Scroll 55: Drama and bounty
Stepping through the massive gold-veneered wooden gate, Alaster took in the view beyond the wall.
The defenders were chasing down the surviving goblins as they fled in a frantic rush—a scene that reminded him of children being pursued by their mother with a slipper in hand. The difference was that the vast majority of the militia consisted of battle-hardened women whose movements were precise and firm, a far cry from the fragile young girls back on Earth.
The elf directed his steps toward the remains of a half-melted ice floe in the distance. It was the exact spot where he must have dropped his weapon.
«My new sword...» he grumbled internally. «I just bought it and I’ve already tossed it on the battlefield.»
He shifted his gaze toward the area where the stone giant had stood. The rubble was still smoking. Atop the mountain of rocks, Syrus was hauling something while a few militiamen finished off the lesser spawns. A well-placed strike behind the leg brought down one of the behemoths just as it swung a fist at another defender acting as a distraction. The young woman who landed the slash squealed with joy upon seeing the creature collapse.
“I leveled up! Hahaha!”
Alaster looked away, his brow furrowing.
«Wait...» he thought. «I took down a Level 27 boss. Shouldn’t I have leveled up too?»
He opened his mental interface to check his experience reserve, and the result left him dumbfounded:
54,864 / 25,600 EXP
“What the hell? My experience exceeds the limit and I’m not leveling up?” he blurted out.
His heart raced for a second, but he took a deep breath to regain control.
«Calm down... it’s just a standard bug. I just need to kill a monster and I’ll level up.»
Looking around, he spotted a goblin sprinting away from a girl who had just finished off another. Alaster raised his gloved hand. An icy spear materialized in the air beside him, and with a flick of his fingers, he fired it. The monster leaped over the corpse of another goblin in its escape, but the ice projectile caught it dead on.
The elf immediately checked his status bar again:
54,945 / 25,600
«What is this? Still no level up. Is my system bugged? I’m finished...»
“Why so glum, handsome?” Deinderatrix’s smooth voice echoed behind him.
Alaster turned around. The mage stood a short distance away, resting one hand on her hip while holding her staff with the other. Somehow, seeing the gorgeous woman put him at ease.
“I’ve got a problem...” the elf admitted.
The mage raised an eyebrow. Behind her came Elise, hopping along, followed by Pina. The petite young girl was dragging Alaster’s sword, which looked like a giant's blade in her hands. The cute girl was panting from the effort while the archer stepped forward with ease.
Deinderatrix turned to follow the elf’s gaze and, with two long, dramatic strides, approached the child.
“Oh, little one, leave that to me.”
Pina looked up at the mage, who towered nearly a head above her.
“Okay...” she replied timidly, her large, dark eyes wide.
Deinderatrix grabbed the hilt with her free hand and hoisted the sword with utter ease. She rested the weapon over her delicate shoulder in a distinctly feminine pose, letting her leg slip through the slit of her skirt.
“Al... I found this sword, and according to Mr. Norde, it’s yours,” Elise explained. “I brought it over in case you needed it.”
Alaster watched Pina as she caught her breath.
“Ah, she’s my best friend in the whole world, her name is—” Elise began to introduce her, but Alaster cut in.
“It’s Pina. She healed my wound, did you forget?”
“Well, I went to rest when you arrived at the field hospital,” Elise clarified.
“We’ll talk about how you abandoned me in my time of pain later,” the elf shot back before turning to Deinderatrix, who was still striking her heroic pose with the sword over her shoulder. “Hey, tell me what you know, Deinderatrix.”
The mage’s smile vanished.
“You’re so boring. Praise me!”
«This woman is a black hole for attention,» Alaster thought, ignoring her to look at the archer. Elise offered a small smile.
“Why all the mystery?” the blonde asked.
“It’s just that I can’t level up,” Alaster grimaced. “The experience is piling up, but nothing happens. I’ve gone way past the cap and I won’t level.”
Elise stared at him for a second before her face lit up.
“Ah, I know—”
“Hey, kid, this is my business,” Deinderatrix interrupted, pointing the sword directly at her from a few paces away. Then she looked at the weapon and giggled: “Hehehe, sorry...”
Elise’s face flashed with alarm before relaxing, only to tense up again when the mage brought out the necklace she wore: a sword engulfed in flames. The archer went dead quiet.
“Handsome Al, it’s something terrible... You’ll have to come with me,” Deinderatrix declared dramatically.
However, Pina’s soft voice broke the silence from behind Elise.
“Mr. Alaster... it’s just that... you unlocked a Mastery.”
The young girl’s words completely stripped Deinderatrix of her momentum. She turned slowly to look at her. Pina gasped in fright and hid behind Elise, barely poking her head out.
«This mage is seriously intimidating the other girls...» the elf thought.
Alaster stepped in front of Deinderatrix, blocking her line of sight to Elise and Pina.
“What’s this about a Mastery?”
Elise opened her mouth and snapped it shut, glancing behind the elf. Alaster turned and caught the mage’s stern glare, which quickly shifted into a bright smile the moment she noticed him watching.
“Handsome Al, don’t mind these girls, they don’t know anything.”
Alaster ignored her. For some reason, Elise was terrified of Deinderatrix, but Pina seemed more willing to speak up.
“Tell me, Pina, what is a Mastery?”
The child peeked over Elise’s shoulder.
“You have to unlock the Mastery, or you won’t be able to level up,” she said in a timid voice.
Her face paled when she saw Deinderatrix scowl, and she quickly ducked behind the archer once more. Elise shrank back, staring at the ground.
«How is this woman scaring Elise so much? I can understand her intimidating Pina, who’s shy, but with Elise it makes no sense.»
“Stop picking on the girls already!” Alaster snapped, finally annoyed by Deinderatrix’s bullying attitude.
The mage’s alluring figure stepped back. The elf snatched the sword from her hand and extended an arm to cover Elise and Pina.
“Can’t you speak like a normal person? Instead, you’re out here terrifying the kid.”
Pina peeked out from behind Elise with tearful eyes. Deinderatrix’s dark, heavily made-up eyes filled with tears, which she fought back as her voice rose:
“Ah, so you want to know?! Then I’ll tell you! You have to focus your mind on Mastery Selection, choose a Sword Mastery tree, and then...” she said, her voice breaking, “spend half your experience points to unlock sword skills! But only up to Level 50, because after that you’ll hit a wall since you don’t have a physical class! Yeah, go ahead and waste your time leveling a tree that’ll be useless to you after Level 50! Be my guest!”
She threw her arms out in an exaggerated gesture of impatience, her usually smooth voice cracking with pure anger.
“Do whatever you want!” she finally burst out, breaking into tears.
«Damn it,» Alaster thought as he felt a barrage of eyes lock onto them.
The nearby defenders turned to watch. Seeing the mage with fat tears rolling down her cheeks, the gossip started immediately.
“Did the elf make her cry?” a dark-haired girl whispered to the one beside her.
“That’s how those elves are—they don’t care about a woman’s delicate feelings,” the other replied.
“He yelled at her horribly, poor thing...” someone else chimed in without any context.
A few men nearby shook their heads.
«Great, now this looks like a cheap drama novel,» Alaster thought. He looked at Elise, who was frowning at the mage, and then at Pina, who was crying even harder.
“I... I only came over because I thought you were the one in danger... You... why are you like this?” Deinderatrix whimpered under her breath.
The elf felt a slight twinge of guilt. He observed the mage more closely; she was clutching one hand with the other, and one of her fingers was swollen and slightly bruised.
«No way... was that from when I snatched the sword? I didn’t even use that much force! Shit, I blew it. I need to calm her down before this gets ugly.»
He stepped closer to her.
“I’m sorry... did I hurt you badly?”
“It hurt...” she murmured softly, staring down at her hand.
Alaster took her hand to examine it, but the girl immediately collapsed against him. The elf suppressed the urge to push her away; people were watching and she was visibly distraught. Deinderatrix buried her face in his chest.
“You yelled at me so meanly,” she sobbed.
“Come on... I’m sorry, I went overboard,” Alaster said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, his voice muffled. “What an embarrassing scene in front of everyone. Anyway, it’s not that big a deal... well, actually, hurting you was terrible. Come on, Deinderatrix, I’ll make it up to you. Don’t cry, let Pina heal you.”
Pina emerged from behind Elise and stepped closer to take the mage’s hand. Deinderatrix offered her a soft smile.
“Thank you, sweetie. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay, I wasn’t scared,” Pina smiled back.
Deinderatrix returned the smile. Alaster, who could only see the top of the mage’s head, missed the moment her eyes met Elise’s. The mage gave her a playful, flirtatious wink, and the archer rolled her eyes, thinking: «She’s even more manipulative than my mom. Al and Pina fell for it hook, line, and sinker.»
The elf caught Elise rolling her eyes, but he was already piecing it together; this wasn’t his first rodeo. He had been in toxic relationships back on Earth, and this spoiled mage was just a lighter version of his ex-girlfriend. Alaster couldn’t help the comparison: the difference was massive, as the mage was an absolute babe, whereas Rachel—even dolled up to the maximum—was still just an average woman. Behavior-wise, the mage was at worst a brat, while his ex was a nuclear wasteland of toxicity.
«I really do feel bad, though. It’s obvious she’s hamming it up because I raised my voice, but I did hurt her hand. Do I have the strength of six men now? Thank goodness it wasn’t anything worse.»
Alaster gently took her by the shoulders and pulled her back just enough to see her face: dark eyes, a helpless expression, and brimming with tears. That face would have completely dismantled him in the past, but now she was just a dramatic friend he had accidentally hurt.
“Come on, let Pina heal you.”
He guided her back a bit more and turned her around so the young girl could tend to her.
“Ouch! That hurts!” the mage whined.
Alaster shook his head. Looking around, the surrounding crowd had already lost interest. He turned to see Syrus and Tagard approaching, the latter covered in a mess of green blood and spatters. As they drew near, the elf focused on his mental interface:
Spoiler
[Mastery Selection]
Sword Mastery | Torrent: A swordplay branch focusing on heavy, powerful strikes.
Sword Mastery | Flurry: A branch focusing on swift and precise slashes.
Sword Mastery | Hurricane: A branch specializing in wide sweeps capable of clearing multiple enemies, balancing speed and power.
[collapse]
“Am I supposed to pick one to get the skills?” he asked aloud.
“Yeah, though you could also pick none and keep going, even if that makes no sense,” Elise answered from nearby.
“No, handsome Al!” Deinderatrix squeaked from behind. “If you activate a Mastery, it’ll just consume your experience and cost double to level up until you complete the tree. For a mage, it’s a total waste—any spell is stronger than a sword skill!”
Alaster took a deep breath. It was obvious the mage hated the idea of him unlocking a physical Mastery. He simply smiled back at her.
Pina’s golden light healed the swollen hand in a single second. Deinderatrix opened and closed her fist before thanking the girl:
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“I’m gonna head out,” Elise chimed in. “I’m exhausted, I need a bath and some food.”
She said goodbye to Syrus and Tagard, who had just arrived. Pina and Deinderatrix left alongside her.
“I’m going to see if our demon-worshiping friend said anything or if Norde let him slip away,” the mage added.
The three girls walked off together. Alaster chuckled to himself as he watched them go, especially thinking about how Elise had probably found his sword intending to sell it, only for Norde to clarify whose it was so she had to return it.
«Poor thing, she was probably already counting that cash. I’ll pay them a little extra, considering Berona got a good weapon while they got nothing.»
Suddenly, he remembered the rewards he had received after defeating the orcs and the stone giant. He pulled up the pantheon’s gift interface:
Spoiler
[Pantheon Gifts]
[Card] Common Bread | Rarity: Common | Quality: ⭐⭐ | x354
[Card] Iron Arrows | Rarity: Common | Quality: ⭐⭐ | x86
[Card] Dagger | Rarity: Common | Quality: ⭐⭐ | x21
[Card] Orc-Tower Defense Shield | Rarity: Common | Quality: ⭐⭐⭐ | x4
[Card] Orc Siege-Tower Shield | Rarity: Venerated | Quality: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
[Card] Orc-Great Hunter Sword | Rarity: Noble | Quality: ⭐⭐⭐
[collapse]
«Looks like it’s Syrus’s lucky day... Wait, is this sword one-handed or two-handed?» he wondered.
“Everything alright, Al?” the tank asked as he approached.
Syrus pulled a glowing, thumb-sized crystal out of his pocket, perfectly diamond-shaped.
“Yeah, all good,” Alaster said, materializing two cards in his hands.
“We got the golem’s core crystal. It’s high-grade and should fetch a good price,” Syrus mentioned.
“At least five silver coins,” Tagard added. “That’s more than two months of regular wages.”
Alaster took the crystal and, with a smile, handed the shield card to the tank in a casual tone:
“How much do you think this is worth, my friend?”
Syrus took the card.
“Ah, it’s a card... Well, this is...”
He went dead silent. His face cycled through all the stages of grief: disbelief with wide eyes, anger as his brow furrowed, bargaining as he stared at the elf as if wanting to ask something, and finally acceptance.
“Is... is this a Venerated shield?”
Alaster ignored the stunned tank, who kept staring at the item as if trying to bore a hole through it with his gaze, and held out the other card to Tagard.
«I don’t really like this guy, but I guess I won’t do much with a greatsword anyway. I’ll keep the crystal... though what is it even for?» he thought, puzzled.
“That’s an item that isn’t classified as gear, Al,” Tagard said with a frown. “It should be sold and split among everyone.”
The warrior closed his mouth the moment he saw what the card was. Unlike Syrus, who remained paralyzed, the redhead used it immediately. The card dissolved, and a massive sword appeared in his hands amidst sparks and smoke. It was long and thick as two arms combined—a massive double-edged greatsword with a rounded guard instead of a crossguard. It had a stone embedded in the hilt, tribal engravings etched along the blade, and a leather-wrapped wooden grip topped with a pommel sphere. The whole assembly gave it a fierce look, on top of being absurdly long and heavy.
Tagard simply rested it over his shoulder.
“I’m leaving,” he said, turning on his heel.
“What about the stone?” Alaster called out.
“Don’t care,” Tagard replied. He paused, turned back, and let out a curt, “Thanks.”
It sounded more like a bark than a word.
“At least he has basic manners,” Alaster muttered as the redhead walked off. He then looked over at Syrus. “What about you? Aren’t you going to claim your card?”
The man shook his head, stepped up beside him, and clapped him on the back.
“Nah, I’m not crazy. I’m not hauling two shields all the way back to the cabin.”
Alaster looked out into the distance at the red-haired warrior, who was walking slowly with two massive swords slung over his shoulder, visibly exhausted. Both of them burst out laughing.
Before long, Syrus and Alaster arrived at the cabin, chatting as they walked.
“So you have a young daughter? I didn’t picture you as the family type,” the elf said, glancing sideways at the large blonde tank.
Syrus seemed like a quiet guy, but the reserved sort who looked like he weighed every single step he took.
“I never thought I’d be working this hard one day either... Guess I grew up after my little Kiri was born,” the warrior replied, shrugging with a faint smile.
Alaster returned the smile. As they drew closer, he made out Deinderatrix’s figure at the cabin’s entrance, arguing heatedly with Cledis and Chief Norde.
“What about you, elf? Are you married to some elven girl?” Syrus inquired.
Alaster shook his head.
“It’s complicated...”
“Better tell me later. Save some topics for after,” the tank interrupted.
Alaster understood immediately: the man wanted to save conversation for tonight’s gathering at the tavern.
“Fair enough,” the elf agreed. “Besides, look. Looks like there are still things to sort out.”
“Mmm, yeah...” Syrus muttered, though after a brief pause he looked back at him slyly. “Hey, Al... you’ve obviously got something going on with that gorgeous mage, right?”
Alaster raised an eyebrow at him.
“Save some topics for later, man!” the elf turned away, adding with theatrical drama: «So impatient...».
The tank chuckled softly at the reaction.
Finally, they reached the group gathered in front of the house.
“Lord Alaster, Master Syrus,” Cledis and Norde greeted as they arrived.
“You took your time,” Deinderatrix chimed in, crossing her arms. “I prepared a bath for you two. The girls and I are already done.”
“I’ll take that bath. I really need it,” Syrus accepted without hesitation.
The tank was caked in sweat, dirt, and vile green goblin blood.
“Go right ahead, no problem. It’s nothing urgent,” the mage told him.
Syrus headed straight inside, slipping off his boots and leaving them outside before crossing the threshold. Alaster stood in place, puzzled.
“Wait, were you waiting for me?”
“Yes, just to get a more complete report,” she answered.
The elf brought a hand to his chin, taking a second to think.
“I think the only detail I can offer is the strangely weird form of magic that guy was using.”
Norde shook his head, looking utterly lost.
“I don't know a thing about magic.”
Cledis mirrored the village chief's gesture.
“Technically, that wasn’t even magic,” Deinderatrix explained, stepping in. “It’s actually a ritual that uses... human souls to create a pool of concentrated miasma. That’s how those things are made.”
“Lady Deinderatrix... do you believe the golem wasn’t natural in origin?” Cledis interjected, her expression darkening.
“Precisely,” the mage affirmed sternly. “This is extremely serious. We might have stumbled upon the true origin of the goblin plague ravaging the territory.”
“What are you saying, my lady?” Norde asked, clenching his fists.
The mage shook her head gently.
“It’s just a theory, but if it’s true, these creatures are actually the creation of a cult pursuing some objective.”
Cledis narrowed her eyes as realization struck her.
“Then the ongoing kidnappings from the caravans...”
“Exactly,” Deinderatrix agreed. “It’s the cultists. They’re likely using those poor people to breed hundreds of goblins and other monstrous creatures.”
Cledis wrapped her arms around herself as goosebumps broke out across her skin.
“How horrible...”
Alaster listened in silence as the gravity of the situation hit him all at once.
«So that Istis guy wasn’t bluffing when he threatened me, saying this was only the beginning...»
“So what now?” the elf asked, looking at Deinderatrix.
The mage shrugged helplessly.
“Nothing. That guy bit his tongue and bled out in the basement where he was locked up. We’ve got nothing left to go on. Besides, this is way beyond any of us. I’ll do the only thing I can: leave tomorrow and report it to the guild.”
She paused briefly, fixing her dark eyes on the elf.
“I’ll be needing those documents you mentioned, handsome.”