John dismissed the window. ‘Not as strong as you thought, huh?’ he thought, lying on the cold ground of the run-down house.
“I’ve had it for today,” Lydia announced. Even with the knowledge that it just had been a copy, she was still shaken to the core. Justifiably, as John had to agree.
“I will be taking a break too,” he said and his elentals took a relieved breath, even Siena. That miscarriage of an eldritch horror had taken the winds out of their sails.
They returned to the mansion. Aclysia went to tag out Thana when it ca to Nathalia duty. John, who still had to stay abstinent, stayed in the living room. He was thankful that the dragoness had taken a room on the third floor. All of the moaning that, without a shadow of a doubt, went on up there did not reach his ears. As long as he did not let his curiosity check on what his familiars were doing, he would be fine.
“So, what is your idea for the rest of this fucking day?” Thana asked, “And I an fucking day literally for once.”
“Well… depends on Jane.” His girlfriend perked up a bit. “What is your plan?”
“Ya know, ditate, train martial arts – Why?”
“Because If you wanted to continue running dungeons I would be up for going back in like thirty minutes. Otherwise, I’d grab miss madness here…” He gestured at Thana who laughed and waved. “…and do a speedrun for the other Quest.”
Rave tilted her head and tapped her index finger against her glossy lips in a steady beat as she thought about that. “Mhm, nah, I feel like I am close to tapping into sothing nice with that cat form, you know? Gotta practice sothing aside from my stats. Unlike ya, I don’t get to do it all at the sa ti.”
John nodded. “Thought as much… small addendum to the plan: we will return for a small break whenever the Flask is filled up. I don’t want to waste resources any more than I already have.”
“Sounds great,” Rave smirked and kissed him on the cheek. “See ya later. Hopefully you’re allowed to use your dick again by then.”
Following that whisper she left the room to do her training sowhere more isolated, leaving John with Thana. Everyone else was doing their own thing or had gone incorporeal. Not like John would need them for what followed
“So, when are we going?” Thana asked. “I want to punch sothing so hard it literally fucking explodes again. That was fun.” Her gum-revealing grin was accompanied with a small bit of cackling. It created little echoes in John’s head.
“I want to just sit down for a mont first,” John told her and relaxed on the couch. Luckily, he didn’t have to worry about his suit getting wrinkly. Enchanted cloth was aweso.
He pulled the new Legendary acquisition from his inventory and looked at it with so surprise. It was a black fedora, fitting for his suit, with a white band running around it. The small feather on the left side made it look slightly cheesy, however. ‘I don’t know if I want this to be good.’ John had more than a few opinions about fedoras, all of them inford by ‘M’lady’ s.
That wasn’t bad. It wasn’t outstanding, as the shelf life of the Tips was limiting the hat’s abuse potential, but it still was free mana. The Stats alone made it worth it to equip the fedora. John added it to his battle equipnt. Maybe he would look good with it?
That out of the way, John put his new Stat Points into Wisdom, as per custom, and moved on to another question. Should he use his Skill Evolution Point? The elentals were still a long while off level 100, so there was no real reason to hoard it. What to spend it on though? The Skills eligible for evolving, aside from the summons, were Sneaking, Arcane Explosion, Mana Ray and Possession.
Possession did exactly what John wanted right now, so evolving it was a novelty. Sa for Mana Ray and Arcane Explosion, albeit to a lesser extent. Sneaking, however, had been part of his toolkit since the very start but went unused forever. He simply wasn’t soone who snuck around. Maybe there was sothing useful to be gained out of evolving it?
Evidently, Gaia’s templates were not made to display all Skills equally. The amount of wasted space here hurt John’s eyes. ‘Anyhow, ti to test this,’ he thought and closed his eyes. It said he needed to see where he was teleporting to, but was that limited to his own pair of eyes?
Jack bounced around on the dinner table, looking at the hooded back of Thana. “Just as a heads up,” John warned, “I am going to be behind you in a mont.” He had no desire to trigger one of Thana’s panic attacks, get punched through the stomach or both.
“Okay?” Thana asked, amused at the thought that John could sohow move quicker than her.
John felt himself scatter. It was a tickling feeling; his body and items were disassembled and returned to their natural state in a fra of ti too small for his mind to really comprehend. He opened his eyes again and looked at a wall. He also realized he was still in the sa pose as he had been on the couch.
Thana put her hand on his back, preventing him from toppling over. “That’s kind of impressive,” she told him, as he stood up.
“I thought it would also adjust the way I faced and all that…” he mumbled and scratched the back of his head. He clicked his tongue when he noticed he did. The gesture left a bad taste in his mouth since Herman.
“It’s still pretty fucking good,” Thana assured him. Her eyes travelled to sothing in the corner of her vision. The party interface, as John swiftly realized. “You can’t pull that parlour trick out of your ass too often though.”
“Nope, but one day I might. I still have over 900 levels of potential growth,” John countered.
Thana grinned, then tilted her head. “If you had managed to teleport the way you wanted, what would you have done, hm?” she asked and wiggled her hips. The motion was a bit clunky and the black robe hid most of her assets. John needed neither to be perfect to rember her backside. His mind went to all of the jiggle he was missing out on by not spanking her. She was grinning all adorable-like.
John was halfway through bowing down to kiss her, when he realized where this would go. “Damned be that Quest!” he exclaid and stomped off. “Let’s kill things to take my frustration out!”
“Now you are speaking my fucking language,” Thana giggled and followed him. “What do you have in mind? Level 300 content? Because I can be fucking guaranteeing you that I can still beat that shit without problem.”
“Tempting, but no.” John softly shook his head. “I think that we could probably get so rather strong items and Achievents out of the deal if we went there but A: I do not look forward to getting one-shot by so assault you can’t react to on ti and B: Gaia will totally co and patch that up if we abuse it. Oh, also C: The Quest is for Tier 15 specifically, and I want to beat that.”
“I very much doubt that there are level 300 mobs that I can’t murder double-fucking-dead before they get to you, but sure, have it your way,” Thana agreed, and they left the mansion grounds again. Well, that was the plan, but John noticed sothing on the way.
There was soone. That soone was wearing full templar armour: a bucket helt with a golden cross over the front, heavy chainmail, a white tabard and cape. John could see the black cross on the cape, together with the eagle on golden ground. He was pretty certain that the sa coat of arms was on the tabard, but that was hidden underneath an out of place gardener’s apron.
The knight was trimming the hedges with a nail clipper. Each little clip was executed with perfection in mind. His sword and shield, the latter also bearing the coat of arms, lying on a respectfully spread blanket. “DEUS VULT, guests and allies of the great princess of Prussia,” the man greeted them in an overly enthusiastic manner.
‘Can you even use Deus Vult as a greeting? Ah, whatever,’ John thought and raised his hand to return the greeting. Thana’s laughing interrupted him before he could say a single word.
The shrill sounds echoed throughout the garden. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?!” she asked.
“I am Konrad Kamradsrat, Großister of the Knights of Teuton… DEUS VULT!” The templar spoke with booming pride.
“That does not answer my fucking question,” Thana continued to snicker. “I an, why are you clipping this hedge?”
“I was strolling on the daily patrol when I noticed that this hedge was not perfectly trimd. See here!” He gripped a giant water level and held it up against the hedge. “The hedge tilts 2 degrees out towards the top! Unacceptable! Therefore, as the highest servant of her majesty, the princess of mighty Prussia, the one true country standing for our glorious order, I saw it as my DEUS VULT given duty to correct the error of this myself. My apologies, you should not have seen .”
John was hardly holding back his laughter as well by now. The guy was a very -matic figure. “Just out of curiosity, what do you think about Israel?”
“WE HAVE RETAKEN JERUSALEM, THREE HURRAHS’!”
“HURRAH!” One knight suddenly appeared from a sideway.
“HURRAH!” another one peaked out from behind a bush, holding another nail clipper in his heavy gauntlets.
“HURRAH!” A third knight appeared from a trap door right in front of John.
“DEUS VULT! Comrades, let us vanquish all of the asymtric branches in this garden and then resu yesterday’s patrol duties! For the princess!”
““DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT! DEUS VULT!”” the knights chanted in unison as they continued their work. With a smile John went on and left the building. A smile that died the mont he was outside and no longer needed to put up a show.
Thana was still grinning, but there was a confused sparkle in her eyes. “They said they were there since yesterday,” she pointed out.
“Yes… did you notice them?” John wanted to know.
The blood mage violently shook her head, white and azure hair flying, “Didn’t hear a fucking thing.”
“Observe didn’t work on them either…” John inford her. He had tried it on every single one of the knights. None of them had shown any windows whatsoever. Aura sight had revealed very little: the glow had been suppressed and was only leaking out from their visors. “I’ll have to ask Lydia about this later.”
The fact that there was an order here that was so good at hiding that not even Thana with her insane senses noticed was simultaneously calming and discomforting. At least they were pretty obviously on their side.
‘Well, Lydia’s side,’ John reminded himself. He wasn’t her underling, he was just repaying a debt; once that was over fate may pitch them against each other one day. There was no way to know for certain. He liked to imagine that they were close now, but he had been burned before. ‘Best I beco stronger. That’s the only way to be safe.’
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