“Are you completely cooked in the head, Si?” Sireal’s wife, Fij, raged as her fists thumped the cartographer in the chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? You could at least have had the decency to come back and tell me yourself, instead of sending some faceless soldier to frighten me out of my good skin!”
Eik did everything he could to look anywhere but at the husband being scolded by his crying wife. This was awkward as all hell.
Sireal’s wife had been waiting for them right in the fracture hall when they came back, having gotten special permission to enter due to her familial relationship with one of the expedition members. Her eyes had been red and swollen even before they stepped through the fracture.
“I’m sorry, but Eik Magnasen urgently needed my skills, Fi. I’m serious! It was honestly a matter of our continued survival. This is incredibly important work! Even more important than we initially thought! Look!” the frantic husband tried and pointed right at Eik who had already begun taking backward steps to disengage from the immediate vicinity. “That’s Eik Magnasen himself! He’ll tell you that it’s true! I swear!”
Eik froze, a single bead of sweat running down his forehead. He cleared his throat and tried not to shrink under Fij’s furious glare as she turned her head to look at him. “H-Hello. Yes, my name is Eik. Your husband’s help was invaluable to the mission this time. We really appreciate it and hope this can be the beginning of a fruitful com—”
“I don’t care!” she hissed. “And I don’t care who you are! What were you thinking, bringing a low-ranker like my husband to a world affected by the Expulsion, and to fight the strongest monsters in the Unified Mass to boot?” Damn, this lady was scary. Eik wasn't the type to exercise his power against someone weaker for that little, but she couldn't really know that. Whether it should be called bravery or stupidity, Eik had to respect her for expressing her displeasure.
“I-I… He came to our tryouts so I just kind of thought—”
“You’re an S-ranker, for fuck’s sake!” she growled. “My stupid husband’s a cartographer who’s gone temporarily insane from adventurer’s sickness!”
Well, this wasn’t going well. Why was he supposed to be responsible for the choices of a man ten years his senior? “I’m-I’m sorry, I—”
“N-No, Mr. Magnasen!” Sireal interrupted with a sharp look at his wife. “It’s not your fault. Not at all. All you did was be kind enough to give me the opportunity I was begging for. I’ll talk to her.”
“Yeah, all right. Good work today, Sireal. Get me those maps once you’ve gone over them, yeah?”
“Yes, Mr. Magnasen.” Fij glared as Eik backed away.
***
“You’re the last team to come back,” Mn’Toakh said as she took notes on a pad. “But with what you encountered, it sounds like it’s a downright miracle that you made it back alive at all. Well done, all of you. What can you tell me about the monster you met?”
“It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before,” Andihar said gravely. “It’s strength was… unparalleled. Neither I nor Clan Leader Gul were capable of going against it. It inflicted a fatal wound upon me and I could do nothing to oppose it. I barely survived,” he said and lifted the thick chest plate over his head to reveal the chest wound, now filled in by a solid chunk of blue crystal molded perfectly to fit the hole.
“Oh, shit,” Eik mumbled, seeing it for the first time. With how powerful of a magical item Andihar’s armor was, the durable metal had regenerated to cover the mended injury before Eik had seen Andihar again.
“What in the world happened?” Mn’Toakh asked.
Andihar maintained a steady gaze as he lied. “I’m still trying to figure that out myself.”
“So what happened then?” she pushed.
Andihar gestured to Eik. “Eik fought a losing battle on his own but managed to survive, distract, and improvise long enough for his Toxin skill to take its toll on the monster. The tide was turning.”
“And?”
“And then it transformed,” Eik said. “Taking the shape of a tree of flesh and bone, it spewed black miasma into the air.”
“Black miasma? What did that do?”
“Nothing particularly bad that we were really able to tell. We had a low-ranker along to map the area for a possible return and he was fine being around the whole time. It just hung below the cloud in a thick layer.”
“And that’s when you managed to finally kill it?”
Eik nodded. “It stopped moving and retaliating completely. It was just an unmoving target at that point and not much different from one of the Crucible tests here.”
“Why did it transform in the middle of the fight? What was its goal with that?”
“Honestly? I don’t have a clue. Now that I can look back on it, it made no sense for it to do that. It had behaved pretty intelligently until then, so it’s odd that it would suddenly just do that. I had hurt it before then, so it’s not like it thought I couldn’t do it.”
Mn’Toakh looked up from her notes. “You say it behaved intelligently? Could you elaborate on that?”
Eik sighed. “Well, it went after the others, ignoring me even when I was raining down attacks on it. It sounds dumb, but I could swear it did it just to fuck with me. It giggled the whole time like a fifth-grade bully handing out atomic wedgies to third-graders.”
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“I see,” she said, her pen never stopping.
“Eik is forgetting to mention that the thing spoke. Slowly and uncertainly, yes, but the words were clear as day,” Andihar broke in.
“Oh, yeah, it did that too.”
For the first time since they had begun recounting the mission, Mn’Toakh’s hand stopped writing and she looked genuinely taken aback. “Wai-Wait, wait. Can you say that again?”
“It spoke.”
“What did it say?”
“Well, it said that we couldn’t leave,” Eik recounted, trying to remember the exact words. “It smiled and said that Andihar was dead after impaling him through the chest. When I said that was bullshit, it answered that he would be dead soon.”
“So it could even understand and respond to you, then?” she asked. “That’s very concerning. What are your conclusions?”
Gul took the word. “Could be due to the extraordinary trigger for the Expulsion. Could be due to the ritual and the potential awakening of the Lord of the Moon. Both are unknowns.” He didn’t mention their plan to go see the Oracle, and Mn’Toakh was probably expecting them to do so even if they didn’t outright tell her.
She nodded, clearly not satisfied with the answer. “That’s true. All right, since my team was the first to return, we're actually on our way out again now."
"Will you be all right on your own?" Eik asked.
Mn'Toakh's eyes snapped onto him, cold and displeased. "You may be powerful, Eik Magnasen, but I would implore you to not underestimate me."
Hands held up placatingly, he tried to diffuse. "Hey, I'm sorry. I meant no disrespect. Won't happen again."
"Okay, then. Good. Are you willing to go out again when we locate more sites?”
Eik’s eyes swept across the faces of all of his comrades. All but Sireal looked determined and calm. “Well, if duty calls…”
***
“Check it out,” Andihar said and showed Eik his arm. They were on their way to see the Oracle. Hopefully she could provide them with some answers.
[Colossal Royal Guard of the Monarch of Toxin — XII]
“What the hell is this?” Eik asked with surprise. “Don’t tell me this happened because I cast Toxic Initiation on you back there. Well, I suppose that is what makes the most sense.”
Andihar shrugged with a crooked smile.
Eik reflected the expression. “So I guess that means you’re kind of my bitch now, huh?”
“Don’t push it, kid,” Andihar chuckled. “You wouldn’t want this subordinate of yours to start acting up, would you?”
“See, I knew it! I knew I should have chosen Grandpa Gul to cast Toxic Initiation on instead of you. The old fart practically oozes obedient minion, doesn’t he?”
Eik gasped sharply as his legs suddenly collapsed under him and he fell back onto his ass like a ragdoll in a manner very unlike an S-ranker. From the ground he looked up at Gul Ougi’s sour face, the heavy piercings and jewellery clinking against each other with a metallic melody as they hung freely in the air.
“’Sup, Grandpa Gul. You look spry as always,” Eik grinned innocently.
“You still want to come for dinner next week?” the old man asked, eyes narrowed.
“Of course.”
“We’ll see about that,” he grumbled with a raised upper lip.
Eik laughed and looked to Andihar from the ground. “So that’s why you can use my power, then? Because you underwent this Toxic Initiation and changed your power rank from standard to Colossal Royal Guard of the Monarch of Toxin.”
The elf nodded and pulled him to his feet, baring his forearm once more. “Yeah, it gave me this.”
[Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 1]
[Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 2]
[Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 3…]
[Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 47]
[Acquired Azure Aegis — Lv. 48]
“By Odin’s stiff spear, you got that back then and it already hit level 48?” Eik asked, gaping with disbelief. “You took like, what, two attacks from the thing and you got 48 levels? That’s totally nuts!”
“Yeah, but I’m not complaining,” Andihar said. “It’s been a long time since I got a new skill. It feels great to see those numbers go up.”
“Speaking of numbers going up,” Eik said and checked his own levels as they continued toward the, Gul doing the same.
[Acquired Apocalypse Canvas — Lv. 164]
[Acquired Apocalypse Canvas — Lv. 165]
[Acquired Apocalypse Canvas — Lv. 16…]
[Acquired Apocalypse Canvas — Lv. 184]
[Acquired Apocalypse Canvas — Lv. 185]
[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 219]
[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 220]
[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 22…]
[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 228]
[Acquired Living Manifestation — Lv. 229]
[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 199]
[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 200]
[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 20…]
[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 208]
[Acquired Movement Boost — Lv. 209]
[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Movement Boost]
[Choose one]
[Toxic Teleportation]
[Profound Absorption — Evolution derived from intimate relationship with — Profound Toxin]
Eik chose Profound Absorption without too much thought. He hadn’t seen it in a while but it was good for Profound Toxin. Toxic Teleportation sounded nice but after nearly dying in that fight, Eik wanted nothing more than to bolster his foundation.
[Evolved skill Movement Boost. Skill acquired trait Profound Absorption]
[Lost skill Movement Boost]
[Acquisition of Profound Absorption caused the loss of Movement Boost]
[Movement Boost had reached Lv. 209 before being lost. 61 levels will be transferred to skill Profound Toxin]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 399]
[Profound Toxin inherited all skill effects of Movement Boost]
[Profound Toxin inherited all evolutionary traits of Movement Boost]
Fuck… yeah!
[Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 304]
[Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 305]
[Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 30…]
[Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 312]
[Acquired Monarch’s Will — Lv. 313]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 400]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 401]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 40…]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 426]
[Acquired Profound Toxin — Lv. 427]
[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Profound Toxin]
[Choose one]
[Death Star]
[Binary Fission]
[Skill evolution available. Skill available for evolution: Profound Toxin]
[Choose one]
[Death Star]
[Binary Fission]
[Skill evolutions reached simultane
Huh? It cut off. This was… familiar.
[Evolutionary selection updated]
[Choose one]
[Death Star]
[Binary Fission]
[A Greeting]
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