Chapter 106: Vincent the Liar
PoV: Vincent Frill - Knives
Finally.
It’s been so long, but it finally happens. There’s a grin on my face, and I can’t hide it, not even with [Fake]. It’s too good a feeling.
My knife stabs into the bitch’s stomach. Ion. I watch as the healer folds in. There’s no gasp of pain, no exhilarating moment of hopelessness. It pisses me off. The way that, despite everything, the fucker’s still looking at me with those empty, glassy eyes. The same way I’d look at an ant.
I am not an ant.
[Betrayal] powers my movements now. It’s weakened, and imperfect, but it activated. The idiot tried to heal me, and the conditions finally clicked into place. Someone was willingly performing a kind action towards me, and I would exploit it.
[Class up! Traitor (II) 3 > 4]
[Level Up! 41 > 42]
More power floods into me. I’m strong. Strong enough to get out of this shithole soon. My [Mark] explodes, and the knife I shoved into Snow’s gut does the same, sending sharp bits of shrapnel flying out. A sadistic smile on my face grows wider.
[Betrayal 11 > 12]
My highest level skill increases once more. I can feel the strength in my arms. The wheelchair girl and bartender just look at me, as the wounds on my body snap shut. I look at the dying bastard in front of me for a moment. “Hey, bitch,” I say. “This is why you shouldn’t mess with me.”
The oil-slick looking mana from my skill still covers the fragmented knife. The hilt slips out and tumbles to the floor, and a torrent of blood pours out of Snow. For a moment, I watch as blood streams steadily down. Then, that thing moves.
Somehow, Snow stands up from the chair. Somehow, the fucker’s eyes turn to me, head still raised.
Then, I hear a heartbeat.
My skin tingles with a warning. Mana pours out from them in a torrent. A wild, insane amount of mana. More than thrice as much as I have, total. My eyes widen, for a moment.
“That hurt,” Snow says. “I didn’t like that.”
The shadow that once covered half of Snow’s face suddenly moves. It slithers, crawls into the wound, and then, one by one, pieces of glistening metal tumble out. I blink. Then, there’s another tingle, and I step backwards.
Suddenly, Snow is holding a knife, stepping towards me. It’s grey-blue, slithering with runes on it, and feels terrifying. Just the weapon holds my entire mana pool. My eyes flicker upwards, only to be met by an expressionless face.
More and more mana gathers around the terrifying bitch. “How?!” I demand. “How are you still standing?”
A skill hits me, the same one that stunned me back on Earth. The thing that makes me feel all heavy. Not even [Slither] can avoid it, because I can’t cast slither. When the skill tries to manifest, it just… crumbles apart. The weakness hits me like a hammerblow, and I stagger backwards.
The knife nicks me. A shallow cut on my arm, but it laces fire up my veins. My passive effects crack. [Fake] fades, exposing a sliver of hidden emotion. A sneer on my face. The illusion is broken. I feel that targeting skill land on me, in the same way that my own [Mark] latches onto others.
But worst of all? The strength of [Betrayal] fades a little. I take another step back.
Blood and metal drips from Snow’s stomach, the darkness writing as if burrowing into them. And despite that, the monster just takes another step towards me.
“Traitor, huh? The class suits you.” The words come out so calmly it sends a shiver up my spine.
Why is that fucker still alive? What the fuck? I disembowelled them! That’s not something a human just shrugs off! “You… fucking monster!”
At that, Snow scoffs. “Heard that before, you can’t do anything better?” Another slow, lumbering step. Despite the fear creeping up my spine, there’s nothing to be afraid of. The steps come slowly, staggering. The stabs, too, aren’t particularly fast or strong.
I can easily evade them-
My feet grow heavier still. More mana pumps out of them, into that damn skill, and I stagger from the sudden weakness. Another stab lands, digging into my shoulder, and I feel more mana ravage my skills. The lies I’ve so carefully crafted break. My fake profile shatters. The enhancements on me fizzle and fail. I scream from the pain, but the weakness redoubles.
Gritting my teeth, I decide to escape. Another [Mark] on Snow-
It shatters.
Somehow, all of a sudden, that bitch can spot my marks. Rage tears at my insides. My epitaph, [Relentless Stalker], should have made that impossible to spot, damn it! I'll just make do. I’ll make do.
Activating [Slither] and [Disengage] at the same time, I take a single step to disappear, only to run into a wall of threads.
The door is barred. I look at the girl in the wheelchair, and she’s glaring at me. What the hell? More blood pours from Snow and finally, the monster staggers, leaning against a table. I feel the lapse in the mana, in Ion's focus, and I reactivate my skills, rushing for a window. A dozen threads grab at me, cutting into my limbs, but slip off.
I notice the way the bartender looks at me, with a faint amusement in his eyes as I leap at the window. A wooden hand grabs my head and smashes it into the ground. My nose cracks and blood pools from it. “Fuck,” I grind out. “God fucking damn piece of shit!”
Another knife flashes. I know the wheelchair girl. My epitaph sings, and some of my knowledge of her disappears, powering my strike against her damn puppet. Metal rings against metal, and I forget who she is, but that’s okay.
Her puppet collapses with its strings cut, and I leap out of the window. Glass splinters dig into my shoulder but fail to pierce my strengthened skin. I run.
[Job Up! Escape Artist 3 > 4]
My fake identity reassembles itself as I pour mana into the skill. It pisses me off. It pisses me off so bad. But I run.
Somehow, even when almost alone, that monster still overwhelmed me. And string-girl, too! What the fuck were their skills at? What the hell kind of class does Snow have?! I grit my teeth as I sprint through the streets, vanishing into the crowds. I disappear off their radar. But I’d be back, damn it. I’d murder that whole group, one by one. If Snow was too strong for now, then I’d just kill everyone else in that miserable party first.
Let’s see how those bitches like it when their friends start dying.
- - -
PoV: Amelie Ehrenherz - Spider
Snow is bleeding.
Kuro, the tamed shadow-parasite, is picking shrapnel from the open wound. Bits of the exploded knife that burrowed their way into Snow’s guts. Somehow, my travelling companion simply sits on a chair while getting metal torn out from within.
“How are you not fainting from the pain?” I ask.
Snow turns to me with a grimace. “Because I’ll bleed out if I faint.”
I shake my head, shocked, weaving more threads from my mana. It’s a skill from my job, [Weaving], and it’s fairly simple in nature. Meant for making fabric or thread. In this case, I create the semi-ethereal strings that I use on my puppets. Whenever a new bit of the knife is removed, I sew Snow’s insides back together.
The stitches are made from just mana, so they’ll fade and erode over time, disappearing entirely. They’ll mess with Snow’s skills while they’re in place - or they would, if I didn’t surrender control over their maintenance to our healer. It only takes the mage a few seconds to take over the ability once I allow it, a little like passing a baton.
“Thanks,” Snow says. “I owe you.”
“No, you do not,” I reply, rolling my eyes. “You are a buffoon. A thoroughly moronic fool. You owe me nothing. I am sorry I could not stop him.”
Snow replies with a shake of the head. “It’s alright. We’ll get him when the time comes.”
“You don’t sound particularly bothered about this,” I note.
“Eh,” Snow says. “It hurts. I’ll get revenge. But, well. No lasting damage done, y’know?”
I blink. “Your guts are almost pooling out of your stomach.”
“Lucky, then, that I have a barrier keeping them in,” Snow says with a faint smile.
“You’re a moron,” I say, shaking my head, threading more string through those mangled guts as Kuro pulls out the last few splinters of metal. Then the blob of inky darkness splatters out of the wound and starts to eat all the blood that splattered onto Snow’s clothes and the ground.
Snow just smiles faintly. “You’re a silly girl, Amelie.”
Somehow, coming from Snow, it doesn’t sound offensive. My newfound friend look at me with a tiny curl of the lips and the same empty eyes as usual. I smile back. Somehow, despite everything, I feel that I can make it through this whole tower thing.
Somehow, with Snow, and Opal and the rest… it feels like I can go as high as I wanna go.
Chapter 107: Recovery
PoV: Snow Okiyama - Ion
My tummy hurts.
That may be the greatest understatement of my life. My stomach is on fire. I can feel dozens of little burrows inside it, even as I lay in the bed. The shrapnel dug through my enhanced flesh, carving up protective muscles and puncturing some of my organs. My stomach was cut open and I only saved myself more pain by solidifying some mana over the wound before the acid started spilling out. One of my kidneys also got messed up.
In short, it really sucks. Harry simply looked at me, as Amelie’s strings carried me up the staircase. His face was calm. He didn’t do anything about Vincent. Just set about repairing the broken window after the two-faced jerk jumped out of them.
I sigh, softly, taking care not to move too much.
Despite everything, I’ll live.
That much I’m sure of. Because I’ve spent two minor requests. One on a tonic to help with organ healing, since that seems troublesome and I should get it done sooner rather than later, and another for essence on human anatomy.
The tonic tasted like battery acid going down, but I felt it work. And with my enhanced knowledge of anatomy, I could probably put my stomach back together. Probably. Maybe. Surely.
I smile, thinly, laying in bed. It’s almost… freeing, being hurt. There’s nothing to do about it other than use my skills and ensure I recover as fast as possible. That, and checking my notifications, of course.
[Suppression 18 > 19]
[Selection 17 > 18]
[Solidification 10 > 12]
[Deconstruction 12 > 14]
[Inscription 12 > 13]
[Biological Restoration 9 > 12]
[Class up! Nullmage 8 > 10]
[Job up! Imbuer 6 > 7]
[Level Up! 36 > 39]
Despite the wound on me, every point goes into vessel. The attunement loop, as Harry called it, is still running, keeping my mana surviveable. It doesn’t stay active when I sleep, so I’ll probably wake up with some pain until I figure that bit out, but it shouldn’t give me too much trouble. Hopefully.
Sighing slightly, I open my full status.
Name: Snow Okiyama - Ion
Floor: 3
Class: - 10 (II)
Job: - 7 (II)
Lv. 39
Heart: 24
Power: 8
Vessel: 180 - Abiding Apathy
Skills:
[Suppression lv. 19]
[Selection lv. 18]
[Solidification lv. 12]
[Deconstruction lv. 14]
[Inscription lv. 13]
[Biological Restoration lv. 12]
[Observation lv. 6]
[Intuition lv. 1]
Every ability I’ve earned is listed out. I smile faintly at the sight.
I breathe, keeping the second instance of [Suppression] active on the pain. It hurts, and it’s allowed to hurt, but I don’t want it to distract me from healing. The tonic of the tower is working, but it’s slow.
That’s the trick with it, and why people are willing to pay actual healers. The tower is stingy. When it comes to healing stuff like organs, it’s more helpful than an average healer, but it doesn’t work by its own. It increases natural regeneration, and potency of healing skills, but it takes time.
A few days, probably, for my stomach lining to regenerate properly. Another day or two for my kidney, after that. And that’s with my healing skill to assist it. Getting it to mend normal climbing wounds, like cuts on extremities and veins? It’s too slow, and you’d bleed out before healing fully.
So, in effect, my healing is cheaper than that the tower offers. I’m probably undercutting even the church of Respitia. But I don’t mind that. Healing is a nice thing to do, and I really do try to be kind. Mostly.
Not to Vincent, though.
For now, he’s only hurt me. That’s tolerable. Philia, the darkbreaker, had hurt people in my party. I can forgive people who hurt me, but touching Inu or Thatch? Opal or Sylves? No. That’s too far.
And, somehow, I don’t suspect Vincent will leave it at that. When breaking his magic, I caught glimpses of their patterns, etching them into my mind with the same ethereal construct that held pieces and memories of so many other skills.
I can feel how his magic ticks. How it’s sneaky and deceitful. How he’s a corrupt snake who will lodge his teeth in people and never let go. No, he’ll come after me again. Maybe he’ll even come after Amelie first. Or the others.
That seems like the kind of thing he’d do. Try to bleed me dry by killing off my party one by one. I’ll kill him before that happens.
But, for now, I can’t do too much. He scurried away like the beaten rat he is, and I get to lay in bed and be fed by my friends. I keep my stomach shut with solidified plates of flexible mana, and I keep pouring more energy into healing myself.
Graciously, Harry and Michael help me regenerate by filling the core I still have. By now, it takes emptying it out three or four times to fill my mana pool, but that’s okay. The two of them are strong. Even when more than half their mana is lost in conversion, Harry seems able to almost endlessly refill the thing on his own.
Michael, on the other hand, makes me food. Delicious food that makes me heal faster. He doesn’t even ask anything in exchange. Just brings it to my bedside. Sometimes, he sits with me for a while, the zoof’s fur draping over the stool and down to the floor. He doesn’t say much, but he seems pleased to see me recovering.
“Why do you help me?” I ask him once.
At that, he smiles. Even through all the fur, I can see his lips curl, and the way it creases the skin around his large, spherical eyes. “Because you helped us. Climbers repay their debts.”
Then he leaves. Gets up and shuffles out of the room, tossing a knife up and down in his thin, gangly limbs. He’s a bit of a weirdo, but I don’t think I dislike him. He’s the honest kind of weird, where he wears his quirks on his sleeve.
Not too long later, Opal comes into the room.
“Well, dang,” they say, looking at me. “Can I see the stitches?” they ask.
Shameless idiot. “No,” I say.
“Dang. I’ll take off my shirt too, if you want,” they offer.
At that, I snicker. “Dummy.”
They raise an eyebrow. “That’s not a no…”
“I’m not taking off my shirt,” I say, still smiling.
“Ah, dang,” Opal sighs, shrugging helplessly. “And here I thought I finally had my chance. Foiled again. My tragic fate continues on.”
Smiling lightly, I throw a sphere of mana at their head. “Give me my food, Opal.”
“Gah!” they yelp, rubbing their forehead. “Fine, fine. Gee.” They smile, brightly. “Alright. Here comes the aeroplane~”
“I’ll throw a knife next.”
“... Train?” they ask, hesitantly.
A long, suffering sigh leaves my lips. Why does this charming bastard have to be such a moron?
- - -
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, letting my body heal. It’s been a few days, now, and I’m feeling a lot better. So much so that I’ve largely been able to drop the pain suppression and have more of my mind free on experiments.
Of course, a large chunk of mana still goes to healing, but with Harry supercharging my regeneration, well… I make good use of the extra available power. Most of that manifest in playing around with my new skill, [Intuition].
[Intuition 1 > 2]
And it’s a fun skill.
In a lot of ways, it’s the evolution of that tingle on my skin that I feel. A tiny bit of knowledge about ambient mana and other abilities that doesn’t come from carefully studying them, but from a glance. A glimpse. Like opening a sheet of music, looking at the chord progression, and feeling the tone of the song.
There’s a taste to the ambient mana, brushing against my skin in a way that I cannot describe as anything other than telling. I get it. What it’s telling me, I can parse it a little. I can feel when there’s trouble coming, I can feel when there’s an ability active, even when I can’t see the ability, even when I don’t know what it’s about.
Cutting it short, it’s an excellent companion to [Observation].
And, of course, the other skill I improve is [Solidification].
[Solidification 12 > 14]
Turns out, patching up my stomach is the first time I’m using it to create something generally more flexible. And as it also turns out, after the first two times that a bit of acid leaked out into my wounds, I was very motivated to learn. Now, though, I’m able to give my structures a bit of bend, which lets them much more closely mimic organic tissue, and lets me make something more metal-like.
It’s something new. Solid, apparently, doesn’t necessarily mean brittle crystal. There’s a rather wide span to materials that are considered solid, after all. All kinds of strengths and stretch capabilities. Did I learn a bit from watching Amelie’s string? Absolutely. Did I steal some of her designs? For sure.
Did this improve my skills? Yes.
As always, stealing… I mean, uh, borrowing ideas from my companions’ skills is proving very effective. I take a deep breath, then push myself up from my bed. The wound across my stomach is scabbed over and hurts as I move, but the pain is tolerable. I drink, eat, train, and rest.
The others are slowly taking more expeditions into the undergrowth, levelling with Bile as their guide. And, of course, I take every chance I can get to continue my insidious work, making distant, tiny connections with members of the wayfarer’s guild and chipping away at their powersets.
It’s fun to see the difference. Classes work immediately, jobs usually allow some prep time. Bay, for example, prepares more bombs, experimenting with magic. Meanwhile, Opal can blink and stab stuff anytime. Of course, there is overlap.
Amelie’s class needs preparation, too, since it focuses on her puppets, and she needs to make those. And some classes, like my imbuer, work pretty well pretty quickly. My class benefits a lot from analysis, though, and permanent enchantments do, too.
So that’s what I work on. I train, I enchant, I prepare. Because eventually, the day comes. Eventually, on an expedition, Bile gets found by the guild. Bile, as well as Dar and Opal, locked up.
And that same day, Sylves comes into my room, asking that we free them. My tummy is mostly healed, so I drag myself out of bed, have Kuro wrap my face in darkness, and step out of the inn.
My friends want me to burn down a guild. And so, the guild must burn.
Chapter 108: Arson
I stand tall.
[Biological Restoration 12 > 13]
Almost a week in bed. My wounds are scabbed over, but mostly healed, and my organs are largely restored. I don’t feel amazing, but I feel good. My vessel is full, the attunement loop still running to contain the fury of my mana.
There’s a simplicity to it all that I appreciate. A simple, step-by-step guide.
My friends don’t like the wayfarers. We avoid them, and prepare countermeasures. They caused us trouble. And now… they’ll burn.
Inu steps in line next to me. She stands to my right, Thatch and Sylves to my left. Opal is in the guild, but the rest of the party is with us. Bay, Norman and Jess hanging in the back, while Richard walks alongside us. Amelie hangs even further back, but I know she’s around. We’re all hiding a few ethereal threads under our clothes.
And a few enchantments, and bombs, of course.
Usually, Norman would slip in first in a mission like this. Free Opal, get out. But we’re here to cause more trouble than that. No, Norman won’t go inside to do anything. He’ll have plenty of work laid out for him on the outside.
Instead, it’s Inu who heads in first. The guild is a large building. In fact, it’s almost a whole compound. Scithians stand guard outside, but they’re sloppy. Clad in leather armor, adorned with leaves and bits of tough bark, they lean lazily on their spears and easily wave the brave girl through, even though she’s wearing full heavy armor, made by Bay and enchanted by yours truly.
There’s a moment of breath, then Thatch follows her in. Then Richard, then me, then Sylves. Another heartbeat passes. I close my eyes as I step across the threshold of the doorstep. The inside is large. A giant building, lined with runes. They’re decently made, and the person who carved them knows how to string them together.
I take a second deep breath. Then I open my eyes, and the screaming starts.
- - -
Jess hangs back on the outside, watching. There’s a certain amount of preparation that her, Bay and Norman are expected to do. So, for now, she waits. Her husband drapes himself in that veil of normalcy, humming quiet tunes to himself as he walks around the guildhall, placing down bits of metal and wire.
A heartbeat passes, then a second, then the first scream comes from inside. Another full ten seconds after that, the guards outside turn their eyes on them, and notice the actions. They open their mouths, and Jess sighs.
With a flick of her wrist, and a whispered word, a bolt ice slams through the first scithian’s mouth. Spearing all the way through the back, and nailing him to the wall. Her second spell is supercharged, and much more powerful.
With a full sentence of chanting that leaves her throat raw from the mana rushing through it, a fireball appears in her hand. It flickers with magic, the kind that likes to eat into mana, the kind that borrows from Snow just a bit. It’s the kind that’ll eat the wood of the guild right up.
Even as the second guard yells an alarm, the building catches flame.
Flickering lights reflect in Jess’ calm eyes. Her expression remains frozen. She simply does what must be done. Well, not quite. There is some joy she takes in arson.
- - -
The smell of smoke reaches my nostrils. It’s woody, earthy, and smells like a campfire. I don’t mind it, really. Sylves smiles, and the wind rises around her, creating shells that keep the worst of the choking fumes away from us, directing the air like a maestro.
I only watch for a second as Richard sinks her teeth into someone’s leg. Another moment, Inu bounces an enemy into Thatch, who slams their face into the ground. Somehow, it doesn’t look painful. Then, around Inu, people collapse in agony, holding their heads.
After those moments, people finally notice me. My task is simple, though. I have already done most of it.
Two weeks. That’s how long I’ve had to analyze everyone in the guild. I’ve taken bits and pieces of their classes, undermining their abilities, and pairing them up. There are two enemies for me to actually fight, two people that are mine to kill. Other than that, I am here to make sure the battle goes well.
An archer summons an arrow of light, and it fragments before he can fire it. There’s a woman, clinging to the wall, running up towards the ceiling to get the drop on us, when that adhesion fails and she plummets to the floor, where I throw a grenade at her.
[Deconstruction 14 > 15]
In the back of a room, a mage in green robes starts to cast spells of ice, throwing them at the fire and at Sylves, but his icicles crumble. A woman’s muscles grow and thicken as she charges at Thatch, a head taller than him, but when she moves to punch, she suddenly finds herself weak.
[Suppression 19 > 20]
Thatch slams his fist into her stomach, and I can see her ribs buckle and snap. That’s the insidious nature of my preparation. I don’t know everything. Not every ability, not every person around us, but in the cacophony of noise, I simply put on my headphones, tuning out the droning, and move.
Around me, abilities shatter.
Weakness spreads like a grim reaper’s scythe. Anyone attacking my companions falters and staggers. People try to hit Richard, only for their arms to grow heavy. People bounce against Inu, and find themselves rocketed away. When Thatch hits, adamantium skin turns brittle and soft, and when Sylves fires blades of wind, no one dodges, their legs too heavy.
I don’t hit anyone. I don’t lash out, I don’t slaughter. But the tower knows. The tower knows that they are breaking against me.
[Class up! Nullmage 10 > 12]
[Level Up! 39 > 40]
More points in vessel. My mana flows out of me, and into my swirling abilities. I draw on [Deconstruction] and [Suppression], breaking and weakening. I undermine, I use tiny bits of power in critical moments. I sabotage joints and tendons as much as possible, and shatter bones with torrents of power when required.
And then, Thatch finds his first tough opponent.
[Observation 6 > 7]
Of course, that is relative. After all, it’s someone strong. I know his class, and it’s [Fortress]. He’s tall, strong, muscle bound, and he fights Thatch for a simple reason. Because my friend is strong against him. Inu’s defensive skills would bounce off, and Sylves’ wind blades aren’t strong enough to pierce. But Thatch?
When the young man strikes, red rage rips right through the man’s skin. It invades the muscles underneath, and breaks soft flesh as it ravages him.
My own skills don’t work well here, so when the retaliation comes, it slams into Thatch. He’s sent flying back as if hit by a sledgehammer, the air knocked out of him. But I can see it, see the way that he’s angry. It’s a controlled kind of rage, channelled into what it needs to be. He fans the flames, and it floods him.
When Thatch jumps off the wall, the wood splinters, and his punch carves a hole into the giant’s stomach. Still, the man retains conscious for a moment, delivering a crushing blow to my friend even as he crumples - only for Inu to appear.
As if teleporting, she’s suddenly in front of Thatch. The giant’s hammer lands on her armguard, denting the metal. I can almost hear the bones underneath creaking from the impact. A moment passes, then that force is returned in its entirety.
A shockwave rebounds off of Inu’s forearm, slamming into the tall man, and sending him crashing through the roof, into the first floor, splattering the ground with blood. It rains on thatch, staining his blonde hair, but he just chuckles, clenching his bloody fists and looking for another target.
His heartbeat’s scary loud. And, indeed, there are the first signs of fear as the smoke grows denser. Sylves still shields us, easily gliding through the air, and I can tell she’s doing… something. Something insidious. Whispering creepy things to the wind. People flinch, their fear amplified.
And they run.
It’s simple, at first. A rogue, diving out of a window, then a mage quickly scurrying for the door, somehow avoiding us.
But it’s hopeless. Outside, they scream even louder, barely making it over the sound of creaking metal. “Ah!! Fuck!! Is that a beartrap?!”
Then, the sound of a knife, and I can hear a tiny, quiet sigh from Norman. The other person is welcomed by yet another sound of moving hinges, crunching bones, and then a spell piercing flesh.
Our cleanup crew is doing work.
Slowly, I feel okay about this all. And that’s, of course, when the first opponent marked for me walks down the stairs. A sleepy looking sumeen, tall, wrapped in dark robes, cut to fit the different sections of their body. They rub a few of the six holes on their face, then hum a melodic tune. “What’s this all about, then?”
Without hesitation, Sylves sends a wind-blade at them, only to have it crack and crumble apart mid-air.
I sigh, softly, setting forward. Let’s see then. Let’s see how my magic hold up against another anti-mage.