I have to stop this, but I shouldn't jump to conclusions. I'll talk to the alchemist and see if she's truly evil. I signal Maria and the knights to stay back, then knock on the door, and wait for a response. And wait. Maybe I should say something?
"Hello? Is anyone there?"
"Go away." A very flat response comes from the inside. At least I'm not eating a fireball.
"I just want to talk. Can I come in?"
"Ohhh sure, of course you can, why can't you?"
"Alright, I'm coming in." I open the door. The inside of the house looks very messy. Papers and all sorts of chemistry equipment was haphazardly strewn everywhere, and a broken culture tank stands on one of her tables. The only place where there was a semblance of organization, and a lamp, was the desk she was working at. When I open the door she immediately gets up from her desk and turns towards me. She looks to be in her mid-twenties, pretty thin, and is wearing a stereotypical lab coat with glasses. She has long purple hair that looks like it should be smooth, but is instead frizzled.
"I was being sarcastic. Get out." The woman glares at me, her gaze seemingly trying to burn a hole in my skull.
"Wait! I know you're not evil. Somebody who's evil wouldn't make such soft weak creatures."
Her gaze doesn't soften in the slightest. Given how her house was vandalized, I can assume that wasn't all the villagers did to her. I'm worried words won't be enough.
"How did you know I didn't make these creatures just to eat the villager's crops? "
I think I know what this is. This is a test to see if I truly think she's innocent, or if I'm someone just trying to use nice words to get closer, so I need to think of a good answer to this. Well the first question is easy at least.
"Because you're dependant on the villages harvest too." Quickly looking around, I didn't see any food items, and her house didn't smell like food either, so its safe to assume she hasn't eaten anything for a while.
"What if I have a secondary source, or if I just hunt monsters?"
Damn, she turned up the difficulty on me quickly. I need to think hard about this. Is there any possible way to refute that claim though? I quickly scan the room some more to see if there was anything I missed. Aside from more papers I can't read, and alchemy equipment I barely know anything about, there was one thing that stuck out to me. A broken culture tank.
"You can't hunt the monsters, because that would allow somebody to possibly vandalize the inside of your house, and I know you didn't release that creature, because that tank is broken. It wasn't released, it escaped."
"Quite the jump in logic to think that tank was for the Boink specifically, but how could such a soft creature break a glass wall?"
She's relaxing a little now. Her guard isn't down, but I think she's believing me a bit more. However, she did pose a hard question. A soft creature with such low attack power and strength couldn't have broken any wall. The only way it could do anything to someone was biting them, and you can't exactly bite a flat surface. I think through everything I know about these creatures. The king mentioned an abnormal amount of monsters attacking the village, and when we had gotten here the village was surrounded by Boinks. Killing all the Boinks that attack the village doesn't solve anything. Does that mean even killing about one hundred of them a day doesn't affect their population in any significant way? But culture tanks wouldn't hold multiple specimens. If it started from one, and if this has only been a problem for a short time, it would have to be able to replicate itself at a high speed.
"It replicated itself in the tank, and eventually built up enough pressure to break it."
"Either you're very smart or very lucky. Second to last question: Why would I make it able to do that in the first place?"
Everything has pieced together for me. The number of creatures, how they got all out of control, their strength, and the high amount of experience they give.
"You were trying to create a monster that was easy for weak adventurers to level up with, and able to reproduce quickly to keep up with adventurer demand."
Her eyes had widened with amazement, and she had a small smile on her eyes.
"And why-"
"You know what it would be attracted to, and attempted to bring it back. One of them must be outside the range it could be attracted, and it keeps reproducing."
She slumps back in her chair, an exhausted look on her face.
"That was slightly off. I had made a lure to limit how far the species could expand. A necessary measure to take for a species that can reproduce so fast. Unfortunately I was out of my lab when the first specimens broke out, and set up the lure too late."
"And everybody thinks you are intentionally trying to destroy their livelihood?"
"I did try to explain myself, but unfortunately it's much easier to hate than love."
She looks very stressed. At first she seemed amazed and relieved I was figuring it out, but now that the whole story is out, not much has changed overall.
"I've been trying to create a stronger lure to try and bring the other ones in too, but a lack of materials is holding me back. I've spent longer trying to make substitutes for ingredients I need, rather than working on the lure itself."
"What ingredients do we need?"
"In a cave to the north of here, there are a bunch of magic crystals. They have some good uses, but for us, when combined with a Chimera's liver, it creates a lure for the Boinks. Mining has stopped in that cave due to some powerful monster making its home there, so we should be able to find the crystals we need. As for the Chimera liver, I think I'm close to completing a substitute."
"How about we go to the cave? You can find the materials, and I can fight what's there."
"Hey I'm pretty strong you know."
"Uh, well I can carry it back?"
"Sounds good, but I need to make sure nobody messes with my materials."
"I'll have one of the knights stand guard."
"Sounds like a plan. However, if my research is destroyed, I may actually do something evil."
She had a kind of joking smile on, but there were menacing enough undertones that I couldn't actually tell if she was joking or not.
"Aw come on, no villain who takes themselves seriously names their first creation 'boink'"
"Ha ha ha!" That got a genuine laugh out of her
"What's your name?"
"Elzabell"
"I'm Ash. Nice to meet you!"
"This was a surprisingly pleasant meeting."
"Also I heard someone who tried to forcibly evict you got bad luck for a week. What happened with that?"
"I guess just a coincidence."
I told one of the knights to guard her house and make sure nothing was touched, while me, Maria, Elzabell, and the other knight went to the cave to the north. By walking, it was about a four hour trip. The only monsters we encountered were the Boinks, which we exterminated. There was a lot of silence. Only broken when the knight with us spoke up.
"The cave we're going to… is that the one that received the distress call a while back?"
Elzabell responds "Correct. The only other way besides farming the villagers could make a living was mining the crystals here. But I guess some monster staying in a cave is a low priority."
"I'm sorry for our lack of action. I'll do my best to make right on that today."
"Glad to hear it"
We arrived at the cave. The entrance was nice and wide, and it's clear the support in place was still in good condition. I expected it to be in worse condition, especially if there was a powerful monster in the area. Walking into the cave, it looked quite beautiful. There were a bunch of glowing crystals of all different colors on the walls, which Elzabell informed us were completely worthless. I suppose if they had value they would have been mined out already. Elzabell told us the only place there would probably be crystals is where the miners were forced to stop mining. We didn't know where that was, but surprisingly we found Boinks coming out of the cave, so we killed them and tried following where they were coming from. They kept leading us down deeper into the mine, until we arrived at a large room. In the center of this room was a giant lion-like beast with a dragon's head protruding from its back, and a snake for a tail. I believe this is a Chimera. Right next to it in the room was a group of Boinks.
"So it was a Chimera." Elzabell bitterly said. Upon hearing her voice, the Chimera turned to us and started approaching us growling.
"I am the source of great power. Blast this beast with beams of water! Zweite Aqua Shell!" Elzabell chanted a spell, and fired four shots of water at once towards the Chimera. The Chimera braced itself and took those impacts, and jeez those hits sounded hard. I'd need Quick Rush to come close to hitting that hard, but the Chimera barely looked hurt. More mad than anything. It roared at Elzabell and charged forward. I dashed forward to intercept it.
"Quick Rush III, Air Strike Bash III" I timed both skills so that they would hit at the same time, but when I collided with the Chimera, I was still sent flying back. The Chimera was just barely slowed to a stop, right in front of the knight. He swiped twice at it, leaving cuts across its face, but it didn't seem too bothered by it, and lunged forward to bite. The Knight managed to block it with his shield, but he was clearly weaker than the Chimera. Just how strong was it? Elzabell continued pelting it with more water spells, to little effect. Maybe there's a way I can find out how strong it is?
"Meat Appraisal"
This meat belongs to a Chimera. The Chimera in question is still alive
Brilliant. Just brilliant. But Meat Appraisal is a skill, so isn't it able to be upgraded by my power up method? I can reset the points spent on skills once a day, and allocate them again however I like. It really is a convenient system. If I upgrade my other skills to II and III, I'll have enough points to upgrade Meat Appraisal to II, so I'll give that a try.
"Meat Appraisal II"
This meat belongs to a level 45 Chimera. To safely prepare it-
The rest of that doesn't really matter. This Chimera is incredibly strong.
"Elzabell, Knight, what level are you?"
"I'm level 40" Elzabell replied.
"I'm level 35, and my name is Anton" The Knight replied.
Both me and Maria are level 15, so I doubt there's much we can do to help. I only managed to affect the Chimera because my stats are higher than a normal person, and because I combined two amplified skills. There has to be something me and Maria can do… I read over the Meat Appraisal in full until one part caught my eye.
The meat on the snake tail is far easier to prepare due to being less tough than the rest of the Chimera
"Maria, kill the Boinks over there, I'll do what I can here"
"Got it"
"Air Strike Bash III" I wait for a time when its tail is particularly close to the ground, and manifest the fist right above it, smashing its tail into the ground. The Chimera howls in pain, relenting in its attack for a second. It gives the knight enough time to cast a spell
"I am the source of this power. Amplify my allies magical might! Erste Magic Boost."
An aura flares from Elzabell, and with a grin she encants her next spell.
"I am the source of great power. Burn my foe to the bone with bolts of piercing light. Zweite Lightning Bolt!"
Now I understand why she kept firing ineffective water attacks at it. Now that the Chimera is completely soaked, the electricity has no problem travelling all the way through it. The Chimera's body lights up yellow as electricity courses through its whole body. I swear I could even see its skeleton for a second. The Lion head howls in pain, still alive, but clearly taking heavy damage. The Chimera is covered in electrical burns, with its muscles trembling, and a lot of its fur being burned away, but it still looks able to put up a fight. The dragon head turns to me. It clearly hasn't forgotten me crushing its tail. It opens its mouth wide, and before I can get out of the way, breathes a red hot jet of fire at me. I hastily raise my guard, but my mini buckler can't stop the boiling stream of fire it sends at me.
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" Honestly no matter how hard I screamed right there, I don't think it would be an accurate descriptor of the pain I felt. My shirt was burning away, and my flesh was melting. Once the breath was over I had fallen over nearly unconscious, and in excruciating pain.
"Ash!" Maria had finished off all of the Boinks and ran towards me with a healing enchant.
"I am the source of great power. Protect my allies with a veil of water. Zweite Water Wall" Some kind of forcefield made of water covered all four of us, and protected us from the fire.
With Elzabell casting that spell, there was no support fire to distract the Chimera from attacking the knight with everything it had.
"Waugh!" The knight gave a sound of both pain and surprise as he was swiped by the Chimera's claw, and sent flying sideways, leaving Elzabell unguarded. In such a short time this fight shifted away from our favor. Maria was trying her best to heal me, but considering the extent of my injuries that would take a while. I could barely move, the Knight was recovering from being knocked down, and the Chimera stood up on its hind legs and was about to crash down on Elzabell.
I did my best to point my hand towards the Chimera.
"air… strike bash III" I managed to weakly say
The skill hit the Chimera while it was standing straight up, preventing it from crashing forward on Elzabell. Elzabell took the opportunity to get out of the way and chant the final spells.
"Erste Aqua Burst." She once again douses the Chimera, then finishes it off with another Lightning Bolt. The dragon head had a resistance to electricity, but with Water Wall, the Knight was able to cut off the dragon head without much trouble. That got incredibly dangerous, if Elzabell went down, we'd lose our highest damage dealer, and if the Knight couldn't handle the rest of the Chimera on his own we would have all died.
After about half an hour, my burns were healed. The Knight and Elzabell were mining crystals, and butchering the Chimera. Upon seeing that I'm fully healed Elzabell speaks.
"It worked out quite well that the monster here was a Chimera. I have all the materials needed to make the stronger lure. Although the rogue Boinks may have just been the ones Maria had killed anyway."
I managed to get up.
"You just need its liver, right?"
"Well ideally I'd like the hide too."
We negotiated a bit, but she let me have most of the parts of the Chimera. I absorbed them all into my Gauntlets.
Chimera Dragon Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +3 ATK, +3 MAG, Flarefist
Equip Bonus: +3 DEF, +3 MDEF, +3 MAG, Heat Resist (Med)
Chimera Viper Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +2 ATK, +2 SPE, Venom Jab
Equip Bonus: +3 ATK, +3 SPE, Poison Resist (Lar)
Chimera Lion Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +5 ATK, +7 DEF, Roar
Equip Bonus: +10 ATK, +10 DEF, Impact Resist (Med)
Chimera Claw Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +5 ATK
Equip Bonus: +10 ATK, Slashing Damage
Chimera Fang Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +3 ATK
Equip Bonus: +6 ATK, Piercing Damage
Chimera Hide Gauntlets, Unlock Bonus: +3 DEF
Equip Bonus: +4 DEF, +2 MDEF, Impact Resist (Med), Slash Resist (Low), Pierce Resist (Low), Water Resist (High)
I got quite a few powerful looking gauntlets, and several new skills as well, plus I went up to level 19 from this fight. I finally got some way to attack with a blade, well, kind of. The Chimera Claw gauntlets conjure claws when I clench my hand, rather than mini-bucklers. They kind of remind of my Wolverine's claws. At least I have a sharp attack now, so I'll have an easier time against enemies that resist blunt force. When I absorbed the Chimera parts, Elzabell looked a little bit surprised, but only a little.
"I had a hunch you were the Gauntlet Hero. When you used Quick Rush and Air Strike Bash, I didn't sense any magic."
So SP really is different from magic. Seeing her in combat, she seems very adept with magic. She didn't even need an incantation to cast Erste level spells. Maybe she can work out why I've been having such a hard time learning magic.
When we got back to the village, it was just past sundown. It took a week for Elzabell to complete the lure, and what should be all the boinks came back to the village to get exterminated. In that week I was staying in an inn, training with Maria, and making sure nobody interfered with Elzabell. There were still townspeople that believed she was up to no good, but thankfully they went away when I said I was keeping an eye on her. Martially I'm not exactly sure where I can improve, so I was just drilling basic techniques. Maria was practicing yoyo tricks. Honestly with a high attack power, someone using yoyo's would be scary to fight. With advanced yoyo tricks, it's very difficult to predict where it will go. There was even one time where she swung her yoyo at me, and I stuck out my arm to block it, but the string wrapped around my arm and it still hit me. Once the stronger lure was finished, the village was swarmed by a massive wave of Boinks, but now that I had a sharp weapon, and with Elzabell helping us we were able to handle it with little difficulty. After we had dealt with all the Boinks, I went to Elzabell's house to ask her about magic.
"Come in"
Certainly a better greeting than I received just a week ago. I open the door and see her house is much cleaner than before. Elzabell also looked a lot more cleaned up. When her hair is smooth she can flawlessly pull off the Intelligent and Refined look.
"Elzabell, could I ask you about magic?"
"Of course. I'd say I'd be able to answer most questions related to magic"
She looked to be packing a few bags, but stopped and faced me.
"I'm trying to learn Erste level magic, but it's just not working for me, even though I'm getting the incantation right."
"Give it a shot and I'll see what I can do."
Nodding, I being chanting
"I am the source of this power. Bolster my target with a burst of strength. Erste Power!"
Nothing happens.
Elzabell looks me over.
"I could sense magic being manipulated around you right at the start, but not after it."
"So the incantation is wrong for me?"
"I guess so…" She eyes my gauntlets "And I think those seem to be interfering a bit"
My gauntlets are preventing me from casting spells? WHY?! Elzabell see's my expression and continues.
"Don't worry, we can reverse engineer this. By manipulating the magic by your own power, the correct incantation should pop into your head."
"Magic works like that?"
"For higher level spells, the incantation may be slightly different, because the conditions for casting the spell are slightly different. Magic responds to your words, but words alone aren't good enough for higher level magic. At higher levels you have to manipulate the power yourself, and how are you expected to know the incantation for every possible condition?"
She looked at me expectantly. Is this going to be a thing now where she expects me to answer questions? Well I think I have an idea based on what she was saying…
"It's impossible to inherently know every possible incantation for a high level spell." Now this is where the guess comes in. "Magic itself tells you?"
"I noticed a lack of confidence in that answer, but you are correct. By being able to sense and understand magic, you will know the incantation necessary. But first, you have to feel it."
Elzabell takes her hand in mine, and after a few seconds I start to feel a rush of power flowing through me. It was like if you could feel the blood flowing through your body, but instead of feeling weird, it felt exhilarating.
"Well, how does magic feel?"
"Amazing… What was that?"
"Well I just had some of my magic harmlessly flow through your body. Remember that feeling, you'll need to know it to use magic."
Right, the feeling of magic flowing through me. I guess to cast spells I'll need to manipulate my own magic?
"I don't expect you to get it right away. How about you practice on the way back to the castle?"
"Oh yeah it's about time to go! Hold on…" It's my turn to eye her suspiciously.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not planning on sticking around."
It did look like all her important stuff was packed, but the way she worded her statement sounded like she was planning on coming with me. I'll just directly ask.
"Where are you going to go?"
"With you to the castle."
God dammit.
"Why?"
"What my intentions were doesn't change the damage I've caused. I'm not getting any love around here, so I'll go to the castle where maybe the king would appreciate my skills" She had a lighthearted smile on.
Introducing her to the king was one of the ideas I had when I was first knocking on her door, but I didn't expect it to go like this. I'm considering the possibility that she's putting on a tough front, but if she is, she's very good at acting.
"Don't worry, I'll help you learn magic on the way back."
With a little bit of worry, we left the village towards Einsbrey. When we get there, we would only have two weeks before the countdown reaches zero.