corner, there's a very good chance she's telling the truth.

"I have to talk to the others about this. If we do we are at minimum going to ask for a lot of money, you must know our rates from when we escorted the representative for armorer's guild. We are gonna ask for a lot more than that."

Vanea reclines back, her posture relaxes.

"That's fine, Rabanara is rich."

"And we are going to ask for protection, you must make sure nothing happens to us before, during or after the battle."

She narrows her eyes.

"You are going to have to fight, I can't hold your hand during the battle."

"But you can help us prepare, we are going to fight against a mage and we don't have that much experience."

She sighs, her authoritative voice is nearly gone.

"I will prepare something. But I will only protect you as long as you are in Rabanara."

I nod.

"Do I have the word of Miss Vanea Anara, daughter of a True Noble?" I ask in a stern tone.

She growls.

"You will have to share everything you know."

"Deal."

She glares at me one final time, "I, Vanea Anara, daughter of a True Noble give you my word, let the Gods observe me and judge me for my actions."

An oath that Ciel taught me. Everything we agreed to is now under watch by the Gods, if she screws me over I can invoke the Gods wrath upon her.

"Now spill everything else you know."

It wasn't much but it was valuable information to her. I also gave her the remaining corpses and she will give me the bounty, but silently, no need to increase my fame. She glares at me when I tell the truth about the Gate Scrubber but I'm keeping it, she said it herself, it's also my guarantee Darean won't try to kidnap me again.

Vanea says that after our fight the underworld got spooked about what the spirits on the corpses I have could spill and decided to hide. She is making sure no necromancer that could pull the spirits of the dead appears in Rabanara, they could do it even without a body.

The kidnappers had bribed the guards to keep their patrols away from the location we were to fight, it backfired on them since the guards only found a small amount of dried blood the morning after. With this there was nothing to start an investigation so the guard just dropped it, not even the people of the slums wanted to testify that they heard the screams, they know nothing good would come from it.

Vanea never saw the fight, she knew the kidnappers were bought and on the move but couldn't find any more lead on the target, she only knew later that they failed and disappeared, obviously died. She heard a rumor that Darean was targeting us and when the kidnappers failed someone slipped that Darean might have fucked over some valuable hired swords by sending them into a trap. With this she connected the dots and assumed we killed the kidnappers.

"Here's how we talk. This one is for giving me your answer, turn it and it will send a signal to me that you accepted or rejected," Vanea points to an Emergency Ring.

"This one is a compacted lithograph, I will send you the place where we meet. Keep it close to you, it will warm up when it receives a message," Vanea points to a small metal box.

That box has a glass window where I can see a white and black liquid floating around it, they don't mix. I assume the black liquid will form words when the message comes. It's a fantasy pager.

"With this we conclude our business," Vanea gives a wicked smile.

I hope I haven't made a deal with the devil.

Outside of that office the tension on my shoulders dissipates, it went as well as it could have been, Alissa gives me a quick shoulder massage. We go back to Lyle with Silvane in tow, she makes a small excuse that Vanea wanted to know in detail about my [Sense Soul], which is not totally a lie but covers my back in case someone gossips that I'm meeting her in private.

We are going to get another influx of money, perhaps I can buy bone-and-chain armor for Hana. I kind of quit trying to have her wear plate, too expensive and the prices fluctuate too much. With [Alchemy] I think Lina and Roxanne can work together to maintain it.

"I'm not really against fighting for her, if you want a job well done you do it yourself," Hana says.

"You made her do the vow, the last thing she needs is the Gods turning her luck against her. She will be a good ally as long as we keep a distance and the advantage," Lina says.

Lina seems to be getting more interested in the games of the nobility. It's not that different from the negotiations of the merchants, just more ruthless.

"Fighting is our specialty, after all," Roxanne says.

Ciel and me are anxious.

"Wolfy, I think this is a time we have to fight, we can make sure this ends as quickly as possible," Alissa says, grabbing my hand.

I kiss it.

"We are not going to do it alone, she said she didn't have enough allies, not that she doesn't have any. The most obvious ones are Haaran and his knights. If our allies are not good enough we can always just walk away," Lina says.

Now even she is encouraging us.

"This time you won't be forced to put your points into sneaking, we will be able to fight full force," Alissa says.

I don't have the energy to go against this argument. I look at Ciel and she doesn't either.

I need to clear my head, I ask Hana and we all spar a bit. I train more of my [Telekinesis], I'm getting the hang of casting it on myself but I won't be able to use it for long when I have all my summons out.

I can win against Alissa if she gets tired, otherwise she's just too fast for me. Lina had a very large growth on her martial prowess, the system gives too much of an advantage on melee. With her skill points she can already win against me, though I can't win against Ciel or Hana so it's not that big of a deal.

"Do you think I should use a style, too? Now even Lina can get the upper hand on me," I ask Hana.

"I don't think you should use a style from the system, you should create your own," she answers.

"Why is that?"

"Your [Telekinesis] permits you to fight in a way I have never seen before, perhaps there is a style the old heroes used that could fit you but you still have quite a lot of unique options on how to fight. If you combine [Telekinesis] with [Fly] or [Rush] you could have incredible freedom in fighting."

"It will take me a while until I learn [Wind Magic]."

"Still..."

"I could teach you," Ciel's bright smile lifts my spirits.

"Later, there's too much to learn. Let's leave it for when I learn more about Andraste or when I finish my courses at the university."

"Awn..."

I will certainly buy you some teacher cosplay one day.

"So anyway, how should I go making my own style?"

"Well. Style is all about the strategy, [Sword Use] only tells you how to use a sword, the style tells you when to use the sword. I can show you the [Imperial Tower Style] as basis but you have to think of it on your own.

"You have to think about things like posture, stance, footwork, strength, precision and speed of attacks or defenses, which direction to cut in, when and how to combo, grappling and bare handed attacks, feints and counters, weapons to use, and how to fight specific weapon and enemy type combinations. There's a lot to think about and your [Telekinesis] changes all of them, if you just adopt an existing style it will be very inefficient.

"I see... it will really take a long time to develop a style, I guess I should just use a single point in [Imperial Tower Style] while we spar. By the way, how does this style compare to yours?" I ask.

"This style is all about sword and shield while mine is more than just that, it encompasses all the weapons I use. It's also about fighting multiple enemies and how to counter them or overpower them. The imperial style is about coordination and working together with a simple sword and shield, the empire will never send their soldiers to be outnumbered or to work alone, I think this is why it would fit you well as a basis. It even tells about coordination with mages and archers, which you already do occasionally."

Yes, that's certainly interesting. Coordinating with Alissa and Roxanne when I retreat opens up attacks for them, I already did this a few times before, if I master [Telekinesis] or [Rush] I can enter and leave attack range basically at will.

While we talk Ciel pokes Roxanne's Shad with her finger. You shouldn't feel anything except for the mana leaking.

"Wolf, you are not looking at us when we... go to the bathroom, right?" Ciel asks, frowning slightly.

"I'm a pervert but I'm not that perverted. Besides, I can barely see a proper outline with their vision."

"That's, good to know."

We go back to sparring and I start getting pummeled by Lina, I better develop a style fast, she's reading my movements already. She's a bit scary when we spar, there's a fire in her that reminds me of Hana, but at least Hana knows how to go easy.

Tonight I act as human dildo for Hana and Roxanne as they take the stress of the training on each other. Alissa gives me a few scratches, I really do enjoy the feeling of her nails.

After we are all done Aoi gets out of her bored trance and pulls me and Hana together with her little claws. She always sleeps with either of us but when we sleep together she wants to sleep between both of us.

I spend a few more moments staring at Vanea's ring. The shrieks of that space mage I killed keep repeating in my head, I'm scared of fighting, I'm scared of the unknown enemy. I have to trust those women, even Ciel who doesn't want to fight got convinced. They trust me and I trust them.

I turn the ring green, I hope I didn't make a deal with the devil.