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Ch213-Make Like A Banana
🕑 Added 2022-04-05 22:24:32 +0000 UTC-
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Ch213-Make Like A Banana
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He wasn’t certain if they did this on purpose, but none of the 4 men introduced themselves. But in their defense, Sylver didn’t care enough to ask.
The heir wore blue, so he would be blue robe.
Purple robe was the leader, at least that was the feeling Sylver got, red was purple robe’s underling, and orange was the blue heir’s underling.
Purple robe was in the front, orange robe second, blue heir third, red robe fourth, and Sylver, Mora, and Ria were last. This close to the finish line there weren’t a whole lot of traps, the most recent one was a barrage of thick darts from the ceiling and walls, that purple robe deflected with his sword.
Which, in Sylver’s personal opinion, was idiotic, given that he could have literally just ducked, or better yet, moved, out of the way. He had the speed for it, and it wasn’t as if there was anything stopping him from jumping backward, or forward, and yet the man just stood there, waving his blade around, one fuckup away from a terrible injury.
Aside from a few idiotic traps, not much happened.
They weren’t interested in Sylver, and Sylver wasn’t interested in them. Mostly because he didn’t get the feeling they were going to live to see the end of this dungeon.
Not due to Sylver’s actions, he had no reason to kill them, even if they would ask awkward questions that Tarragon would have to answer.
Then again, Tarragon could just tell them to fuck off, Sylver hadn’t actually broken any rules. And even if he did, what were they going to do?
Complain to the other sects?
Try and attack Faust?
Attack Tarragon?
Actually, killing them just in case might not be such a bad idea…
Sylver glanced over at Ria, who was being aided by Mora so as not to make too much noise as she walked, and wondered if she would be comfortable with him ending the lives of 3 strangers “just to be safe.”
As long as Sylver made the blue heir’s death look like an accident, there wouldn’t be a problem. Getting the corpse would be a bit tricky since he would need time to purge the Ki inside the boy’s body, but even then, he would need what?
2 minutes? A bit more?
Surely, he could distract the group for that long.
He could even pretend to be healing the boy and then explain the corpse’s disappearance as a skill side effect.
No wait, I already told them I don’t have any healing skills…
I could have Ulvic steal the corpse away…
Have the wolf shade follow us at a safe distance, or better yet, have it steal both of us away, and then I can return with the sad news that the wolf managed to get away…
No, they would know it was my wolf once they return to the city and people tell them about the wolf shade, they saw me riding on…
So, shades are out, what do I have left?
Sylver looked through the perks he had available for getting [Swamp Lord] past level 50 and sadly couldn’t see anything that would be useful in this particular situation.
I could always just knock them out, kill the heir, put him in my [Bound Bones] storage, and then pretend I had also been knocked out.
Would being 100% honest work?
“I need to kill the man wearing the blue robe, and then place his, and his brother’s, corpse somewhere public for the news to reach the sect head as quickly as possible, but I don’t need to kill you, so please move aside?”
Shit…
Assuming they saw the brother die, and since blue robe has the brother’s sword, they almost certainly did, wouldn’t they cause a fuss if the body suddenly appeared in a city?
Does it even matter if they cause a fuss? Owl said to kill them, and then make sure the news of their death became public knowledge as quickly as possible…
Come to think of it, he didn’t even specify that I had to do this in secret…
So, I murder the heir in front of them, and then pretend I did it out of a personal grudge or something? What about the other one? Do I just hope they were both dicks and it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for-
Sylver was pulled out of his musings, as he heard the distinct sound of someone using a flint and steel. He saw that purple robe was using his sword and a flat shiny rock to create sparks, that landed inside a small horn-shaped torch attached to the wall.
The fire in the torch flickered to life, and sure enough, the exact same thing happened to the torches further down the corridor.
Sylver just watched as the narrow corridor became fully visible. Without saying anything, the group continued down the corridor, and eventually reached an intersection with 3 passageways.
Just as Sylver was about to ask how they decided where to go, he saw the blue arrow drawn on the middle passageway. The 4 cultivators barely slowed down to make sure it was their arrow, as they quietly entered the middle passageway.
Sylver was told through Spring that Ria had memorized the writing above all 3 passages.
She also informed him that she wanted to ask them about the blue arrows, but Sylver decided it would be best not to. Not just because he didn’t want Ria to see these 4 as people, and therefore feel bad about their deaths, but mainly because Sylver got the feeling these people would spend an hour explaining their sect's history, and only then would they begin to explain the arrows.
Aside from that, he also didn’t want these people to think he was interested in the “hat” they were after.
Most people that were risking their lives for a specific artifact, tended to be a bit paranoid about curious strangers stealing it away from them. Right now, they thought Sylver’s only objective was to survive.
Assuming they believed his story, that is.
He didn’t feel any hostility from them, but these 4 seemed exactly like the type to have accidentally trained themselves into hiding their killing intent. Maybe not the young blue robe wearing heir, but purple, red, and orange were old enough for that to be a very real possibility.
They walked for roughly an hour, 3 hours, 54 minutes, thank you Ria, and finally arrived at one of those large open areas, with 12 possible doors to walk through.
Except there wasn’t any kind of monster in here, and all 12 doors were wide open.
Once again, Sylver kept his mouth shut as the group of 4 walked towards the 3rd door from the left, and passed a bright blue arrow painted inside of it.
Sylver only spoke up when 3 of them suddenly sat down on the floor, and orange robe procured a copper tea kettle out of nowhere and started setting it up over a fire engulfed cube.
“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume this isn’t a regular tea break?” Sylver asked as the four bathrobe-wearing men exchanged a look, and if it weren’t for the completely lifeless expression on Sylver’s face, would have probably burst out laughing.
“It’s for the poison,” orange robe said quietly.
Sylver took an actual breath this time, as opposed to the fake breathing his body did, mostly by slightly expanding and contracting his chest, and honestly didn’t get the feeling of anything toxic in the air.
His best guess was that this was one of those poisons that only affected the living, and were undetectable to the undead, whatever Mora was, and whatever Ria was.
He even heard her make that odd clicking noise she sometimes did, as she tested the air. She just shook her head at him and shrugged her shoulders.
“Would you like some biscuits?” blue robe asked, as he presented Sylver with a small wrapped up bundle, that presumably held the aforementioned biscuits.
“Thank you,” Sylver said, as he sat down, and crossed his legs.
He undid the knot that held the small package closed and saw 6 small bags holding a collection of biscuits inside. A very small piece of colored twine held them closed. Sylver picked the smallest bag and handed the cloth back to the tea-drinking group.
They gave him a clay cup and filled it with water.
While they drank their fancy poison-proofing tea, Sylver ate the biscuits and quietly sipped on his water. He spent the whole tea break waiting for the poison to kick in, or for one of the men to attack him while his guard was down.
But they just finished their tea, and then spent a few minutes taking turns sitting motionless with their eyes closed.
Purple robe was the last to close his eyes, and although Sylver had been nothing but polite, red robe and blue robe all moved to sit between him and Sylver.
As if they were expecting him to attack them. They kept their hands away from their sword hilts and didn’t give him the stink eye, but they were ready.
Am I being cautious because there’s a chance they could win against me, or because I don’t want to have to explain myself to Ria?
Sylver turned his head to look at the golem-controlling woman and tried to figure out if he was acting any differently because of her.
Was Ria’s presence affecting Sylver’s judgment?
Would I have been this concerned about killing the other 3, if I didn’t have Ria’s uncomfortable questions looming over my head?
Sylver had never been fond of violence, or death, and only utilized it when it was significantly easier than any currently available alternatives. Granted, violence very often tended to be the easiest path forward, but that wasn’t Sylver’s fault, it was simply how this world functioned.
Sylver and Ria just stared at each other for a couple of seconds, and Sylver could both see it on her face and felt it in her soul, that she knew exactly what he was thinking right now.
The fact that there wasn’t any kind of condemnation in her soul was promising. But the disappointment was just as bad.
If anything, it was worse.
Sylver could argue with her, and make his case if she simply disagreed with his choices of action, but disappointment wasn’t something a person could rationalize away.
Ria had some sort of ideal in her head, an image of Sylver “as he should be,” and the Sylver she was looking at right now wasn’t living up to it.
And there was nothing Sylver could do about it.
Aside from doing the one thing he hated.
Waiting.
On a certain level, it didn’t matter.
Because Ria trusted him, even if she didn’t like him. And if that was the best Sylver could get right now, then so be it.
After the group had finished drinking their “tea” they carried on walking down the now brightly lit corridor.
***
Sylver lost count of how long they had been walking, and even though Ria kept track, Sylver didn’t want to hear it.
There was a very large, and ridiculously tall, double door, with a stretched-out hexagon carved into it. Sylver cocked his head as he looked at the hexagon, with 6 holes on the angles.
But that wasn’t the part that confused Sylver, the writing inside the hexagon is what confused him.
It was a slightly newer dialect the dragon had spoken, by a couple of hundred years.
He must have been staring too intently at the unfamiliar sigils.
“Can you read this?” purple robe asked, as Sylver scratched his chin.
Even if he didn’t care about this dungeon as a whole, the writing on the wall was very peculiar, in a way that was hard to put into words. It rubbed him the wrong way, even before he finished reading it.
“A perk I unlocked after learning 50 languages is reacting to it, give me a moment,” Sylver said.
The first couple of sentences Sylver had to give up on, it used too many words he didn’t know, but he managed to piece together the meaning of the middle bit.
A beast called “the serpent of the mountain” attacked a land of some sort, and a warrior was sent to deal with it.
Something about bathing in a river? Then the beast was defeated, and made a pact of some sort with the warrior?
“Each head sealed away the senses. Hearing, touch, smell, sight, and taste. At the end of the battle, only 3 remained…” Sylver read to himself.
The next line spoke of a battle that lasted 3 days and 3 nights, and the warrior won because of a “voice” helping him. The word “voice” wasn’t quite underlined, but there was an emphasis on it.
He got the feeling it was a euphemism for something else, but Sylver didn’t have enough context to know what it was referring to.
He struggled to remember that there were 4 cultivators watching him, as he walked over to the door and gently traced his fingers over the carved symbols.
The next part kept referring to a word Sylver was unfamiliar with, it mentioned this word 9 times, but it wasn’t a name, it sounded to be more like a title. The main thing he managed to puzzle out was that there were 3 people who held this title.
“Bog-A-Tyr,” the word had no meaning to him, Sylver wasn’t even certain if he was pronouncing it right.
The next line spoke of a “magic,” but didn’t specify whether it was a spell, ritual, tool, or item, it simply mentioned that “magic” was used.
“Could not wed,” followed by words Sylver didn’t know, and finally another word that felt like a title, as opposed to a name.
Sylver took a couple of steps back from the text and read through it once more.
“It’s a song…” Sylver said as he realized that if he focused hard enough, he could see that someone had made alterations to the text.
But since Sylver didn’t know what it looked like originally, he couldn’t say what had been altered. For all he knew the whole thing was fake, and the part that looked and felt “real” was added for the kinds of people like Sylver, to make them chase a dead end when trying to translate it.
“Can you sing it?” blue robe asked.
“Sing what?” Sylver asked, as he finished memorizing the text and shifted his attention away from it.
“The song. You said it’s a song, can you sing it?” the blue robe heir asked.
Sylver gestured towards the doorway, which under different circumstances, would have been covered in layers upon layers of dust and cobwebs as a sign of how ancient it was.
He decided to lie as he realized that there wasn’t much point in explaining that the way musical lyrics were structured in Eirish was different enough that some people considered it a separate language, and that even if he understood 100% of the words, it would sound terrible, given that he didn’t know what the melody was.
“I can’t. It just says it’s a song,” Sylver said, as he used [Arcane Insight] on the door, just in case one of them could feel someone else using their perks or skills.
[Door – N/A – N/A]
[A giant door, that has been altered by 6th tier magic.]
[The carvings tell the ballad of N/A]
[Indestructible object]
Huh…
Is the alteration 6th tier, or is the magic used to mask the alteration 6th tier?
“So how do we open the door? Or what are we doing?” Sylver asked, in an attempt to shift everyone's attention away from him and the writing on the door.
Before he said anything, they likely assumed it to be random scribbles, the whole thing was written in the ancient Eirish equivalent of cursive, and even to Sylver’s trained eye, looked more decorative than actual text.
“We will need some time to prepare,” blue robe said, as Sylver could do little other than nod at him.
While he waited for the 4 men to take turns drinking from a tiny vial, and then meditating their Ki, he quietly moved Ria away from them.
“Is this what you saw when you looked a the door?” Sylver asked through Spring as he took a page out from his robe, and manipulated a drop of ink to write out the exact symbols he had just memorized.
Sylver didn’t want to risk someone overhearing them and didn’t want to gamble on all 4 of them not knowing Elvish. So they weren’t tapping each other, they both just spoke to Spring, and had the shade tap the message out to the other person.
Ria cocked her head at the door as Sylver handed her the finished page.
“There’s nothing there when I look at it. Just a blank wall,” Ria answered.
So that means I’ve been feeling up a blank wall, that seems to be covered in a very potent illusion spell…
6th tier sounds about right in that case…
“What are you going to do?” Ria asked through Spring.
She succeeded in keeping her tone neutral, and almost friendly, but she was too close for Sylver not to feel her soul.
“Current idea is to cover Ulvic in glowing mushrooms and have him kidnap the heir. That way the only connection would be that I have a wolf shade, and I could explain that away as saying that it’s a very common monster,” Sylver said, as Ria managed to maintain a very relaxed air of acceptance.
“And the others?” Ria asked calmly.
“I’ll leave them be. Although I have a bad feeling about them,” Sylver said, as Ria cocked her head.
“The other heir that died due to ingesting poison, as opposed to inhaling it. You think one of them did it,” Ria said, as Sylver shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s none of my business. It could have been an accident, when it comes to potions, sometimes drinking more than a specific quantity can be a death sentence. The tea they drank certainly has that feeling to it, and it wouldn’t be the first time,” Sylver answered, as he turned his head towards the sound of swords being drawn.
The blue bathrobe-wearing heir had two swords, one was his own, while the second belonged to his brother/lookalike relative.
“Are you ready?” purple robe asked, as Sylver stood up from his crouch, and walked over to them.
Now that he got a good look at them, their hilts weren’t normal, they were all hexagonal.
And the exact same size as the holes in the wall.
Fitting, given that purple robe, stuck his sword’s hilt into the bottom left hole.
Orange robe placed his into the bottom right hole.
Red robe jumped up and placed his into the top right.
And the blue robe heir placed his into the middle-left corner and the middle right corner.
The 5 men, Ria, and Mora stood in the quiet and gentle light of the nearby torches and stared at the 5 blades sticking out of the wall.
A literal half minute passed before the door made a sound.
During the half minute, Sylver got to listen to the heir’s heart gradually begin to beat so loudly, that Sylver almost wanted to ask him if he was alright.
Given that he calmed down the second he heard the sound made by the door, he was simply nervous, and not in the process of having a heart attack.
The door did something a bit strange, it skipped the opening portion of going from closed, to open. It was sealed shut one fraction of a second, and wide-open the next, without so much as a puff of air as proof that it had moved.
Assuming you didn’t count the wall that had appeared behind the group, that blocked any chance of retreat, to be proof.
It was empty inside the large torch-lit room.
No enemies, no passages, no symbols, and the two doors that had previously had a tone of carvings on them, were now blank. Sylver walked towards the middle of the room, while the men picked up the swords that had magically appeared on the ground once the door had opened.
“I’m sorry,” one of the men behind Sylver said.
Sylver turned to look at them, but there were only 3 standing there. He felt an odd tickle on his chin and then heard the sound of metal shattering behind him.
As he turned around again, he saw red robe standing in the middle of the room, with a dumbfounded look on his face, and only a sword hilt in his hand. The blade was missing.
There was a slight delay, as all of Sylver’s soul armors burst, and then his [Necrotic Mutilation] helmet split into two and was quickly followed by Sylver’s skull being sliced down the middle. Like a book being opened, Sylver’s face split into two, and his ears nearly touched his shoulders, before he stopped them.
He just remained where he was and quietly willed the two perfectly cut halves to fuse back into one. [Dead Dominion] helped him out a lot here, and the fact that the cut was perfect meant it would only be a matter of minutes to completely heal his head and face.
He didn’t even feel it.
Getting the bits of sword bits stuck inside the top part of his chest would be a bit annoying, but he could deal with it later, it wasn’t a major issue.
Sylver leaned down towards Mora, to help her out, but discovered that she was offering to stitch him up since she was already done stitching herself into shape.
Ria was the only one that made a sound, as her golem creation broke apart, and Sylver got to see the inside of her golem body, for about half a second, as the various tightly wound springs and mechanisms exploded out of her and splattered small chunks of her gold/black liquid body all over the place.
“You alright there Ria?” Sylver slurred, as the woman slid out of the broken-down golem, and worked on gathering up all of her pieces.
He brought his hand up to his throat and worked on realigning the organ he used to speak. He locked eyes with the mute red robe, who was just staring at Sylver, with a look of utter disbelief on his face.
Sylver reached the man unimpeded and stopped when the relatively small man was within arm’s reach.
“Where I’m from we call these sorts of things a “sacrifice room.” Someone has to die for the next stage to open,” Sylver explained calmly, as a very thin droplet of unnaturally thick and dark blood formed on his forehead.
Red robe wasn’t even stuttering, his whole body was frozen in fear. These people lived in a bubble, the very concept of undead was foreign to them.
“Now, if you stupid children were curious, sacrifice rooms always have a way out that doesn’t involve someone getting killed,” Sylver explained, as he placed his hand on red robe’s shoulder.
[Human (Claw Of The Blue Tiger) Defeated!]
[Due to defeating an enemy 70 levels above you, additional experience will be awarded!]
[Swamp Lord] has reached level 57!
+5AP
If he had to compare it to something, it was like crushing an ant between his thumb and forefinger. Red robe was so devoid of defense and Ki, that Sylver spent more mana stuffing him into his [Bound Bones] storage than he did killing him.
As with everything, the kind of speed and power required to catch Sylver completely off guard came at a great cost.
Sylver used his thumb to wipe the tiny beads of blood that had formed on his lips and did the same to the droplets that had appeared on the back of his spine and had been partially absorbed into his robe.
Regretfully, the man’s sword had destroyed 4 daggers, before it reached the top of Sylver’s ribcage. His cut had been perfectly down the middle, but he had cut Sylver from the back, so the blade reached only the top part of his chest at the front and was shattered before it had finished cutting through Sylver’s spine in his back.
The small head inside Sylver’s chest had been nicked, but the brain had remained intact, and aside from the sharp metal shrapnel surrounding it, everything was fine.
Sylver turned around to face the remaining 3 cultivators and smiled to himself as he saw that Mora was standing between them, and growling.
Everyone, including the incredibly pissed off and completely liquid Ria, turned towards the sound of a loud click, and looked at the open passageway that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
Sylver didn’t even get a chance to say something witty, as all 3 men disappeared in a burst of speed and ran down the passageway as if their very lives depended on it.
Comments
Joshua Little
Thanks for the chapter.
Max Becker
Seems like the begining of a horror movie hunt with butcher perspective
John Jeppson
I think it might be worth adding the word impervious or impenetrable before ribcage just to remind folks about it
Jake Chisholm
I somehow missed this entire chapter, sandwiched between other emails I got. And yet the next chapter basically explained everything that happened in this chapter… so I just assumed it was a flash forward. Only just saw this. Wow.
Silk Soda
heh, now we see if Ria will start to see more as he does at things
Mario Morales
Except he's not really being evil. He may be doing evil some of the time but for reasons that are good. That's very different and I think what makes this story interesting. As for reform, I don't think I said that but if I did, I didn't mean to. But I do want to see the evidence that the world doesn't only have room for his way. We know from bits of his history that this is true, but it would be nice to see that around him too and that not every friend or accomplice has to bend to his will and way.
Adunk
That's nice, but that's also not why I read this. I read this to see him be evil and selfish. I don't want him to be a good person. I don't want him to reform. Period.
Mario Morales
He doesn't have to want to save everyone to see that it is a viable option for some. He's told Ria himself already that these are things the way he sees them given his particular personality and skills. So he's already admitted to some degree that his way is not always "the right" way. Plus, are we just going to ignore the fact that his thousands of years of experience also lead to very ingrained prejudices and habits that he might have long ago forgotten the reasoning for or the very valid arguments and evidence against? And it's not a standard "make the world a better place" that I'm talking about. In fact I do very much enjoy the fact that he makes decisions that are disagreeable but that he strongly believes in. Decisions that come from a very good place of protect those that are "mine." But it can also be nice to see that there may be other correct ways and Ria doesn't have to be what he is in order to make a correct path in the world.
Adunk
I disagree strongly. The guy has had thousands of years to learn, he shouldn’t suddenly change his mind thanks to one naive child. I also don’t read this story to see a standard make the world a better place protagonist. There are plenty of stories if you want that already. I read this for the refreshing dark take and selfishness. I am tired of protagonists who want to save everyone.
Mario Morales
I kind of hope though that some of the hard lessons are for Sylver. I would like for him to be wrong in some of his assessments of "best" way. He's Kenshin and his way comes from experience and shouldn't be discounted. But the world would be a better place if Kaoru's way was viable.
BlackRazaras
Thanks for the chapter
Adunk
I do not delight in the hard lessons Ria needs to learn, but I do hope for them to happen soon.
Enzo Elacqua
Well that solves that moral dilema
Mario Morales
I like the way Ria makes Sylver question his ways. It seems good for him and possibly the role that the guy he's looking to rescue (forgot his name!) played for him previously.
jak0b
Keen to see if Ria ever succumbs to the murder-hobo lifestyle haha
