Paragon of Skills

While Augusta, Kaelrik, and Baal brought the Mithril Nightmare Archer of Apocalypse away, Nimirea takes a good, long look at Jacob.

Everybody around him can’t believe that this somehow worked.

They spent two days gathering information, with Nimirea scouting the place and trying to ascertain whether the Mithril Nightmares were gathered in groups or not.

And it appears that they don’t in fact, at least for now, gather in groups.

Yet, even she, with her Eye of the Prophet, has real trouble finding them and following their trails to see what they’re up to. Instead, when they entered this place, Jacob simply pointed in a direction and said, ‘that way.’

But how could he have done that if the Grimoire didn’t work?

Nimirea had, of course, asked.

Had Jacob replied?

Nope.

He had a fetish for keeping his plans secret.

But she knew he was up to something.

I mean, he had literally said so.

However, no one seems sure what his secret plan was.

“Sir,” one of the Knights that had come with them, a Peak True Diamond Ranker, shyly goes up to Jacob.

“Yeah?” Jacob says, not looking too well.

Why is he so pale? Nimirea wonders.

“That was… how did you know it was there?” The man asks.

Jacob taps the side of his head. “Planning, my friend. You must outsmart these things. They think they’re smart but… they’re just monsters. These Gods, Primordial or not, they’re just mindless creatures. All of them.”

“Sir…”

“What’s your name?” Jacob asks.

“Sir Francis,” the man says, bowing his head.

How is he getting so much respect? He’s not telling anybody what he’s thinking… they worship the ground he walks on.

“Do you have a family, Sir Francis?” Jacob asks.

“Yes, sir.”

He’s what, seventeen?! Stop calling him SIR! Nimirea can’t believe her eyes. What’s this farce?! Can’t we just move?!

“Imagine, Sir Francis,” Jacob says, putting a hand on the middle-aged man’s shoulder, “we’re going to exterminate this Original Primordial Dungeon, the first in a millennium. Then, one day, all the Evil and Primordial Gods. All of them. We’ll liberate people from their tyranny.”

There are worse tyrants than ethereal Gods, Nimirea thinks, sighing.

“Sir… what about the earthly tyrants?” Sir Francis asks.

Oh? He’s not a fool, Nimirea thinks.

“We’ll visit those as well,” Jacob smiles. “If you have any suggestions, I’m open to them.”

Nimirea, just like everybody there, is stunned by the simple response.

“Toppling Kingdoms is against the Academy’s policy,” Nimirea says. “You can’t just do that.”

The Dark Champions nod at what their ex-Leader just said. The Champions, instead, just look curiously at what Jacob’s going to say next.

“Who cares? Is the Headmaster here about to mess up an Original Primordial Dungeon? I’ll be the next Headmaster if need be. Even beat that four-eyed bully if we need to take his place. If I see someone oppressed and a victim of injustice, not even the Academy can stop me. That’s what being a Knight means to me.”

Nimirea opens and closes her mouth, about to mock his plans, when she realizes that Jacob Cloud, so far, has accomplished the impossible.

And, looking around, she realizes that that’s the same thought in everybody’s mind: and these people are only thinking about what Jacob is accomplishing here.

Nimirea cannot forget that Jacob is somehow able to remove the influence of an Evil God from anybody’s soul, breaking a contract that should be impossible to touch.

“You have my sword, Cloud,” Lady Helena Ashenvale suddenly says — the second-year Champion, the same woman who has opposed him on almost anything up to this point. “I lost my mother to a Primordial God. I became a Knight to fight against injustice, no matter how large. And the thought of some lordling being able to do what he wants just because of stupid rules does not sit well with me.”

She unsheathes her sword and puts it in the air.

“You have mine as well,” Sir Francis says, doing the same.

Moments later, to Nimirea’s frustration, everybody’s sword is up.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

She can see even the Dark Champions’ hands trembling, hesitating.

After the kind of cheering that has become way too common for Nimirea’s taste, Sir Francis asks, “Cloud, Sir, are we moving out? How many Mithril Nightmares do you think we can kill today?”

“Huh?” Jacob asks, suddenly letting out a burp that catches everybody off guard. “Sorry, the food. Anyway… what?”

“Which directions are we going for, sir?” Sir Francis asks. “This way? That way? Are we waiting for Lady Augusta so that…”

“Oh? Ahhh. No. I was joking.”

“What?” Nimirea pushes Sir Francis to the side, unable to bear this anymore. “Jacob, explain yourself. What do you mean?”

“Are you crazy? We can’t just go after the Mithril Nightmares now. I just told that monster we would do that. The Dungeon has clearly made them somewhat conscious, and it can certainly communicate with them. I was lying to trick it.”

“Trick it?” Nimirea facepalms. “So… you don’t want to move out? And… what, exactly do you plan on doing?”

Jacob smiles very widely.

“Oh, my favorite activity.”

“Evil plans?” Zibrek offered from the back.

“Blowing monsters up, lad?” Boomgar suggests.

“Jacob, can you just spell it out for everybody?” Vyrrak walks forward, standing side by side with Nimirea. “What do you want to do?”

“Alright, alright,” Jacob says, coughing and looking sick-ish. “Mining. We’re mining some stuff.”

“What? We already mined so much. We have so much ore left even after you used it for the Primordial Spell against the Cultists.”

“Yeah—“ Jacob suddenly becomes green and raises a hand, while clearly trying not to vomit. “Oof. That was close. Anyway, yeah, we’re not going after True Diamond ore. We found pockets of Imperium ore. That’s what we’re focusing on now.”

“Imperium?” Nimirea frowns. “We can’t use that. At True Diamond Rank, you can’t just use Imperium equipment, Jacob. It will interfere with Skills.”

“Just… trust the plan,” Jacob smiles. “Let’s go.”

“Where?” Nimirea asks.

Jacob points at the wall right beside them, “there should be a massive vein of Imperium ore here. Boomgar, get the bombs out.”

“Oh, I like that,” Boomgar says, rubbing his hands. “Lads, lassies, give me a little space.”

But nobody has to even hear the end of the sentence before they start running away from Boomgar.

“Well, that’s rude,” the Dwarf frowns, but then shrugs and takes out a dozen bombs.

“Boomgar, don’t bury us alive! Just blow up the wall!” Jacob shouts as he runs away.

“Potato, potato,” Boomgar replies.

Four Days Later

“Commander,” Janus says, looking at some documents. “Cloud has only confronted a handful of these new Mithril Nightmares.”

Sir Maximilian reads the document that Janus hands him. He doesn’t look surprised.

They’re both in the war room that has now been moved to the inn.

The war room is not much of a war room anymore. The largest table on the inn’s ground floor — a heavy oak slab that used to host whole hunting parties — has been dragged into a side room and now holds the maps, the troop rosters, the supply ledgers, and three lit oil lamps that nobody bothers to extinguish even at noon. The chairs around it do not match: half from the inn’s common room, half from Lord Ashenvale’s estate, hauled across the city the day they made the move.

The walls are bare. The smell of beer and stewed onions drifts up the staircase from the floor below, where the inn keeps running as an inn, full of off-duty Knights who have not yet been told that the building has become the command post for the entire expedition. Occasionally a roar of laughter shakes the floorboards. Sir Maximilian has learned to ignore it. Janus has not.

It is, all in all, less imposing than the throne room they came from. Which is exactly why the two of them are starting to like it.

“It makes sense,” Sir Maximilian says. “It’s because of his plan.”

“He told you?” Janus looks surprised. Jacob Cloud has clearly been up to something.

He has been digging into the reports of the entire city to find out what, but other than a weird surge in the sales of mining and forging Skills, which is to be expected during another mine rush, there’s nothing too weird.

“He said he’s just keeping it secret for appearances. So, he said he had no problem telling me his actual plan.”

Janus knows that Jacob Cloud has told Sir Maximilian very clearly that he fears that the Cultists might target him and kill him, or worse, extract information from him, which is why he’s not telling him everything.

Janus thinks this entire thing makes no sense, since they could very well capture Jacob and torture him. Yet, Jacob is benefitting from too much good faith from all he’s done so far to question something so small.

“Yeah. Do you want a hint? Look again at the Skill Crystals sales report. Notice anything weird?”

Janus scrambles and reaches for the report of the past few days, noticing first that the sale started two days before Jacob announced the new mining rush — but it could still make somewhat sense given the fact that all the Knights have discovered the pleasure of mining Rafnov Quality ore.

Reading the reports more attentively, and looking at the Skill names, Janus suddenly notices something.

“Sir… this… I…” If Sir Maximilian had said nothing to him, he would have never even thought about the possibility that… “Cloud can’t be doing what I think he’s doing, is he?”

“He said that there’s no other solution to his problem,” Sir Maximilian sighs.

“But… all the other Champions, even the evil ones, have not done anything like this. They just went for…”

Janus is well-informed on the leveling and Rank progress of all the Champions. That’s why he can’t believe what Sir Maximilian is implying.

“I told him it’s going to kill him. Let’s see if I’m wrong again. I know one thing, Janus: betting against Jacob Cloud has been a terrible move up to this point. So, would you like a friendly wager on whether his suicide plan is going to work or not?”

Janus looks back at the report and then at Sir Maximilian.

“I feel like I would be betting against the success of the operation, sir. So, I’ll pass.”

“Fair,” Sir Maximilian laughs. “I just wanted to be on the other side of Cloud’s shenanigans.”

Mother’s Juggernaut is slowly walking through Rafnov’s Bounty, directed by Mother against the invaders.

The parasites have been leeching off Mother’s resources—outrageous.

He cannot allow something like this.

And that’s why he’s been tasked by Mother to lead a force that is going to annihilate the invaders.

Finally…

Souls…

The Mithril Nightmare Juggernaut of Apocalypse is followed by twenty Mithril Nightmares.

The space bends around them since each of them consumes a massive amount of Mana. Normally, Mother would have never sent them all together.

He can already feel his body starting to deteriorate because of the Mana starvation.

Yet, one of their brothers alone is enough to kill one of the minor parasites. Only the stronger ones can pose a real problem.

So, now that they’re in a group, they can eat their souls, evolve, and rely less on external Mana.

Mother’s Will shall soon be accomplished.

His troop suddenly breaks into a run, ready to bull-charge the parasites and eviscerate each and every last one of them.

As they round a corner, the Mithril Nightmare Juggernaut of Apocalypse sees their ranks, possibly a hundred of them, armed to the teeth. If he had a face, he’d smile.

Mother made them too strong, blessing them with her own Mithril, much more than what had been given even to the previous Mithril children she had made. There’s nothing that can penetrate their thick armor.

Nothing—

A lance comes whistling at scary speed, a throw of Imperium Rank, and the Juggernaut barely has time to react. He turns to see that one of the Mithril Nightmare Soldiers of Apocalypse, the sturdiest monsters after him, has had his shield and body pierced by it.

It dies on the spot.

How…

While still running, the corner of his eye catches something about that spear that seems to be made mostly of Imperium ore.

M-mithril?

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