by Nikita Thorn
The Market Street had a slight lazy feel to it as it basked in the morning sun. For some reason, there were not as many people around at the moment.
“There’s a secret trick to it,” said Ippei, answering Mairin’s question. “After you pick up the samurai quest from Nakatani, you go with the soldiers deep into the woods leading to the cave, where there are loads of rabid wolves for you to kill. If you spend an hour there, you can get about a level. Whenever you run out of energy or they get too much to handle, you can just run back to the soldiers and Kato takes care of them for you.”
Seiki had started snickering ominously at that and Kentaro frowned. “Hopefully, that’s not what we’re doing,” said the houshi in disapproval.
“No,” said Ippei. “It only works if you’re on that samurai quest.” He then said, “East Gate” as they started making their way down the street. Since Ippei did not seem to own a mount, Seiki dismissed the snowstepper and they walked all the way to azure dragon, with Mairin talking excitedly about whether a +18 attack fan or a +12 dodge charm was better to choose as a quest reward.
“Good charms are hard to come by,” she said. “And I do like dodge.”
“So why didn’t you go pure silver?” asked Ippei.
Mairin shrugged. “I didn’t know then. And, it’s a bit too flashy.”
Seiki secretly appreciated the casual chatter going on around him, as Kentaro joined in on what he thought looked best on a kitsune. His friends, understanding his current mood, did not actively engage him in conversation, and Mairin seemed more talkative than usual. As they approached the East Gate, the guards eyed them suspiciously and Ippei called out to them. “Good day, officers! We’re off to take care of some business for the Shogun, so you can drop that look.”
Day time outside the East Gate was much more welcoming. The road in front of them stretched into a wide field with gentle slopes, covered with knee-length grass, dotted with Rabbits [Level 1] and Ducks [Level 2], which Ippei called cooking ingredients. On the left was the pine wood, and through the trees Seiki could make out a small hill covered with dense bamboo.
“Should be plenty of things to kill by the stream,” said Ippei, pointing ahead.
Welcome to the Wilderness! Wilderness combat rules apply. PVP status: enabled.
“What’s Wilderness combat rules?” Kentaro wondered.
“Anything goes,” said Ippei. “No patrols. And if you die here, you wake up in the local graveyards or shrines, not the city morgue.”
As if it had been an omen, even before Ippei had completely finished his sentence, Seiki felt someone’s eyes on him and spun around.
Slightly behind him, in the shade, Rieko of the Rogami Clan [Level 26] was on her shadowless horse. Her smile was almost pleasant. “There you are, boya.” Beside her, Suguru of the Rogami Clan [Level 23] was glaring at Seiki, perhaps upset about what happened in the pine wood the night before.
Seiki instinctively placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Keep walking,” he said under his breath to his friends. “Don’t get into this.” The two obake were at least twenty feet away, and Seiki had no idea what kind of reach their abilities actually had.
“Answer one question,” said Rieko. “And I’ll let you and your friends live.”
“Don’t answer anything,” Mairin said, stepping up next to Seiki.
“Wild little foxling, aren’t you?” Rieko said.
Suguru leapt off his mount, and Seiki knew exactly what he intended to do. The chilly Freeze wrapped itself around Seiki, spreading to his limbs. Seiki waited, until he was almost completely paralyzed, before pushing his energy downward in a Slide. Freeze was just a magical Trap, someone had told him, and if he could get out of Trap with Slide, he could get out of Freeze as well. The burst of energy broke him through the icy effect, and Seiki drew his sword as he caught his balance. They could kill him, but he was not going to run any more.
Suguru immediately hit him with another Freeze, and again, Seiki waited, until it almost Disarmed him. Mapping out a very short Slide, he burst through it. He only had two charges of Slide, so he was out now. While the next one recharged, every second counted.
However, Rieko soon raised her hand to stop her clan mate. “You’re wasting your energy.” She squinted. “This boya is playing it rather smartly.”
With the very short Slides, Seiki was breaking through the Freeze without spending too much energy. If they kept it up, with Freeze being high in energy cost and requiring energy to maintain, Suguru was going to run out of it faster than Seiki. Now if Rieko joined in, it would be a different story, or if they wanted him dead they could have done it in a blink. However, to keep him alive and trapped right now, that was harder for them than actually killing him.
Seiki could feel his friends shifting restlessly. Ippei had also drawn his sword, but Seiki shook his head. “Nobody gets involved in this, all right?” he said, eyes still fixed on the Rogami members.
“What did Sora tell you?” Riekio’s eyes narrowed even further. “If not Sora, then Kei?” She seemed annoyed. “Who else could have Mirror Ward?”
He had no idea what she was talking about but he was not going to say anything.
After a few seconds, Rieko let out a short laugh. “He doesn’t know,” she said to Suguru. “Now isn’t that interesting? I told you it’s the old Whisper. Sora’s act of charity, maybe.” She turned to look at Seiki again. “Well, I wonder who’s going to save you now.”
Seiki kept his mouth shut as he stared back. This, again, was an unfair situation, where he had no chance of winning, but he would not take it lying down anymore. He steadied his grip on his sword. Even if there was a chance to run, then perhaps his friends could escape. He would die here, and even if he could not even touch them, he swore he would do all he could to make it difficult.
Rieko’s eyes showed a hint of curiosity as she studied him. Seiki directly met the gaze, waiting for her to make the first move. But then she snorted, waved her hand, and she turned her horse toward the city gate. “You can do whatever you want, Suguru. I’m done here.”
As Rieko started making her way back to the city, Suguru’s pale lips curled into a sneer. He slowly raised his hand and Seiki calculated the distance between him and the obake.
Ippei let out a loud gasp as he turned around. “What’s that?”
At first, Seiki had thought Suguru had done something, but the obake had not moved from his spot and his hand was frozen half-raised as he looked warily at Ippei.
Ippei’s eyes widened as he turned back to look at Suguru. He then glanced around again. “You sure?” He seemed to be talking to an invisible person, and Mairin and Kentaro, completely perplexed, were now also looking around nervously.
“I’m not going to do that!” cried Ippei. He then had an amused smile as he stared at Suguru, as if someone had told him a secret. “Oh, really now?”
Suguru seemed uneasy as he peered behind him at Rieko, who had almost reached the East Gate, as he weighed his options. Then, after giving Seiki and Ippei one more hostile glare, he mounted and galloped after his clan mate, his shadow horse whishing softly through the grass.
Seiki had been holding his breath, and for a split second he was not sure if he was disappointed or relieved. Relieved, he finally decided, since it could have easily turned into a massacre.
Mairin giggled once Suguru was no longer within earshot. “Now that guy sure gave up quick. What did you even do to them in the first place? It’s not like you could have actually hit them or anything.”
Seiki sighed. Now that she mentioned it, Seiki was starting to comprehend that the more encounters he had with them, the more reason they had for coming after him. At this moment, though, it was not as if he cared.
Mairin turned to Ippei. “Who was that?”
Ippei chuckled. “No one.”
“No one?”
“For some reason, they mentioned old-form Whisper, so just I improvised.” Ipp
ei thought for a moment, and a strange expression appeared on his lips. “Maybe the old players are really getting back into the game. I’ve definitely heard of someone called Sora, but that was even before Beta.”
“What’s Mirror Ward?” asked Seiki as he sheathed his sword, and breathed in deeply to get his energy under control.
“Now that’s where it gets interesting. It’s a very rare modification for the houshi Ward, which puts a shield on you that reflects all the damage back to the attacker.”
“Oh, that would be a nice ability to have,” commented Kentaro.
“But here’s the thing,” said Ippei. “Rumor has it that it no longer drops, since it’s way OP, and it seems to be the case, since it did not drop once in Beta.” He turned to Seiki. “Did you actually see Mirror Ward for real?”
“I don’t know,” said Seiki, before proceeding to explain what he had seen happen to Kojiro, as well as the unknown person sending him telepathic messages.
“So, apparently, old players get to keep their old abilities,” mused Ippei. “Whisper, too. It used to come with no speaker name attached, but that had too much room for abuse. So now, they removed that and gave you Telepathy instead, which you can get as a free slot ability, and which shows you who the message is from. And, if you’re in the vicinity, you can tell who is sending who a mental message, even when you can’t hear the actual message.”
Seiki thought about it. When Rieko mentioned the two names and he did not seem to recognize either, she must have concluded that whoever spoke to him at the East Gate must have used the old-form Whisper. And Suguru would have had no way to be sure whether Ippei had been bluffing or not when he pretended to be hearing things.
“What does that mean if the old players are getting back?” asked Mairin.
“These people are legends. And if the worldbreakers are back again, things might get really interesting. These were the first batch of players, who tried to stretch the whole reality to see what they could or could not do. You know, from silly things like how you can never get rid of only the cap of your health potion, to how you can’t ever break bones or cut off someone’s limb. They did a lot of experiments.”
Mairin grimaced. “Isn’t that kinda gruesome?”
Ippei laughed. “Hey, if you give people immortality, that’s the first thing they try out. Don’t say it never crossed your mind.”
“No,” said Kentaro.
“Then, suddenly they were gone. People say they all got banned,” said Ippei. “But now that Seiki’s seen Mirror Ward, apparently not.” He then glanced at Seiki and shook his head. “With all the things you get yourself into, if I didn’t know I would swear you’re someone’s clone.”
“Yeah, maybe Reiji of the Scientific Society,” Seiki said, out of the blue.
Ippei stared at him for a second before the realization set in. “Bullshit,” he said, amused and perhaps even a little relieved.
Seiki let out a laugh.
Mairin had decided that, if they were going to do whatever Seiki needed to do right now, they had better get going. Thus, she had started leading her way down the road with her usual kitsune Dash, and Seiki took notice of how beautiful the grassland ahead of him was.
Chapter 21
In contrast to his mood, the morning was gentle and peaceful, with a constant wind that was delightfully refreshing on the skin. Somehow, it served to put a layer of calm over his simmering inner turmoil.
They were sitting on the banks of a small stream, and Kentaro was getting his level up from Pacifying the Poisonous Toads [Level 7] in the water. Seiki never imagined you could get experience from not killing things.
“This is taking forever,” muttered Ippei, twiddling his thumbs beside Seiki, as they watched the houshi raise his hand and whisper his mantra at the toad. The creature blinked at Kentaro for a moment before backing down into the water.
Seiki had earlier taken on about a dozen of these giant toads, in a kind of fury they perhaps did not deserve, and quickly got to Level 9. With two healers keeping his health full, it did not take long and he was never at any risk of dying. As soon as he leveled, he also understood what Ippei was trying to get them to do, since the message told him that small group instances had opened up for him. Now, they just needed Kentaro to reach Level 9 before they could get started.
“I can just grab them all and you heal me,” Ippei shouted impatiently to the houshi.
Kentaro shook his head. “A few more and we’ll be good.”
The class Perk for houshi was an ability called Pacify, which could somehow convince monsters not to attack. With every successful attempt, they gained half the experience as actually killing it. For some reason, Kentaro was uncomfortable with harming things that he deemed were not entirely evil.
Mairin had found a way to entertain herself and was dashing about among the toads in fox form, trying to see how many she could get to follow her.
“Hurry up,” said Ippei.
Kentaro was now taking on two toads, one of which had smeared him with its poison. White sparks surrounded him as he healed himself and continued to Pacify the toads. To Seiki, the spell seemed entirely strange: like a channeled ability, but with a random element to it in that it could break at any point. And if it did, the houshi had to start over.
“Might want to Cleanse that poison,” said Ippei as he noticed the effect eating away at Kentaro’s HP.
The white fox came flying in front of them as she popped back into human form and shot out her heal at the houshi. “He doesn’t have it yet,” she said, then turned back into a fox before the train of three toads following her could catch up.
“What?” cried Ippei, leaping up to his feet and striking out with Sweeping Blade at the three croaking amphibians in pursuit of her. Seiki also sprung up to help the samurai finish them off.
Poisonous Toad slain. 33 XP gained.
Poisonous Toad slain. 12 XP gained.
“What do you mean he doesn’t have Cleanse?” cried Ippei, as Seiki’s Focused Strike killed off the last one. “That’s a Level 6 ability!”
Poisonous Toad slain. 24 XP gained.
Mairin blinked. She was now back in human form. “He doesn’t have Cleanse. Never paid the priests at the temple. Last time he saved up two hundred gold, he bought a new calligraphy kit.”
Ippei cursed. “We can’t do it without Cleanse.”
“Well, I can help heal,” said Mairin.
Ippei thought about it and shook his head. “Won’t work with four people then. I mean, we could try, but I don’t think we’ll beat it.”
“You guys survived for a long time without me in that escort quest,” Mairin pointed out.
“This damage won’t be avoidable without Cleanse. Might work with five people, to spread the damage out a bit, preferably a ranged damage, like a ryoushi or obake.” He sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to know a fresh ranged Level 9, would you?”
“No,” said Mairin. She then seemed worried that Ippei was going to call the whole thing off. “But, come on, let’s just wing it. We’ve come all this way.”
“Hey, the point is we beat it, otherwise it’s just a waste of time.”
“Anything’s better than selling charms in the kakigouri shop, so, personally, I don’t really care,” Mairin said.
Ippei sighed. “You people are hopeless.”
A thought flashed in Seiki’s head. “Actually,” he said slowly. “I might know someone.”
Ippei seemed surprised. “A fresh Nine?”
“He was Level 9 last time I saw him,” said Seiki, trying to remember when it was. Thinking about it, it must have been only two nights ago. “Not sure how fresh, though. Ryoushi,” he added.
“Pigeon him and ask,” said Ippei. “Say we’re doing waterfall.”
Seiki had definitely seen people reading messages from pigeons before. “I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted.
Ippei looked at him for a second, then
he laughed. “Named dagger, check. Fancy horse, check. Post office, not checked. You people are really hopeless.”
“You truly haven’t been to the post office?” asked Mairin, amused. “Never mind. I’ll do it,” she cried excitedly, as she produced a piece of paper and a small chunk of charcoal. She dropped down onto the ground to write. “Name?” She glanced up at Seiki.
“Yamura.”
“What should I say?” asked Mairin as she started scribbling. “Hi Yamura, Seiki and a few of us are doing the waterfall thing. Wanna come?”
“Tell him I’ve picked it up and can share so he doesn’t need to go to the Shogun,” said Ippei.
“Can share mission,” she added. As soon as she finished, a pigeon fluttered down from nowhere and she attached the message to its leg and sent it off. Seiki followed it with his gaze as it flew off into the blue sky.
“The guy’s better be on,” said Ippei. Right then, a bird flew by and dropped itself almost perfectly into Mairin’s hand.
“Pigeon post is fast,” said Seiki in fascination. The bird in Mairin’s hand looked around and cooed.
Mairin unrolled the message and the bird fluttered off again. “He said this had better not be a prank and why didn’t Seiki send the message himself.”
Seiki’s lips curved upward. “That sounds like him.”
“Because,” Mairin started writing again. “He hasn’t been to the post office and hasn’t activated his post thing yet.”
They got a message back almost immediately. “Is that why he never replied to my messages?” Mairin read aloud. “I still need proof. Red or blue?”
Seiki chuckled. “Both,” he said. “At the same time.”
“Whatever that means,” said Mairin as she wrote it down.
The next bird arrived about a minute later. “He said he would be there in ten minutes,” she said, seeming surprised that it worked.
“All right,” said Ippei in higher spirits. “With a ryoushi, we might have a chance.” He turned toward Kentaro, who had waded into the stream. A few toads in the vicinity were gazing at him with slight interest but showed no sign of attacking. “You done yet, your reverence?” Ippei shouted.