Chapter 28
The Great Epiphany
Champion regeneration and the regeneration you gained from increasing your constitution didn't operate the same way. They both pulled resources from the body to close the life-threatening wounds, but no matter how much you increased your constitution, your body couldn't recycle or reattach dismembered limbs and damaged tissue. High constitution also didn't allow you to regrow missing limbs without a cleric. However, almost anything that would kill those with high constitution would also kill a champion, making the greatest difference between the two how quickly you could bounce back from crippling injuries.
Durg'un knew this, which is why he didn't wake me up until after I'd recovered. When I opened my eyes, there was a notification waiting for me.
You are no longer incapacitated.
Durg'un stood over me, watching our surroundings, before glancing down and offering a small nod. This was the second time he'd protected me, which didn't mean anything, since it was also the second time he'd had to wait for me to recover before gaining wealth. However, his nod did convey that everything had gone to plan and that we were safe. It also reminded me of what I'd been thinking before he knocked me out.
"What the hell did your people do to that crossbow?" I snapped. "The recoil nearly killed me."
Durg'un looked around one last time as a barrier appeared around us. He took a knee beside me and then placed his face beside my ear. Being this close to a dwarf brought back bad memories. Memories I'd been ignoring for months. He was so close to me, his beard tickled my ear and shoulder.
"You don't understand your new champion ability as well as you think you do if you think my people tampered with your equipment, which is all I will say on the matter."
There was no anger in his tone. No annoyance at the accusation. Durg'un was just stating a fact and clearing the air as diplomatically as possible. His reaction took the fight out of me and left me a little embarrassed.
"Oh."
Apparently, Salem hadn't shared everything he knew about my ability.
Typical.
I quickly went back through my memories, recalling everything that happened before and after I pulled the trigger, while Durg'un stood up. The recoil was far greater than the first time I used the ability, and the magic damage was significantly more effective.
Judging by the way it had blown off the top of the toad's head, the bolt had entered the king toad's brain before triggering the magic damage. The laws of physics never would have allowed a crossbow bolt to go through so much flesh and bone, so the system must have enforced a sort of secondary rule. It had most likely localised the piercing damage, only applying it to what was directly in front of it, so that it could go deeper and cause the most harm when its secondary effect was triggered.
Salem claimed One Shot had an in-built safety mechanism to save my life. Could that safety mechanism be overridden if I needed to do more damage to survive a confrontation with something as powerful as a king toad? Could the ability tell how strong my target was and increase the damage it did to me to compensate?
The answer for both questions was most likely yes, and that I need to spend time learning about my ability before using it again. However, this wasn't the time or the place to do that.
"Sorry for the accusation," I said.
"It's already forgotten," Durg'un replied.
I sat up and did a quick body check.
My clothes were shredded and covered in blood, not a lot, most of it had been broken down by my body, but enough to have stained everything I was wearing beyond salvation, if it wasn't already torn to shreds. I'd also lost muscle. A lot of muscle. I wasn't as thin as I'd been before visiting Orlana's, but I wasn't in good shape either. My attributes compensated for the muscle loss, so I felt fine, making it a visual difference rather than a physical one.
Durg'un dropped the soundproof barrier and began filling me in on what I'd missed.
Lunar's adventurers and warriors had begun their attack on the knot of king toads that had been following the bull. The sudden death of their leader had spooked the females, and they had changed the direction of their migration. The new path led away from the metropolis, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so they were planning to harass them until they entered the ocean again. If Lunar got lucky, they'd kill another and reap more experience.
Winslow was also in a very cheerful mood.
The king toad's carcass belonged to Lunar's, which was part of the reason he was so happy. That much food so close to a population centre meant Waning could increase its grain and rice reserves. King toad was apparently a local delicacy, with a flavour ranging from chicken to tuna, depending on which muscle group you were eating.
There was an army of butchers on their way from the city, but many of Winslow's butchers in the nearby hamlets had already rushed over. Everyone had been waiting for me to recover and collect the experience so they could get to work.
As Durg'un said that last part, I climbed to my feet to get to work. What was left of my trousers fell to my ankles. Before I could grab the tattered remains, there was a flash of light, and a pair of cheap brown trousers appeared in Durg'un's hand.
He tossed them to me.
I caught them. "Thanks."
"They're going to look ridiculous on you."
His assessment was proven correct when the baggy trousers stopped halfway down my calves. Durg'un might have been shorter than I was, but everything about him was wider, so I probably looked like some sort of hippy with such baggy pants. Durg'un purchased a shirt from the system that was just as baggy and tossed it to me. It stopped just below my belly button, but that was better than what I'd been wearing.
I scanned the area, looking for Torvac.
The king toad's body looked like someone had dropped a hill in the middle of Winslow's farm. I could see Winslow's people were building scaffolding around its rump, ready to begin harvesting the moment they were allowed. I eventually spotted Winslow and Torvac beside its webbed foot.
I glanced at Durg'un. He was waiting patiently, which wasn't like him. "I figured you'd be hurrying me along by now."
"This is hurrying you along."
"What do you mean?"
"You're functional, but you haven't healed. Everything you do in this state will cost your body additional resources. That doesn't matter in life-or-death situations, but this isn't one. If I had a proper conscience, I'd have left you asleep until the sun went down."
It was the middle of the afternoon, so I'd been out for hours. I started walking to Torvac and Winslow and quickly noticed that Durg'un was in a pensive mood. He'd been like this before I killed the giant, but after it was dead, he'd been bubbling with excitement.
"Are you okay?"
Durg'un gave a wistful sigh followed by a gentle smile. "I'm just thinking about all the ale I'm going to buy from Ririon when this is over."
Okay, he wasn't pensive.
He was daydreaming.
I snorted and kept walking.
A few minutes later, I began to notice the smell. It was hard to miss. It wasn't fishy, but there was a strong odour that you would only associate with the ocean. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't comforting either. However, the lack of comfort might have been due to how small I felt rather than the odour.
This thing would have been able to eat Godzilla as an appetiser. We hadn't even reached the others, and I couldn't see the top of it anymore. The fact that I'd killed something so large was absurd.
We kept walking in silence.
Torvac nodded to me as we approached.
I nodded back and stopped behind Winslow. He was running his hand across the king toad's skin, likely using some sort of ability to assess its quality. If it could be turned into leather, it was probably worth a fortune.
Winslow glanced over his shoulder. "Your champion ability lives up to its name."
"I cannot confirm that you have witnessed my champion ability," I replied, diplomatically. "It was most likely a lucky shot."
Without permission, I couldn't legally share my champion ability with foreign officials, even if they already knew exactly what my ability did.
Torvac chuckled, recognising what I was doing.
He was much more relaxed now that I'd displayed my champion ability. News of what I'd done would be on the cover of every newspaper in Lunar by the end of the day, and in Radian by the end of the week, so no one would be coming after my mark. I was too much of a strategic asset.
Winslow began to grin. "The rest of my butchers are on their way, and they're bringing a wagon with them to haul away Lunar's portion of the experience, so we need to hurry."
I lifted my head, craning my neck to try to catch a glimpse of the top of the king toad to emphasis my point. "You mean wagons, right?"
In my periphery, his grin grew. "Do you think we will need a second one?"
I attempted to look at the hill-sized carcass all at once, while trying to calculate the heinous amount of experience it was about to pay out due to the legendary experience potion, my bonuses, and Winslow's bonuses. The experience you received from a kill a creature was based on its size and level. I had no size reference for the creature in front of me, but the giant would fit its mouth, so the amount of experience coming Lunar's way was going to be far more than anyone had estimated.
I slowly nodded my head. "Yeah, you are definitely going to need a second wagon."
Durg'un and I had been planning to kill this creature for months, but now that I had, things weren't adding up. Why did it exist? Why was it so easy for me to kill? How did it earn enough experience to grow this large?
Winslow's grin was fading, which told me he was starting to get annoyed with having to wait, so I placed my hand against its skin. It was bone dry rather than wet, but there was very little give. Its skin was so thick I could barely manipulate it. A notification appeared.
Well done, you have defended Winslow's farm against a king toad. This action exceeds the limits of manual experience transfer. Please point to the location where you would like your experience to appear.
I frowned.
This notification was new, which was a surprise. It might be something I could sell to scholars, but it could also mean something had gone wrong.
Winslow's face fell as he noticed my frown.
He'd said he didn't mind not recovering his entire investment, but losing it all wasn't something Krinda could live with.
"It didn't work, did it? I should have known."
Winslow started to swear.
I turned, trying to find a road where I could summon the experience. There wasn't one close by that didn't have a king toad on it, so I pointed to a workers' path beside the nearest rice paddy. The king toad's collapse had half-destroyed it, like everything else, but it was the only part not under water.
There was the same flash of light that happened when the system teleported something, except much bigger than any teleportation I'd ever seen. A barn-sized pyramid of farmer experience crystals appeared. It was not a small barn either. The pyramid was so large it didn't fit on the path, and experience crystals crashed into the surrounding rice paddies, displacing enough water to generate massive waves.
One part of my mind stood dumbfounded.
The other part went into overdrive, still caught up in my earlier conversation with Irana.
This is wrong, I thought to myself. It doesn't make sense. Why make the farming class so hard to level and then give all this for a single act of defence?
Thoughts tumbled through my head, colliding with each other. The answers to the questions I'd been trying to find in Farentine's library were piled up before me.
Why have so many limitations on farming when killing a single king toad produces more farmer experience than Radian produced as a kingdom in a year? It was like the system was punishing everyone for farming wrong. Like farming wasn't actually what we were supposed to be doing.
My eyes widened, and I turned and stared at the massive corpse. I then looked to the city and then to the farm around me. Then I glanced up at the sun, and the pieces that had been bothering me for nearly a year began falling into place.
The reason why the farmer class was so hard to level wasn't because the system needed lots of low-level farmers. It was because farming crops wasn't the purpose of the farmer class, farming monsters was.
I ran my fingers through my bloody hair, trying to figure out how it all fit together.
Farms were how the human system generated magic. Everyone had told me they were there to teach us how to generate magic from the land. But what did it mean if the most farmer experience was generated from killing a monster on that land by someone who was tied to it?
I forced my mind to think of this from the perspective of a galactic empire. Not the small medieval society I lived in. That was the only way for what I was seeing to make any sense.
Maybe farms were like spiders' webs, and killing a monster on it nourished a magical spider we couldn't see. No, that didn't make sense. If that were the case, then those with both farmer and warrior classes would be able to kill monsters on a farm and generate farmer experience. But the system only awarded farmer experience when the ones who killed them were farmers with no secondary class. It was like farmers were special in this scenario. Farmers were a necessary part of the system, generating magic on farms.
I tried to look at this from the perspective of the sun serpent, a being so large that Earth could fit in its mouth. If you were that massive, even the largest farm on the planet would be insignificantly small. Something told me that was the right way of thinking.
Farms weren't something massive. They were something small made on a much larger scale. I had to ignore their size and look at their purpose. They were monster-killing fields that generated magic and possibly experience, but only for those with a pure connection to them.
The true nature of the farmer class hit me like a cold bucket of ice water.
Farms were giant fucking sacrificial alters, and I'd just made the largest sacrifice in human history. So, the system had rewarded me for doing what it wanted.
Winslow got over his shock first and began laughing with undisguised childlike glee, having probably remembered that Krinda was about to earn 50% of the experience I'd just gained at the end of the month. Most of it was going to Lunar, but he would get back his investment with experience to spare.
Torvac and Durg'un stared at the pile of experience crystals, still in shock. I didn't care. I had more important things to think about.
Winslow ran toward the pile of experience, laughing and weeping tears of joy. There wasn't a trace of the crotchety farmer I'd met in Radian. This amount of experience could instantly make hundreds of thousands of productive farmers. It was the sort of experience that could entirely change a kingdom like Lunar, which had been severely limited because it didn't have enough land to generate the experience it needed to expand its farmland effectively.
Lunar would definitely be able closer to creating another metropolis because of this. For once, I didn't care about how much people would benefit from the experience I'd generated.
My epiphany overshadowed everything else.
Farmers weren't farmers. They were some sort of archaic priest, connected to the land and meant to fertilise it with the lives of monsters. They were shamans of sorts. The magic the system generated didn't come from nothing. It came from death, death in the right places under the right circumstances.
I suddenly realised that there was another reason why people lost all their levels when they were resurrected. The system used their death to create more magic, and that action drained away all they had built up in life.
Even people were a resource to the system.
Every death made a little more magic.
Farmers weren't just supposed to kill monsters on their farm to generate magic, they were supposed to kill crops and livestock. They were supposed to live and die on their farm to feed the system. That was why half the population was farmers, and the class was so hard to level. They were sacrifices. Cattle fattened for the harvest.
Lectures and books I'd read continued to collide along with my discussions with Irana. This world's entire understanding of the system was flawed. Everyone thought the system used the mana people generated to create more, but that wasn't it, or at least it wasn't all of it. What the system really did was use death to grow.
It wasn't surprising that the human kingdoms had stagnated for millennia. They were going about improving themselves in the wrong way. They were trying to develop by increasing mana generation when they should have become a death cult.
I swallowed as that idea played through my head.
Was that what the system wanted humanity to become? Were we supposed to be making blood sacrifices in order to create magic for the system? Were we supposed to be some sort of horrible world of killers just so we could gain power from the system?
My mind rejected that thought, but kept thinking.
No.
We were supposed to be human. We were supposed to be everything good and bad that word entitled us to be. The system was not who we were supposed to be, but a tool we used. It wasn't something we had to accept. All the system did was show the nature of the people who had created it, because they had been all those things, and the system reflected that. I wasn't looking at humanity's destiny. I was seeing another species past, a past that would shape our future if we let it.
My mind wouldn't stop making connections.