A/N - Sorry for the update message, it's just me reuploading the tenth chapter with no more errors.
We reached the village less than an hour later. It was run-down and small, around ten buildings. Houses looked like they were about to collapse, all of them entirely made of old, rotten wood that remembers times of ages past. The stench of stagnation was all encompassing.
The people were dressed in little more than ripped fabric.
There were no children around, the youngest person looked to be in their fourties, but generally they seemed to be way past their prime.
Moss was creeping up some of the buildings.
It's like the place was ancient, existing outside of time for hundereds of years, and yet entirely susceptible to it.
I have mixed feelings, it's got an interesting atmosphere, a grim-dark feeling to it, but it's also clearly tragic, death gazes upon it.
There's a gut feeling, that I should leave as soon as possible, before all descends into helpless despair.
I ignore it, for what's the worst that could happen? Most pessimistic, some zombies or skeletons could rise from graves, with the vibe of this place.
But, as bad as it looks, people do live here and they have for a long time, so it really shouldn't come to that.
Yeah, I've got my runes, and Naela is slowly becoming more and more powerful, we should be fine.
Now then, to familiarize myself with where everything is.
-x-
There's a small shack at the edge of the forest where people gather, I wouldn't call it an inn, or even a bar, there's nothing inside except two small tables and five stools, the floor being dirt.
It's quite the displeasing room, except what the wizened elderly talk about. In rasped voices, they tell each other stories of jorneys, faraway lands, of treasure immense.
If they were once adventurers, that must've been at least some decades ago. Kinda shocked that they didn't run out of stories to tell to this time.
Or maybe gatherings like this one were just rare occurences.
The people don't seem to care that I appeared, either too taken up in their tales of old might, or wanderers like me frequent this place, maybe there are common quests to be done somewhere nearby?
I stayed there for some time, listening to the stories which proved to be quite interesting. I also asked about the Gem.
Didn't expect to find out anything, but to my surprise, I did get a lead - there's a Slane Theocracy outpost, a small fort, a day's worth of travel to the east, they supposedly hold a lot of information regarding lost artifacts and the like.
Don't know how much of this is true, but it's the only clue I have, so...
However, it was the Slane Theocracy that attacked the city during my first night in this world. Still no idea what their plans were with that stunt, but I remember how powerful they can be, raining down spells, summoning angelic constructs. If there's to be any chance of my success in ransacking that place, I need to be much more powerful.
It's not like there's no time, I have a lot of it to prepare. Ultimately two hundered years, but training that long to raid a fort would be true overkill.
They won't get any stronger, meanwhile my power will be rising always.
Now I sit with Naela on a fallen tree just outside the village, watching clouds move slowly across the expansive aether.
"We'll stay here for two months, is that okay with you?"
"I don't really know, I'd rather be adventuring instead of staying in ...such a place." she replied, twirling a stick in between her fingers.
"There's a fort nearby; it has information that may help us greatly in finding treasure, but as we are now it's impossible to steal it- there are many experienced mages in there. If we train here for two months that will no longer be the case, and when we get the papers documenting ruins and artifacts, there will be many adventures to do, more than we could hope to finish in a decade."
"But couldn't we sneak past the dangers? Just grab the things we want and go?"
"They've likely got magical protections against infiltrators, and if we get caught, I don't think my power is enough to take us out of trouble this time."
We've got to train.
"Eh, alright then." she still looked unconvinced, but likely saw my point.
-x-
And we stayed.
We did nightly dungeons, as well as more mundane training during the day.
Naela is now almost twice as strong physically as I was when we first started, my power also rose, albeit ...higher.
Name - Suisei Kyoryokou
Title - The Gamer
Level - 43
Class - Runecrafter - LVL 1 [94%]
Race - Human
Rank - Mortal
Allignment - Neutral Evil
HP - 750/750 [7.5 per minute]
MP - 1120/1120 [22.4 per minute]
SP - 750/750 [7.5 per minute]
STR - 53
END - 75
DEX - 70
INT - 131
100 INT Perk - Mana Finesse - Due to your mastery over casting runes, doing it now costs 50% less.
WIS - 112
100 WIS Perk - In tune with Nature - You regenerate magic two times faster when walking on ground unchanged by humans.
CHA - 36
LUK - 22
The perks I've gotten were such a welcome surprise.
Other than them, my body is now as hard as iron but still as flexible as it was before, I can lift a small car, and my reaction speed is enough to dodge arrows, even catch them - all of those things were tested, with various levels of protests from Naela.
That's not the best part.
Due to my highest stats, INT and WIS, I can now launch the Orb rune a bit faster than once per minute if I exhaust my magic reserve.
As well as, it now deals a fucking shit ton of damage.
640 DMG.
That is enough to vaporize a small house.
Casting it costs 50% less due to the perk, 15 MP.
I can launch 75 orbs before depleting my magic.
Summed up, that is 48000 damage.
Training with Inventory is progressing nicely as well, I'm now capable of stripping armor off of enemies, if given two seconds to focus.
With concentrating for a quarter of a minute, I'm capable of putting whole trees in there as well.
I wonder if my current power would allow me to defeat that undead skeleton which massacred the knights in Carne village. Fighting it doesn't feel so utterly impossible now.
I unlocked two new dungeons in the past months. One was a forest with red leaves and grass full of constructs of darkness that looked like wolves, a giant darkness crow being the boss. In the other one, a renaissance looking city, there were surprisingly quick five meter tall giants. The boss was a 15 meter giant with armor.
Both dungeons were difficult the first time I completed them, but they got easier with time.
I got two new runes for completing them, as the Orb rune with the skeleton ID.
[Fire Trail] ד
Gives the next projectile in a program a trail of fiery particles.
5 MP
This one's good for intimidation, the trail makes my projectiles seem more dangerous, a spear of light with a trail of fire is scarier than a spear of light.
Though I should be careful about firing projectiles with fire trails in forests, or other somewhat flammable places.
[Arrow Vortex] ה
The next projectile in a program has a strong whirlwind around it that captures enemy projectiles. Doesn't capture projectiles of a speed higher than 2000 KM/H, instead changing their path drastically.
10 MP
I call them modifiers, runes that don't do anything on their own, but influence other runes.
It's a bummer that they only affect the following rune, not all of them in a program.
Oh well, I'll take what I can get.
Especially now that me and Naela are gonna be going to the fort.
We bid our farewell to the few villagers that cared, and set off.
-x-
The sun hadn't set yet when we reached our destination, from our vantage point, a hill a few hundered meters away from the fort, it seemed to be barely a castle; a stone building with one tower on its side, and a roof with machicolations. On it seven mages were stationed.
I could earse it from existence with three to four shots of the Orb rune.
That will come later, now what I need to do is search that place to find the information regarding the Gem. Maybe other stuff as well.
"It'd be better if you stayed here. You're strong, but not enough for them not to be a problem to you."
She reluctantly agreed.
So I went.
I went with a smile on my face.
Even though my strongest Orb rune can't be used here out of concern for the materials, I made an Orb rune on a weaker rock - its power is comparable to the most powerful one from before we started training for this.
And so, it is just enough to vaporize a steel door, and a meter of stone brick around it.
Oddly specific comparison?
No.
That just happened.
On the inside, a large room with a few tables, were some mages already making magic circles pointed at me, they were professionals, not startled by my sudden entrance.
Before they fired two were already down, their anti-magic protections not doing much against my blasts.
"Fireball!"
"Thunder lance!"
"Acid arrow!"
Those were the three most popular choices of projectiles a dozen mages fired at me. Fireballs were laughably easy to avoid, being barely faster than a thrown rock, Acid arrows were a bit faster, but still not enough for me to get hurt, and Thunder lances were faster than mundane arrows. During dodging, I got hit once by one of those, it took 1/15 of my health - less damage than I was expecting, more than I hoped for.
Maneuvering between their projectiles, there were openings I used to shoot Orbs at their feet, felling the attackers one by one.
No, they aren't the attackers anymore.
After a few seconds, they were all downed- none dead, every single one writhing in pain in small craters left by my spell, their legs missing.
The lot of them will die in a minute, two at max.
I giggled a bit.
Ahh, this is pleasure, I feel so tingly inside seeing the scum of earth dying!
I kinda feel like reacting like that would get me from before training horrified, that it isn't natural.
Eh who cares, it's enjoyable, no reason to hold myself from doing it.
From two doors come more mages, with spells at the ready. Seeing me, they shoot immediately.
The bloodbath continues.
-x-
I leveled up sometime during the slaughter - that was a whole lot of humans, at least fourty, across eight rooms. Once, as leveling has been getting harder and harder, I was nearing it beforehand.
I took everything that looked expensive from each room, there was a safe containing a few gold bars, as well as papers that looked to be the thing I was looking for.
Putting it in my inventory freed what it held, I love this ability.
Such a shame it doesn't work on living things.
It does on corpses though, and I will put all of them inside.
What? Dead men may come in handy at some point.
Like a shock factor when I dump all of them in front of the house of my enemy.
Psychological warfare, heheh.
-x-
I checked the fort one last time before getting out of there.
I contemplated destroying the building as a show of power, but decided against it, better not to show all my power instantly.
Going back to where I left Naela, a frown crosses my face. A strange feeling of unease washes over me, something's not right.
But what?
Reaching the place, she isn't there.
She isn't there.
Those miserable fucks of the Theocracy must have taken her, of that I have no doubt.
A rage is boiling within me.
-x-
I returned to the fort, destroying walls and the floor, looking for anywhere she may be hidden, for it was possible that she was held within.
That slight hope was squashed after not finding anything.
I did it after all - the building crumbled after a few more shots from the outside.
There was a map of outposts same as this one held in there, and now I have it for myself.
It is time to go on a fucking rampage.
-x- Naela's POV
I'm running, or more accurately stumbling, through the forest. Tears welling in my eyes.
I have known of her corruption, ignored it, lied to myself that she's a good person.
I both can't believe she would do such a thing, and knew she was capable of it.
It is now that the dam broke, that I stopped seeing illusions, and fully saw how evil she is.
No! There's something good within her still!
...I don't know.
But I cannot stay with her.
There's something I must do.
I must report her, report her to the authorities. They have experienced mages, they can... can capture her.
I can't do this anymore.
I must do it.
For the good of many more, for her own good, and return to the light, she must be stopped.
I feel overwhelming guilt at just thinking of it, but it must be done.
-x- Suisei's POV
Walking at a quick pace directly to the nearest fort, two days away.
How dare they take the only person I treasure in this world?
How dare they?
-x- A day later
The measurements on the map said it was two days away, the ones who made it didn't take moving at night into account.
A building very similar to the one I destroyed some time ago was before me, a fifty meters or so.
"Hey!" I shouted to the mages on the roof of the small castle. "If you don't all come out now I will raze that little fort of yours from the face of the earth!" To prove my point, I fired five of my strongest Orb runes in quick succession into the ground next to the building, careful not to damage trees, making a crater larger than the castle's taken area.
It seems like that scare worked on them, three dozen coming out in a group. I heard one mutter something a tad too loudly, about an impossible witch possessing fifth tier magic.
They don't want to lose that fort, logical thinking.
But you see, I never told them they'll be spared if they come out.
I just wanted them out of the place Naela may be kept at.
They are now easy targets to vaporize en masse with my Orbs.
The mages see I'm pointing my rune at them, and tense up.
Seeing the spell coming out of my rune causes them to attempt at either attacking me or fleeing, the former being more prominent.
Yet they accomplish nothing, my projectile being too fast for them to go through incantations for their attack spells. A third of them dies as my blast hits.
My lips curl up into a barely visible smile contradicting current emotions, as I see the panicked expressions on the faces of the others, and the EXP gain notifications that are flowing in.
Two more Orbs, and there isn't anyone here, except me; a silence encompasses the forest, as if itself was stunned by my display of power.
Slowly walking towards the door of the building, going past craters, blood and body parts scattered without their owners.
I launch a spell at the door to be sure there isn't anyone waiting on the other side.
Noone.
Strolling inside, I go around stealing all valuable items, same as once before, but this time also destroying each room for any trace of secret passages.
No secrets, and no Naela.
I reduce the fort to rubble.
Now, where is the next outpost?
-x- Naela's POV
I'm not crying anymore, but the sadness and guilt are overwhelming.
Still running, I have found that I can keep up a pace for more than a day before starting to tire.
...
Why? Why are those feelings so intense? I've known Sui for four months, that isn't nearly enough for me to get so attached to her. The force in which the emotions stir within me, they're as if we, me and her, have been at each other's side for...
...For thousands of years.
It seems unbelievable, and how would I know what being with someone for that long feels like, specifically?
I have no idea, but there isn't any better way to describe it all.
-x- Suisei's POV
A week had passed with three more forts destroyed, none of them holding my friend.
I have leveled up once more, which improved my state of mind an infinitesimal amount, it's much easier to level from killing humans instead of going to dungeons.
In my highly emotional state, I dumped all the newly acquired stat points into Endurance, as it dictated how far I may run before tiring, which in turn could help me rescue Naela quicker. It also improved my HP and its regeneration rate, but that wasn't important in the spur of the moment.
-x-
Another week passes, five more outposts have been obliterated, two levels gained, and I am suspecting that She is not being held by the Theocracy.
I recently remembered that my anger fades away when I get near Naela. It hasn't, maybe even getting more fierce than before.
A castle is before me, akin to the past ten that were felled by my magic, standing before it, I abruptly decide that it isn't worth my trouble anymore.
Not going inside, I've gained many items from the past ones, and there isn't a slither of doubt in my mind that She is not held within.
A barrage of Orb blasts turns the building into a gaping hole in the ground, no blood, no screaming, and no rubble.
I've had enough.
I am returning to the city, to E-Rantel.
That is where she must be, either imprisoned by some sect or other fucks whose identities I don't care about, or having freed herself from wherever, she returned there, hoping for my return as well.
Even if she's not there, being near the bookstore should at least mute this emotion, I really hope so.
-x-
A week later, I'm at the city's gates.
My rage has faded, the same way it did once before when I got close to Her.
It's before noon, and it is strangely quiet, noone is on the main street, no merchants, no farmers going out to the fields. The only noise is that of a sole bird singing on top of the wall.
What's happening?
I had no idea that question was better left unanswered.
An entire army of mages, hundereds upon hundereds emerged from alleys, surrounding me in seconds, all were pointing ready spells at me.
What's happening?
No. I am this close to reuniting with Her.
No.
But... this many spells, if I was caught by them, even my superhuman HP wouldn't be of much use.
There's only one option that could work; Dungeon.
And so I escaped from that reality.
Wasting the dungeon, I came out of it half a minute later to find disorganized, but strangely, not confused mages. Doesn't matter. It's now much easier to kill them all, and less dangerous.
They notice my return, and many negative emotions dance across their faces, some starting to chant spells, others going somewhere- perhaps to inform their superior. I don't take notice of any of that, instead focusing on slaughtering them, firing runes in all directions.
Each Orb vaporizes from ten to twenty, and leaves a crater in the ground.
As their spells start flying, I weave through them with relative ease, casting my own at the same time. This is much more managable than a single undodgable rain of projectiles.
Their surprise and focus rapidly turn to fear, as they see how many of theirs are dying from just the magic of one person.
Not even a minute later, the main road is ruined with blood, silence descending upon it all once more.
Level up, four times.
I walk on crimson ground with only one goal in mind, to return to Naela, to my dearest friend.
Crossing the streets known to me I make my way to the Bookstore. Knocking on the door, noone responds.
I shout for Naela to come open up, nothing.
My anger is still there, she isn't in here.
I hear many footsteps behind me; another ambush.
Turning around, there aren't as many enemies this time, less than a hundered.
Fucking thank you, whoever sent those men after me.
This is not sarcasm, I really need to let out some of the Rage, especially now that I don't have the slightest idea where Naela may be.
Expressionless, I bombard the fools with spells, opposite of what a rational person would think the outcome of such a situation.
And once again, the earth around me turns red, as I stand before the wooden door to Inhocepi, to my past of peace, shooting orb after orb at the ones before me.
And I level up once more.
Whoever sent those people didn't have any idea of my capability to get stronger, of the Path to Evil's blessings. But that's the least to be expected, I guess.
Chilly wind blew through, making a quiet sound as it passed, a whimper.
What can I do now?
What should I do now?
Find Naela.
How?
How can I be with her once more?
The anger is turning into deep sadness of equal force, at the realization that there aren't any places I can think of where She would be.
I do not know if it's better that I feel this, or not.
Soulless?
It's... still possible She's being held somewhere within the Theocracy, maybe the rage was earlier dulled by being somewhere familiar?
Now I cannot check it for sure, for it is gone, as are my other emotions except for cold sorrow.
Don't know what happened to induce this change, don't care about it.
I shall continue spreading death in that accursed land.
-x-
Coming back to the Theocracy wasn't difficult, just had to follow similar routes as once before, and such a large area isn't difficult to miss if one's going even remotely in the right direction.
Going through Katze plains gave me a strange feeling of peace, the miasma of death, the skulls of fallen soilders, few undead skeletons tolling in the distance. It has its own kind of beauty, I don't know how to describe it.
A skeletal dragon appearaed once, I didn't run, instead deciding to attempt to kill it. Don't know why that was, I wouldn't normally risk it.
It took dozens of Orbs, but I succeeded - it wasn't completely immune to magic after all, only highly resistant.
All the achievement did was let me down, don't have any idea what I wanted that time.
Currently sitting on a boulder near a small river. In the time it took me to get here, I considered my options, and decided that despite the massive EXP gain from humans, murdering everything I come across isn't the correct thing to do; kill only the things that I can get away with, as well as the ones that stand in my way.
Reading documents at the moment, those I retrieved during my first raid on a Slane Theocracy fort, about the Gem.
There wasn't any way to do this in the past weeks, as I was consumed by emotions, but now it's more akin to an escape, the more I think of raising my power, the less my emotions rule over me.
The Mirvulean Gem is located in a storage facility within the mountains, it says here. The file is probably many years old, judging from the quality of the paper, but it's my only lead.
Looking at a map, there's one mountain range completely within the reaches of the Theocracy, it's only reasonable to check there for the storage facility at first.
-x-
About a fourth the way there, I encounter a fort directly on my path. Well, it is technically crossing me, so no reason not to destroy it, right?
There isn't anything for me to take from there that I don't already have, most likely, so best just blast it from a distance.
After doing so, three level up notifications appear.
Three.
Why has that happened?
Ah. I'm above LVL 50 now, the started debuff Game informed me of some time ago is now null.
Wait, I haven't done a dungeon in a while now, wondering if there were any boosts to them...?
It's likely, the starter debuff was explicitly general, that means now everything should be easier, better, more efficient. I'll rest some within the ruins of the fort - I've got to experiment a bit.
-x-
There were some changes to how the Game worked.
First, there isn't a limit to how many runes I can make per day with experience going to my class.
Second, all EXP seems to gather up much faster.
Third, doing a quick dungeon taught me that the boss now drops a random rune, even if it's an ID I did before. Got a "spark bolt with trigger" rune, a small arrow of pinkish electricity that only deals three damage without material auguments, pretty trash by itself, however the description said it would cast the follow-up rune upon collision. It isn't that important now, but being a programmer in my previous life, I can see enormous potential.
Fourth, mana regeneration now equals the amount of WIS I have, instead of dividing it by five.
Those are the things I discovered with twenty minutes of experimenting, excluding the two hour dungeon.
It's some broken stuff.
Oh, and apparently due to reaching a hundered in my Endurance, I've gained this perk,
[Essence of the Death Knight]
Once per day, you will be able to negate the damage of an attack that would kill you otherwise, and is less than END*STR*LVL.
I know it's probably just a coincidence, but it really feels like when I started murdering humans, my growth rate skyrocketed.
Well, partially a coincidence; the Path to Evil which I once feared has assisted me greatly. It's one of the better perks in my collection, even though it isn't technically in the category.
All in all, getting stronger.
And so, after the quick stop I begin my pilgrimige to the mountains.
-x-
The forest is empty.
There are many birds singing, wind rustling the leaves of elder trees, a squirrel hopping from branch to branch, worms burrowing under the ground, a grand sight to all senses.
Yet it is empty, utterly desolate, purposeless.
Human structures, there's anger when I see them, the exact same emotion being away from Her used to induce. If Nature is nothing, settlements are worse than nothing; compare not feeling a thing to only pain.
Every time I encounter a village, I have to restrain myself from blowing it to smitherines, leaving bare ground for the Forest to reclaim.
It is rather tempting.
-x-
A week later, the mountains can be seen on the horizon, towering over everything else, yet little in my vision.
Clouds shrouded the towering peaks, mist was rising from the valleys.
The facility must be within.
-x-
Three days of searching, I think this might be it.
A tower connected to a vertical side of a mountain, held up by magic, presumably.
Wondering how one gets inside?
An entrance dug from the rock is probable, or maybe they teleport there.
I should search the surrounding area for any secret doors, suspicious caves.
-x-
After minutes, I find an entrance that isn't hidden by any means, it stands out in the forest, a dark metal door mounted on stone. Eh, those guys probably don't care, it's in the heart of their nation, and far away from any other human settlements; in the mountains.
But then why put in the effort to build it on a vertical slope?
Truly, the rich, religious and fanatical are utterly impossible to make sense of by the common folk 'like me'.
After blowing up the door I head inside, where a carved staircase greets me.
Getting a rune in both my hands, I venture upwards.
It really is a shame that within this place there may be a thing I don't want destroyed, or I'd have blasted it from afar.
But I'm also excited, as well as a bit worried.
If the Gem is in here, then I'm about to recieve a major power boost, the strength of the rune I put on there will be orders of magnitude higher than even the most powerful one in my inventory, being capable of destroying whole cities in a few shots...
Though I really should wait some time to get a better rune than the Orb to put on there, what with the new mechanic of a rune per dungeon.
The stairs end with a second door, which I delete immediately.
Within the tower, there's nothing but dust.
No tables, no papers, no mages, no books, just an empty inside, colorfully lit up by a singular mosaic window up there, which seems to be showing a white armoured figure with light yellow wings, an angel. I can appreciate such art, but it isn't the reason of coming here.
I knew it wouldn't be that easy.
Game stated that the Gem is somewhere even this world's deities wouldn't dare to go.
Yeah, why would gods be afraid of going here, to a random outpost?
My only lead...
Fuck this.
[A/N]
A Damn Lot has happened in this chapter, despite it being very short, hopefully you don't find the changes to be for worse, the MC is now more of an OP Gamer instead of a Nerfed Gamer as she kinda used to be, plus the Starter Debuff is gone.
From now on assume that Suisei has all the runes she needs to do something, as every night she gains a new one.
I haven't forgotten about Bone Daddy - I check the timeline as I do timeskips.
The Path to Evil has ended its course during the training, but stayed.
Suisei is an evil bitch now.
And I love it.
When I first started writing this, I wanted an evil MC- then decided that a corruption arc is more fulfilling than making Sui evil from the start.
About her power, I say she's capable of damaging and fighting the weaker Pleiades by now, but still not enough to win.
If she gets the Mirvulean Gem, that's a whole different story.
My pa tre on is loudsilence