Reborn as the First Boss, Chapter 70

Chapter 70 – Speed Bump

Josce shook his head as he considered the report from Magehallow. The Brass Rats had been contracted by their frequent client (who definitely could not be proven to be Baron Longchaser) to capture Baroness Pureheart and slap a [Slave Collar] on her. He didn’t know why. Probably just offended the Baron, or something petty like that. Didn’t matter, the job paid well.

It should have been simple. The group they had stationed near Magehallow would follow the Baroness and her group out of town. If she stopped to rest, they’d attack in the night. If she turned to fight, they’d use the scroll they’d been given, which would create a massive null-magic area, allowing the eight Level 30s to easily overwhelm a Mind Sorceress. And, if she tried to flee, they would herd her towards Dirthill, where the rest of the gang was waiting. Simple.

Except, it had gone wrong, almost immediately. Something had happened, and Isold and her crew had been taken down, hard. Not killed. Killing them probably would have been a mercy.

An hour’s ride from the town, a trader had come across the group. Half-naked, eyes wild, unable to string a sentence together, or even say anything that resembled actual language. And all eight of them were in the process of fucking each other, and the horses. In ways that should not have been possible. Such as how Isold somehow had managed to take one of the stallions in each of her holes at once.

The trader, more than a little scared at the scene, high-tailed it back to town, and alerted the guards. They sent out a patrol, along with a couple priests from the temple of Videa, since there was obviously some kind of love curse going on, to make humans and beasts act like that. Mages put the entire group to sleep, ending the orgy, but the priests only managed to dispel the compulsion by calling on the Goddess’s grace.

The priests then healed the bandits and used a cleansing spell on them, since all eight had taken damage from being… overfilled, some in more than one part. Once that was done, the mages woke the bandits. However, they had proven to still be under powerful curses, keeping them from saying anything resembling language, though it was clear that they understood what was being said to them, so they were taken back to Magehallow Town. A Mind Sorcerer in service to the town delved their minds, and said that there was evidence of memory alteration, and at least three curses. Possibly other spells, as well, not counting the compulsion from before.

By the time they had returned to Magehallow, and had priests break the curse keeping them from speaking (which was far harder to break than they ought to have been), it was already past nightfall, and the priests were exhausted to the point that breaking the other curses would have to wait for the next day. Still, Isolde had managed to send a report by [Message Stone].

Her last clear memory had been seeing the Baroness in the wagon they’d purchased in Magehallow, reading from some book, possibly a grimoire. The next thing she knew, three curses had hit her, and the others. One to completely block spells, one blocking skills, and another that prevented her from speaking any language. Probably [Spellblock], [Skillblock], and [Babble], all known spells of a Mind Sorceress, but really high-level ones.

However, that did not explain the way the entire group had just started fucking out of nowhere. While a Mind Sorceress could actively control someone into doing something like that, having a lasting compulsion, that acted on a whole group, without the sorceress there to maintain or guide it? No. That was more along the lines of what some priests could do. But there wasn’t supposed to be a priest in the Baroness’s retinue, just two fighters, a rogue, and a healer.

Unfortunately, there was too much unknown. The Baroness might have used some kind of magic item to produce the compulsion, like the grimoire she was supposedly reading from. But with Isold’s memory being altered, that was suspect, at best.

Best guess was that the Healer was actually a Priestess. Given that the spell used was some kind of orgy spell, probably a priestess of Videa. Maybe a curse that their priesthood didn’t like to talk about too much? He could see them using that as a way to punish people who tried to interfere with their ‘holy work’.

Still, it didn’t matter. The Brass Rats had already taken partial payment for the job, so they had to see it through, or things would get sticky for them in this barony. Might even make them have to leave the country. So, the Baroness needed to get collared, one way or the other.

Which led to why he and his twenty best fighters (best of what were left, anyways) were here, now. The Baroness must have stopped along the road somewhere. However, she hadn’t turned around to go back to Magehallow, and if she was going to get to Bikar, then she needed to come this way. Sure, she could try going through the wilds, but that would just ad more time on to her journey, and expose her to more risk. Plus, unless you could fly, there were only so many places you could cross the Crystalrill, which made up the border between Dascora and Bikar.

Of course, he wasn’t going to just let whatever happened to Isold and her crew happen to him. Not only weren’t there any priests good at breaking curses around here, he really wasn’t looking to get bent over by a horse. Which is why the whole crew had [Potions of Mind Shielding], which would give them temporary immunity to mental spells. Sure, Isold and their lot had some, as well, but the potion only lasted for a couple hours, and it was expensive as hell. They’d been caught off-guard, and paid the price.

The moment one of the lookouts spotted the wagon, the whole group drank their potions. Three hours of immunity. The Baroness would be in their little ambush zone in under twenty minutes. Plenty of time.

And there was the wagon, with the Baroness sitting up front with one of the maid fighter. Huh, she had a pistol in her hand. Guess the Baroness learned to shoot at some point? Most mages tended to learn some non-magic attacks, if only so they could have a prayer of defending themselves if anyone actually got close to them. A mage tended to have trouble casting spells when you smacked them in the face with a club.

And then the Baroness brought the pistol up, aiming. Not at him. One of the others? Didn’t matter. He’d figure out who let themselves get spotted after the collar was on her. Then he could discipline the idiot for potentially giving the game a—

His thoughts cut off as the Baroness fired, and the world exploded.

(The Wagon)

The combination of the [Fire Shot] spell, [Explosive Shots], and [Bullet Time], made for a nasty little awakening for the idiot bandits trying to ambush me. They were right where the bandit girl I’d messed with yesterday had thought they’d be. It wasn’t a bad ambush spot, honestly. The road had to do a little turn to avoid a hill that had once been the site of a fort. The fort was long gone, but the road still curved around the hill, making the woods below a prime ambush spot, since visibility was curtailed and the undergrowth was especially thick, giving plenty of cover to the bandits.

Unfortunately for them, I wasn’t planning on playing fair. Why would I bother letting them get close enough to spring their ambush, when I could just delete them all before they even knew what was coming? If I had this kind of ability in my last life, I probably wouldn’t have died.

[Bullet Time] let me shoot ten times as fast, but cost 1000 SP per second to use it. However, with my stats, I could keep it going for almost two whole minutes. And when you were dealing with combat, that was practically a lifetime.

Explosions rang out as I raked my fire up one side of the road, near where I suspected the bandits to be, and then down the other, before going in reverse. In twenty seconds, I’d spent 16,000 MP (little more than a quarter of my total MP pool), and 20,000 SP (a little more than one-sixth of my SP), and laid out two hundred [Fire Shots] with [Explosive Shots], utterly wrecking the bandits’ ambush. And the bandits themselves.

Josce

Human Male

Level 35 Rogue / Assassin

Titles: Violator

Most of the bandits were around Level 25. Powerful enough that the barony wasn’t going to easily clear them out, but not so powerful that they could withstand the concentrated abuse of my spells going off so quickly. Well, they weren’t dead, but they definitely were much the worse for wear. In fact, the only one still on their feet was a level 35, which probably made him their leader. His being a Rogue / Assassin meant that he probably had some skill to reduce area of effect damage.

Best way to deal with sneaky people who tried to hide from you was by switching from ‘fuck you’ to ‘fuck this whole area’. For one thing, an area was a lot easier to hit than a rogue that was being sneaky. Even a [Magic Missile] wouldn’t hit if you couldn’t see someone enough to target them. When you went to hitting the whole area, you not only had an easier time getting them, but you also wrecked anything they might be trying to hide behind. And since I didn’t care about any of the scenery here, it was an easy choice to make.

But, of course, a rogue was going to have some kind of answer to that. Either naturally, as part of their class or profession, or because they went and specifically picked it up somewhere. No one lived to Level 35 without figuring out how to not get themselves killed, especially when talking about people who were on the wrong side of the law. Don’t know what he had, but he'd clearly prepared against someone blowing up a patch of forest in his face.

Fortunately, I had a rogue of my own, and she was higher-level than he was. I could see the bandit gritting his teeth, no doubt about to say something that would probably annoy him. Only problem was that Jewell’s twin daggers ventilated his throat and kidney before he even got a chance to speak. The rest of the bandits didn’t last much longer.

Your party has defeated Josce and twenty members of the Brass Rats.

You each gain 6000 XP.

Ah, nice. They were not as impressive as the ones I’d ‘defeated’ yesterday, but there were more of them, so I still got a nice helping of XP. Plus, there was loot. The bandits didn’t really have much worth talking about, but gear for level 25-35 individuals still sold for a pretty penny.

Of course, most of the pieces weren’t worth mentioning, but some were useful enough to keep. Four [Slave Collars] went into my inventory, since I could always use them if I found something nice to put them on. And I did find a few items that my pets could use.

A [Belt of Cloud Giant Strength], [Bracers of Destructive Fists], and [Amulet of the Dire Bear] would add to Rastran’s abilities nicely. The belt boosted his strength, which increased (among other things) his melee damage, which was further increased by the bracers, which affected all natural weapons and unarmed attacks. And the amulet gave a small, but noticeable boost to Rastran’s CON and the defense rating of his hide, giving him more HP, and making him take less damage from attacks. I would have liked to get him some actual armor, but for some reason the human bandits weren’t wearing armor suitable for a wolf the size of a person. Go figure.

Zazriel, on the other hand, was the proud new owner of a [Ring of Altered Form], [Amulet of Natural Armor], and a [Barmaid’s Collar]. The ring allowed her to shapeshift into humanoid forms, basically doing something similar to my [Shapeshifting]. Angels didn’t get [Shapeshifting], it seemed, but instead a [Visage], which allowed them to cast an illusion over their wings and other angelic features, making them appear like one of the mortal races. The amulet increased her Defense greatly, allowing her to shrug off more damage. And the collar, despite its name, didn’t have any kind of effects like the [Slave Collar], but instead gave a boost to the wearer’s CHA, and allowed the wearer to store any or all of the clothes they were wearing (or touching, if they’d just removed them), in the crystal over the neck, and then later either bring them back out on her body, cleaned and repaired, or switch them with whatever she was currently wearing.

Unfortunately, Dirthill had nothing for us, and wasn’t a busy enough place that we could easily offload our loot. However, we did hear rumors about werewolves in the woods towards the border with Bikar. Apparently, there was a pack that had decided to start attacking anyone traveling on the road. The Baron kept Fort Sella at the border supplied, but anyone who wasn’t traveling with an official convoy was at risk, on both sides of the border.

Somehow, the wolves were crossing the Crystalrill, without using the bridge or the nearby ford, which were under the watchful gaze of Fort Sella in Dascora and Ksa Thalas Keep on Bikar’s side of the river. The river was not traversable by boat, unless you were supremely skilled, due to the rapids in several areas, but someone damming up the river would have alerted the forts with the change in water levels. Most likely, the wolves either used their supernatural strength to leap or swim across, or they found some natural bridge that did not stop the water, but made it safe enough for them to cross. Either way, they were likely going to be a problem for us as we passed into Bikar. On the other hand, werewolf blood did have some useful alchemical properties…