The Fool's Freedom

Alan rushed into the cave and immediately boosted his legs to jump as far as he could as he came upon the closest kobolds. With a dagger and a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, he attacked relentlessly, hoping that being in the middle of the kobolds would stop the rest from firing their bows.

There was no way to use the short blade of the dagger with a shield that was in the way of most of it for anything other than [Shadow Slashes] and that’s what he was doing.

You have slain Lesser Kobold (14)

You have slain Lesser Kobold (10)

You have slain Lesser Kobold (12)

It was a slaughter. He was faster, stronger, and more deadly than the kobolds.

He saw the other mage near the archers, screaming orders but otherwise doing nothing else. It seemed that barrier was their only spell.

Alan spun and got another Kobold with a [Shadow Slash], before skewering the one behind it with his spear.

There was suddenly stinging pain in his thigh and a thud on his shield as arrows rained in his direction. Alan ducked and ran for cover before he looked down at his thigh. An arrow was stuck there and it hurt like a bitch.

He was about to curse, but he remembered the potion in his mouth. It was more of a combat drug than a potion, considering the last time he had been under the effect.

He looked over the cover and saw another large group of kobolds enter the cave. There seemed to be no ending. Thankfully there was only one mage. The archers were the problem. He felt confident they couldn’t block his [Shadow Slash] if he was close enough. The skill was carrying him hard.

Alan heard them come close and tipped over the vial with his tongue. He felt the heat spread about his body immediately and for a second wondered if he should pull the arrow out. He vaguely remembered that pulling an arrow without having the proper means to treat the wound was a bad thing. It was probably worse in the middle of a life-and-death situation.

Fuck it.

He stood up and blindly hurled a few shadow blades towards the nearest kobolds, before once again rushing out with his spear.

His veins were burning even hotter than they had been a few seconds before and Alan grinned as blood and heads flew through the air around him.

It was not long before he had decimated the new group of kobolds, the kill messages coming like raindrops. A few more arrows hit him, one in the shoulder and another in the same thigh, but he brushed them off. It seemed to be becoming his thing to go into a fight under the influence of strange mixtures.

Few also hit his leather armor, which proved to be stronger than it appeared as the arrows failed to do more than leave a few deep marks before falling to the ground.

Soon, he was upon the archers. The poor things were panicking and some even tried to run, but he gave them no chance as he ran after them and either sliced them with his [Shadow Blade] or skewered them with his spear.

Finally, there was only the mage left. It was an ugly thing now that Alan could look at it closely. Not that kobolds were particularly attractive by any means, but the mage was even worse.

Alan slashed with his dagger and a blade of shadows shot out, hitting the brown-tinted barrier. The kobold snarled at him. Alan smiled and sent another and another and another. His mana was once again getting low, but he had enough for the experiment. This time the barrier shattered on the fourth one, and the last remains of Alan’s latest shadow slash made it to the kobold, only managing to cut its skin.

With a thrust of his spear, Alan ended its misery.

Level up!

You have reached level 2 in [Warlock]!

+ 3 Attribute Points

+ 1 Mind, Will, and Magic

Finally. And look at that.

Free attribute points and points in his dominant attributes. It felt good. No wonder leveling had gotten so much slower now. Or maybe he needed stronger opponents?

Without hesitation, Alan put the attribute points in Magic. He needed more mana.

INFORMATION:

Name:

Alan Morgan

Race:

Human

Class:

Warlock

Level:

2

Titles:

Pioneer; Madcap; Slayer; Friend of the Spirit World

ATTRIBUTES:

0

Strength

34

Dexterity

32

Vitality

4

Will

55

Mind

50

Magic

51

TRAITS:

One Mind, One Body; Limited Vitality; Tongues of the four corners; Survivor’s will; Shadow Mind

SKILLS:

Warlock’s Body Mastery; Synaptic Failure; Shadow Slash; Ritual: Enchanted Bones; Mortal Peril

He looked around, the adrenaline and the stimulant pumping through his veins. It was carnage. Mutilated corpses with cut-off limbs and heads littered the place from the small tunnel entrance to the exit.

Alan blinked and realized he was almost outside. The sunlight hurt his eyes as he turned to take it all in. There were a few tents and a bigger campfire that was currently out in the small clearing before the cave.

Beyond that, was a plain leading to the forest. The wind tore at the tall grass between the cave and the forest, making the scenery appear like a wavy sea of green. Alan didn’t remember sensing much wind at all during the first few days he had spent in this world.

There was a change in the air. Alan took a deep breath and enjoyed the wind softly lashing at his face. Even if it stung in his eyes, he was happy to be out in the sun.

Deep laughter sounded in his mind. Alan hadn’t realized when he had allowed the connection, but if there was someone more overjoyed than him to be outside, it was probably the trapped demon.

“I am out! I am finally out! Hahahahahaha,” the demon laughed and Alan smiled too. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be closed for so long under the earth, in a prison there was no escape from, with no one to talk to.

“Congratulations, Xil,” Alan said.

“Thank you, human. I suppose you are owed that much, despite how stupid you are. It isn’t the demon world, but the air is rich in mana, and there is even a sun! Put me down here, for a bit, I want to enjoy this while you loot. Nice massacre by the way.”

Alan smiled again and put the demon on a particularly sunny part of the ground. Then he turned and went back into the cave.

The sign of carnage seemed almost foreign now. His adrenaline was gone, and even the stimulant was wearing off. Alan walked around, examining the parts of the cave not covered in blood. He found some cloth pieces that looked decently clean, some more cheese in wooden buckets, and crude vats of water.

He drank his fill of cold fresh water, refilled his jar, and got working on his wounds. He had to remove the arrows before the potion healed around them; it had already stopped the bleeding. With a curse, he pulled the first one from his thigh and screamed as his flesh was torn by the arrowhead. Not giving himself a chance to rest he pulled the second out too.

He preferred the pain all at once, now that he had a choice. It hurt a lot, but nothing he hadn’t suffered before. His condition had been much worse when he had first met Ig-Thun.

The arrow in his shoulder was tricky and somehow the worst of the bunch. The angle was weird and Alan struggled quite a bit until he decided to just go for it. It felt as if he was tearing his shoulder out as he pulled it all in one go, screaming his lungs out, then sat panting on a clean place on the ground. He was bleeding heavily, but that soon stopped thanks to the potion still pumping through his veins. Thankfully none of the arrows had broken. Kobolds knew their arrows. Or they didn’t, actually, as making them more prone to breaking and staying in the wound was better when you wanted to hurt someone.

He rested for about twenty minutes, almost taking a short nap, before he decided he was sufficiently stitched up. There was pain and the wounds would obviously not heal instantly, but it was good enough for now. [Warlock’s Body Mastery] also allowed him to redirect some of his stamina and mana regeneration to healing, making him feel sluggish. Combined with the potion’s much more potent effect, he was not worried.

The wonders of magic and skills.

Alan walked around, munching on a piece of the freshly cooked piglet that was resting over the smoldering charcoal. It was not as burned as the pieces from before and he enjoyed the fat dripping from his mouth. He even took some of the cheese, again. It was worrying how kobolds were making cheese, but he hoped it wasn’t anything too bad.

He stopped when he found a few big bundles of something he recognized. The wide grass that he had sucked on before depopulating the tunnels from rats. Suddenly the meat didn’t seem as delicious. There was a craving inside of him.

Am I addicted to fucking grass? I did it once!

This world was full of surprises. He also found bundles of the two other herbs and got a lot of all three, tucking them into his now fairly full bag.

He also used a big piece of cloth to store as much meat as he could, and a crude wooden jar of cheese. Somehow by the time he was done, he had eaten almost a quarter of the piglet. This new appetite of his was worrying. When was the last time he had pooped, actually?

Was he not going to shit anymore? The realization was somehow harder than many of the things he had had to do so far. He still pissed just fine, although he had the gnawing suspicion that he had been dehydrated for a while now.

Will I grow to miss pooping?

There was not much left to gather. He found some vials of the sweet syrup and took a few, before also opening the woven cage that held the moon beetles. There was no door and Alan simply cut a few holes with his dagger. The moon beetles rushed out as one and disappeared outside the cave. He took a few of the small woven cages filled with beetles and tied them to his belt.

Releasing all of them would be silly, considering what roamed the forest. He wondered if he could fight one of the snake-tentacle-human-face horror things now. Maybe a bit. It was getting close enough to use his skills which worried him.

Alan was still a bit mad that his apparently purely magical class hadn’t given him a single long range skill he could spam from a distance. He didn’t ask for much.

[Ritual: Enchanted Bones] was something he had to get around at some point too. He had the special mana-infused chalk from Ig-Thun. All he needed was some fresh beast blood, preferably bled directly from the heart, and mana crystals of which he had about two and a half or so left.

With every useful thing taken from the now obliterated and silent kobold camp, Alan exited the cave once again and picked up the demon cube.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yes. I will sleep. Using the skill exhausted me. I hope you are dead when I wake up.”

Alan smirked, classic Xil. He put him in the bag and looked around trying to decide which way to go. He had no idea how far this place was from the ruins where they had run into the horrors, or from the lake.

He turned around and examined the small hill the cave was part of. It would be very generous to even compare it with a mountain, although there were a few large rocks here and there, covered in moss and all other types of growths. Some of the rocks looked suspiciously like concrete, now that he looked closer. Had the System just mashed a modern building into the hill? No sense of design or anything.

It wouldn’t take long to reach the top and try to find his direction from there, so he decided to do just that. The climb was annoying, mostly due to his overstuffed bag and the other cloth bundle filled with food, but he managed.

The wind nipped at his eyes when he finally reached the top of the small hill and sat down to rest. It was refreshing, but also a bit colder and he wrapped the tattered cloak around himself.

The quest was a constant reminder at the back of his head that there was a safe place. But how would he find it? There were certainly more than one.

You have received a new quest: Join a Sanctuary!

The world is born anew, and you stand at the forefront of that rebirth. Join those from your species who were deemed too young or too weak to be thrown into the harsh world, and help the Sanctuary prosper.

Reward: Access to the Sanctuary trading system.

Alan looked around from the vantage point he was on. There were other similar hills on one side, the flat forest on the other, there was also something shimmering that seemed to be reflecting the sun. Maybe the lake? It was impossible to tell if this was some optical illusion or something else, but he didn’t really dwell on it.

If he went into the forest Ashlyn would probably track him down eventually, he couldn’t be that far from where their shitty camp was. There were probably other trackers too, and any human contact would be useful.

He tried to remember the position of the sun and the direction he would be going in and started descending from the hill. Once he got into the forest it would be pretty hard to tell if he was going in a straight direction, considering how disorienting the forest was.

At least he was outside.

Alan took a deep breath and went into the forest, enjoying the newly present symphony of forest sounds.

It was a proper adventure now.