I awoke from that strange dream, and unlike other times, I didn’t shoot up. I wasn’t scared or confused. This time, I had tears streaming down my right eye. What is this? Why do I feel so heavy? I quickly wiped the tears from my eye, and climbed out of the carriage, to not wake Eliquis. It wasn’t actually until I snuck outside by myself to watch the sun rise, that I actually remembered that she had followed me into the carriage. I wonder if she cries at night because of similar memories, I thought to myself, feeling the brisk air on my skin. It felt nice and painful- a soothing prickly pain. I closed my eyes and leaned back, enjoying the feeling. And before I knew it, I was once again fast asleep.

I was awoken by a loud bang next to my ear. It was so sudden, that I jumped in the air, nearly peeing myself, and landed in a puddle of mud. I turned to the culprit- Mayrene. That bitch! Spider, eat her! Wait, why can’t I feel its presence around? Now that I think about it, where are the slimes and amus?

“If you’re going to be lazing around, can you, like, do it somewhere else? Some of us actually gotta, like, work.”

Did she change the way that she talks again? Oh wait, this is her pretending to be stpuid. Clever girl.

“Where’s all the monsters?”

“Dunno. One of the slimes woke us up, and then the amus, like, took the carriages that way with all of the monsters in them,” Mayrene pointed in the direction of where the fort was being built.

Come to think of it, they’ve been acting independently for a while now. Wait, did I already lose control of them? This is bad. That spider was so cute- I don’t wanna kill it. Oh, wait. The dumb dryad is here still...

As I was amusing myself with my thoughts, the amus could be seen coming back to our cave at a very fast pace. Well, three of the amus, anyways. It looks like they can drive the carts better if there’s only one of them, contrary to their normal counterparts that can’t pull carriages by themselves. I see. Well, I guess this means that we don’t need two per carriage, so I can at least claim one as my own for now on. Unless I can’t control them anymore. Please don’t let that be the case. I promise I will never call you amus useless again, if you don’t betray my dreams. Wait, why am I having these childish thoughts?

In the midst of me arguing with myself, the amus had already parked the carriages behind a hill forty some-odd meters away and came running over with K in tow.

“We’ve begun constructing the building once more. A part of it should be livable shortly, so we have been moving your things over there,” K reported.

“Oh, so basically we’re, like, moving?”

“Mayrene, keep talking like that and I will feed you to the spider.”

“SO MEAN!”

“Well, if a part of it is livable, I guess that means they’ve finished the west side of it,” Will stated.

“Huh?”

“Oh, well, it’s easier to construct the building if you know which area is meant for what. We decided to have the west side set up as one floor with twelve rooms. I mean, we can add a second floor later, but that’s all we need right now. Two of the rooms will be for the bathroom- but we had the slimes ask the spider to tunnel under the area and create a pit beneath the toilet since the slimes…”

“I see… that makes sense,” Rigurd whispered. “So, one slime will live beneath each one?”

“For now. We plan on teaching the spider how to make a sewer system, but it’ll be trial and error since neither of us have ever worked on one before,” Gary spoke up this time.

“We’ll just need our fearless leader over here to create the stuff for a cooking and eating area, then the rest of the place will just be built without any specifics in mind.”

“Seriously?” Liora overheard Will’s comment and shook her head. “How do you build something with nothing in mind?”

“It was...spur of the moment. I thought about building a mansion at first, but then I was like, ‘if I’m gonna build something, it mine as well be a castle’. Then I decided to downsize a bit, but now I dunno what I want,” I explained honestly.

“Boys,” Mayrene shook her head at me.

“Sleep with one eye open. The spider gets hungry at night.”

“WHA-?”

“Don’t tease the girl too much,” Rigurd tried holding in his laugh.

“Tease? Who’s teasing?” I grinned evilly watching tears well up in Mayrene’s eyes.

It was a quiet ride to the fort that was under construction. However, I wasn’t actually too impressed with the results. It was just a square building with one door. I mean, at least the groundwork was somewhat layed out to the east of it. But it was just so sad looking. I sent everyone off to the ‘safer woods’, as I’m calling it now- the one that’s not sending every living being inside of it to kill us for some unknown reason. I kept the slimes and the spider here with me and one amu. Apparently this amu refuses to leave my side, like K, but I can’t really complain. I mean, it's better company than Eliquis. Though, it’s still second to the spider, I thought to myself while I unconsciously started to pet the spider.

I planted the dryad in a random area with lots of sunlight and started mixing between making CMP and corrupting the land. The goal for today, was to at least have a place to store food and cook. A kitchen, basically- but only WIll and Gary knew what they were doing with building it, so the inside of the kitchen would have to wait until they came back to tell me exactly how to make the stuff. But that was fine. It was finally quiet, especially with only having four slimes around, including K.

When I took a break from corrupting the land, I decided to venture inside of our little barracks- looking building. According to what K said, all the rooms were identical, but they would make me a better room later. I was kinda excited, so I threw open a door and took a look inside.

What the hell is that? Is that a bed? HOLY SHIT, IT’S A BED! AND A PILLOW. HOW DID THEY MAKE THAT?!?! This… This.. Hundreds of thoughts about actually sleeping comfortably swarmed through my head in an instant, forcing tears out of my eyes.

“A home…” was all I could manage to mutter.

Warm feelings that I had never felt before washed over me, as I fell to my knees sobbing. Finally, a place I can call home.

“Luna! Don’t let your guard down after you attack!” I barked orders at the helpless girl my master left for me.

I had rushed in, and thrust my hands outwards, catching the jaws of the massive snake that sought to eat the useless child. The snake was strong, but I was just strong enough to make it struggle. No matter how many times we go through this, this child just keeps repeating the same mistakes. I thought to myself, thinking back at how Garem left this brat to me. Training her is impossible.

As the snake began overwhelming me in terms of strength, three spears of ice accurately pierced the snake. All, from over my right shoulder. Goddammit, Bellamort. Stop cutting it so close! I wanted to yell at this kid,but the truth is, he’s been saving my ass every time Luna messed up.So, I let the issue go, just like I let the corpse of the snake fall. Then, I looked over my right shoulder to see Josh, Alex, and Gavin taking on a snake of their own.

Josh is definitely getting better with the spear. Alex, however, is just too slow. Maybe a spear isn’t the right choice for him. But Gavin, damn he’s fast. I watched Josh continue to parry each of the snake's lunges, by swiping his spear and smacking the side of the snakes head, forcing it to move to the side of him. He would then, side step and reposition himself, to keep the snake in front of him. Almost perfectly, at that. However, Gavin wouldn’t let any opportunity pass him, and always stayed directly above or behind the snake, and every time it moved, he would dash to it’s blind spot and strike with his knife. Then, like clockwork, he was out of view- hiding in the shadows or in a tree. Alex, was the only issue. He wasn’t able to keep up with either of them, nor provide adequate support for them. Well, at least that snake will be dead soon.

I turned my attention to Will and Gary fighting three lizards with support from Fayne’s archery and Lapis’s magic. They weren’t really expected to fight, but Garem wanted them to be able to protect themselves, so he would feel comfortable freeing them. Or something like that. Either way, they both were better than Alex and Luna. It’s going to be a shame to lose them in the near future. One thing I have learned today was that Lapis can only chant for one spell at a time. But it seems like Bellamort has some sort of ability that allows him to cast two or three spells at a time. Even though they’re both of the Spell Chanter class, they both have different supporting abilities.

I glanced over to my left and saw seven wolves rushing in our direction. In the past, I would’ve been intimidated by a pack of wolves heading in our direction with our forces spread out this thin, but between the strength I’ve been given by my master, and these monsters that blindly obey him, I no longer have a reason to fear.

“Amus, and slimes, can you help us out with those ones?” I asked as I walked confidently towards the pack.

Two slimes were at my side almost instantly, in their humanoid form. It was always interesting to see how they were able to imitate humans, but now they were even better. Inside both of these slimes were two other slimes. Luna timidly followed behind me, but Bellamort, however, wasn’t waiting for the wolves to actually come into contact with us. Two fireballs were launched from complex magic circles that appeared a meter in front of me and burnt one of the wolves to a crisp. The other wolves hesitated. And that moment of hesitation was their downfall, because two amus sped at them from their flank, ripping off the heads of two other wolves, before continuing their playful gallop past the others.

I wasn’t letting any prey escape me, though. In that instant, I had already crossed twelve meters with the slimes at my heel, and began throwing punch after punch at the closest wolf. It attempted to snap at me with it’s jaws, and claw at me with its front paws, but I was much more experienced than it. Uppercut, jab, jab, side step, left straight, uppercut, leg sweep. Every one of its attempts at defending itself was met with a counter almost instantly.

My hits weren’t lethal, I guess. But it was enough to fracture bones. To the point that the wolf was barely able to stand after only thirty seconds. A second wolf had attempted to leap at me, but it was immediately taken out of the sky. I was confused at first, not believing my eyes, but it did happen. The slime that was staying close to me had a light gray like viscous liquid-formed ball and chain coming out of the back of its neck. Apparently the slime inside of it turned into a morning star and shot straight out to knock the wolf out of the air, then retreated back into the slime it was in.

What the hell did Garem create? Wait, if they have two slimes, does that mean there’s two weapons living inside of it? Man, that’s like… Well it’s like they're imitating Garem, actually. I walked past the injured wolf towards the one that got knocked out of the air. The wolf flinched as I passed it. But after a few more steps, I guess it got annoyed at me ignoring it completely and it came at me from behind. But, I wasn’t bothered. I pivoted on my right foot, spinning around and grabbing the wolf from under its jaw in my left hand, and its ear in my right hand, then threw it at the downed wolf that was just getting up. I followed it up with a dash towards the downed wolf. But I stopped abruptly and jumped into the air, determined to test the skill I had just gotten earlier today: [Axe Kick].

As the wolf I threw fell on top of the other, I tested the skill out. My body moved on it’s own, somehow forcing me a meter further into the air, then curling up into a ball and rolling down in front of the wolves, and right before I landed, my body uncurled, with my right leg outstretched and forcing its way downwards. Through the head of both wolves. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly a clean cut. More like cleaved, and blood shot out all over my leg. Well, that’s disgusting, I thought to myself as I looked at the mangled corpses. I turned to see both of the slimes had finished with their prey, and the other slimes had already begun eating the corpses that were lingering around.

If I remember correctly, we only need to feed these things once a week, right? Other than that, they can live off of water. I’ll have to verify how often we feed them, when I get back.

Once I had confirmed that there were no more threats in the area, and everyone had killed their targets, I decided it would be best to take a break. However, as I suggested that, I heard screams coming from somewhere nearby.

Always something. ALWAYS.

“Bellamort, Josh, Gavin and Eliquis with me. Liora, keep this place secure. Gavin and Eliquis, find out the source of the noise and lead us in the right direction!”

I decided it was actually time to focus on the skills I had been ignoring for a while. I have no idea how useful they would be, nor how to use them exactly but they were as follows:

[Skill Slot I] and [Living Weapon], and from the Fighter Class I took [Mana Spike I] and [Power Slash I].

In short, they should be self explanatory. Skill Slot will allow me to use Mana Spike and Power Slash. Power Slash increases the damage I do but requires stamina and CMP. Mana Spike creates a spike on any solid surface within one meter of me and it’s made out of CMP. Or something like that? I dunno, it’s pretty confusing and it’s not like I have a lot of CMP anymore to test any of this out. I guess I’ll have to give up on corrupting the land for a while and focus on testing both of these skills. But more importantly, what is a living weapon?

I opened the new menu that [Living Weapon] gave me: the Proficiency Menu.

CORRUPTED TYPE

Corruption Mastery

Value Mastery

Mana Blade (Weak)

61.2%

+0.31

Mana Blade

0%

-0.91

Mana Cloak (Weak)

0%

-2.61

UNKNOWN ENTRIES

UNKNOWN VALUES

UNKNOWN VALUES

Yeah, I don’t understand any of this. The only thing I know is that when I first got this skill, the Corruption Mastery was at thirty-four percent. Now it's just above sixty-one. But none of the values have changed. Also, it says there’s a regular mana blade and a mana cloak, but I haven’t seen any of those skills yet! Well, I wonder if there’s a condition to receive them. It’s probably not levels, though. But how did I manage to get the Corruption Mastery so high?

Well, I guess it’s not through land corruption. I had tested by corrupting the land around the Dryad and letting it play around in the soil. Maybe this? OH, so making a mana blade increases it by two percent, and strengthening it increases it by point three? No… wait but this second one barely increased the percentage by half a percent? What the hell are the requirements? Two mana blades made and strengthened, both increase the Corruption Mastery by some amount, but not the same amount. Let’s try making a third then. Huh, it gave three percent on just the creation, alone.

Well, the fact is that mana blades increase the mastery percentage. So, maybe it has to do with the mastery itself, and not just making them. Wait, does this mean some mana blades are superior to the others, even though they’re created exactly the same? That would make a lot of sense, though. I have noticed that some blades break faster than others. So that would mean the one that I just created would be the superior of the three I just made? Oh, the value went up to point three five. I see, so the stronger the blade I made, the more the value of others increases, which then makes a higher corruption master percentage. I think? This is actually hurting my head. Way too many numbers to look at.

I flopped down on the bed and massaged my temples, but it did nothing to reduce the sharp pain coming from behind my eyes. Why does it hurt so much to think?

>

>

Emergency, huh? I wonder if Luna finally died.