Over these two weeks, I didn’t only improve on the fighting side of things. Although I made it a point to train with Kokan every day, I also made ti to go to Smithy’s Corner with Irisa. I crafted a tal pickaxe to replace my stone pickaxe because it kept breaking after only a few swings. I could always pull another one out from [Artificer’s Arsenal], but that got tiring. But the new pickaxe allowed Sekh and to mine so more iron, which I used to make a tripod with a chain in the middle to hold a tal cooking pot. And I made a frying pan and cooking utensils. Yes, it was lumpy and lopsided, but it’s good enough to cook fish, which I learned from Ichiha. She also taught how to properly season my newly created frying pan, and I only had to do that once before registering it.
It was simple enough to forge a set of forks, spoons, and knives to store in the arsenal. I managed to craft a makeshift stove that, in all honestly, should not have worked at all. It was a cylinder with holes poked near the bottom to allow air. But since it was hollow, I could place it over a fire. Oh, and it was the right size to fit the frying pan I’d made. Irisa showed the steps to constructing a proper fire pit, and I copied her instructions and registered that in the arsenal as one complete unit. Next on the list was charcoal, but that could wait since other materials were readily available.
Sewing was still a challenge. I couldn’t make clothes, but I recreated a tic-tac-toe board onto a sheet of white fabric. Simple? Yes, it was, but I was still very much a novice. Kokan was marveled by how straightforward it was. He even took over and made the Os and Xs out of red and black thread. It was a hit with the family—so much so that I had to make three more copies of the board. Sekh and I spent a few hours playing when we cuddled in bed. She eventually played against Tilde and lost four tis but clutched a win in the fifth round. She wanted her reward to be lewd in nature...and we spent that night in each other’s arms, filling the chalice of pleasure with our ecstasy.
And cooking...
I was instructed in that as well. Take tonight, for example. I cooked dinner using the tools I had made. Thanks to Ichiha’s teachings, I prepared the cod as she would while Sekh and Tilde were in the backyard under a gorgeous starry sky. She lit the tinder with her flas, and once the frying pan was hot, I placed the fish filets skin-side down. Sekh’s mouth watered at the delicious sizzle, and while that was cooking, I went over my notes about Noelia.
She didn’t leave the mines. In the fifteen days I'd been watching, her waypoint only moved about 300 feet between the boss arena and a room they designated as the latrine. Every other day, she sent out two of the four attendants to resupply potions, food, water, and soap and oils to moisturize the skin since you couldn’t bathe inside the mines because there wasn’t a source of water.
On paper, that was good for the rchants of Ria because it ant more business, but the people of Ria weren’t happy. Not even a day after I spied on Noelia in the mines, Sekh and I went to the guild. There, we confird that she had exclusive access not only to the dungeon’s boss, but also to Ria’s stores. Whenever her attendants returned from the mines, and if they wanted to act on the authority granted by Holy Lord Gloria, they could force a store’s custors to vacate the building so they could shop in peace.
This angered people to the point where they bought more than they needed because it was possible Noelia’s attendants would empty out a shop.
They had the financial backing of a Holy Lord, so money was not an issue.
And now Ria was at risk of being in a resource drought. Crimson amita was selling for four to five tis its market price. Things like day-old bread and soap, which was always expensive, were almost worth their weight in gold.
Even if Ria was a shipping and rcantile hub with its well-oiled harbors that ran like a flawless machine, a period of economic turmoil brought on by false scarcity seed likelier and likelier. The city’s stores’ shelves were full of gaps, which widened every day.
A couple of days after that, the Barclay’s store released a statent in the city’s papers that wholeheartedly supported what Noelia was doing. Granted, they probably couldn’t publicly speak against that selfish behavior without suffering Gloria's wrath, but it didn’t excuse their cowardice. And from what I knew of Karen Barclay, she was a coward all the way down.
But back to Noelia. If she had been a person who cared about others, she wouldn’t have had to suffer the heartache that ca with watching one of her comrades pass away. Over the fifteen days, exhaustion had crept within their mortal coils, and it proved fatal when one of her attendants slipped up and fell face-first onto the boss’s sword. It was such a shock to them that they were frozen still when the boss extinguished its anger upon the corpse, dicing it until the largest chunk of flesh was equal in size to an onion.
Noelia wept for her fallen ally once she regained her spirit and killed the boss, yet she shared no tears for what she forced Niva to endure. That occurred last night. This morning, I used [Analysis] while spying on her and her remaining attendants before they woke. All four suffered from exhaustion—a status effect that ca in five stages. Noelia was in the third stage, and her attendants were in the fifth.
Sothing in Noelia cracked when she woke from a restless slumber. She spoke softer and with more compassion, then offered to lead everyone else in a round of prayers that asked God—Christianity's God— to guide her fallen comrade’s spirit to Heaven. During breakfast, I watched as she penned a letter that detailed what all had happened since the last ti they spoke, a request for a carriage to return to the capital, and if it wasn’t too much trouble, a second ‘shield’ since it seed like the first was about to expire. Two of the attendants returned to Ria’s guild office to find soone to deliver the letter. Then they returned to the mines. When a response from Gloria did arrive, soone would be dispatched from the guild to tell Noelia.
But Tilde told it took about 8 days to get to Dirge’s capital city by carriage. If it was via spirit, then sooner. If by teleportation? Then near instantly. At the earliest, a response wouldn’t be given until tomorrow morning. And then it’d take 8 days for Noelia’s carriage to arrive unless teleportation magic was involved.
Regardless, none of that mattered because Noelia and her attendants were going to die tonight. I had to scrap the perfect plan when that death happened, but I managed to co up with another one. Even better, it posed no risk to if everything went to plan. If it didn’t? I had a contingency to get Sekh and out of a jam.
I just hoped I wouldn’t have to use it because I couldn’t assure her safety if it ca to that.
“My liege?” Sekh’s sweet voice brought from the depths of my mind, and I looked down to find the fish burning. I panicked and grabbed it with my bare hands, scorching my fingertips, which elicited a painful yelp from my lovely fairy. A quick heal later, I apologized to Tilde and Sekh about the burnt al, but she still happily ate half of it. “It’s delicious because you made it, my liege.”
“Eh, it ain’t half bad. Better than what I used to eat. When you can’t die, your curiosity gets the better of you,” Tilde said.
I smiled at the two, tossing my portion into my mouth. The burnt flavor didn’t bother . Honestly, I once ate a fish whole with my boar head hand simply because I could, and I didn’t get sick. [Poison Resistance] probably helped since food sickness was a type of poison, right?
Kokan joined us not long after, and the three of us enjoyed a simple conversation before getting back to so light sparring. He was a knowledgeable man—one that was well-spoken and articulate. The more we chatted, the more I started to respect him. I even found myself eagerly waiting to cross words with him because he was easy to talk to. He understood my situation and never once made fun of for not knowing sothing I probably should have known. When he wanted to teach sothing, he almost acted like I was a child, which I was, technically, but it ward my heart to see him put so much effort into it.
And it wasn’t just him. Ichiha, when she taught to cook so of her dishes, never scolded for doing sothing wrong. In the sweetest voice, she’d repeat what I did wrong, then watch as I corrected myself. And a couple tis, she even patted my head to give that positive feedback I was missing for two decades.
A real sense of longing developed within my heart for this family. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I belonged here, but when we had to leave, I didn't think it would be painless or emotionless.
“It’s almost ti,” Sekh said later that night. We had taken off our armor to relax for an hour or two, and now we were gearing up. Kokan and Irisa were trying to make up for lost ti, so he ended our training session early to go fishing with his daughter. There was a secluded part of the harbor he knew about. Irisa was happy because she had an excuse to use the fishing rods she’d made a week ago. She had tried to teach about wood carving, but I didn’t have [Carpentry]. Still, I tried to whittle sothing, even if it wasn’t the best. I had that stashed away in my storage for a later day, though I was probably going to throw it away.
“We’ll get to the mines at 9:30. Once we make it past the lobby, stick to the shadows to avoid encountering people or monsters.”
“Of course, my liege.”
“Hey, I have sothing to give you.”
“Hmm?” Sekh stared with bright eyes at the two items I produced from storage.
Lion's Protection (0/0)
Lion’s Wrath (0/0)
“My liege...?” The Dark Lord of Tyranny was utterly speechless as I laid out a mace and shield on the bed. These two items were my magnum opus, made from the hundreds of hours I’d spent at Smithy’s Corner in just two weeks alone. Irisa was beside to guide my hand, yet every strike of the hamr exclusively ca from .
Made of pure iron, it wasn’t much in the way of looking beautiful, but the mace’s spiky head was incredibly sharp and dense, and the shield’s grip was all solid tal because I didn’t trust in my ability to make it out of wood. Slowly, Sekh walked towards her gifts with sparkles in her eyes as she held the mace. She felt the iron handle, thumbed her finger over the pointy poml, then gave it a few test swings. She started slowly, then increased her speed and spiky how it felt to put all her energy into it. Next ca the shield. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be too heavy, and while I was saddened that Sekh had to struggle a little bit to lift it up to her chest, it was still very well within the realm of usability.
After reflecting on them, she laid her gifts down and walked to . It seed as if she was torn between kneeling or hugging, so I acted first and wrapped my arms around her lower back. Pulling her close to , she vented the growing emotions in her heart, which manifested as tears of joy. In a low whisper, Sekh remarked that she wanted to say my gifts were too much for soone like her, but that would an condemning the hard work I went through.
“I promise I won’t break them.”
“We can’t have that. Think of it as the first iteration. The mace and shield are going to break. That’s a given. And when they do, I’ll make you another set that's even better. Hopefully, I can enchant by then. And when they break, I’ll make a third, then a fourth, and a fifth, and so on,” I said. Sekh looked at with those silver eyes and gave a confident nod. I had one more present, but I was wary since I didn’t know how she’d react to it. Until I was sure, it was going to stay hidden away. And before I handed it over, I was probably going to remake it because it wasn’t the best. I didn’t have the skills or steady hand to etch in the delicate details.
Oi! It’s about ti, yeah?” Tilde flew into the room and hovered near . “Oh, Kokan and Green Tits are back. Didn’t seem like much was biting.”
I nodded at Tilde, then we all walked to the kitchen. The family found it odd we were in our armor, but I just told them we had so business to take care of. It wasn’t a lie to say that fighting in the dungeon at night would make it easier to assimilate. And it wasn’t a lie because if we ran into monsters, I’d slurp them down my gullet.
Sure, maybe a part of wanted to let them know my plans, but I couldn’t risk it. Especially since ending Noelia’s life and devouring her power would potentially bring Gloria’s wrath upon Ria, but I didn’t care. Soul Warriors could be tracked by their summoner because their mana flows into them during the summoning process, but my [Status Cloak] helped out there. Even after assimilating her, Noelia’s mana couldn’t be traced or tracked.
If everything went as planned, no one would be none the wiser, and it would be impossible for Gloria to find out who killed her precious warrior without traveling to the past or doing so shit that was nigh impossible.
I just had to hope things wouldn’t shit the bed. Noelia needed to die. Her death was sothing that needed to happen.
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