WIEDERGEBURT Act VI: Chapter 23

With the addition of Chloe, we were more than able to take care of the Spiritualists attacking us. Standing among the pile of cloaked bodies, I placed my foot on one that had fallen onto its side, kicked the corpse onto its back, and removed the hood and mask covering the person’s face.

The face that stared back at me was handsome, but saying that felt redundant by this point. His looks were no better or worse than anyone else’s in this realm. I guess that made him average by this realm’s standards.

“These are definitely Klaue’s men,” Tora said with a growl.

“How can you tell?” I asked, standing up.

“Take a look at this.” Tora knelt beside the corpse and stripped off the cloak, revealing shiny new armor underneath. “This armor is brand new, the best money can be. You see these runes? This rune array can defend against almost any attack.”

“Believe me. I noticed them,” I said, my voice dry.

“Then you should know these runes can’t be crafted by just anyone,” Tora explained. “Now take a look at the armor itself. Notice the red tint? This is blood iron. The ore can only be gathered in a few places. It’s incredibly rare, very durable, and absorbs Spiritual Power, making it the perfect material for inscribing runes on.”

“In other words, it’s expensive,” I said with a nod, following her words.

“We should also take into consideration the fact that these men are just scrubs,” Chloe added. “You can tell by how easily they were killed that they aren’t Klaue’s elite forces. Only Klaue is able to provide even the lowest among his ranks something this valuable.”

I understood her reasoning as well, but now that she’d brought attention to herself, I had to question her.

“What are you doing here, Chloe? Also… what is with that uniform?”

Chloe was currently not wearing her maid uniform I was so used to seeing her in. The silver graves and gauntlets that covered her arms and legs were elegant and refined. She wore platform boots that made her seem taller. Her breastplate only covered her chest, revealing dark clothing underneath it, but an even more complex rune array than the one on these men was inscribed into it. Whoever had made those runes was a rune master on par with Kari.

“This is my normal uniform,” Chloe admitted.

“Your normal… don’t tell me… you’re a fucking valkyrie?!” Tora exclaimed in shock.

The Valkyries were the division under the direct command of Fray. An elite fighting force composed of only women. They reminded me of the Battling Valkyries back on Miðgarðr, and it made me wonder if perhaps tales of the Valkyries had survived back home. Perhaps the name Battling Valkyries had been inspired by this group.

“That’s right,” Chloe said with a smile. “To be more precise, I am the commander of the First Regiment.”

That seemed to shock Tora even more. Her eyes bulged from their sockets.

“You’re the Invincible Valkyrie?!… no fucking way! There’s just… that’s not fucking possible!”

“Who is this Invincible Woman?” I asked, feeling out of the loop.

Tora eyed the smiling Chloe cautiously as she answered me. “The Invincible Valkyrie is the commander of the First Regiment of the Valkyries. She’s known far and wide for her incredible strength and prowess in battle. She is also one of only a handful of people who has mastered three concepts.”

Now that Tora had explained who the woman was, I could see why she was shocked. Chloe had never struck me as anything other than a maid. She didn’t have any presence, no fighting spirit or killing intent. That was why I had mistaken her as harmless.

I would have to be more careful from now on.

“The nickname itself is a bit exaggerated, but it is true that I’ve mastered three concepts,” Chloe said. I wanted to ask more, but she hurried this along. “In either event, we shouldn’t remain here. You two should head back to Hero Hall. I recommend you don’t leave anymore. Fray will fetch you when it’s time to open the Warp Gate.”

“What about these bodies?” I asked. “We should at least dispose of them.”

“Do not worry about that,” Chloe said with a smile.

She tapped her foot against the ground, and the bodies disappeared. Suddenly. Without warning. I sensed what felt like a combination of spatial fluctuations and dimensional shifts, but I couldn’t see whatever happened. One second the bodies were there. The next they were gone. It honestly frightened me to see how powerful this woman I’d been treating as a simple maid was.

“See? It’s all taken care of. Now, you two should head back to Hero Hall before Klaue realizes his men failed.” She made a gesture as if shooing us. “Go on.”

Left with little choice in the matter, the two of us began walking to Hero Hall, but neither of us said a single word. Even the normally talkative Tora looked pensive and silent. I was sure she was thinking about the ambush and how she’d met the Invincible Woman, whom she seemed to hold no small measure of respect for. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but think about how the woman who’d been getting me up every morning was secretly a badass in disguise. Would wonders never cease?

***

I arrived at the alchemy shop to find the same woman I had spoken to half a month ago still standing behind the counter. Only a few other people were present. A young man decked from head to toe in armor was looking at the Time Conceptualization Pills, his brow furrowed as if he were debating whether they would be worth buying. Two other people, a pair of women, were looking at the alchemy ingredients.

Making my way to the counter, I caught the woman’s attention with a smile and said, “I have the parts of a Lesser Prismatic Wyrm with me. Would I be able to sell those to you?”

“You can,” the woman said with a smile of her own. “Though a Lesser Prismatic Wyrm… those are pretty rare.” She shook her head. “Anyway, please follow me. I’ll need to appraise the parts you salvaged to see how much everything is worth.”

I nodded and followed the woman as she moved around the counter and toward a door on the shop’s eastern side. We traveled down a hallway lined with a few doors. The doors weren’t tagged, so I didn’t know what they contained. This woman stopped at a door close to the end of the hall, pressed her hand against it, and released her Spiritual Power. A rune glowed briefly on the door before disappearing. Then she opened it.

“In here, please,” she said as she walked inside.

I followed her.

The room on the other side was a lot larger than I expected. You wouldn’t think so because the other doors weren’t spaced that far apart. I imagined someone had distorted and enlarged this space using spatial or dimension magic. It was perfectly possible that the room beyond this door had been separated into its own dimension.

“All right. Bring out the parts you’d like to sell us,” the woman said… and I realized I still didn’t know her name.

“Of course, Ms…”

“Norn,” she replied.

“Ms. Norn,” I said with a nod.

Without further ado, I began bringing all the parts I’d salvaged from the Lesser Prismatic Wyrm. First the gallons of blood sealed inside of barrels I created by manipulating ironwood with the earth element. Next the scaled hide. Then the bones. Followed by the organs such as the eyeballs, tongue, heart, and liver. Lastly, I took out the claws and teeth.

Norn’s eyes widened with every part I brought out, until they looked like the size of a gold valis. Was she expecting me to not salvage everything I could? I turned to her with a smile and gestured toward the parts.

“Appraise away,” I said.

“Y-yes… I’ll do just that. Er, one moment.”

Walking over tentatively, as though she was afraid this would all disappear, Norn began the process of inspecting and appraising the goods. She first went over to the barrels containing blood. When she opened the lid of one, the scent of freshly spilled blood filled the room. I was surprised when she didn’t seem bothered. It was such a strong smell, poignant and hard to take in, but the woman merely murmured something under her breath before going to the other items and appraising them as well.

The whole process took a while. I stood there and watched as she continued muttering under her breath. I could have sworn she was swearing about there being “too much” and whatnot, but it might have just been my ears playing tricks on me. I wasn’t using the wind element to enhance my hearing either.

Finally, she turned to me, crossed her arms, and gave me a dry look like I did something wrong.

“Well, the good news is everything here is in top shape, and we can give you the highest price for all of it,” she began.

“If there is good news, that means there is bad news,” I said.

“You catch on fast.” Norn smiled, then sighed and pushed up her bangs with a hand as she blew out a deep breath. “The bad news is that the price for all this costs more than what I am personally allowed to spend on ingredients. Could I ask you to wait for a moment while I get our head appraiser?”

“Do what you need to,” I agreed easily enough. It wasn’t like I had anything going on today, though Tora might be upset I had taken so long.

I closed my eyes and meditated as the woman left, focusing on the beat of my own heart, feeling the blood as it pumped through my body. If I wanted, it would be very easy to reverse the course of my own blood.

As I continued meditating, I felt the area around me. Invisible strands of Spiritual Power drifted through the air. Woven together like a tapestry, I sensed the dimensional energy infusing this place, making it clear that my earlier assumptions were correct. This room--and likely all the rooms in the alchemy store--were dimensions separated from the rest of Gudeverdenen.

Norn came back seconds later with an older gentleman--a man with long silver hair, wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, and dressed in a white robe. He looked like your typical old man. However, I could sense the power wafting off him. He wasn’t someone I would underestimate.

The old man eyed the Lesser Prismatic Dragon parts with an intelligent gleam, then turned to me.

“Norn was right. That is quite the haul. Our store can pay you 220,000 credits for the everything. Does that sound good to you?”

I didn’t know how much this Lesser Prismatic Wyrm was truly worth, so I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or ripping me off, but if he didn’t take it, then it would just sit in storage. And 220,000 was a lot of credits.

I calculated in my mind how much I needed to do what I intended. It would cost 63,000 credits to spend one month in the meditation chamber and 126,000 credits for buy 31 Life Conceptualization Pills and 32 Death Conceptualization Pills. All this added to a total of 189,000.

It would be enough.

“That is fine with me,” I said at last.

The old man smiled as he held out his hand. I placed my badge on his hand, watched as the number suddenly climbed from 5,100 to 225,100, and then took it back. After thanking Norn and the old man, I left the alchemy store.

It was already quite late when I exited, the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and I was hungry. I made my way to the banquet. The sounds of talking and laughter reached me before the smell of food.

The banquet was bustling when I arrived. Nobody paid me any attention as I wandered down the tables, looking for a place to sit.

“Hey! Eryk! Get your ass the fuck over here!”

Within the din of numerous conversations, the sound of a woman cursing at me got my attention. I turned to find Tora waving me over. She was sitting next to a woman who looked vaguely familiar. I made my way over to them, sat down in the empty spot Tora saved for me, and thanked her with a nod.

“Remember how you asked me to look into that fucker Skude and his fucking dad?” Tora asked.

“I do remember,” I said. Then I paused. “Are you telling me you already found something?”

It hadn’t even been a day since I asked her to look into Skude’s home life for me. I had been expecting it to take her a lot longer, at least a couple dozen days. Maybe even a month.

“Are you surprised?” Tora asked with a grin. “Well, I actually got pretty fucking lucky. You remember this girl right here?”

I looked over at the girl on Tora’s other side and realized that I did remember her. She was the girl who was getting picked on by those men back on floor one. I didn’t recognize her at first because I had put the incident out of my mind.

“Do you know something about Skude’s home life?” I asked the girl.

Biting her lip, the girl shook her head, which disappointed me, but then she said, “I don’t know anything about Skude or his life at home, but… Klaue… he kidnapped my mom several years ago.”

What?

“Can you tell us what happened?” I asked.

She nodded once and began talking. “My mom used to be a member of the Valkyries. She belonged with the Third Regiment. Divisions sometimes host competitions with other divisions, and I think my mom caught Klaue’s attention during one of them. A few days after the competition, he created false charges against my mom and had her arrested. Me and my family waited for several months to hear word from her. When we didn’t hear anything, Dad went to Klaue’s mansion to get to the bottom of this. He never returned.”

A maid came over pushing a cart. She put a plate, some utensils, and a mug of ale in front of me. Despite being hungry, however, I didn’t begin piling food on my plate right away. What this woman was saying had grabbed all of my attention.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” I asked.

I didn’t know how the law here worked, but I didn’t think this would enough to apprehend Klaue. If it was, then I was certain Fray would have already done so.

“There is… one more thing,” the woman began, lips trembling. “I, uh… give me a minute please.”

Tora and I remained silent as the woman took several deep breaths. It seemed like whatever she was about to say was hard for her.

“A-at the time this happened, I was already enrolled in this academy,” the girl said. “I had… a little sister and grandmother. W-when I came home to visit them one day, I found my entire house had been ransacked and my sister and grandmother were missing. There were… people watching the house too. They attacked me. I was barely able to escape with my life. I’ve been staying here in the academy ever since.”

“Were these people wearing cloaks and masks?” I asked.

The woman paused, face scrunching as she searched her memory, then nodded. “They were.”

Tora and I shared a look. I could see in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing. There couldn’t be that many cloaked and masked men attacking people. This had Klaue’s name written all over it.

It looked like I would not be going into the meditation chamber quite yet.

***

The first thing I did was send a letter to Fray. I used Instructor Kreya do it. She was a big fan of Fray, according to rumors, and seemed almost giddy over the idea of passing along a message from Fray’s nephew to her. She even promised to deliver it personally. After that, it was all a waiting game.

Several days passed before anything happened, and Tora and I continued to fight people within the arena, while I also continued to study alchemy with Hendral. Sometimes Hendral would join Tora and I for lunch, but he was very reserved and Tora didn’t like him much. I had the feeling he also preferred being alone.

My winning streak on the third floor was something of a mess. I lost almost as many times as I won, but I found that the more I fought, the more I won. By this point, I was certain my win to lose ratio was about 70:30. However, that meant I still didn’t have the ten for ten winning streak I wanted.

“Aaaaah! I can’t believe I fucking lost again!” Tora complained as she sat with me against a tree.

“The people on the third floor have a much better grasp of their power than the previous two floors,” I agreed. “I heard from one of the other students that the third floor is like something of a choke point. If you can make it to the fourth floor, it shows you are a cut above everyone else.”

“And there are still six fucking floors after that,” Tora muttered with a sigh.

I nodded as I thought about that. We were still struggling with the third floor, which made me wonder how powerful the people on the higher floors were. My understanding was there weren’t many people in the floors above us. The first three floors had the most people. After that, there were maybe two hundred on the fourth floor, and there were even less on the floors after that.

With a ragged sigh, Tora fell onto her side, her head falling on my lap. I stared down at the woman.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“Relaxing. What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” Tora shot back.

“My lap is reserved for my wives only. I’m gonna have to ask that you remove yourself.”

“Then just fucking marry me.”

There was something familiar about the pushy way this woman was telling me to marry her. It reminded me of when Lin tried to push herself onto me. How long ago was that? It must have been… almost thirteen years ago now. Had it really been that long?

“I am not going to marry you,” I said.

“Why the fuck not?” Tora actually did pull her head from my lap,but only so she could glare at me. “You saying I’m not good enough? Do you not find me attractive?”

“That’s not it.” I shook my head. “Crassness aside, I think you are very pretty.”

Tora had an odd combination of boyishness mixed with the refined beauty of a noblewoman. Her hair was cut short. However, her feature were soft and feminine, save maybe the scowl on her face. A body like a work of art, Tora’s wide hips, thin waist, and large bust could have given Kari a run for her money. I would also admit the skintight clothes she preferred made her already attractive appearance even more eye-catching.

So, yes, I found Tora very attractive.

“Then what the fuck is wrong with me?” asked Tora.

“Nothing. Why would you assume something is wrong with you?” The woman scowled and opened her mouth, but I cut her off, deciding to nip this in the bud right now. “I am not the kind of man who would betray his wives just so I could sleep with a pretty face. I like you, but I love my wives, and I won’t do anything that would make them sad.” I shrugged. “I’m not saying nothing can happen between us, but if you want me to marry you, then you need to get their permission first.”

I truthfully wasn’t all that interested in marrying another woman. Four was enough for me. That said, I also wouldn’t deny that I was attracted to Tora. She was crass, but she was also beautiful, strong, determined, and kind. She enjoyed combat and pushing her limits, wanted to become stronger, and possessed a strong moral center that you wouldn’t expect from a woman who couldn’t go one sentence without swearing.

Tora was silent for a moment. I expected her to scowl and get upset, but then she surprised me by leaning back against the tree, closing her eyes, and sighing once. Then she stood up, startling me.

“Fine,” she said, pointing at me as if issuing a challenge. “If that’s how things have to fucking be, then I’ll get your wives permission! You won’t have any fucking complaints if they agree to it, right?”

“Yes.” I nodded once. “If you can get their approval, then I would have no qualms about marrying you.”

“All right then. You said it yourself. Don’t forget your words.”

With that, Tora turned around and began walking off.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To fucking make myself even more womanly!” Tora shouted back before she disappeared from the courtyard. I had absolutely no clue what she meant by that.

***

Since Tora had left me to make herself more womanly, whatever she meant by that, I decided to head back to my dorm. No one was there when I arrived. Hendral was probably learning alchemy right now. He was a lot more dedicated to it than I was.

Sitting down on my bed, I slowly shut my eyes and began meditating.

Meditation had completely replaced sleep for me now. While it wasn’t the same thing, and I did miss sleeping, I knew what I needed right now was a better grasp on my concepts. I also felt much more refreshed after meditating than I did sleeping.

I focused on the Concept of Death for now, which I believed was more useful than life at the moment. The Concept of Life was one that would help me stay alive so long as I had Spiritual Power. Right now, however, what I needed was a concept that could help me kill. The Concept of Death was perfect for that.

My breathing slowed subconsciously as I thought about what death was. It was an ending. Death was the permanent cessation of all biological functions that sustained a living organism. When someone died, that was it. Their life was expired and they would never come back. But death was also a necessity. To control death was also to hold the lives of others in your hands.

The soft noise of feet treading on carpet snapped me from my meditation; it was a lighter sound compared to the heavy footfalls of Hendral. This person, whoever they were, was definitely a woman.

I didn’t sense any killing intent from this person. If they had come to kill me, I doubt I would have heard them walking. They had done that on purpose so I would notice them.

Opening my eyes, I found myself staring at Chloe, dressed in her maid outfit instead of her armor. She was smiling at me as she clasped her hands and bowed low.

“Master Eryk, Lady Fray has requested your presence.”

I nodded, stood to my feet, and stretched my arms above my head. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been meditating for, but it must have been longer than I realized since it looked like early morning outside my window. The sun was just beginning to rise.

“I’m guessing this is about the letter I sent?” I asked.

“I couldn’t say for sure.” Chloe’s smile widened. “However, I believe your assumption is most likely correct.”

“Then let’s go,” I said.

“Of course. Please allow me to escort you home.”

I looked at the empty bed to find that Hendral was not present, which made me wonder where he’d gone to, but I didn’t think on it much as I walked out of the room with Chloe. It looked like the time to bust Klaue was coming soon. I hoped Fray would let me take part in it.