Short summary of the last chapter:

Spoiler :

Voice used his insanely fast speed to kill several demon animals. He resurrected them, and made a plan to conquer the small town.

Also, let me know if anything is wrong with the chapter! Be sure to comment and rate!

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One last note. This is going to be the last chapter… That I use first person in. I’ve given it a try, and I think I want to try 3rd person omniscient. Remember that this story was a writing experiment. I’ve done things that were my most difficult, like fight scenes and foreshadowing, so I want to work on point of views now. Although I still need to work on making foreshadowing a bit less obvious. I decided to give everyone a bit of warning.

I let the boy stay with his mother throughout the day. Mostly to let me work on what I needed to do. I spent several hours pulling out various gems from the ground. It took longer and longer to do. The first few gems only took a matter of minutes to find and harvest, but then they became more scarce. I had to actually search thoroughly to find them.

I had a handful, but I needed many more.

I moved the light mana around me, much like I had seen EDI do with her skill. I flew into the air as I headed to a densely wooded area. The rush of the morning air left a crisp flow in my lungs. The sun slowly rose over the horizon. The yellow dyed sky went on for ages. I picked up the backpack I had hidden away, and flew to a new location.

I landed in a random location, and sat down. After searching for a bit, I found a single gem. I went to a new location after I was sure I wouldn’t be able to find any more any time soon. I repeated this throughout the entire morning. By noon I had enough gems to outfit everyone in a large town, so it would take no effort to give everyone in a small village such as this a single gem.

I didn’t know how to craft jewelry exactly, but I could do something nice. After fathering the gems I took a handful of rocks from nearby. With a bit of thought, I made each rock into a perfect sphere. I shaved off some of the earth mana from each one, until they were all about an inch in diameter. From there I formed them into rings of various sizes. From the size of a child’s finger, to one that would fit a robust man. I polished each stone until they shone like sapphires. In the center of each was a perfect indention, the size of a small stone. I used the mana ability granted to me by Gnome to cut the gems into perfect sizes. I expanded the indentions in the rings, and placed the gems inside. After placing the gems, I closed the rings over them.

I then enchanted each gem with a small amount of wind mana. Just enough to make it send out a low-volume phrase ‘Obey Voice0fReason’. Each ring only held a small amount of mana, so I enchanted the polished stone. Using the Ancient Elven language, I enchanted each polished stone ring with the phrase ‘Absorb Mana From Wearer’. A short phrase that simply looked like a unique design. The mana it took was very little, so most people would be able to handle it. The worst case scenario was that the spell stopped working for a while, until the person wearing it regained a bit of mana.

I used the disguise skill. My face began to elongate slightly. My hair became grayer. My features became softer. By the end of it I looked like a wizened old man, that had been through many years of happiness. My body began to bloat slightly, and became thicker. My plump happy form, gave me an overall look of a happy wealthy merchant.

I had prepared before leaving the city. One of the things I did was buy a few sets of clothing. Something for any general occasion. I had a wealthy looking set, a beggar looking cloth, something that might pass for a scribe’s outfit, and obviously the garb of a teacher. I took out the wealthy looking set.

*Sigh* ‘ I guess I really have to do this.’

The clothing didn’t cost me anything, as it was ‘donated’ by a generous adventurer that was away at the time. My face knotted up in an internal debate for a moment. Finally I nodded. With a wave of darkness mana I called for one of the wolves I brought back from the dead. It’s body, almost completely skeletal at this point, shambled out of the wooded area towards me in moments. While I waited I put the clothing on.

“Attack me.”

The wolf almost flew at me to attack. In the moment it was sailing through the air, I buffed myself with several permanent buffs. I quickly stacked ten of my Damage Immunity (minor) buffs on.

There are a lot of times I get sidetracked while doing something fun, but this one made me a bit upset. Since the moment I had gotten more than 10k mana, I never really thought of trying all of my buff combinations again.

I had a sudden epiphany, and added ten more.

Damage Immunity (Major)

The target gains immunity to damage. The target gains a bonus 800% armor rating. The target also gets a total of 400% hp bonus. This duration of this spell is (10 + (light affinity/10) * Aura) seconds.

The base spell cost for this spell is 10,000 mana.

!!!

“WHAT THE FUCK!”

The wolf obeyed the last instruction it was given, and continued to sail towards me. I sidestepped it, “STOP ATTACKING!” I unconsciously added a bit of wind mana to my voice, causing it to rumble outwards. I hit the wolf with the back of my hand. The wolf went spinning from the force. It hit the ground lightly, and stood back up. The wolf whimpered and stood stock still.

“What the actual fuck!?”

800% armor rating? My armor was already pretty defensive when I had it equipped. 25 points of defense reduced a weapons attack by 25 points. If it didn’t have more than that, it couldn’t even hit anything. That was just some basic iron armor too. If I had better material to give Evan, I’m sure he could have made me better stuff.

But 800% more? That made it a total of 225. That meant that something as paltry as EDI’s Sai wouldn’t even be able to get past it. Of course if she struck for a weak spot that would change.

AND MY HP!

My face began to hurt, as my smile seemed to want to break my cheeks apart. I felt my eyes get watery, but didn’t let any tears fall. That would have ruined the moment.

‘I’m not weak anymore.’ *Sniff*

My whole game experience, since that patch in the worm tunnels, had been dogged by my low hp. That problem seemingly just resolved itself. At least a little bit. From a pitiful 100 hp, to an astounding 500 hp! That might not seem like a lot, seeing as EDI had 2,000 hp at level 74. It was still a lot to me. It was as if I had 5 times as many lives to mess with. It would take 5 times as many hits to hurt me. I wanted to test it out, but I also wanted to hurry my plan along. Not to mention I had no one good enough around this area to put up a fight.

So I took the buff off, while mentally noting to go through all of my buffs at the soonest possible chance.

I had the wolf attack me again, but this time only slightly buffed myself. The wolf attacks hurt like hell whenever they landed. I ran away from him, without using my speed buff, to make it more realistic. I even called out a few more wolves when I was confident my healing abilities could keep up with the damage.

After maybe ten minutes or so, I disbanded the group. They went back to the areas they were stationed at, and I loosely healed up some of the more sever wounds. I checked my disguise once more, and changed my name to Sherman of Sherwood. Alliteration, heh.

My 10k mana I used to buff myself had already regenerated. I used a bit of water mana to make myself sweat a bit, and fire mana to make my body seem hot. After I was satisfied with everything, I began running back to the town.

Even without making myself get hot, or the water mana making me sweat more, I would have been a mess. A twenty minute run through a thick forest would have made anyone tired. I was honestly panting by the time I made it to the village. When I saw that a guard had noticed me, I started phase two.

‘Eli, I want you to trip me after I run a few feet. But I’ll be watching what you do, so you better be subtle about it.’

I could trip myself, but if I didn’t know what was coming, it would seem more real. So I had Eli do it instead. That way I’d have no idea when it would happen.

A small rock suddenly jutted out of the road. I stumbled on it intentionally. ‘I guess that’s all the subtly I can expect from someone with rocks for brains.’

I laid on the ground, and forced myself to fall unconscious by using the relaxation debuff. ‘I just hope I get woken up before nightfall.’

Several hours later.

I hazily opened my eyes. I was in the Elder’s home. I was on a comfortable bed, surrounded by a dense crowd of people. The people were all crowded together, as if to gawk at the animal brought in.

I obviously recognized the people around me, but I feigned ignorance. “Hero?” I looked at a man that was nearby. As my vision cleared, I realized I was surrounded by the entire village. I even noted that the boy and his mother were there.

The village Elder came near me. “Hello son.” He said with a grin. “One of our town guards here noticed you had fallen a ways back near the edge of the forest. What with you being covered in wounds, we took you in.”

He kind of smirked a bit. “Well we have this here healing potion.”

He pulled out the potion I had given him the night before. “It was made by a very powerful alchemist. The best this town’s ever seen at least.”

‘Not like that is saying much for a backwards ass place like this.’

“We are willing to help you, but you see… We are a poor village. We don’t have enough money to give charity out. We were going to sell this when the merchants came back around but if you wanted to trade for it…”

He let the offer stand. They had no doubt learned of the jewelry I had on me. I did a quick earth mana check, and noted that none of them were missing. I displayed a bit of a frown. Then shook my head as if in acceptance.

“I’ll trade you, but only for one reason. I was attacked by wolves. That’s why I’m like this.” One of the villagers gasped, but they seemed to all understand what had happened. “A gentleman named Voice0fReason came by after my caravan had been slaughtered, but before they killed off the last two of us. By the time he made it to the wolves, I was the only one left.”

I made a single tear fall down.

“My entire caravan. All of my friends. Dead. I would have gone off into the woods for revenge, if not for him. I might be a merchant, but I believe in paying favors owed. He told me to come this direction and I’d find a town. I was to give you all a warning: Undead wolves will attack at nightfall. He said that Mar had told him personally.”

The people began to murmur amongst themselves. Most were frightened, but some still didn’t believe me. I decided to drive it home. “He isn’t coming to save you though. He says Davros, the god of darkness, is planning an evil war to kill off all non-worshipers. He said that he sent a man ahead of me. One that was good with potions. One that should have come seeking an apprentice. ”

Many of the people were wide eyed at this. Only a few sceptics held firm. That was alright though. I didn’t even need anyone to believe me. I just needed to get them to wear my jewelry. “I have decided to follow this Voice0fReason, and use everything within my ability to make sure his quest is a success. So anything you can donate to the cause will be accepted.”

As if by unspoken consent, the group adopted expressions that showed what they thought of the idea. Disdain.

“I-I don’t mean for free. I’ve told you I’m going to follow him with everything I have.”

I pulled out my backpack. As I opened the zipper, a mound of jewelry flooded out. It was about a tenth of what I had. I looked around in the suddenly deathly quiet room. “It’s yours. All I want are supplies. Supplies enough for a small group of arm men to live on for a while.”

The Elder looked at me suspiciously. “Why would you do that? According to you, you barely knew that man.”

I made my aura more noticeable, and tinged it with a fiery anger. “BECAUSE THOSE UNDEAD DESERVE TO DIE!” One of the children near me took a step back in fear. “Sorry! Sorry.” I shook my head in apology. My face still contorted in rage, I continued. “All undead deserve to die after what they did to us! My caravan and I were a peaceful people. Why would undead attack us? We weren’t in their territory. We had enough charms to ward off an army. It was because of Davros! I will stand against him in everything that I do! I hunger for money! That is what Voice said. He said wanting nice things isn’t bad, but Davros has a hold on my unearthly desire for wealth. I will purge myself here, and go help Voice0fReason defeat the hordes of the damned. Even if I can only gain him a few seconds of respite, that will be enough.”

With my tirade over, the Elder shooed everyone else out of the room. They slowly shuffled out. It took a good few minutes for everyone to leave.

“What’s your game?” He asked when we were alone. “There’s no way someone would just up and follow another man. I get that he saved your life, but you can’t be so loyal from just that. What are you up to?”

I shook my head disapprovingly. “If you don’t want to trust me fine. I don’t care. I simply want to trade for goods. I don’t mind whatever price you name. You can have however many of my wares that you want in exchange.”

The Elder thought for a moment, then asked, “And if I said I wanted all of them for a bit of food?”

“And that potion. You were going on and on about that potion. I’ll trade you all of my- these things, for a bit of your food, and that potion.”

Suddenly it seemed as if he caught on to something.

“Oh really?” He asked suspiciously. “Is it just because I spoke about it? Don’t all merchants have the identify skill?”

I angrily sighed. “Fine you caught me. It was the potion I wanted. But it really is for the greater good. How much do you want for it?”

The Elder smiled at me in a condescending way. “Well you so easily pulled out the many items. How many more do you have?”

I hit the backpack. About half of the total I made fell out. “Is that enough? I don’t usually haggle like this, but that I’m sure that Voice0fReason could do wonders with that potion. I can’t give you any more though. I need to be able to trade for other things that he might need.”

The elder tapped his chin. “It sounds to me like you still have some lingering attachment to gaining off of other’s loss. That sounds like Davros still has you under command. I want twice what you’ve put out so far.”

“YOU THIEF!” I lost my composure as I yelled at him. “Do you think just because I’m turning over a new leaf that you can rip me off!? Fat chance! Give me the damn potion for what I’ve offered!”

He put the potion away smugly. “It looks like you don’t want it after all. I might just have to poor it down our well. We had a sickness take the town recently, and it could do wonders for us.”

I snarled at him. He got turned around, and began walking out the door. After a moment’s hesitation I called, “WAIT! FINE! I’ll do it! I’ll do it. Twice what I just offered? Here. It’s really all that I have.”

The rest of the contents of my bag fell out, not leaving even one. At the same time I took off all of my orders for Kyle, and placed them on the Elder. All of the orders said ‘Distribute the Jewelry to Your People’.

I made sure they were nowhere near overpowering. He walked back towards me. “I guess we have a deal then.” With a clap he summoned one of the guards from outside the door. The man quickly gathered up the jewelry, and went to put them somewhere.

The old man gave me the bottle and slowly walked away. He called nonchalantly, “You can stay as long as you like. Hehe.”

‘That bastard really tried to take me for a ride.’

My plan had worked, but I noticed that the Elder was quite a bit more greedy than he let on. He shouldn’t notice anything wrong with the amount of jewelry though. I made enough for about 10% more than the amount of people in the village. That way he could still sell some off if he wanted to.

I disappeared soon after he left. Only to arrive back in town as my ‘Alchemist Master’ guise several hours later. Just about the time it was for the wolves to attack.

Gonna try to get another chapter out tomorrow. It will be a side chapter about that guy, *ahem*, that started hunting Voice.