Level 1 Fallen

The next day, I received a message from Wisteria that Yatagarasu had taken the teleportation nexus to the southernmost city of Athua, Guanorough. When I heard that name, I had to do a double take, verifying that it was, in fact, a true city name. What sort of dungeons had to spawn in an area to earn them a name like that?

Still, Wisteria verified the report, and said that it was likely that Yatagarasu was leaving the country to level up. Brita was notoriously low level, which made it an ideal starting area for new Players. However, this also meant that someone like Yatagarasu wouldn’t have an easy time leveling up.

Until now, they had made do by hunting boss monsters like the golem that I caught them fighting before. But now that they were being hunted themselves, they couldn’t afford to have their attention consumed by constant raids. They needed another source of experience that would allow Yatagarasu to steadily level up without preventing his guards from being able to protect him.

I had never been to the countries south of Athua since being Chosen, so I had to ask Wisteria for information on them. Wisteria told me that Yatagarasu’s most likely target was the ruins of Kethet, an ancient kingdom that had been wiped out by monsters more than fifty years ago. Officially, the ruins were located in what was now the territory of Garna, where another of the dimensional rifts was located. However, given how overrun the area was with high-level monsters, Garna had given up reclaiming the land.

Obviously, I couldn’t just teleport myself to Garna, nor could I take us to Guanoborough. Instead, I teleported myself and Bella to Brita, flying the car through the air. Along the way, I explained the situation to her, and she looked out the window curiously. “Think we’ll be able to catch up with them?”

“Should be,” I answered, pushing the car to the limits of its speed. “According to Wisteria’s report, Yatagarasu has a vehicle of his own as well. However, it’s one that requires magic stones from monsters to function instead of the user’s energy, so they’ll have to stop every now and then to refuel.”

Magic stones were a rare drop that you could get from almost any monster. However, the drop rate was almost nonexistent if you didn’t have a quest for them. With the quest, you could get one every three or four kills, and its potency was dependent upon the level of the monster slain.

As another Fallen like myself, Bella understood this well. “They probably can’t drive as fast as you can, since they have to worry about the terrain. I doubt that there is a convenient road between Athua and Garna.”

“Probably not,” I agreed. “After all, there wasn’t one to Farro. Still, Wisteria told me that they won’t be able to track Yatagarasu after this, not until he reaches another city. Otherwise, it would be too obvious to send watchers after him between nations. We’ll need to keep an eye out for him on our own to make sure that we don’t lose him.”

Bella grinned broadly at this. “And that’s the kind of thing that I specialize in. Don’t worry. You just get us to the town with the shitty name, and I’ll keep my eyes peeled as we fly south.”

I couldn’t help but let out a groan at her joke, focusing on the compass on the dashboard. Wisteria told me that if I went exactly two hundred kilometers south of Brita, I’d be about thirty kilometers west of Guanoborough. This made it easy for me, since the car could easily go four hundred kilometers when I pushed it with my skills.

Thus, after half an hour of driving, I turned us to the east, and we could see the distant city surrounded by a large swamp. Further east was a large desert, similar to Ilsan, but Wisteria’s information pointed to Yatagarasu heading further south.

Once I was over the city, I once again turned the car straight south, allowing Bella to serve as my eyes. Yatagarasu had at least half an hour’s head start, but I wasn’t sure how far he could have gotten in this terrain. According to Wisteria at least, he didn’t seem to have a flying vessel. So, I slowed my speed and lowered altitude to give Bella an easier time searching.

“Found him!” She spoke after ten minutes of driving. She pointed down towards a small dot driving along. It was too far for me to tell from this distance, but it seemed like they had some way to move through the swamp unimpeded. “Do you want me to handle this kill? I could probably snipe him from up here.”

I thought about that for a moment. If I said yes, and Bella killed him, he would be sent back to Guanoborough with his guards. This could make it seem like we were trying to stop him from leaving the country. At the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure that Bella could kill him. From this distance, I couldn’t see if the car had a covered top or not. Since Bella seemed confident, I assumed that it did, so he might be considered ‘inside’.

Even if that was the case, though, would her shot punch a hole through that top? And would that hole then qualify him as being outside, preventing him from taking any damage? Given the fact that he was a ten star trait holder, I had to assume that his trait was as broken as possible. Maybe even having a clear view of the sky through the car’s glass windshield would count for his trait to activate.

“No, let’s keep it to tracking him for now,” I answered with a shake of my head. “There’s a good chance that attacking him from here would only kill his guards and blow up the car. That wouldn’t be a huge problem in itself, but we want him to keep the car.”

“We do?” Bella asked in surprise, looking back at me.

“Of course,” I responded matter-of-factly. “If we get rid of his car, he’ll have to find a less predictable method of transportation. So, we’ll wait for him to stow the car away first, and then I’ll take care of the next kill.”

Bella nodded her head slightly, though I could tell that she was disappointed that she couldn’t get one of the kills herself. With a smile, I reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’re helping plenty. Just being able to spot them like this is already making my job way easier, you know?”

“It is…?” she asked, blinking.

“Yeah. If I didn’t have you, I’d have to fly way lower to have any shot of seeing them. And doing that means that I would have a narrower view, not to mention having to watch out for large or flying monsters. Even my True Sight can’t reach all the way down there. I probably wouldn’t have spotted him at all, and had to wait at the next city.”

After saying that, I let out a small chuckle. “So trust me, you’re doing plenty. Yatagarasu’s just a bad match for you, since he’s essentially immune to being sniped. Let me do the fighting, and I’ll be counting on you to point me at my target.”

Bella smiled faintly, seeming pleased with what I had said. “By the way, any signs that he’s being followed by a secondary protector group or anything?” I asked, and she turned to look out the window of the car again, squinting her eyes to check.

“I’m not seeing any movement following behind him, aside from monsters that he passes that try to catch up. I can’t see into the car, though, so he might have an extra person inside.”

Listening to that, I simply sighed. Either way, we would need to wait for them to stop and refuel. Anyone with a bit of brains would stow the car away while they’re hunting, just to prevent random monsters from attacking the car. If he didn’t put the car away, that would actually make it seem more suspicious, like he was hiding someone inside.

I reduced my speed further, flying several hundred meters above Yatagarasu’s car. This was still outside the range of my True Sight, but close enough that Bella could accurately make out the details of what was happening below.

We continued like this for another half hour before their car left the swamp and started driving on solid ground. To my surprise, their speed didn’t noticeably increase after this, which seemed to indicate that their vehicle was already moving at its top ‘comfortable’ speed before. In that case, was it able to fly just above the ground to avoid getting stuck in the terrain?

I didn’t get my answer for another ten minutes, when the car finally pulled to a stop. Just ahead of them was a wide river five kilometers across, with no clear bridge in sight. I was curious how they planned to pass through this situation when they simply put their car away and began hunting nearby monsters.

Upon hearing from Bella that they had started hunting, I realized that they were aiming to refuel before crossing the river. “How many of them are there? You said that they put the car away, so you should have a good headcount now.”

“That’s right. From what I can see, there are three. There might be a fourth hidden in stealth, but the only ones visible are Yatagarasu and his guards.” Despite this, Bella kept watching closely. “He’s using an oversized sword now, way too big to be practical. As for his guards, they are just standing nearby and watching. Hmm?”

Hearing the confused sound, I glanced over while lowering the car. “What’s wrong?”

“His sword is causing the monsters he hits to burst into flames. It looks like it might be a skill, but he shouldn’t be able to activate skills with his negative trait.”

I thought it over for a moment, before answering. “It could be a constant enchantment on the item. Or maybe, he got a ‘new’ trait that adds elemental damage to his basic attacks?”

Bella clenched the side of her seat as I mentioned a new trait. While it was theoretically possible that he could have bought it from another Player, or maybe even the church, it was far more likely that any new traits would have come from his farm.

Soon, I had set the car down near the edge of the river, opening the door and stepping out while maintaining my stealth field. “You hide yourself for a moment. Don’t want the guards to spot you after I teleport over there.”

Bella quickly scanned the area, finding a large rock to hide behind along the shoreline. Once she was out of the way, I stowed my own car and adopted the familiar troll disguise. Diane said that they have scrolls to undo disguises, so I’ll have to kill the guards first, I thought to myself, turning to look at the two guards.

My True Sight wasn’t picking up anyone else in the area but them and Yatagarasu, so it seemed like he really didn’t have any backup. Still, the two of them were standing about five meters apart. Too far for me to take them both out with a single melee attack. And to avoid revealing any more of my abilities, I had to stick with the same skills that I had previously demonstrated, which revolved around controlling stone and darkness.

At the same time, I had to be quick about this. If I were Yatagarasu, I would have only given one of the guards a scroll to disrupt disguises, carrying the other myself. That way, if I was attacked, the guard could use his, and if the guards were killed first, I’d be able to use mine.

In other words, I needed to kill both guards either without drawing Yatagarasu’s attention, or so fast that I could kill him as well before he reacted.

Looking at the battle maniac in the distance, slashing his oversized slab of iron at the helpless frog monsters, I decided to go with the first option. I focused, opening up a pit beneath both guards before they even knew I was there. They shouted out in surprise, but Yatagarasu himself was making too much noise to hear them. Once they fell, I immediately closed the top of the pit to return it to normal before skewering them both with shadow spikes from all angles.

Since both guards were high level, I couldn’t risk them shattering the lids of their makeshift prisons before I could act. I had to be swift and decisive, attacking only once everything was prepared.

Still, Yatagarasu’s attention swiftly turned towards the direction of the guards, finding them absent. He gripped his sword tight, a scroll appearing in one of his hands. That was most likely the disguise revealing scroll, but it could have even been a teleportation scroll for all I knew.

I stood where the guards had previously been, dropping my stealth to reveal myself. Once Yatagarasu saw me, his eyes narrowed, and he tore apart the scroll to activate it.

However, I wouldn’t have revealed myself if I wasn’t prepared for that. By the time he tore the scroll, I had already summoned walls of stone on all sides of him, encasing him in a solid box and blocking him from his invulnerability.

Sure enough, there was a flash of light within the enclosed space, a beam shooting in my direction. It crashed against the stone wall, unable to penetrate it. Finally, I summoned more shadow spikes to finish the job. Seven down, two to go.

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