I was quick to spot those who needed help vs those who could get out fine on their own power, and moved to assist the former.

As I did I thought.

My situation wasn't particularly great in the short term. Long term I had options, but in the short term... yeah there were going to be problems.

~Problems like rampaging Behemoths?~

Well in the original timeline yes, Leviathan, the much faster, aggressive, martially adept, and physically devastating brother to The Simurgh would be due in somewhere between two to four months. Though given how differently this fight played out he could now show up anywhere on the planet and any time within that period.

~And you're going to go fight it~

That's what Slayers did.

~Yeah I can see that being a problem~

But not my most immediate one.

~You're just a barrel of good news aren't you?~

No the main issue I had in the short term was that I had about zero resources to make immediate use of and none of the skills needed to survive off in nature.

~...Well you could always just go and take them~

I blinked.

Huh, that might actually be an option.

~Wait. Seriously? I mean you're not going to get into some stupid human morality thing on me on this?~

Oh not at all. Not when I had a perfectly acceptable target lined up.

~So we are doing the stupid human mor-~

Who was stupidly wealthy.

~Okay, this is sounding a bit better~

Admittedly his defenses were pretty good. Former military contractors armed with highly advanced weaponry. However I didn't need to do everything by Malfeas' playbook.

~Even if it is a really fun book~

It was, but in this case I think Loom Snarling Deception and a few well placed words would get me in easier.

~Spoilsport~

Can't do everything the fun way. Right after that the main focus would be accumulation of experience, and training.

Which really should have been disquieting but frankly was way to awesome to justify any sort of angst about.

I'd have preferred to work on base attributes, and I would but getting those up to par was going to be along bit of work. Half a year in some cases, more to get my 'wits' up to par. I could compensate with spells and skill, but honing myself to borderline perfection was going to be a long, long trip.

And Leviathan wasn't going to wait.

Since I needed to turn myself into something that could tank hits like a bunker, and deal them out like an artillery barrage, I was going to need to focus on short term benefits over long term optimization.

This wouldn't really cost me to much. I'd have picked up these tricks sooner or later anyway, but I was still going to be skipping right to the flashy stuff when normally I was more comfortable refining my basics.

I knew of a lot of charms that wouldgreatlyexpand my ability to take a hit, and make my own attacks sting beyond what was physically possible, but I was also still pretty new to this. I didn't exactly have a hard character sheet in front of me but I knew how to train to get them. I didn't know how I knew. Well I knew how I knew, memories left over from the last guy who had the exaltation but I didn't know how he had learned the process and all that. It was just...there. Like how I knew to do a backwards flying flip kick. I never learned how to do these things I just knew how to do them.

Anyway what I needed was a way to hit without fail, a strong passive defense, and something to shore up my piss poor situational awareness. One charm could give me the first two at the price of being extremely obvious and frankly off putting as hell for polite company. The second I could just grab a surprise negater for. Malfeas had a good one within my reach, and while I wasn't sure how I'd train for it, I had a general idea of how to go about it. It'd take longer without a guide, but I could do it in the time I had left.

~Or you could just ask my help~

...Or I could just ask the help of the guide my patrons had helpfully assigned to me.

"I think that's the last of them," One of the heroes at the entrance commented.

I looked around, the entire place lit up by the bonfire of my anima. It'd died down a bit after the battle but was still light bright enough to be seen for miles, and very clearly illuminated the completely empty, sans for myself, room.

"Ya think?" I questioned eyebrow raised.

"Haha," he responded. It was the guy who had asked for my help in the first place, he was your 'standard' seven foot tall brute package, built like a brickhouse and dressed up like Nolen's take on batman if he had gone with bears instead of small flight capable mammals for imagery.

I couldn't help but think of the idea of a billionaire bear, who dressed up in with gadgets to go ninja vigilantly in the middle of the night and realized that was actually a pretty damned terrifying prospect.

Then I wondered what sort of charms I'd need to teach a bear kung fu.

~Focus boss~

Right.

"I'd offer a hand but I'm pretty sure this thing would fall on you if I did. Can you get out so I can drop this thing?" he questioned the strain in his voice really selling his point.

I obliged clambering clear before he let the several tons of brickwork fall.

The sound was actually a lot less then I expected it to be. Then again, I'd pretty much just redefined my definition of 'loud' in the fight with all the screaming and explosions.

I spared Alexandra a wary look before looking back to the unknown cape then between them "Where too next?"

Something groaned and fell down from the second floor.

"How about out of here?" Bearman suggested.

"Sounds good!" I agreed

"Dragon will be coordinating efforts, just use your armband," She who I would not acknowledge informed.

Really, really wanted to punch her in the face.

~I feel your pain. Literally, I feel your pain, so please don't pick this fight yet~

I wasn't that dumb.

"Please proceed to area SW8," the little device bleeped out in response. A little display on it I just now noticed showing a little grid with both me and the highlighted area.

Huh, this thing was handier then I thought. I almost wished I'd paid more attention to it the first time.

Bearman didn't seem to get the same answer, and instead exhaled, "Looks like the bosses want to talk to you. Well that or it's time to go home," he commented.

I quirked a sort of half smirk but it didn't quite reach my eyes, "Yeah... wonder which one it is."

There was only one way to find out.