Glad Tidings

Chapter 17

"Yoooou can talk?" I asked Stalin.

"So can I!" his companion chimed in with a feminine voice. Stalin was stoic-faced most of the time. In contrast, the lady looked like she was grinning, jaws wide and tongue lolling.

"I-Is that… Nice to meet you," I almost asked if it was normal. As if anything about my current situation was or should be. At the very least, it seemed my conversation partner issue was dealt with.

"A pleasure!" The lady hound said, knocking into Stalin when he remained silent.

"Mistress, may I kill the remaining one?" Stalin asked, ignoring his partner.

"Remaining-" I looked over toward the entrance "-Fucking really?"

The unconscious man was still lying where he'd been before and bleeding out. The unopened potion bottle in the shape of an anatomical heart rested at his elbow.

"No, not for the moment," I said. Stalin rolled his burning eyes at me. Even so, he laid down without protest. His face full of what I now felt was a dog's equivalent of a bored expression.

I floated over to get a look at the straggler. He was muscular and tanned but still had baby fat on his face. He looked eighteen at the outside and would've definitely been carded trying to buy beer.

He was worth points, but I didn't have an express reason to kill him at the moment. Nature would handle that shortly. Arrows in the body are not conducive to living.

I felt bad since I'd let the others off. It seemed kind of rude to kill him just because they ditched him. He was also a kid in my eyes, which added to my reluctance. Deciding to do what I wanted, I fed him the potion then pulled the arrow out of his shoulder.

"Oh, shit," I said when the shaft came out sans arrowhead. That definitely wouldn't be good for his long-term health. Gingerly I used my claws to rip his shirt open at the wound site. I should have started by doing that, but now I could only try to fix the mess I'd made.

I weighed my options. I could probably dig it out and use another potion to heal him again. The idea made my insides churn uncomfortably. I'd picked dungeon master because I didn't want to get bloody. Digging around in this kid's meat, even for medical reasons, didn't appeal to me.

While I was trying to talk myself into it, he started groaning in pain. I thought he was waking up, but his eyes only fluttered as his wound bled more fiercely than before.

Did I fuck up and give him a bad potion?

The thought crossed my mind, but a moment later, something black began wriggling out of his flesh. Revolted, I pulled my hand away and was treated to the sight of the arrowhead pushing its way out of the wound. Once that horrible reverse birth was done, his flesh started to mend.

As I watched, his bloodless face gained back a touch of color. He didn't wake up, but he looked a couple of steps further from death's door than he had before. It looked like the potion healed in a more profound sense than I'd anticipated.

"Convenient," I muttered. That the potion had corrected for my fuck up was ideal and good to know. I'd passed out the cheapest physical healing potions, so I hadn't expected a lot. Having my expectations exceeded was nice.

With the kid less likely to die of his own volition, that left him in my dungeon until he woke up. That wasn't exactly ideal. I considered tossing him out, but it made me feel cheap. Since I was sparing his life, it wasn't exactly kosher to then throw him out to suffer in the elements.

"Welcome to the dungeon hotel..." I muttered to myself as I started shuffling tiles. Out of raid status, it didn't cost me anything to move them. I quickly had a small room built off to one side. It was hardly luxurious, but it would keep him out of the draft.

Getting him into it was a different kind of problem. I tried dragging him, but it didn't work. Weirdly though, lifting him did. Getting down next to him, I loaded him on my stomach and slid like a sled to the spot where I wanted to put him.

Thinking about why I could pick him up when I couldn't drag him felt like an ice pick in my brain. I decided to ignore it. I was made of Z14, and whatever that was didn't give a fuck.

Getting so close, I discovered that this kid was the owner of the soap. He still smelled a bit, but more in the 'dear god shower after the gym' kind of way instead of like bad meat or good cheese. Still unpleasant, but more tolerable by a few orders of magnitude.

I bought a survival pack and deployed the bedroll before laying him down. The rest of the gear I left as it was, placing the bag next to him. I felt confident he'd piss off on his own once he woke up. If he was lucky, he might even catch up to his comrades before they got too far.

I wouldn't have bet on the second half though, they likely hadn't stopped running yet.

I wasn't sure if I'd accidentally given his stuff to someone else and checked my inventory. The pack with soap in it was still there, and the only unique item in it was two bags of candy. That left the stuff that was on him to go through.

I put a blanket over him before stealing everything he was wearing. I could have waited until he woke up and asked him to disrobe politely. Only I suspected that would end with a needless fight on my hands.

His basic gear was the same as his comrades. The only notable deviation was a sword and heavy belt where the sheath was hung. The others only had spears, which made sense.

Swords were generally expensive and training-intensive, despite fantasy movie depictions. Spears were a semester of "stick them with the pointy end." Swordsmanship was a master's degree.

Aside from the sword and the candy, his only personal item was a locket. In one half was a painting of an older woman holding a baby. It was done in a mushy sort of pre-renaissance realistic style.

It looked cheap and poorly done to me but sitting for a portrait of any size was a luxury. It also might have been good workmanship based on the local art level. In the other half of the locket, behind glass, was a coiled braid of blond hair.

It matched the boys, which made me think it was his mother's. I knew that assumption was biased. If it belonged to the woman in the portrait, she could have been an older wife. Or a younger woman painted without skill.

On the outside of the locket, a Coat of Arms was etched. A rose with a pair of arrows crossed behind it with the heads pointed down. It matched the one on the sword’s crossguard, and my curiosity about the kid grew.

"Who's a baby paladin?" I asked jokingly. Blond-haired, square-jawed, martial training, humble station, and a complicated past. I tried to stop myself from thinking about it, but it was too late. Seeds long dormant in my heart were starting to sprout, an ominous rattle of dice heralding their awakening. This kid had a backstory~

I pushed down my sudden desire to ask him a hundred questions. A task greatly helped by the fact he was still unconscious. Until he woke up, I resolved to leave him alone and get to the work I should have started already.

Putting the locket back on him, I still kept the sword for the moment. Weirdly, it didn't populate to my item store, and I was curious as to why. The investigation into that would have to wait.

Since I was done dealing with my guest, it was time to figure out what had happened to my mana. I opened my dungeon layout interface, and my jaw would have dropped if it wasn't decorative.

My starter set of tiles included 150 generated based on the local terrain. The ones I'd gotten as a bonus from the tutorial amounted to 75. The grand total of titles that I owned at present was 1685. My core had absorbed 1,460 tiles during start-up.

I couldn't help but fist pump at that.