Might as Well

The old man led Sam to the shore where his equipment lay, took a seat gingerly, showcasing his age, and bade Sam to join him. He looked around but saw nothing that he could sit on. So, Sam simply shrugged and unceremoniously plopped down next to the old man.

His elder chortled at seeing him do it, then picked up his fishing rod, and made sure everything was all right with the equipment. After assuring himself that no fish was biting, he spoke up in a low voice.

“Well, kid. Why don’t ya start?”

Sam looked around while gathering his thoughts, trying to decide how to phrase things to achieve the maximum result. While the other Sam didn’t actually meet with this mysterious old man, there were hundreds of posts about him on the forums before too many people tried to approach him and the NPC relocated.

Hopefully, he was one of the first ones. Sam wasn’t expecting to be the absolute first one to do this, as a lot of people started in the capital and no doubt of those people, a lot of them were dedicated gamers who could sniff out important NPCs from miles away.

Finally, he looked out to the lake, keeping the old man in the periphery of his vision, and began talking.

“So, I was new in the town and decided to get some paperwork done and…”

“… and thankfully, she had fully recovered! The family was very happy!”

The silence that followed his story about the retrieval of the chalice and healing of Lady Silvercrest, was rather heavy. Sam made sure to tell the tale in a rather upbeat fashion, making light of the situation as well as making fun of the demon worshippers, but the moment he mentioned the miasma and his fight with the demon, the old man’s aura changed.

And now, silently, he sat there and waited.

Neither of them spoke for almost half an hour before the old man spoke up, asking a simple question.

“Which demon?”

It was a question, but to Sam, it felt like an order. There was a feeling in the air that if he didn’t answer or answered wrong, he would die. Despite that, he wanted to grin. ‘Yes! I got it!’

“Calon, sir.”

The older man let out a small sigh of relief, his posture relaxing marginally but not fully. Sam had to agree with that. Calon worshippers were dangerous but not a major threat on the account all of them being backstabbing cunts.

“Hmpf… Any other demons you met?”

“Zamor once,” he replied quickly.

The old man just harrumphed again and waved his hand in a dismissive motion. “Those bloodthirsty idiots are always alone.”

“Right, you are, sir! However, I recently came across an acquaintance who met with a cult that just summoned The Shadowed One…” he replied, keeping the grin in, while projecting a serious and slightly worried face. ‘Anything to make those assholes’ lives a nightmare…’ he mused while the older man simply froze.

“What did you just say, kid?”

“The Shadowed One…” he repeated.

The hands holding the fishing rod were white from the force the man was exerting.

“Tell me everything!”

Sam said nothing. He just took out a few sheets of paper describing Tim’s experiences and observations about his groups, as well as a few locations they liked to frequent.

“Here, sir!” he offered the document to the man. “I had it written down.”

The papers basically vanished from his hands and by the time he blinked, the man was going through the writings at impressive speeds while the fishing rod simply hovered in front of him.

It took around a minute for the older man to absorb what was written on the papers he handed over. Then the document vanished somewhere from his hands and the next thing Sam knew, that he was being dragged away by the man who had a surprisingly strong grip on his arm.

While trying to walk as fast as the spry old man, he glanced back to see if anybody noticed them leaving, but the only thing he could see was another old man, identical to the one dragging him walking up to the fishing spot, sitting down and grabbing the rod, acting as if nothing happened.

They left the park rather quickly, the older man finally letting his arm go after Sam proved that he would follow him. Curiously, nobody saw them that stride across the park, people’s eyes simply looking through them as the two of them walked by.

They walked through crowds, ducking into alleyways as they headed somewhere unknown while the other man kept his head on swivel, watching for attackers or who knows what. Seeing as they were dealing with demons, Sam was also making sure his Mana Sense and every other sense he could activate was going strong. But aside from the everyday city things, he couldn’t sense anything.

After a few minutes of rushing, they reached the Wharf District and there the older man quickly navigated them to one of the countless identical dilapidated warehouses where he simply opened one of the side doors and ushered Sam in while glancing around.

Their journey didn’t halt when they entered the warehouse. The interior of the building was filled with giant wooden crates, arranged neatly in rows. It was only when they began moving amongst themselves did Sam realize that the crates were set up in the shape of a small labyrinth.

After another minute, they reached, by his reckoning at least, the middle of said labyrinth where the man who said nothing so far, simply pushed one of the smaller crates away, revealing a heavily enchanted trap door.

The trap door was quickly opened by the man as he laid a hand on its surface and Sam was once again ushered through it, albeit this time, with an accompanied comment.

“Don’t bother memorizing the route, kid. After we arrive, this all will be destroyed.”

“Huh…” Sam had really nothing to say to that.

They then found themselves in a small corridor, surrounded by earth and absolute darkness.

“Come, kid. There are a few things we need to talk about,” spoke up the old man, apparently not at all bothered by the darkness. “No magic. I’ll lead you.”

Sam sighed and aborted his Light Ball, trying to use his wind mana to sense the contours of the ground and the man walking in front of him.

They emerged into a lightly illuminated cavern more than likely far away from the warehouse where they descended. Sam slightly suspected they were somewhere in the vicinity of the infamous secret police headquarters under the royal palace. The distance was rather hard to guess underground in complete darkness, so as of now it was just a conjecture.

The cavern was also filled with crates and all sorts of miscellaneous things that made the space look as if nobody had been there for decades. The layer of dust over everything was rather convincing.

Once again, he was led through the chaos, and they stopped in front of a wall that looked like every wall in the cavern. Made from stone and ground, dusty and craggy. The old man simply waved his hand and a small part of the wall shimmered and revealed a door. He opened it and pushed Sam through it.

Behind the door was a simple room, space enough for a desk an honest-to-good water cooler, one very anemic plant, and a bored-looking guard sitting behind the desk, reading some kind of book.

Upon their entrance, the guard looked up and quirked an eyebrow.

“Already back, sir?” he asked, completely ignoring Sam.

The old man grunted with displeasure before answering.

“Fuckin’ demons…”

The guard, instead of panicking, simply sighed, exasperated.

“Again?” The old man nodded, and the guard shook his head. “All right, you and the guest are verified. Head in!”

With that statement, the wall behind the guard shimmered, revealing a bigger metal door, which opened automatically. Sam simply followed the old man through it.

Long story short, Sam found himself in a room with several severe-looking men, staring at him from the other side of a big desk as he recounted his experience with demons while his escort vanished to who knows where. On the side of the room were several scribes furiously writing down every word he said in multiple copies. ‘Apparently, they take demons very seriously…’

In turn, Sam observed the men who were ‘gently’ interrogating him. They wore uniforms without any discernible identifying marks, though Sam spotted a few odd geometric shapes that were probably used for that.

Finally, after another hour of continuous talk, the men and the scribes stood up without another word and marched out of the room, leaving Sam alone sitting at the desk, blinking in surprise.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait too long, as the door opened again and another man returned. It took him several seconds to recognize the old man from the lake, as he had changed his clothing to the now familiar low-key uniform as well as taking a brush to his mane of silver hair.

“Well, sir, what now?” he asked, partly curious, partly worried.

While he knew that the old man was on the side of angels (the good angels, not the crazy ones), he was still worried about what a mysterious organization like this would do to him.

The older man simply took a seat opposite of him, steepling his hands in front of him.

“Now we talk.”

Sam blinked and nodded.

“Let’s talk then. About what? Is this the talk about that this definitely didn’t happen and this place doesn’t actually exist?”

The other man simply smirked at him.

“I think you’re smart enough to know the answer to that one,” he replied, and Sam nodded. “No, the talk is about what I want you to do.”

“Oh? Why me? You seem to have a rather big organization here…”

“That’s the problem. Most demons, at least the smarter ones would smell our involvement from miles away.”

“This is where I come in…”

“Exactly. You’re not one of us, but you’re still against demons. We talked to the Silvercrest family, and they vouched for you,” explained the man whose name Sam still didn’t know. Hell, nobody in this underground base even uttered a name. Not even codenames.

‘Oh, nice. I owe them one for that…’

“The question is: what do you want me to do?” he asked, staring directly into the older man’s eyes.

The man in question nodded and took out a small scroll and placed it just out of Sam’s reach.

“As you may have figured out, we don’t really like demons around here. Thus, we would like for you to investigate a few things.”

“Me against the Shadowed One?” Sam asked incredulously.

“No. That one is a smart one. No doubt the place where it was summoned has already been destroyed. No, it will take time for us to find their new lair. However, it would be a shame to waste your talents against demons. Thus, a small test.”

“A test?”

“Yes. One of the guilds found a fracture that is filled with demons. We managed to hide it from adventurers…”

“And you want me to clear it before a monster break occurs?”

“Correct. However, you have to do it alone as it is a test of your talents. Your team can’t assist you this time.”

Sam stared back at the older man, but a system sound distracted him.

[New quest acquired!]

[Demonic demonstration!]

[You have been tasked to clean one of the fractures from demons by a mysterious old man. This is a test to see what you are capable of. Go and successfully clear the fracture alone, without the help of a rather competent team, and you will be rewarded. However, if you were to fail, this never happened. Are you ready?]

[Time limit: 1 week]

[Reward: Mysterious]

[Penalty: Even more mysterious]

A pretty straightforward quest. Exactly what he wanted to receive. It was one of the easiest ways to increase one’s reputation in the kingdom if one wanted to do it legally.

Forcing himself to not smile, he nodded. “I accept!”

Then he blinked and found himself back in the room where he rested at the Magic Tower after his breakthrough, his hand holding the scroll the old man brought with himself.

He looked around confusedly for a few moments before the reality of the situation hit him. The only thing he could do was laugh while opening the scroll.

It contained the coordinates for the fracture, with instructions on how to reach it, as well as instructions on what to do in case he was successful. Though Sam expected that they would be observing him during the entire test.

He put the scroll away and opened his messages, answering a few from Lucy, reassured Tim that he would be alright, and sent a group message to his team that they should start heading to the capital. Sam was pretty sure that after this test, he would need them.

Finished with that, he left the room and headed for one of the smaller practice rooms of the Magic Tower. He still needed to practice his new skill a little more.