Chapter 70

Blood pooled at Zeth’s feet.

He was standing before what was practically a mountain of corpses, all of them mangled and slashed apart, piled at the bottom of his stairs.

Astrys stood behind the pile, kicking one last body into the rest, and nodded to him. “That was all of them.”

Zeth cleared his throat, feeling a sting in his neck as he did, but nothing even close to as bad as yesterday. He rasped out, “You killed the whole camp?”

“Yes. After spending some time searching in the direction you pointed toward, I eventually found them. I investigated for some time from afar before determining I would be able to win in a fight if I had the element of surprise. I left their camp empty, and carried the corpses back here. You did want the corpses, correct? I assumed so, since you use blood to activate your magic.”

“I…” He hardly knew what to say. “I mean, yeah, the extra blood will be great. Uh, do you mind carrying them out of the entryway and into the storage rooms? I have some barrels we can fill up to help preserve it for longer.”

She nodded, leaning down and draping a few of them over her shoulders. Zeth grabbed one, feeling his weakened body threaten to buckle under the weight, and carried it through the hallway alongside her.

“So…” Zeth said as they walked, “I never asked you to kill them.”

Her eyes darted to look at him, face betraying no emotion, but Zeth had interacted with her enough to know the small movement was a sign of fear.

“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he hurried to clarify. “What you did was good. But, I guess I was just…surprised. All I asked of you was to track them down for me, but you risked your life to kill them all, going up against unknown enemies. Why?”

She relaxed at his words, looking ahead as she thought for a moment. Eventually she answered him, “I thought yesterday would be my last day alive. But when I awoke, I found myself still here. That surprised me. It meant my life would extend on, far longer than I originally assumed. In my past, most of my life had been decided for me. But now, even though you have the capability to order me to do anything you wish at any time, I feel far more free. Perhaps it is because you at least give me freedom from judgment. Perhaps it is because I have not yet grown to resent you. Or, maybe, it is because I finally have an achievable goal in front of me.”

Zeth furrowed his brows. “And what’s that?”

“I must return home and free myself from my captors. Currently, I am far from capable of accomplishing such a thing. But I have time, and time will be on my side. I simply must wait until I have grown powerful enough from my time in this realm to be able to break from whatever restraints they have put me in, and to be able to kill whoever is guarding me.” She nodded to the corpses in her arms. “I will not grow stronger without killing humans. And I will not have enough time to grow stronger if I do not earn your trust.”

“Huh,” he said. “Well, that makes sense, I guess. Did you Level up?”

“I do not know.”

“What? How don’t you know?”

She looked at him. “Ah, you must not be aware. Demons’ bodies are separated from their souls in the process of summoning. This is why some choose to forego the practice—it can be seen as an act of self-tarnishing. We are rejoined with our other half when the summoning is completed, but for as long as they are separate, we cannot be affected by changes to our Status. The soul is what is connected to the System; when it changes, it transmits those changes to the body. With that connection broken, I am essentially stuck at whatever my Status was right before the summoning took place until it ends. It is still possible to Level up or purchase new Skills, but I will not feel the effects of this until I rejoin with my soul.”

Zeth hadn’t heard any of this stuff about souls and connections before, so he was forced to wonder whether he was simply uneducated, or whether it was something only demons believed. Either way, regardless of the reasoning, he had no reason to doubt her words. “I get you. So, you’re just trying to stockpile enough Levels for when you get back to be able to overpower your captors. How long do you think that’ll take?”

She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

“Well, for as long as that is, I guess we’ll be long-term allies, then,” he said. And he actually meant it this time. Astrys had proven that she was capable of doing more than he’d ordered her to while she was out in the woods, and yet she hadn’t killed any innocents. She clearly had a vested interest in sticking around. As far as he was concerned, that was evidence enough that he could relax around her and start thinking of her as more than a monster. At least, as much as her fear aura would let him.

They spent some time gathering up all the bodies and emptying them of their blood. Zeth was consciously aware he was working with real human corpses as he did, but he’d grown rather desensitized to death at this point. Sure, the smell was bad, but the knowledge that these were living, breathing individuals didn’t bother him. They were bandits—they used that gift of life to threaten innocents, steal their belongings, and kill the Classed ones for cheap Level-ups. If anything, it was poetic justice that Zeth was able to turn right around and use them for his own Levels.

Once they were done, Zeth leaned against the wall of the storage room, giving his arms a break from all the weight he’d been carrying. “Alright. So, did you clean up your tracks when you dragged these bodies over to the base?”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I carried them, so there was no obvious trail left behind, and was sure to kick the dirt and leaves behind me as I went to disturb any trail of blood.”

“Hm. What about the camp? How did you leave it?”

“I left it as it was.”

“It would probably be best to go back there and make it look like some monster attacked. Get into their food and toss it around, leave claw marks on the walls, that sort of thing. Or, if it seems more plausible, you could grab all their valuables to try and make it look like another group of bandits came and raided them. And double-check the path you took to ensure there’s no way anyone would be able to track it back here.”

She nodded. “Understood.”

Shortly after, she departed to take care of business, leaving Zeth in the underground lair. They had lots of work to do, but with a stockpile of fresh blood, Zeth knew what his job was going to be.

His next Empowerment Ritual was going to take an absolutely absurd twenty hours to complete, basically guaranteeing it would take him several days to do, meaning its upkeep time would also kick in, adding another hour and a half to the total drawing time. That felt extremely suboptimal.

If there was ever a time to pick up Speedy Rites, it was now. Technically, he could also afford Ephemeral Bloodforge, which he anticipated being his next massive increase in power, but Speedy Rites would only cost twelve Skill Points, and with the amount of drawing he planned to do, he hoped to Rank it up rather quickly, so hopefully he’d be able to recoup that cost soon in case something happened that needed his intervention.

Today marked one day since the Inquisitors had come and jailed half the town, meaning he was finally free to visit Sophie and his mom. So then, it’d likely be best to show up and check on them to ensure they were okay before choosing what to purchase. He was anxious about Sophie, sitting there, stuck behind bars while being interrogated by those creepy-looking officers.

Right. That would be the plan, then. Check on his family first. If they were alright, then he could focus on growth and take Speedy Rites. If not…

Well, he could always find a use for some more blood.

***

A man sat at a desk in a damp, dark room.

The western wing of the underground lair had been burned down by that blasted rogue Blood Mage, and so some of the higher-up cabal members had decided to use the town’s Water Mages to come to the main guild offices and treat the whole place with a Skill that prevented surfaces from burning. And, as though this had to be spelled out, the Water Mage Class’s fire-preventing Skill operated through spraying things with water.

So now his office was wet, the smell of mold beginning to grow tickled his nose in a distinctly unpleasant manner. And since this action was conducted by someone of higher authority than him, there was little he could do about it. He was a Blood Mage, and that gave him privileges, but he wasn’t even close to holding an actual leadership position.

He sat at his desk, tapping the surface impatiently. He hated having to do business in here, and not just because of the mold. Sitting up in town, he was forced to be around all the peasants as they went about their days, as though those glorified bags of fuel were his equals. But he had to stay up here for most meetings to make sure things looked official and to maintain the ‘hiding in plain sight’ disguise that the guild served as. So he sat here, waiting for the person he’d be meeting with to arrive, having no actual work to do while he sat in the smelly office.

Eventually, she entered—a scrawny girl whose name he’d forgotten.

“Sir,” she said, nodding as she spoke in a hushed tone. These offices were supposed to have magic all around them ensuring their privacy, but it was best to speak quietly just in case.

“Skip the formalities,” he said. “Tell me, have you found the rogue Mage yet?”

“Well, I went through with the plan with the bandits like you asked. I sent out a request to all of the groups that we were in contact with, promising high pay if they could find any evidence.”

“And?”

“We haven’t heard anything particularly promising. Most said they searched the area and found nothing. Some tried to claim they found what we were looking for, but we made our request deliberately vague to avoid false reports, so upon further questioning it turned out that none of them had any leads, either.”

“Current intelligence is that he’s hiding in the woods. We’re in contact with several different camps, some of them relatively large. They really couldn’t find anything?”

“He may be in an area that isn’t within their territory,” she said. “I tried to provide enough financial compensation that they’d be willing to spend a lot of time and effort searching, but it’s possible that they just haven’t found him yet.”

“We don’t need to find him later. We need to find him now. He burned down our offices. He killed the blasted mayor. You think we can keep him around longer?”

“No, sir.”

“You think I can go to my bosses and give them this complete lack of anything?”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“Then give me something. Any leads. A starting point.”

She chewed her lip. “...Well, there were a few groups of bandits we haven’t heard back from.”

“What’s so strange about that?”

“The monetary reward was rather high, and required regular updates from any who accepted. Some accepted, but haven’t sent in updates. I would imagine they’ve just given up and don’t feel like letting us know, but there’s a chance…”

His eyes narrowed. “...That one of them did find the rogue Mage, but were killed before they could tell us.”

“Yes.”

“That’s perfect,” he said, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ll let the higher-ups know that we’re working hard on the rogue Mage issue, and we’ll be sending out more individuals to investigate the area soon. Because we will be doing that.”

“Yes, sir. Understood, sir. I’ll begin putting together a team.”

He nodded, leaning back in his chair. He hoped that blasted Mage would be out of his hair soon. Invasions of their lair, assassinations of their puppets…It was really getting rather annoying. But annoyances were ultimately temporary. Just like the stinking mold growing in his office, the Mage would be an unpleasant thing to deal with, but would soon be found and exterminated.

He just hoped it wouldn’t take too long.