Chapter 3: First Steps:
"Holy crap. This place is really pretty."
Pestil was rendered immobile in awe of the sapphire blue expanse that lay before him. The Pit of the World's End was situated in the middle of a wide formation of steep granite cliffs that overlooked a deep blue sea, the only sounds on the rocky cliffs were the rustling of deep green grass blowing gently in the sea breeze and the faded crashing of foamy waves against the jagged cliffs. Pestil continued to be transfixed by the beauty of a live and vibrant sea, something he could never have experienced in real life as the world was heavily polluted, before Pestil was brought out of his daze by bored yawns of Sylvia behind him.
"It be much better looking if it were a sea of molten metal, just saying."
Pestil turned away from the sprawling sea and turned to look at what was behind him. Behind Pestil was a large expanse of short green grasses that were swaying in the light wind. The only change in this scenery were the occasional large chunks of mossy granite that dotted the landscape, and one sun bleached human skeleton that wore rags, looking like it had been there for quite some time. In the horizon one could just barely see the outline of wooden houses in the distance. The homes looked sturdy but plain, with simple fire pits encircling the group of fifteen or so houses. Normal people would be unable to see the homes from this distance, but Pestil's inhuman green eyes helped aid in seeing farther than most. The gentle orange flickering of the fire was similar to the numerous stars twinkling in the dark night sky. Pestil looked both worried and excited at the sight of the presumably occupied village.
"Well, we may be meeting our new neighbors sooner than I thought. I expected to end up in some forsaken desolate land where nothing could thrive, but this is a pleasant surprise."
Sylvia looked serious and uttered a harsh proposal.
"Lord Pestil, I believe we should immediately show them who's in charge of this region now. Should I go and teach them their place?"
Pestil looked distracted as he responded to Sylvia's proposal.
"No no, we should be civil about this if possible. Now will they be friendly or hostile to us is the question. I should send a punitive expedition force to stealthily gauge the inhabitants disposition."
After Pestil said this he moved one of his armored lower hands out in front of him.
"「Create Low Tier Insect: Enchanted Butterf-"
Numerous small brown moths suddenly appeared around Pestil. They were all level 1 moths, with no abilities. Pestil was internally confused as to why his passive skill, Conscription of Insect Born, had activated when he had already turned it off, but decided to deal with it later and tried his summoning again.
"「Create Low Tier Insect: Enchanted Butterfly」"
A small magic circle formed on the ground, and a small butterfly with giant, dazzling wings appeared before him. It's oversized wings darted from one bright color to the next. After rapidly flapping it's colorful wings a few times, it slowly became transparent until it could no longer be seen. Pestil closed his eyes once it became invisible, and seemed to concentrate. After a few minutes of this, Pestil eventually reopened his eyes and extended his hand outwards. Within his outstretched palm the colorful butterfly from before slowly became visible. The butterfly then crumbled into a sparkling magical powder that blew away on the slight wind.
"So it seems the village is inhabited by humans, and none appear strong or combat ready. It's just a normal, peaceful village. We'd be best off making contact with them and conducting civil exchanges of information. We should hide our location first though.「Create Mid Tier Insect: Stone-gorged Bug」."
After Pestil finished reciting the name of his summoning skill, the lone skeleton that lay in a pile of torn rags began to liquefy. The liquified bones became a dark black putrid sludge that smelled like meat that had been left out in the sun for a week. The sludge clumped together and formed into a large stone beetle. It's shell was as large as a house, and looked like a jagged boulder. It's many rugged legs were protruding outwards at an angle from underneath the rocky shell. It had no visible eyes or head, only a shelled body and legs. Pestil looked surprised and quietly mumbled to himself.
"Eh? Why did that skeleton become a Stone-gorged Bug? That's really different from Yggdrasil. I'll have to conduct experiments on this later, but first we must construct basic defenses. I can only summon so many Stone-gorged Bugs a day, but with some of my saved up stockpiles of scrolls, I can summon more."
Pestil reached an armored hand into the air in front of him, and it suddenly appeared to partially disappear. Pestil looked through his cluttered inventory until he found the scrolls he wanted and retrieved them. His hand appeared again but with many scrolls stacked upon his palm. He threw them up into the air and a blue flame soon reduced them to nothing. Upon activation of the scrolls, a group of fifteen Stone-gorged Bugs appeared. In unison they all started to pile atop each other, and their legs all locked together to form what, if viewed from afar, would appear to be a short pile of stones. The Stone-gorged Bugs now concealed the large pit that lead into their base. To passersby it would look like nothing more than a rocky mound, like one of many granite mounds that dotted the cliffs.
"Now that that's been dealt with, let's go towards the village. This should be a fun visit."
Shelly seemed surprised by the suggestion to visit the village.
"Lord Pestil, would it not be considered strange to the humans if we visited them at night? Perhaps we should wait till day?"
Pestil seemed unconcerned and simply waved off the notion.
"Nonsense, if they can't deal with unexpected visitors, then they aren't worth our time. People should be willing to open their homes to guests at all hours, me included. That's why we have the guest rooms on the third floor. Granted if the guests were hostile, they would be dealt with appropriately."
Shelly still seemed unconvinced but gave up pursuing the matter. The trio made their way to the village at a leisurely pace, giving the two burly men stationed at a watchpost on the village's border enough time to see figures approaching. One of the two men, a muscular man with dark tanned skin and curly dark orange hair, decided to say something to the other man, a large and misshapen man with a bald head, about the approaching figures.
"Oi, Florn, isn't it too early for the hunting party to be back yet? I thought it would take them three days."
The second man, Florn, yawned and tiredly replied.
"So what? They got back a little quicker. Maybe they ran into some trouble with a Snarling Rotwood or something. Either way I don't particularly care, I just wanna have Randolph take over my shift so I can get some well earned shut-eye. Randolph is crazy like you Stoln, you both seem to take this job seriously. I mean, when was the last time anything ever attacked our village that wasn't just a hungry wolf or two? Easily dealt with."
The red headed man, Stoln, flexed his large arms in response.
"You wanna get smart with me Florn?"
Florn only lazily scratched his bald head in response, and yawned yet again.
"Whatever, nothing gets through your thick skull anyway. But seriously, look at the figures there, there's only three of em. Unless most of the hunting party got wiped out, I'd say we have visitors. Maybe a few weary monks in need of a place to stay, wouldn't be the first time. The Slaine Theocracy doesn't treat the Northern Monks very well, so we've got to show them a little compassion, they were exiled from their holy site for heaven's sake."
Florn still seemed more concerned with when his next nap was than with the topic of monks. Stoln looked annoyed, but decided to let it go.
"Whatever. You can sit here all ya like, I'm gonna go do my job and see what's what."
Stoln got up out of his wooden seat, and left the rundown looking outpost. As he approached the figures, he could finally tell what they looked like. He assumed that something must have been wrong with his eyes, as he thought one of them was made of metal, another was both part bug and surrounded by small brown moths, yuck, and the last one at least looked relatively normal except for her choice of attire, a long blue dress, green plate armor, and a weird water filled bowl on her head. After blinking a few times he concluded that his eyes did in fact work, and that the strange people in front of him were real.
"What in the hell."
End of chapter 3
Author's note: The reviews have been what got me writing this again, so thanks for reading! :D Also, the next part will be about the village and Pestil encountering each other.
