Level 1 Fallen

Hearing that the reinforcements from Athua were on their way, I grabbed Bella and teleported the two of us back to Fallcry. There, I found Diane guiding the rescued Fallen to Ennolf’s restaurant, where he had been busy creating a massive pot of stew.

There were plenty of other Players and Fallen gathered around, looking at the group in confusion. They had no idea who the group of poorly dressed, underfed, and largely traumatized new people came from.

I was about to go over and see how she was doing when a voice called out from behind us. “What’s going on here?” Turning around, I saw Sapphire leaning against the wall, her expression colder than what I was used to from her. Her brand was dimmed, her arms crossed beneath her chest.

“Victims of a trait farm,” I answered, watching her expression. Her eyes narrowed, hands clenching into fists. It seemed that even prideful dragons detested such things.

“All of them?” she asked, and I nodded my head, causing her to let out a low, rumbling growl. Her eyes caught sight of the most traumatized bunch, her pupils narrowing into slits. “Let me call my Player. She’s always harping on about how music can bring hope back to people. Looks like she’ll get her chance to test that theory.”

I was taken aback by how cooperative Sapphire’s Chosen was. I knew dragons were typically prideful creatures, so it had always struck me as odd that Sapphire managed to convince her to come here in the first place.

Originally, I had thought that she must have used some Chosen restrictions to prevent her from flying back home when she logged out. However, given how she was going out of her way to help those traumatized by this incident, perhaps there was more to it than that?

Sapphire saw my look while she was busy typing out the message, rolling her eyes with a grimace. “Get your head out of the clouds. As a Chosen myself, I know what it means for them to have gone through that. Our memories are erased the moment that we are Chosen, all trace of our former identity gone.”

“Anyone who makes someone go through that has the obligation to see it through. Among the dragons, we are taught to view our Players as if they were our parents. I don’t know how it’s taught for normal ‘people’ like you all, but that’s how it is for us. And their parents, moments after they were born, walked them into a cycle of endless death and suffering without a second thought.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that is the worst type of person imaginable. I’m not a fan of Players that give up their Chosen to try and find a better character, like your old Player. Yeah, that story’s pretty popular. That’s why I didn’t want to join his kingdom, anyways. But at least he had the decency not to sell out his old Chosen before they even had the chance to figure out who they were.”

As she spoke, she continued to type the message away, eventually sending it with a sigh. “There. Looks like she’ll be here in about half an hour. I’d better go get ready.”

“Considering that you said you see your Player like a parent, you don’t seem overly fond of her,” I pointed out, noting how Sapphire’s shoulders slumped when she realized that she would need to get her player involved.

Sapphire let out a scoff. “You’d do the same if your Player set your name as a joke.” When she said that, I looked at her in confusion. Bringing a hand up to her forehead, she let out a long sigh. “She’ll want to do this one way or the other soon enough, so I might as well get it over with. It’s easier to show you.”

After she said that, she sent me a friend request, and my eyes widened slightly in understanding.

Safire has sent you a friend request!

“She tried to brush it off, saying that it was just from some other language, but started stammering when I asked her to name any other words from that language. In reality, she just thought it was a funny pun for a blue dragon,” Sapphire--or rather, Safire grumbled as she left with a wave.

After she left, Diane came back over with a sigh, wiping her forehead. “Did you get everything taken care of, then?” she asked, but I shook my head.

“Not yet. I’m waiting for word from Wisteria on Yatagarasu’s location. She said that he was at least a day away from the farm, so I’m waiting for him to start setting up camp, or if he gives up and goes back to grinding.”

“Otherwise, it would take too long to try to coordinate tracking him down. Also, he apparently has a pair of bodyguards that we have to be careful of, because they’re innocent. Can’t have them caught up in the punishment.”

Diane pursed her lips, but ultimately agreed. “Got it. What are we doing until you hear back from Wisteria?”

“Are you free to head to Earthenbury?” I asked, looking over to where Bella was helping one of the rescued victims get something to eat. “That’s the closest city I’ve been to where we’re likely to run into him.”

Diane gave a quick nod of agreement. “Got it. I’m ready to move out whenever you are.”

With that, I called Bella over and told her the plan. Like Diane, she was ready to leave immediately, so I teleported us away. I didn’t teleport us directly into Earthenbury, but rather just outside its southern gate, a path that I had taken back when I was first leaving this nation.

Afterwards, we waited for roughly half an hour before receiving a message from Wisteria. After the soldiers from Athua arrived at the farm and discovered that the dungeon had been completely destroyed, he had stopped his hurried return to the area. After all, there was nothing left for him to grab.

Instead, he had turned around and began making his way back towards where he had been grinding. Thus, I grabbed the car and began driving according to Wisteria’s directions. According to her, it wouldn’t be hard to find him.

Sure enough, after roughly an hour and a half of driving at high speeds through the air, we came across a wide region of rolling hills, and heard a deafening boom in the distance. A cannon mounted atop a hill shot out at a giant golem that lifted a hand slowly to try and defend itself.

At the feet of the golem, I could see one redheaded human man smashing into the golem’s foot with an oversized hammer, though the weapon seemed like it did little damage. Frustrated by the human’s attacks, the golem lifted its foot to step on the small creature, who refused to dodge.

Despite not dodging, the human emerged unscathed from the walking mountain stomping on his head, and resumed attacking. Seeing this from afar, Bella’s eye twitched. “That’s… one method for grinding experience. This must be a roaming boss monster or something, right? But, how are you expecting to kill someone that can’t die?”

“He can’t die outside,” I corrected. “I just need to make sure that he’s not outside.”

“Okay, and how are you going to do that?” Bella changed her question, turning to look directly at me. “You can’t use your construction skill for it, remember. If the Athuan royalty learns that a foreign king killed their Grand Duke, that would be cause for war. They wouldn’t even need to worry about hiding that trait farm, because you would be giving them all of the excuse that they needed.”

Diane pursed her lips at Bella’s words. “She’s right. Whatever method you use, it needs to be something that can’t be traced directly back to you.”

I couldn’t help but groan at that. Originally, I had planned to just construct a dome around Yatagarasu and finish him off within that. Someone who can’t use any skills with a mana burden normally wouldn’t have any that are very strong. At most, he would have decent proficiency skills.

“Let’s go with this, then,” I said, using Ancient Shifter to turn myself into a large troll with elongated limbs and giant tusks. “I’ll make it seem like an attack from the monsters going after a high-level Player.”

After that, I teleported myself next to Yatagarasu, a grimace on my face. At this point, I was actually regretting destroying the trait farm. If I was able to teleport him directly there, then I could have used his own farm against him, completing all ten kills quickly.

Yatagarasu didn’t seem to notice my presence, too focused on smashing his hammer against the golem’s foot. He had barely cracked its surface, doing a tiny fraction of the damage that his allies were doing with the cannon on the hilltop.

I reached out, my hand latching onto his shoulder and causing him to freeze up. He turned, looking at me as my lips curled into a crooked grin. Then, my feet stomped on the ground, a barrier of shadows surrounding us. Within this barrier, I created an additional dome of stone, separating us from the golem.

“What the?! Who the fuck are you, bastard?!” Yatagarasu cursed, screaming as he turned his hammer against me. However, now that we were indoors, I was not worried about his invincibility.

“I’ll be seeing you again soon,” I said, creating four tendrils of shadow to catch his hammer mid-swing, while a spike pierced through his skull.

I took a moment to confirm the kill before returning the stone dome to its previous condition, dispelling the darkness and teleporting back to my previous position. I could see the two knights rushing over to Yatagarasu’s body, their swords drawn.

“Now we wait to see where he respawns,” I said with a small smile. I could have easily set down my respawn anchor before killing him, but I wouldn’t be able to kill him ten times before his knights arrived and tore down that dome. Despite them firing from a distance, those two had the strength to fight a roaming boss like this golem, meaning that they were quite high level themselves.

Besides, if I killed him ten times in rapid succession, that would hardly instill the same level of fear as if I tracked him down and killed him ten times as he tried to protect himself.

Seeming to understand my thoughts, Diane looked over at me, a small smile hidden behind her mask. “You must have really hated what you saw in that farm.”

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