WIEDERGEBURT Act II: Chapter 9

 I wouldn’t say battling through Vahn was more difficult than I assumed it would be, but I wouldn’t lie and say I didn’t think the task would be so tiring either.

The inside of the city was swarming with Grunts. They were literally everywhere. They covered the plazas, ran along the roofs, and poured out of the buildings in droves. It was truly was a never ending horde that we found ourselves being forced to cut through.

While members of the Battling Valkyries and Paladin Sect completed their assigned task of securing specific zones to act as a distraction, myself, Kari, Erica, and Tungsten fought our way up the mountainside.

The street leading up the mountain was a lot like a spiral. It was just one road that slowly wound up the mountain side. Wide enough that we didn’t have to worry about getting in each others’ way, the four of us fought out way up the mountain.

Four Grunts blocked my path, rushing toward me with little thought to tactics or subterfuge. I’d learned from experience that these guys weren’t very smart. Their only ability was to use swarm tactics, overwhelming their adversaries with superior numbers. Of course, that wasn’t to say they didn’t know how to fight. They could use weapons like bows, swords, and spears. However, none of them were intelligent enough for tactical thinking.

I used the Flash Step to appear behind the first one. Without looking behind me, I poked the Grunt in the back with my index and ring finger, and then channeled my Spiritual Power. Water shot from my fingertips like a spear. It pierced the back of my foe, right where the heart would be on a human, and then disappeared when I stopped channeling Spiritual Power. The Grunt ran for several more steps, and then tumblined across the road. It became still seconds later.

Continuing to move, I switched from using water to lightning, which crackled around my fist as I slammed it into the face of a Grunt trying to attack me with a sword. I couldn’t keep the grimace off my face when the creature’s head exploded. Bits of gore appeared on my hand, but I burned it off when the lightning element. Stepping aside, I let the creature’s forward momentum carry it past me. Like the other one, it crumbled to the ground, rolled a few feet, and then fell off the eldge.

The last two Grunts managed to swing their weapons before I could stop them. However, I used the Flash Step again. I didn’t travel far. I merely used it to get out of my enemies’ swinging range. To the average eye, it would have looked like I’d simply disappeared and reappeared a few steps away.

Pointing my hands at the two Grunts, I channeled Spiritual Power to my palms, creating two small spheres of crackling yellow energy. The pale power emitted a faint buzzing sound. I drew my hands back and then pushed the two spheres forward, which sent them crashing into the Grunts’ chests. Loud shrieks erupted from their mouths as the lightning quickly fried them inside and out. The Grunts turned into a pair of smoking, burnt corpses that fell to the ground and remained there.

Over to my left, Kari was making great use of her talent with a ranseur to defeat her enemies. There were about five in tota—no, now there were four. Kari had just sliced the head off one of her enemies. She moved swiftly, stepping to the left, and then thrusting out her weapon. The tri-tip of her ranseur impaled a Grunt through the throat. She yanked the ranseur out, causing blood to burble from its three new wounds. As it futilely tried to staunch the flow of blood, the creature fell to its knees, then dropped its arms to its side, and then it died.

After pulling impaling one Grunt, she shuffled along the ground, swung her ranseur in a horizontal arc that left a heavy gash on two more Grunts, and then twirled her staff around and jabbed the tip behind her. Loud squealing erupted from the Grunt who’d tried to sneak up on her. Blood spurted from the three holes in its chest as she pulled the weapon out, arcs of crimson trailing through the air.

Beautiful and deadly.

The other two, Erica and Tungsten, were equally embroiled in battle. The large man swung his battle axe as though it was made of papermachette. Every swing removed at least one enemy from the road. Equally powerful and deadly was Erica, who swung her claymore in wide arcs that cleaved the top halves of her enemies from their lower halves. For a woman with such thin arms, she had an awfully powerful swing.

Unlike myself, the others didn’t really use Spiritual Techniques if they didn’t have to. I imagined they were saving their Spiritual Power for when they really needed it. My power had been growing daily ever since I started training, so I had a bit more to spare. Kari had also theorized that because I didn’t require movement to channel my power, I used less somehow, though we had never been able to confirm it.

I really had no idea how long it took to reach the summit. It honestly felt like hours to me. The others must have been feeling it as well. After reaching the very top of the mountain, Erica, Kari, and Tungsten were all breathing a lot heavier than they had been.

“I never knew how exhausting dealing with so many small fry could be,” Erica muttered.

“We were lucky there were no Elites,” Tungsten said.

“I don’t know about you three, but I could really use a break,” Kari admitted with a sigh. “Though I don’t suppose we can afford to rest here.”

As she said those words, her eyes turned toward the ruins. Back when she and I first arrived in Vahn, we had assumed this was some kind of temple, and it did indeed look like a temple. The entrance was marked by large steps that were lined with artistically decorated columns on either side. I couldn’t figure out how big these ruins were just by looking at them, but judging from what I knew based on other ruins, they likely extended into the volcano.

“We cannot,” Tungsten said. “The longer that warp gate remains open, the more enemies we’ll have to deal with.”

“Speaking of,” I began as I saw several figures race out of the ruins, “it looks like we have company.”

There were five creatures that emerged from the temple. They weren’t Grunts. Tall and covered in corded muscles, these figures wore rusted armor and carried gigantic swords and axes. Unlike the Grunts, their faces appeared a little more human, though they still had flat noses with slits for nostrils and no eyebrows.

“It seems we have company,” one of them said as he spotted us.

“It does indeed,” another said with a leer. “And two of them are women.” He licked his lips. “Looks like we will be having fun tonight.”

While Kari and I hadn’t been too involved with the Cult of the Great Overlord beyond the few battles we’ve had with them in various the ruins, I had recognized that none of their kind seemed to have any women. I didn’t know if this was because their race had no women at all or if there was another reason. That said, we had learned that any woman unfortunate enough to be taken by an Elite would be subjected to unspeakable tortures and rape. The few women we had rescued always resembled broken dolls.

“Kari,” I whispered to my companion.

Kari smiled as she twirled her ranseur around her body. “I understand. Same tactics as usual?”

“Yes.” I nodded and directed my attention to Erica and Tungsten. “Leave this to us. It will be over quickly.”

While Erica and Tungsten looked uncertain, Kari and I didn’t give them time to respond. We accelerated toward the five Elites. Their grinning faces were easily seen even from this distance. I put those looks in the back of my mind, cataloging them under my “wipe from face” category, and then used the Flash Step.

Unlike when I normally use the Flash Step, this time I had used it to launch myself into the air, appearing over the heads of the five Elites. Kari was still racing toward them on the ground. As I descended, my feet crackled and burst with lightning as I poured Spiritual Power into my limbs. It was enough to create a loud noise that made the Elites look up. However, by that point, it was already too late.

When I struck the ground, I released all of the energy I’d built up. I had landed right in the center of their formation, so when the energy was released, it spread across the ground in a ripple of electricity. Of course, outside of the bolts, there was no sign that my attack had done any damage. The only way someone could figure out my attack had done anything was to look at the lightning coiled around the bodies’ of the Elites.

“W-why can’t I move?!”

“W-what is this technique?! Lightning manipulation?!”

“Impossible! This is elemental manipulation!”

I didn’t know what these people were saying, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it as Kari rushed forward. Her first action upon reaching the enemy lines was to slit the throat of the nearest Elite. Then she spun around as blood sprayed from the wound like a fountain, danced around to her next opponent, and impaled him through the heart.

During this time, I had gathered lightning between my palms, creating a sphere that I thrust into the chest of one Elite. A condensed beam of light exploded from his back. When I pulled my hand away, there was a fist-sized hole in his chest. By this point in time, Kari had already killed her third enemy, having sliced his head clean off with an elegant swing of her ranseur. I finished off the last one by kicking him so hard in the throat that I crushed his larynx.

None of the opponents fell when they died. My lightning attack had been a technique that forced their muscles into a state of semi-permanent paralysis. The effects would eventually wear off, but now that they were dead, their muscles would become stiff and force them to remain like this until disposed of.

“So this tactic even works on a group of Elites,” Kari murmured as she looked at the five we had killed, blood dripping from her ranseur.

I shrugged. “Seems so, though I imagine it will only work if they aren’t aware of our tactics.” I smiled at her. “Nice job finishing those three off before they could figure out how to nullify the effects of my lightning.”

“I should be saying that.” Kari wore a slight smile. “You’ve really improved. Your timing has become much better.”

Ever since we realized the Cult of the Great Overlord would become a problem for us, we had been creating tactics to deal with them if we ever discovered them in a ruin we were exploring. This was something we’d done immediately after barely escaping with our lives from the ruins we’d explored with Erica and her group on that peninsula.

As we were talking, Erica and Tungsten came up to us. Both of them looked impressed. That said, they didn’t seem as surprised by this point.

“If you were not a man, I would have invited you two to join the Battling Valkyries,” Erica said with a grin.

“Thank you for the compliment.” I smiled back. A compliment from her was high praise indeed.

“Let’s keep going,” Tungsten said.

Everyone agreed and we climbed the steps, walked through the entrance, and found ourselves in a large space that looked like a place of worship. Status of pointy-eared figures stood on either side of the long hall, which was wide enough that I couldn’t accurately judge its size. That said, since it was located on the lip of an inactive volcano, I knew it couldn’t be wider than fifty meters.

At the end of this hall was a stone statue. It was the same pointy-eared figure, but he or she was seated on a massive throne. It was much larger than the other statues, maybe even two times the size of the ones we walked passed.

“I really do have to wonder who this person is,” I murmured as I looked at the statue.

“Perhaps he was a deity worshipped by the civilization before the catastrophe,” Erica suggested.

“I don’t think deity is the right word,” Kari said. “According to what I’ve been able to figure out, this man is known as the Seventh Overlord. I’m not sure exactly what the ‘Seventh’ in his name is referring to, but it seems like he was a figure who came to our world a long time ago and taught us Spiritualism… or maybe he was one of them. It’s never really clear, but that’s what the legend is according to the hieroglyphs located in the ruins we’ve explored.”

“That’s interesting and all,” Tungsten responded, “but can we focus please? Save the historical lecture for later.”

While Kari and I looked at the man in anger, Erica just chuckled. “You’re always so focused on the mission. You realize this is why you can never get a woman to stay with you, right?”

Tungsten grunted at Erica’s remark, but it seemed to lighten the mood a bit. The four of us quickly took a passage located behind the large statue. It was a hallway that led to a stairwell. As I suspected, these ruins led deep into the volcano.

Quite a few enemies were located within these ruins. Most of them were Grunts, but a few were Elites. Dealing with them was not as easy as it had been outside, especially with these narrow hallways. However, Kari and I let Erica and Tungsten take the lead here. They were more skilled in combat than either of us and seemed to know each other well enough to work as a team. I wondered if they had some kind of relationship, or maybe if they’d been in one previously, but the thought left my mind as we finally reached the end.

The last room we entered was not as massive as the hallway up top, but it was large and contained an elevated platform upon which a mass of floating darkness sat. The darkness swirled and crackled with repressed power. It vaguely reminded me of the Warp Gates that we used to reach Midgard from our guild headquarters. Of course, my current focus was not the Warp Gate.

It was the creature standing before us.

Massive really did it no justice, for this creature standing on two legs easily towered over us by at least five or six meters. It looked similar to the Elites, but its body was even more muscular and the tusks jutting from its mouth were about the size of a full-grown man. It wasn’t wearing armor nor did it have a weapon. A loincloth was all that covered its modesty, though I wasn’t sure how much good that would do. Furthermore…

It was glaring right at us with burning crimson eyes.

“To think humans would be able to make it all the way here,” it said in a rumbling bass voice. “I had not realized there were any among your kind who could still fight on such a—” he paused in mid-sentence as his eyes suddenly focused on me. “YOU! WHY ARE YOU HERE?! TO THINK A DESCENDANT OF THEIR KIND WOULD REMAIN HERE!”

I was flabbergasted as this thing, monster whatever, recognized me. This was a similar reaction that all the other cultists had given me. I still had no idea why though.

“I see now! So this is why you were able to make it so far!” The creature roared as he stomped toward us. “I shall wipe you from the face of the map! Know the name of Zradam, Warlord of the Eastern Sekbeist, and lament your misfortune!”

While all four of us were confused, we didn’t have the time to ponder this monster’s strange words. With a mighty roar that shook the room, this creature, Zadram, held out his left arm. Darkness crackled around the arm. It looked like black lightning, but a strange feeling of ominousness rose within me at the sight, which wouldn’t have happened if this was mere lightning. The darkness sparked and flashed as it coalesced together, forming the shape of a massive broadsword that was easily two times larger than I was.

Another roar echoed around the chamber as Zadram rushed toward us.

***

Heading into the Demon Beast Mountain Range wasn’t as simple as just getting up and walking there. The name “Demon Beast Mountain Range” came from the fact that hordes of Demon Beasts made it their home. In all the continent, there wasn’t a single place with more Demon Beasts living there than this mountain range, and the deeper one traveled into it, the more numerous and more dangerous the Demon Beasts became.

I wasn’t sure if anyone had ever explored the Demon Beast Mountain Range’s depths. Even back in my previous life, I hadn’t gone beyond the area where A-rank Demon Beasts roamed. All I knew was that in order to explore the Demon Beast Mountain Range, it was important to plan for an extended excursion. That meant plotting a course, gathering supplies, and dealing with matters such as logistics, battle formations, and pre-planned tactics.

Because I had been given permission to take Kari into the Demon Beast Mountain Range with the caveat that I take Kari’s three brothers with me, I was currently in the process of plotting a route alongside Earland, Mikkel, and Geirolf.

The four of us were standing inside of an unused room within the Imperial Royal Palace. It wasn’t a large room, but it could fit several dozen people. A square table with a map of Nevaria and the Demon Beast Mountain Range sat in the center. Of course, the Demon Beast Mountain Range portion of the map was incomplete. All four of us were standing around the map.

“Since your goal in this excursion is to gather Four Tongue Clover and Water Nymph Bone Marrow, I would recommend this route here,” Mikkel said as he drew a finger across the map. “This route leads to a forest with a lake called the Water Nymph Lake. You’ll find Water Nymphs there. The Four Tongue Clover is located… I think around here.” He tapped a spot several kilometers from the ravine. “There’s a cave that was discovered here some time ago. I’m told Four Tongue Clovers only grow in dark, damp places, so I suspect we’ll find some in this cave.”

Earland, Mikkel, and Geirolf were all relatively experienced when it came to exploring. They had been to the Demon Beast Mountain Range several times, both on excursions with other parties and their fathers. Mikkel had even led several teams himself before.

Mikkel ran a hand through his long, red hair, which was tied with a leather cord near the bottom. He looked up, green eyes flashing. There was a question in his gaze.

I nodded. “There should be Four Tongue Clovers there.” There were in my previous life.

He nodded back. However, as the two of us seemingly agreed on a route, Geirolf interrupted us.

“That way is going to take too long. I say we cut straight down the middle like this.” After finishing his words, he drew a finger straight through the map.

“There’s no way we can do that,” Mikkel replied in a mild voice. “Disregarding the fact that the geography is too dangerous in this area to safely pass through, there are several B-rank Demon Beasts located that way.”

“Hmph. I could destroy those Demon Beasts,” Geirolf made this bold declaration with his arms crossed.

“You are very arrogant, aren’t you?” I said.

“What was that?!”

“Traveling straight through would be a foolish endeavor, even if you could defeat an A-rank Demon Beast,” I told him with a heavy emphasis on the words “A-rank”. “Our goal isn’t to fight a bunch of Demon Beasts. It’s to gather ingredients that I can use in my alchemy. The only ones we have to fight are the Water Nymphs, and that is a C-rank Demon Beast on its own. What’s more, Water Nymphs often form communities, so we probably won’t be fighting against just one but several, which will bump up their threat ranking to B-rank. There’s no need to add more danger.”

“Hmph!” Geirolf snorted through his nose. “You’re just a coward.”

“Please pay my younger brother no mind.” Mikkel smiled at me. “He’s always like this.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t take any offense to his words,” I said with a shrug. The arrogant words of a child who hadn’t experienced true terror yet meant very little to me.

Mikkel and I were doing most of the planning when it came to which route we would take. Earland, the most silent of the three brothers, didn’t say anything, and Geirolf, outside of making arrogant comments about his superior abilities, mostly let us do the planning. According to our calculations, it would take about two days of traveling to reach the ravine and another one day to reach the lake. This was, of course, going under the assumption that nothing unforseen happened.

“By the way,” Mikkel began as we finished going through the initial stages of our plan, “where are Kary, Fay, and the Lamia girl… um, Lin, wasn’t it? Where did they go?”

“They’re gathering supplies,” I said. “I asked them to buy eight days worth of seasoning for approximately ten people, a tent, and sleeping bags.”

All three brothers frowned at me, making me wonder if I had said something wrong, but then Earland, with his brow furrowed, asked, “I understand the tent and the sleeping bags, but why the seasoning?”

“Because I hate rations,” I admitted. “If I’m going to eat something, I’d prefer to catch something there and use seasonings while roasting it over an open fire. Also, seasonings have less volume and mass than rations, so they are easier to carry.”

There was a long, awkward silence as the three stared at me like I had just said something profound. Even Earland, the almost always silent and most stoic of the brothers, looked flabbergasted.

“Hmph.” Geirolf finally huffed. “It seems even you can have some good ideas every so often. I applaud you for your ingenious way of thinking.”

“Thanks,” I said with just a touch of dryness in my voice.

While we continued planning, the three girls arrived with a sack filled with seasonings, four sleeping bags, and a large tent made of Demon Beast skin. After setting everything down near the door, they walked over to the table. Kari took my left, Fay my right, and Lin used her snake tail to elevate herself above me and set her chin on the crown of my head. I noticed almost immediately that Geirolf was staring at Fay.

Oh, boy.

“How’s the planning going?” asked an extremely bubbly Kari. She hadn’t stopped smiling since two days ago when Dante had given them permission to leave Nevaria.

“We’ve already planned out the route we’re going to take.” I drew my finger along the map to show her which route we were taking. “It’ll be a six or seven day trip.”

“So we’ll be camping out?!” Kari’s eyes were sparkling. “This is so exciting!! I can’t believe I’m finally going to travel outside of Nevaria!”

“Have we determined things like who will get first watch during the night?” asked Fay, ever the pragmatist.

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Geirolf puffed out his chest. “I’m willing to watch you all night and keep you safe.”

I wondered if he realized he just admitted that he intended to watch Fay all night, which I would put on the same level of creept as being a stalker, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to ask. I was sure he’d just mixed up his words. He’d probably meant to say he’d keep watch all night. At least, that was what I hoped.

“Having one person keep watch the whole time sounds impractical and could lead to you becoming useless should we end up fighting a Demon Beast,” Fay said. “Wouldn’t it be better if we assigned at least four or five people to keep watch in shifts?”

As Geirolf deflated like sails without wind, Mikkel chuckled into his hand and said, “We haven’t gotten as far as planning who takes watch yet, but since you, Kari, Lin, and Eryk haven’t traveled through the Demon Beast Mountain Range before, I think it would be best if the three of us took watch for the first two nights at least. We can add you all into the rotation once you’ve gotten used to traveling.”

Fay accepted Mikkel’s explanation with a nod. Meanwhile, Geirolf looked like someone had shot an arrow into his chest.

“This princess won’t be able to keep watch well,” Lin admitted. “Lamia are cold-blooded. Our bodies grow sluggish during the nights.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Mikkel said.

The plan was mostly complete now. We had our route, we had a basic plan for dealing with the Water Nymphs, and we had the supplies we’d need to survive in the wilderness. I’d actually done some shopping the day before with Lin and acquired a crossbow with some arrows, which would eventually be coated with home-brewed paralytic poison. They would be enough to deal with any D or C-rank Demon Beasts.

As the meeting began winding to a close, Earland, who only spoke up a few times, turned to look at me. “Now that we have our plan, I would like to request something of you.”

“Of me? What kind of request do you have?” I asked with a frown.

Earland nodded. “I witnessed your battles during the Grand Spiritualist Tournament, but I would like to get a feel for how you fight myself.”

“So… you wish to challenge me?” I sighed when Earland nodded. “I don’t have the Dragon Tail Ruler with me, but sure. Why not?”

Since I had accepted Earland’s challenge, all of us walked into a courtyard that I could tell from the weapon racks situated along the wall was used as a training ground. It was a large space located somewhere in the middle of the Imperial Royal Palace. There was no roof over our heads. The bright and clear sky was visible, as were the several towers jutting from the palace.

Earland went over to the weapon’s rack and grabbed two broadswords. He handed one to me, but I shook my head and pushed it back.

“I can’t use weapons like this,” I admitted. “I’m not very good at wielding them.”

I had used broadswords before, of course, but that was a long time ago, back when Kari had first trained me. What’s more, standard broadswords like this couldn’t withstand my Spiritual Power. Even the current Dragon Tail Ruler I had the blacksmith create for me would break if I channeled too much through it.

Earland said nothing as he took the sword back and put it against the rack. He walked until he was standing about ten meters distance from me. While he was preparing himself, Kari, Fay, Lin, Mikkel, and Geirolf stood off to the side and waited for the battle to begin on baited breath.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” I said to Earland, who nodded once before setting himself in a standard sword fighting stance. It was a two-handed stance. The sword was in front of him, his knees were bent, and his shoulders squared.

I didn’t get into a stance.

Earland was the one who started things off, racing toward me on surprisingly swift feet. He closed the distance between us and swung his sword in a horizontal arc. I channeled Spiritual Power through my index finger and used it to block the sword, which glanced off with a loud clang as though it had struck metal. Earland stumbled back in surprise.

“How are you doing that?” he asked.

“I’m just channeling Spiritual Power through my finger,” I said, wagging my index finger back and forth. “It’s a simple hardening technique that doesn’t use any element. Of course, it’s not as good as a defense technique that uses the earth element, but…” I trailed off and smiled. “Well, it’s good enough for melee combat, I suppose.”

Frowning at me like I was a puzzle he couldn’t solve, Earland came in again with several swift swings. His first attack was a vertical swing. I didn’t bother blocking his one and stepped aside to let it past. My opponent seemed to have anticipated this, for he stopped his swing, changed the angle of his blade, and swung at me in a diagonal slash. This time I brought my finger up again.

Clang!

He attacked me several more times, but I blocked each attack as they came. After awhile, I felt his Spiritual Power surge as a fiery aura covered his body. His flames were red and blue. Even from a distance of one meter, I could feel the heat, which made sweat break out on my skin. I was forced to channel the water element through my body to keep cool.

Now with his aura covering his body, he spun around in a circle, his sword sparking as it dragged along the ground, and swung at me again. Flames erupted from his blade. It was shaped like a powerful crescent. I guessed the spinning plus the friction created from dragging his sword along the ground was the movement necessary to create this technique.

I raised my hand, creating a simple blade of water that extended about 20 centimeters. My eyes narrowed as I waited for the fire to reach me. Then I brought my balde down and cut the crescent flame in half. With nothing holding it together, the attack sputtered out and died behind me.

But Earland wasn’t done.

He was swinging his blade while moving in a strange spinning pattern, and each time he swung, another crescent of flames was created. I was forced to keep my water sword and cut through each flame as they came to me. I couldn’t help but be impressed. This attack was only a C-rank Spiritual Fire Technique, but if he learned how to fire them off ceaselessly or even combine them into one attack, it could become as strong as a B-rank technique.

After realizing this man had quite a bit of Spiritual Power—his attacks weren’t stopping—I decided to end things. I continued slicing apart his Spiritual Techniques, Crescent Flame, and began walking toward him. Two meters. One meter. I could feel the heat of his Spiritual Aura as I came closer, but the thin coating of water covering my body kept me from sweating.

Just as I reached the half a meter mark, Earland stopped shooting crescent flames at me and thrust out his sword instead. A massive fireball erupted from the tip of his sword. It was easily two or so feet wide. While I was a little surprised, I still reacted in time, dismissing my sword, coating my fist in water, and punching the fireball.

Steam exploded in all directions when I did. It covered me and also kept me from seeing outside. I figured that had been Earland’s intent, so I quickly used the Flash Step to appear two meters from where I had been. Just as I did, Earland burst out through the other side, a confused expression on his face. I used his bafflement to Flash Step beside him. My hand was already coated in a blade of water, which I put to his neck.

Earland froze.

“I think you’ve been able to take sufficient measure of my skills,” I said, raising an eyebrow.

He nodded. “You really do have incredible talent. I don’t think you will have a problem with any of the Demon Beasts around us.”

The short duel ended with relative ease. Granted, I was sure Earland hadn’t gone all out, but even if he had, it would have ended the same way.

Glancing up at the sky, I found myself hoping our journey through the Demon Beast Mountain Range would be this sunny.