Maou Razonica
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Chapter 88: Misplaced Vengeance.
🕑 Added 2024-07-17 14:35:29 +0000 UTCDOCS: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gEYyEt5dVS_C7703LKpQEPueyIPn8_YrizFFpLqOv88/edit?usp=drive_link
Ah! I made it! Despite the small backlog I try to maintain, I still had to replace half of this chapter on posting day. But I'm still on time, the day aint over yet! For me, anyway.
Now, enjoy the chapter, and thank you for your continued support!
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"Hey Berry," I said once she'd had a good few moments to calm down. "I can guess, but I'll ask this just in case. Why continue to fight? It seems like you're not really passionate about it, and I'm sure that if you asked, Therick and Granuel could set you up with a job that doesn't require any combat whatsoever. In fact, I'd be very surprised if they hadn't already made the offer themselves."
"Well, they have of course!" She said proudly, getting the last of her crying out of her system. "But I’m done running! My brother died because I cowered behind him! I don’t want to hide any longer!”
"...Alright. I get it." I nodded. I noted how Angerly and the rest had things to say, but they all held their tongue instead of engaging in an argument they've evidently had plenty of times. Berry was at least resolute in her decision, it seemed. "On that note, we've already talked our bloody ears off. Let's get to know each other, and see if we actually work well together, by doing a proper test run!"
"A test run?"
"Oh yes." I grinned. "We're going out to hunt."
~~~
"Uhm. Aren't we going way too far?" Berry asked. We had long stepped off the official roads, and we'd even ditched the dirt roads too. It was just us, the Piss Hunters, including Berry.
"Nah. It's all good." I smiled, though it was once again hidden by my mask. "We can only truly go all out once we’ve civilization behind."
We'd been traveling on foot for the past few days, and during that time, we'd encountered remarkably little challenge. We avoided other parties, until they were just gone for they didn't venture out super far from civilized land, or at least the roads. Granuel and Therick were able to spot most threats in advance, and the few that we chose to face were far too weak for me to show even a fraction of a fraction of my true power.
"Incoming. NNW Level 20 plus dodoom." Granuel announced. By NNW, he meant north north west, oriented based on where we were facing.
Berry immediately reacted and positioned herself towards the approaching monster. Her two arms were carrying a small buckler shield each, and she had light armor over her carapace. Her legs shook as the massive flightless bird that was trying really hard to be a T-rex broke through the treeline, but Berry did not fold nor surrender. She held her ground until the massive beast reached her, then she rapidly stepped to the side while scoring a massive crushing blow with her pincers on the creature's leg.
I smiled, suitably impressed. I drew my sword, and it produced a sharp ringing sound that rang dangerously through the air. Moonwash had fixed it for me recently, because it had basically become a dented misshapen bludgeoning tool after my fight with the warsymbol. But now it was whole once more.
The dodoom--what a funny name--screamed in fury and huffed in rage, rapidly turning around to chase after the offending crustecar that had dared to harm it. But with a small exertion of wrath magic, I charged against the beast from the other side, and nearly beheaded it with one strike.
Its neck had still broken despite not being bisected entirely, and the monster only stomped around unsteadily for a few seconds more before it fell over dead.
"Nice, Haell!" Berry ran up to me. I smiled at how the crustecar woman had gotten far more familiar with me during the past few days. "That was so cool! I didn't know what to think of how everyone had described you before we met, but we'll be able to hunt so much safer with you around."
Oh, you haven't seen anything yet. This was only what I could do without revealing way too much.
"Yes. While I'm around, then of course!" I laughed as my muscles ached from that one short fight. "But I won't always be. Whenever I'm not around, then I'll be counting on you to keep them safe.”
Her crab-like eye stalks looked at me resolutely. "You can count on me."
I did. I truly did.
~~~
Our travels continued, and Berry showed just how good of a tank she was. We faced off against a boxial(boxer gorilla) that had risen above level 30, and while Berry could not compete in top speed, she managed to hold it back with her agility and sideways movement. Therick kept up with the monster by positioning himself masterfully, and he hid behind Berry whenever necessary, all the while scoring stabs and slashes. Each were hardly an inconvenience by themselves, but they piled up over the course of the battle.
Granuel predicted the movements of the monster and shot his magical projectiles of earth with prodigious accuracy for a battle this fast. Moonwash helped too by staying behind Berry, and just shooting massive explosions of fire every so often. She had further improved upon her fire staff to be able to handle the new upper limits of her brain and technique when it came to magic.
The amount of damage very quickly reached a critical point with these many combatants on our side, and the animal swiftly turned around and left. THe monster thought that we didn’t have anyone that could keep up with it in a chase, and it would’ve been right if it wasn’t for me.
The wrath simmered as I stared at my enemy’s departing back, and before I knew it, I was dashing forward and gaining ground. The monster juked to the side, which was actually a fair idea for I wasn't that good at taking turns, but I was just simply stronger.
My legs tore from one furious leap, and then I was upon my target. The first slash likely ended the already injured boxial's life, but I followed it up with more attacks as I screamed. That fury turned into a mad cackling laughter as the fire came, and soon I was eyeing the rustling leaves around me, ready to continue the slaughter.
I breathed, and slowly brought myself back down to a calmer reality.
"Uh. Umm. That was intense," Berry said, unsure of her words. No one would guess that she was older and higher-leveled than me from the way she behaved, but that was fine. Her acting younger at least was fair, considering that I was still older than 30 if you considered my past life. "I didn't know you could use fire magic… I think. It looked and felt really weird! And you didn’t use a wand either... so why was it that strong then?
"I've got a very good replacement for wands." I smiled and tapped on my real horns, but she didn't know that yet. "And I'm just good at this."
“Oh, yeah. I thought they were exaggerating, but how are you this strong at level 20!”
“I’m just built different.”
I did not lie.
~~~
We found an armozard, also at level 20, and Berry just ran around the monster and dodged most of its attacks. The few that managed to hit slid right off her carapace, as Berry knew just how to position herself to make full use of her shell to deflect. The monster was ultimately killed by Angerly as she showed just how strong she could be. She pulled back hard, and then slammed her mace even harder. Her full weight and more was carried by that strike, and the armozard staggered, its shell cracked and its flesh leaking out.
Angerly took only a few moments to recover, and then she wound her mace up again for another thunderous slam. Therick, in the meantime, took out the beast's eyes, and Granuel distracted it long enough to keep it off Angerly's back. Her next attack completely crippled the monster, and the following slam pulped the contents of its skull.
I could see now how Angerly truly fought.
~~~
"W-why is one of them here?" Berry shivered as she saw a monster in a crab-like form, superficially similar to herself. However, this creature's shell was a greasy black, and the carapace had spikes and jagged cracks running across it in places. Instead of one big claw and several arms, the monster had two massive and bulky pincers that were just slightly off in size and shape. It was basically a regular crab with a heavy metal theme.
But what gave it away most of all, that this creature was not the same as Berry, was the feeling it gave off. In a way similar to how I could discern the presence of mana, the entity in front of me felt angry, resentful, vengeful. It distinctly reminded me of the very magic that I wielded.
This was a cursetacean.
"A cursetacean," Moonwash repeated my thoughts aloud. "It's the first time I've seen one in person. I've been meaning to study--"
Her words were cut off by the cursetacean's sudden howl. The nearly Level 40 monster charged with its two massive claws raised, and Berry immediately jumped in front of it despite her fear. She angled herself at the last second, allowing the monster's right claw to scrape against her shell and then slide off it. But she didn’t come out of the encounter unscathed as she was flung back hard, and a deep divot had been drawn across her carapace.
"T-t-these things are dangerous! At-ttack them, and you'll be damaged too!"
I was already running by the time her warning arrived. I had no intentions to stop and I continued until I was right in front of the creature. Its claws immediately snapped out, faster than I thought it could move, but I only met it with my own sword. Its carapace immediately gave way and cracked, forcing an evil grin onto my face as I reveled in the hate and my desire to see this monster ripped apart.
And then it was my own self that was ripped apart. The skin of my arms was flayed underneath the thick metal, and ripples ran across my entire body, decaying smaller chunks away. Blood poured out from the gaps in my armor, and I screamed as the pain registered and I beheld the one who had caused it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!"
My howl pierced through the chirping silence of the forest, and my wrathful evil eyes bore down upon my enemy. Wrath magic flooded into them, and my opponent flinched despite the contacts that were in the way, but that pause also came with a sudden spike of pain right through my brain. I snarled through the headache and pressure that nearly crushed my eyes. I attacked in spite and because of the agony, seeking to address the very source. My arms swung hard, faster than the cursetacean could ever manage, and it buckled under the force of my sword now wreathed in wrath magic. If Berry found anything out, then who gave a flying fuck!?
Sword met against claw, and my opponent's carapace was torn with every slash, the damage seeping deep into the flesh within. But every clash also brought upon myself great ruin, as the skin of my own arms continued to be flayed away, and the flesh underneath torn as if churned through a blender. Cuts and bruises marred my whole body by the time I'd managed to tear off both claws of my adversary, and the greatest amount of curse yet suddenly bloomed within my body when the creature's limbs dropped to the ground. My arms jerked as flesh sloughed off and festered within my armor. My body spasmed in pain, but my wrathful gaze remained locked on the fucking prize.
Now that the enemy had lost its both its claws, it should no longer be able to resist--
The cursetacean ran forward, with the clear intent to tackle me, but then Berry suddenly stood in its way.
"Haell! S-stay back! Why did you keep going!?"
"Because the enemy is right there, and it's on its last fucking legs! Out of my way!"
"No!" She refused resolutely. "You're bleeding. You're dying. You've lost so much blood, I... I don't know how you're even conscious. I don't know if you'll even have arms anymore..."
Oh, right. She doesn't know. I'll heal no matter what, so it doesn't matter.
I looked down at my feet, and the blood pooling underneath. I noticed for the first time that I was feeling dizzy, but I focused on my blood storage and dumped fresh blood into my arteries. It happened instinctively, the blood just appeared as if ejected from a hole within reality. The process of storing the blood was similar, as a suctioning force just slurped the blood out from the nearby veins. I could hold out for a while longer with my massive reserves.
When I looked back up, I found that the monster had been restrained by Moonwash and Granuel. Therick was watching warily from the side, with his own arms lightly bleeding. I presumed he had distracted or gotten the creature's attention earlier by himself.
"You should heal yourself." Angerly said in a serious tone before I could rush in to help and kill whoever had dared to hurt my friend. The ogre woman was standing protectively in front of me now, as everyone else kept the cursetacean busy. Thick vines had snaked along its remaining limbs and were keeping it pinned in place, but it was a struggle as the things snapped whenever the monster bucked, and the cursetacean did not hesitate to break its own body for a chance to escape and inflict more pain.
That... was disturbingly familiar behavior. Couldn't say from who.
I looked at Moonwash and Granuel and saw them bleeding in many places. Blood dripped down their bodies, their arms clasped tightly around their wands were mutilated in places, and I ground my teeth at the damage they'd suffered. But thankfully, it seemed like they were in less pain than I thought. I could only think that the self-inflicted pain of the cursetacean did not have as strong of an effect against others, albeit it was still a fucking problem.
Satisfied that I had the time to take a breather, I calmly sat down on a patch of grass and bush just behind me. I coaxed the nature mana out of the molars inside my mouth, and I truly calmed once I entered the proper mental state to use nature magic. A beautiful bed of flowers bloomed around me, and healing energies mended what I had broken. The damage was healed properly thanks to my memory core, but so many injuries remained even after I used a good chunk of my nature mana reserves. I had to get back in the fight sooner rather than later, and further healing could wait after.
I walked forward with only slightly shaky steps. I dropped my gauntlets and pauldrons, to reveal the partially healed arms underneath. The cursetacean stared at me with its beady black black. Its gaze was filled with nothing but hate, and I felt almost proud of the creature for reaching levels of wrath comparable to my own.
With an inappropriate smirk, I raised my sword high with my still-injured hands, as if a guillotine about to execute a noble. My arms shook from the effort, but I forced it to move using my wrath magic. I pushed the cursed element even harder as I brought down my greatsword in one devastating blow that split and splattered the crab-like creature's head-area apart.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
I was screaming, before I’d realized it. The wounds that snaked through my arms and further into my body only made my voice louder. The entire forest shuddered from the force of my fury.
~~~
I sat as Moonwash finished healing me after she had healed herself. I examined my equipment and found that my sword was banged up, again, meanwhile my armor only suffered superficial damage.
"Theories," I said, then noticed Berry was still here. Ah shit. I can't say everything here. Can’t I just trust her now? She seemed very dependable during that last fight, despite how scared she clearly was. She jumped to defend Moonwash!
"For what?" The Moonwash in question asked, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“It’s about my gear. It got damaged from that battle, likely because of that vengeance thing the crustecar had. Real handy by the way, it'd be nice if I could learn something like it..." I glanced over at Berry, and nodded at how she was preoccupied in a conversation with Angerly about... food? That was fine by me. "I'm wondering right now if my armor took less damage because most of the damage was concentrated elsewhere, like on my sword, or if it's just less damaged because it's made of mythril. It's also inorganic, so curse-related magic should be less effective at damaging it, but that goes for both my armor and my sword..."
"We'll get you a better sword soon," Moonwash leaned on my armored left arm once she was done administering aid. "It really seems like it was hit far more than your armor. Even your gauntlets only suffered some superficially deeper scratches despite how terribly mangled your arms had become." My girlfriend slid her hand across the blade to examine the damage. "I'll need to fix this when we get back, but I think I can at least sharpen it back up here."
"Please do. I don't want to turn back or be weakened, especially since..." I'm already handicapped. I can't show my full power. "...I'm trying to show off to the newcomer. You know how it is," I decided on instead. I felt dirty for having to lie and hide, especially to someone I was already beginning to consider a friend. FUCK!
"I understand, Haell." Moonwash held my hand. “I love you.”
My head snapped back to her face at the sudden non-sequitur. It took a few relative moments for my mind to catch up, but I knew exactly what to say once it did.
"I love you too."
We kissed.
...We kissed again after I removed my mythril mask.
Anyway!” I exclaimed, “I think my sword was more affected by the cursetacean's magic because... I feel this special connection to it. Like it's part of my body, you know?" I weaved and connected a channel of wrath mana that flowed from my body, to the greatsword, and then back. Gah! I hate speaking in riddles! "It's a good thing though, I think. It only makes sense that the damage that went to my gear is damage that didn't go to my body, right?"
"I would think so," Moonwash agreed, "however, the way the cursetacean’s vengeance effects worked is very weird. It's not actually using magic. It doesn't wield mana the way we do, at least."
"The cursetacean was no mage, yes. I believe the 'vengeance effect' is kind of similar to..." I pointed at my Evil Eyes.
"I think that could be it," Moonwash said. "Remind me how that feels later?"
"Sure." I shrugged. It'd have to wait because my eyes still had to remain covered for now, no matter how I wished to give my girlfriend what she wanted.
~~~
"So, curse magic, huh?" Berry asked as we both watched Moonwash dismantle the corpse of the cursetacean. Even that was dangerous, but she'd lived around me for years now. It should be fine.
"Nothing so grand. Curse-aligned."
Moonwash had tried to identify the remains of the cursetacean earlier, but it was fiendishly difficult. More than almost any other monster we'd encountered. Perhaps only the skyvern that crippled Luine and Baston could compare, and that was almost level 80! Moonwash couldn’t even see the smallest detail as their species name.
"I see," Berry said. The cursetacean really was weird because you could feel the curse wafting off its body, even though it really had no mana-producing gland to speak of from what Moonwash had said. She really wanted to get an Identify ritual going, but it just wouldn't work, so she tried to examine everything by hand instead. "That's um, illegal, you know?"
"I'm aware," I smirked to try and take the bite out of my tone. I'd gone to take a shit in the bushes earlier, but what I really did was reapply my makeup so now my face looked like a proper human again. It's terrible. "Are you going to report me?"
"What? No! Of course not!" Berry hurriedly said, nervously gesticulating. "I was just saying..."
"Relax. I get it." I reassured her. Who would believe her over the granddaughter of Golex the hero, anyway? I hated to think like that, and an angry breath hissed out of my mouth, but I couldn't deny that the thought and the measure of safety it gave crossed my mind.
"It's just..." Berry settled down. "I've been around cursetaceans before. I've seen how terrifying they are. You are, well... dabbling with dark and dangerous powers?"
"I am," I agreed. "I know how evil and dangerous it is. More than anyone."
Berry was still and quiet for a moment, before her six feet hurriedly tapped on the ground. “Then why are you using it then!?”
“Because it’s powerful.”
A beat of silence passed. Berry’s legs stilled.
“That’s it?”
“Yes.” I looked her in the eye. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“Well, uhm, no… Just, be careful, please?”
“Okay. Don’t worry. I’m always careful.”
Somehow, Berry didn’t seem convinced.
Comments
Maou Razonica
If you look up the word careful, it's just a picture of Haell.
Mattman
Hael not careful? Psh, never!
