Chapter 159: Save Point
Elthena was never far from his mind on the voyage north, but by the time they’d made landfall, he’d made peace with it. This life was important, but this body was old and starting to get a little worn out, so he was going to lock in the events here as well as he could, then proceed further into the depths. He doubted he was anywhere close to in shape enough to slay a dragon at this point in his life, but he had the armor anyway, so he might as well try just the same.
After he fixed it, of course. The heat and the impact had done some real damage, but it was hardly a priority.
Simon returned to the little town of Blackwater with Daisy in tow, and after promising that he would not seek to return, the captain gave him a generous purse of gold and silver and wished him well. Simon would keep that promise, of course, but only in this life. In his next one, he would return to Ionar the day this ship put out to sea.
He’d have to explain the missing scars or inflict them a second time, but neither of those options bore much thinking just yet. He wasn’t sure if the truth or the lie would be more harmful in this case.
Instead, Simon spent some time in his least favorite town, listening to stories and getting a feel for the lay of the land after all these years. It turned out that the whole zombie thing was pretty much over. Every now and then, they’d find a body that made people think it might not be over yet, but usually, that was just a false alarm.
That made sense, considering it had been the better part of a decade since he’d been back. Mercenaries had cleansed the area north of the bridge, and trade had long since restarted. Honestly, with the exception of a new statue in the center of town, the place was looking better than he’d ever seen it. The streets were bustling, the bars were full, and spirits were high. The only thing that ruined it was the fact that Kel was the one who had gotten all the credit for it. Kel, the asshole that had infected the town in more than one previous version of the level. Kel, the prick that had hidden his own wound until he’d turned and almost taken out his whole company. The man had very nearly gotten Freya killed, too.
No, worse than that, he almost turned her into a fucking zombie! Simon though, fuming.
He had no idea what Freya and the other survivors of the Butcher’s Bill had told the people of Schwarzenbruck, but it definitely wasn’t the truth. The only reason he didn’t waste a word of force to knock the thing over was because he wasn’t really in a position to be wasting weeks or months of his life. Physically, he was getting close to forty, but with all the magic he’d burned in those years and the lingering effects of the injuries that had healed as much as they were ever going to heal, he was probably pushing sixty at this point, which was as old as he’d ever been except for a brief moment on level 20.
At least he didn’t see Freya, though. So there was that. He did see Brenna, though she wasn’t a barmaid anymore. She’d gotten married and had a couple kids in between now and the last time he was here, which he thought was fairly cute.