Chapter 25.

CHAPTER 25.

Amber continued to stare at the cube, it gave the impression that it was made out of obsidian except for the fact that it had blue lines pulsing across its surface. They were uneven and random, almost like veins on flesh. However, the thing that captivated Amber the most wasn’t the fact that it was cursed, or the fact that it had pulsing veins, it was the fact that the cube was literally whispering in an unknown language.

It almost smelled like some sort of Pandora’s Box to her. Of course, Amber saw no way in which the cube could be opened, but even then she found it quite… ominous to say the least.

What if I bludgeon someone with it? Maybe it was a nice weapon she could use. Though, she immediately decided it was a bad idea to even show it around.

She lifted her gaze as she saw smoke rising over the city walls.

If possible I should return it to the royal family… Having it on her person was most definitely going to be a bad idea in the long run⁠—

And a burst of flames exploded next to her. Amber blinked, being wreathed by the incandescent wave of heat, but she wasn’t actually burned. Instead, it felt closer to being near an oven or something. She turned and saw Liz smiling as she looked at her hands, wisps of flames coming from her fingers.

“I got a very nice advancement,” the mage said, happiness evident in her voice.

“Oh, what is it?”

Liz smiled. “Daughter of Flame.”

Amber blinked. “That doesn’t even sound like a type of class anymore.”

“Exactly,” the mage nodded. “That’s why it’s rare and nice, as for why it was hard to choose… well; there was another rare class.”

“What was it?”

“Well, let’s just say that it had accursed in the name.” She smiled bitterly. “At first I was excited but the more I thought about it, the more wrong that class seemed.”

Amber nodded at that. “I had a similar thing happen⁠—”

“What’s that thing?” Liz asked, looking at the cube.

“Some divine artifact,” she said dismissively. “Identify shows only question marks.”

“Can I see it?” Liz opened her palm.

Amber shook her head and put it on the ground.“It’s cursed so it’s better to not touch it.”

The blonde mage nodded at that and looked at the cube. Once it left Amber’s hand, it had stopped pulsating and it looked more like an obsidian cube rather than some kind of divine thing, but the Identify result remained the same.

“It really is a bunch of question marks, huh?” Liz said. “I’ve never heard of something like that before.”

“Yeah, maybe tomorrow we can try to give it back,” Amber stated simply. “I don’t want to be executed for having the kingdom’s treasure should anyone find out.”

“Will they find out?” Liz asked.

“I do not want to test that…” Amber sighed. “If it can be avoided anyway.”

“Right, yeah…”

Amber looked at the mage who looked a bit embarrassed. She supposed greed had gotten the best of her. Still, she didn’t judge her. Instead, Amber reached for the man’s staff and presented it to Liz.

“This is…?”

“Your new staff,” Amber said simply, letting the mage hold it.

Liz grabbed it and her eyes went wide as she began to stutter.

“T-t-this is not something I can t-take,” the mage said in a hurry. “It’s worth… a lot… way too much.”

“How much is that?” Amber asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I cannot accept this… it-it’s way too valuable.”

“Well, if I try to sell it I’ll probably get scammed, and if I use it, I’d end up using it like some sort of club.” Amber shrugged. “So you should keep it, or sell it and pay me half of what you earn, either work.”

Though not like I’m having money struggles.

Liz blinked very slowly, turning between Amber and the staff and after a few seconds she nodded hesitantly.

“I’ll… keep it… just don’t blame me if someone steals it or something…”

“I won’t.”

Liz still seemed hesitant, but a voice startled them⁠—

“Liz?”

Amber turned only to see Velda, leaning against a tree. The woman looked a bit unsteady, but Liz didn’t seem to care as she rushed to hug her sister.

“That hurts…” she groaned. “What is even happening?”

Amber saw Liz begin to tear up and she decided she didn’t want to look. It was too awkward for her to intrude on a family reunion like that; however she couldn’t exactly go wander off either. So, in the end she was forced to listen, awkwardly shuffling in her position.

“It’s over, Velda…” Liz said, her voice cracking. “You are free now.”

“What do you mean free⁠—” And the sister seemed to pause. “You mean that my marriage with Noah is⁠—”

“Noah is dead, Velda. There is nothing to worry about anymore,” Liz said, beginning to sniffle.

There was a silence before the both started crying, and all Amber could do was sit there awkwardly as she herself struggled not to cry. For some reason, the atmosphere was infectious.

* * *

They all moved away from the dead man, and Amber had taken the cube as her possession for now. Eventually, Liz composed herself enough to introduce Amber.

“Velda, this is the person that helped me save you and who I owe my life to… still once,” Liz said awkwardly.

Velda blinked, looking at Amber; and of course Amber felt awkward as fuck.

“You saved my sister’s life and helped save me…?” she asked in disbelief.

Amber scratched her cheek. “Yeah, you could say that⁠—”

And she was embraced by the noble woman, more sobs coming, and all Amber could do was let the woman cry on her shoulder. She rubbed Velda’s back as more emotions were let out, and all she could do was wonder.

What the fuck had Velda gone through…?

Eventually, Velda calmed enough and even apologized profusely for her actions. Amber reassured her that it was fine. And finally, after all of that they began talking, though it wasn’t what anyone expected.

“So you didn’t even know about the demon stuff until you were taken to the Risnar residence?” Liz asked in shock.

“I didn’t and when I did, I had just resigned myself in shock. I even began writing a will after some time.” She let out a hollow chuckle.

Amber was about to say that they already knew that, but Liz was already glaring at her. And so, she relegated herself to just listening.

“Anyway, I didn’t know about the Risnar’s plan to lure you, Liz or anything. But I held out hope that you would come… that my sister would come and… she did.” She teared up a bit. “Just like always; she delivered on that promise.”

Amber nodded, the fact that Velda trusted Liz that much wasn’t something she expected. They continued trying to gather more information but arrived at nothing, Velda was pretty much in the dark. After that, they all slept in the forest.

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* * *

“What do you mean we cannot go in?” Amber asked, utterly befuddled.

The guard shook his head. “Cytel is in lockdown now, too many dangerous occurrences happening at once. It pains the king to close access, but it’s for the best while investigations occur.”

“In regards to the castle?” Amber prodded.

“Yes, and in regards to the assassination of the Risnar’s family heir.”

“Oh, huh…” Amber was surprised for a moment, before she said what she felt was most fitting. “A great loss.”

Not like she had killed him or anything.

“Indeed,” the guard agreed. “We hope for your understanding.”

Well there goes the plan to try to return the cursed cube. She certainly didn’t want to try returning it to the guard; she’d either get arrested or it would fall on the wrong hands one way or another.

The original idea was to try to use the Starkell family name with a certain noble family to pull a few strings before obtaining an audience with the king; unfortunately, that was no longer possible. There was also the fact that, using Velda’s identity carelessly ⁠— with the guards for example ⁠— could lead to them being suspects for Noah Risnar’s death.

Given I totally wasn’t the one to kill him, it’s best to have nothing to do with the capital for now, she thought. As an innocent maiden, she simply felt unsafe with a brutal murderer on the loose.

And so she returned, heading back to the forest after moving in random directions to lose anyone that was potentially tracking them. Of course, Amber supposed that the action would ultimately only work on someone without specialized skills, but it was good enough for her.

She was already changed and wearing her old armor, she had also washed herself at the river to clean off all the blood from her body so no one gave her more than a glance. Finally, after a few minutes she arrived at a clearing where Liz and Velda were. Both seated at a decayed tree trunk.

“So, did you manage to find the noble house we told you about?” Liz asked.

Amber shook her head. “The capital is under lockdown.”

The mage’s eyes widened for a moment before she sighed. “I guess that makes sense.”

“So I guess we return to Laria now?” Amber asked. “Unless you have somewhere to go.”

Liz shook her head. “No, I do not.”

Amber nodded, and Velda seemed puzzled. “So, you plan on keeping the super rare artifact that can get you killed?”

Amber nodded yet again, this time directed at her.

Velda blinked.

“Huh…”

After that, they left the forest and began to look for caravans going to Laria. Amber had been the one to suggest offering the escorting service for free⁠— and soon enough she found a single caravan of two carts that happily agreed at that. The merchants seemed extremely thankful.

“Thank you, we spent all of our money hiring some adventurers,” one said.

“And after they completed the job, they left to look for other people to escort given we couldn’t pay them,” and the other explained.

Given the capital was under lockdown, they immediately departed, something Amber was eternally grateful for.

* * *

Velda had gone to rest, whatever had happened to her it seemed like she was exhausted. Amber didn’t even know what kind of thing the demon people could have used to leave her unconscious for that long. And so, she sat on the back of the latter cart with Liz.

“The route is different,” Amber commented.

“It’s longer, but considerably safer.” Liz nodded. “More relaxing.”

“I thought that the kingdom had a ton of monsters, are the monsters less dangerous here or…?” Amber asked.

Liz shook her head chuckling. “Monsters are attracted to mana density; the kingdom of Cytel has quite a lot of that, however routes like this are the exception. So if all goes well…”

“There will be no monsters?”

Liz nodded at Amber’s question.

That’s nice. Amber looked at the road ahead, they were mostly surrounded by plains and grassy hills. Overall, a pretty sight that she enjoyed⁠— then again, everything in Vir was picturesque to her so long as she stopped to observe it. She did wish she had her phone, the thought of keeping the memories was nice to her.

Plus what if I return to Earth and post everything on social media? Needless to say, she’d be a prodigious influencer in no time. Well, Amber didn’t actually care for any of that, but she entertained the thought.

“Do you think it was wise of us to not get rid of the body?” Liz asked.

“I think animals will eat it.” Amber shrugged. “And if they don’t, well… too late to regret it I suppose. And besides, there are other things to regret, like the cube.”

“Right… what will you do with that thing?”

Amber closed her eyes, listening to the whispers coming from the cube hidden within her armor. Sometimes, she felt like the whispers could be understood; but they truly weren’t. They were all unintelligible. Truly a cursed object in her opinion. Amber sighed.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe I can visit the tower in the Arthra forest.”

“What if the… organization people are there?” Liz asked in a whisper.

Amber shrugged. “Then I guess I die.”

“What? You can’t just say that,” Liz protested. “You should at least, say run away or something.”

Amber smiled at that, and began to engage in banter with the blonde mage. However, some minutes into it, Velda woke up and looked rather confused.

“Why are you two mocking each other?”

“Because, Liz is fun to upset,” Amber explained simply.

The blonde mage scoffed at that. “You say that, but you get bothered too.”

“Do I?” Amber grinned.

“Probably…”

And she chuckled at that. Velda too smiled, before she looked between the two of them.

“I’m glad you two are friends,” she said after a moment. “It’s nice to see you both happy; especially you Liz.”

The mage blinked. “Right…”

Then, Velda turned to Amber. “So, how did you meet my sister?”

“Oh.” Amber paused. “Well, it all began as I wandered through a forest…”

* * *

Amber proceeded to regale the epic tale of saving Liz, greatly exaggerating the facts much to the mage’s dismay. In the end, Liz had to correct multiple things and state the facts. Though the facts weren’t all that much better.

“So… Amber saved your life?” Velda asked.

“She did.” Liz nodded. “And I’m grateful.”

Velda smiled at that, and then asked. “So what happened after that?”

“Well, we actually ended up forming a dungeon team shortly after that,” Liz explained. “And Amber, uhh… do you want to explain Amber?”

Amber paused and nodded. “Sure. So basically…”

* * *

Velda listened intently to everything the brown haired warrior was saying, and at first it sounded mostly normal even if strange such as eating poisonous berries to level up her Toxin Resistance skill. However, it quickly got bizarre. First, an adventurer had challenged Amber to a bout, essentially saying she’d have to quit the dungeon party if she lost. Except, Amber had practically wiped the floor with him.

Worst of all, her sister confirmed the claims and even added extra details on how one sided the fight had been. Velda found it hard to believe, but it didn’t end there. Turns out Amber basically led the team through the dungeon, eliminating more monsters than everyone else. And when they encountered undead, they too met the same fate getting mostly annihilated by Amber.

Velda didn’t quite understand because undead had a dangerous miasma that would make it hard for warriors, but she supposed that Amber was just built differently. It was a bit hard to believe, but she trusted her sister, and if Liz said Amber was being realistic then, the warrior was most definitely being honest.

Which was… hard to comprehend…

Then again, Amber had also taken out Noah Risnar in a one on one battle, which… sounded ridiculous to her but it had happened. A warrior shouldn’t be able to fight a higher leveled mage than themselves, and yet… Amber had done it. Of course, Velda wasn’t stupid, she could certainly glean that the warrior had a rare class, if not an extremely rare one.

However, the surprise didn’t stop there. After going deep into a dungeon two of the members got injured and they had to retreat, except for the fact that Amber insisted on staying behind.

“Velda, did you know? Amber has a title in Laria?” Liz asked randomly.

Velda blinked. “A title…?”

She found it strange. For someone to earn a title they must have achieved a great feat. Something that is essentially acknowledged by everyone around.

“What is the title?”

Liz smiled. “I’ll let Amber tell you.”

Velda turned to the warrior spectantly, Amber seemed to be pondering before finally she nodded, a smile spreading on her lips.

“My title is Demonkiller.”

“Demonkiller?” Velda blinked. “That’s… did you kill a lot of undead or something? Why not slayer?”

“Well, I’ll explain what happened in the dungeon and you’ll understand.”

At this point, even her sister began to pay close attention. Velda too was incredibly interested and listened as Amber narrated her journey through the dungeon except⁠— it was a massacre. She said that she would use undead as weapons, swinging their bodies around. That she would run from one side of the dungeon to the other looking for monsters; it sounded insane and yet… even the Guild had confirmed the dungeon was cleared?!

Velda couldn’t believe it; the warrior had cleaned an entire dungeon by herself. And as if that wasn’t impressive enough, she met a level 50 summoner that she killed, and the summoned beast was:

A Server of Chaos. Of course, Velda didn’t know what the fuck a server of chaos was, but it was a proper demon. A powerful being. Amber noted that it was over level 100, but that its level had been adjusted to be 80 instead due to the half-summoning or whatever. However, even then, Velda found it hard to believe, but it had happened.

Amber was a… Demonkiller.

She looked at the warrior, admiration present in her eyes. Not only had Amber helped her sister, she had also saved her sister’s life multiple times; she had saved her too. Velda was grateful, and even though she barely knew the woman, she found herself admiring her.

Amber was strong.

And she too wanted to stand proud like her.

Velda wanted to be strong like her…

* * *

After Amber finished relaying her experiences, she noticed that Liz’s sister was staring at her with a different kind of expression. At first, she couldn’t quite place the expression, but it eventually came to her. It was admiration, and that just made things awkward.

No wonder Ax’thra never bragged about being a god. Amber was surprised that a lot of her ways and thoughts were levitating towards the god’s eccentricity; maybe she was meant to be unbearable all along. To ascend to godhood so she can pester people with her timeless existence, maybe, just maybe that was her purpose⁠. Or not, she didn’t really know why she had come to Vir; if there was a reason at all.

However, she was certain that she hadn’t come here to be admired like some otherworldly being. She disliked that. However, it seemed that it was too late at least when it came to Velda.

In the end, Amber let the two sisters talk. With her approval, Liz also shared her goals in regards to Primordial Spirits to Velda, though the part of actually meeting one was completely omitted. Something that Amber noted and increased her trust in Liz.

Finally, she turned to the road where she saw the passing forests in the distance. They were still on the grassy plains, however the sun was setting, the end of the day was coming soon.

Amber could still hear the whispers of the cube. She kind of expected they would annoy her, but she found them to be a bit calming. Of course, she still found the cube to be ominous as fuck. After all, what kind of object whispered? If it was at least sentient and talking she wouldn’t find it as weird. And befriending a talking cube sounded fun, but she couldn’t do that.

So instead, she was left pondering about what it was or what it contained, what it did, and why it was cursed. Even though it was unlikely, she hoped to find answers in Ax’thra’s tower.

Sighing, she turned to the darkening sky. She still felt tired from the consecutive battles yesterday.

I guess I’ll nap.

And she laid on the floor of the cart, drifting off to sleep.