Chapter 1

The Gleam of Rugus

I immediately opened up my inventory and looked through it, paying special attention to Bon’s father’s map. It looked the same as usual.

I frowned, trying to figure out what the catch was. According to the baron’s words, you could steal from someone’s inventory. Did that also mean that you could also find out what was in it without taking it?

My thoughts were interrupted by a rustle and Berg’s loud voice.

“Just no funny business! Got it!?”

“Sure, sure,” replied a haughty, familiar female voice.

Turning toward the source of the sound, I shook my head with a heavy sigh. Sooner or later, this dark world will make it so that nothing surprises me anymore.

There she was, walking proudly with her head up, wearing the same leather armor and cloak that Anda had on today. She held her arms up demonstratively. However, in the world of magic that didn’t mean a thing. Although Berg, who was walking a feet behind the girl, kept his bow at the ready, it wouldn’t help us if the girl decided to pull a trick on us.

Anda? Huh… It looked like her, but her face was different, younger, more impudent, and her hair was black. The system message made my head spin.

Una

Level 96

HP: 4978/4978

She noticed my gaze and smiled broadly, but kept advancing with her hands up. Yeah, if she decides to attack, Berg and I would turn into her puppets — I still had no idea how to deal with the controlling spell.

“Hey, Bon!” Anda/Una spoke boldly, stopping some thirty feet away from me. “Thank you for finishing me off. Just I feared, I lost the Fraction of Rugus after my death. But since a Follower of Rugus dealt the finishing blow, the Great One returned to me what I had lost. And he also told me to look after you. Could you maybe tell your friend here to put his weapon away?”

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” I answered hospitably, gesturing toward the cemetery. “Berg,” I looked at the ranger, “stay alert.”

After having looked me up and down, Anda/Una lowered her hands, chuckled and sat on one of the gravestones.

“Sorry, grandma,” she said to the stone, stroking its cold surface. “I used to love sitting on your knees.”

I asked enough stupid questions for today talking to my Patron. I could allow myself to be me in front of him as he could read my thoughts anyway, but I couldn’t reveal my weaknesses to these two. All I could was keep silent and analyze my current situation.

Una and Anda were definitely the same person; a person with two different faces. There must’ve been a simple answer for it — if there were artifacts that could change your name, why couldn’t there be ones that could change your appearance? That seemed like a logical explanation to me.

There was also her level. It was twice as high as mine. But when Listeri was on fire, we were of the same level. So, she either took a Weakening Potion, or her skills were even more unique than mine. Upgrading was long-term thing in this world — slow regeneration, potion use limit… So the first option was the more likely one, but that theory still needed to be tested.

And the last thing — where were her shackles? She couldn’t have taken them off herself. Did the system take mistake for debuff — or something like that — and removed them after her resurrection? Did somebody help her remove them?

“Where have you found this beauty?” I asked Berg, who obeyed my order and kept his bow aimed at the girl.

“She found me herself,” the ranger muttered. “She told me to bring her to you.”

“As far as I understand, there was nobody else around?” I looked at Una with the corner of my eye. She was looking at the starry sky as if nothing was wrong.

The ranger shook his head. It looked like he wanted to add something, but after glancing at Rugus’s Gleam, decided not to. That was right, we couldn’t trust her. At least, for now.

I moved my gaze onto the girl. Feeling it, she stopped observing the stars and stared at me with a predator-like glare. She then moved her gaze higher, looking at something above my head — she seemed to be reading my stats.

“I was killed by someone called ‘Villager Bon’,” she said. “Not by you, ‘Secretive Bale’. But you defeated me… That’s very weird. I asked you back then, the night when Listeri burnt down… And I will ask again — what are you? Are you a Gleam with a rebelling source inside you?

“Source?” I wondered.

Una grimaced and shrugged.

“I don’t know what to call the poor soul that gave you the body. That Bon guy, Chief Jason’s son... Well?” she leaned forward. “Am I right? Is Bon is trying to kick you out?”

Both admitting and avoiding the question would reveal my weak spots to her. All I could do is come up with a very convincing lie.

“No, we get along just swimmingly and even swap places sometimes.”

“Hmm…” pondered Rugus’s Gleam.

“And what about you? Do you talk to your source?”

“No,” she calmly answered. “I have never heard that little girl speak.”

“How long have you been in her body?” I asked almost immediately.

“For ten years,” Una answered indifferently.

My heart sank, but I strained every nerve not to betray my discomposure. I felt that I made another step toward understanding the secrets of this world. I have never had a chance to talk to a Gleam before.

“And who were you before Rugus put you in the girl’s body?”

Una squinted again, drilling me with her look. Then she chuckled.

“Maybe you’ll also ask me when was the last time I changed my underwear? What was in my past life stays there. The only thing that matters is what we have in this life. And in this life I am the Gleam of the Great Rugus. I am his eyes, ears and arms. I was ordered to help you to find the Zurtarn. The Great One told me that you know where another part is hidden”.

“I have a map,” I nodded, showing her the rolled up piece of paper that I immediately hid in my inventory. Una’s eyes widened. She jumped from the gravestone and blurted:

“It was in your inventory this entire time?”

“Yeah,” I exhaled, understanding what she was getting at.

“Oh, damned Decay!” she cursed. “Tsunter hinted that some of the Followers of Viyon came with him…”

“Someone invisible was following us,” Berg confirmed. “But their skills were such a high level that I wasn’t even able to pinpoint their approximate location. I just felt their presence.”

Shifting my gaze from Rugus’s Gleam to the Old Man’s Disciple, I was feverishly trying to remember everything I read about Viyon. Putting it mildly, he was called “the God of Cunning” but, in truth, he was the God of Slyness, or even the God of Insidiousness. He was a perfect candidate for the Patron of thieves and swindlers. At least, I hadn’t come across any other similar deities in the Small Encyclopedia…

“He must have checked your inventory when you were in the runic shackles,” Berg said without taking his eyes and aim off Una. “The world would have told you that you were being spied on otherwise.”

Hmm, so I would have got a system message. Thank the Old Man! For a moment I honestly thought that any invisible person could rummage through my inventory at any moment without me noticing it. However, not really at “any moment”.

But why did the thief just take a look at the inventory? Why didn’t they take the map? I could only assume that I would have known about it even with my mana blocked. Or maybe they wanted to persuade me to cooperate with them, so that I would hand them the map on my own.

“Speaking about shackles…” I decided to clarify how she got free. Of course, nothing prevented her from lying. She repeated my theory word for word — the shackles simply disappeared after resurrection. Maybe she was speaking the truth.

“But that doesn’t matter now!” the girl quickly said. “We have to hurry up and get to the artifact before them! Where should we go? How much time will it take?”

“As if I would tell you,” I chuckled.

She pursed her lips tightly and threateningly shook her head.

“Nothing prevents me from beating the answer at of you. Or manipulating, in my case. You are not strong enough to stand against me. I won’t break my Patron’s will by doing that because I’m going to help you. Well? Speak up. The baron must already know the location and is preparing an expedition… Despite having other things to do,” the girl snorted bitterly.

“That’s right,” I nodded, “as far as I understood it, he wants to control Ekheim. And it seems to me that he will fulfill his task quickly.”

“I’m sure finding the second part of the Zurtarn is a more pressing matter to him,” Una said.

“But we are much closer to it than he is,” I said, deciding to trust her. After all, the Old Man said that the Followers of Rugus were our allies.

“Just as I thought,” she replied. “So, how long will this trip take?” she repeated her question.

“If we don’t have to fight the wolves, it will take us a day.”

She made a wry face and sat on the gravestone once again.

“Do you enjoy it, when I pry information out of you?” Una asked, flicking a strand of hair behind her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me the direction, not to mention that you didn’t show me the map,” she chuckled and shook her head. “We can’t count on your ability to accelerate regeneration. It’d be pretty stupid to just walk through the Territory of Decay. So, we need three horses and six Glozeysk Crystals. And potions, too.”

She looked at us. I could’ve sworn that I hadn’t said a word about the decayed lands. Una knew… But how?